Pioneer Day

On this Pioneer Day, I am so grateful for my ancestors who sacrificed so much. I am grateful for their example of perseverence, and their dedication to their testimonies of the restoration Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Life story of Mary Adelma Dixon (my great-great grandmother) Written by Ann Nebeker (my great aunt)
On April 25, 1852 in the very shadow of the Kirtland Temple, in a home once owned by the Prophet Joseph Smith's father, Mary Adelma was born. She was the fifth child of a family of eight children born to Christopher Flintoff Dixon and Jane Elizabeth Wightman Dixon.
In this stately old historic home which though more than one hundred years old still stands, Mary Adelma lived there for the first ten years of her life and the memories of that childhood home have lingered with her throughout her entire life.
Martin Harris was a frequent visitor to their home, this being the only Mormon home it became the home of the Mormon missionaries. Several members of her family have lately visited her birthplace and little change in the house have been made.
She started to school in Kirtland when she was five years of age. When she was ten years old the family with Charles Wightman family started to Utah.
They traveled one thousand miles by train and steamer across Lake Erie and on to Florence, Nebraska, where they rented a comfortable house and stayed for six weeks preparing for their journey across the plains and for their father and uncle who had stayed in Kirtland long enough to auction off their home and furniture for $5000. With this money they bought cattle, oxen, wagons and provisions for their farther journey.
From Florence they came by ox-team to Utah, sometimes riding on the wagons, walking part of the way picking wild flowers and cactus blooms along the trail, camping nights; sitting around the camp fire with family and friends singing, watching and praying for a journey ahead.
Of that journey she said, "I was so homesick and many of the company died. But we enjoyed our meals together at night around the campfire. We don't look back on that journey with much unpleasantness. We had plenty to eat and wear and many things to enjoy and we children had a pony to ride. We were only accosted by Indians once. We were frightened at first, but we gave them food and they left quietly and friendly."
In Echo Canyon they were met by Orawel Simons and members of his family from Payson who had brot vegetables and fruit for them and the children especially could hardly wait for the potatoes that first meal there.
Mr. Simons had a log house for them to move into at Payson and Mary Adelma said she remembered wishing it was like the same they passed going thru Salt Lake and Provo. It took them 4 days to come from Echo Canyon where they arrived in 1862. Necessities were the only things they brot with them with the exception of the melodeon similar to a small piano which they decided to bring along and the members of the Payson choir used to come to their home frequently to practice on it.
As soon as they were settled they bot the east part of Nebeker Grove from William Wightman and began immediately to build their adobe home there. They moved into it Christmas Eve 1862.
Altho her life had many interests as she grew older yet she never forgot her early home in Kirtland. She often dreamed of it. Even the memory of the Cherry Tree came to her so vividly that her interpretation had a meaning to her. She dreamed she was standing under the Cherry Tree and Ammon came to her and said, "Look out for the bumble bee." She knew then that he would become her husband.
Neighboring the Dixon farm on the west was the Nebeker farm. This land had been owned by the Henry Nebeker family since their arrival in Payson in the spring of 1851. The Box Elder grove was a part of these two farms.
The Nebekers were original pioneers of 1847. The oldest son of Ann Van Wagoner and Henry Nebeker was Ammon. He was born February 29, 1848 in Salt Lake City. Ammon and Mary Adelma were naturally associated in the early social life of Payson. In the year 1874 they were married in the Old Endowment House in Salt Lake City. Two years before they were married Ammon had built the house in Nebeker grove and into this house he and Mary Adelma make their home. This was the Box Elder grove where the first settlers, October 20, 1850 camped. The house still stands in the old grove with the cottonwoods and box elders tho the cottonwoods have gone yet the box elders are slowly giving way to the winds and the snows. Ammon lived to be 73 years old, dies September 1921. Mary Adelma was 82 years old, died June 30, 1935.

Mary Smallman Watkins - my great-great-great-grandmother
Mary embraced the gospel at an early age in England. She was the only one of her father’s family to join the church. When she bid her father and mother, brothers and sister goodbye, it was the last time she ever beheld any of them on this earth. She came to American in the family of John Benbow. She worked as a servant in this family for a long time. She and her husband, Robert Watkins, were living in Nauvoo at the time of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum in Carthage Jail. Through the many exposures that she received from mob violence in Illinois, (such as being driven from home many times), she was rendered a cripple for life due to rheumatism. Through her suffering she was always happy and had a smile for everyone.