Eliza Jane Pulsipher (Terry) History
Written by a Granddaughter—Vera Lee Brinley



Our precious Grandmother, Eliza Jane Pulsipher Terry, respected and admired by everyone who had the good fortune to be associated with her and dearly loved by her family and close friends.  It is a great honor for one to be loved by the people who knew her best.

Eliza Jane Pulsipher was born July 26, 1840 in Nauvoo, Adams County, Illinois, the tenth child (sixth daughter) of Mary Brown and Zerah Pulsipher.  Her parents had been converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the fall of 1831, several years before she was born.  All of their time, except that necessary for earning a livelihood, was spent teaching the gospel and living its commandments.  Eliza Jane’s father had many manifestations of the divinity of the Book of Mormon.  They came in direct answer to fervent prayer.  He preached the gospel in regions about his home.  He lived for a short while in Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut, moving from place to place, thus to better living conditions.  In the spring of 1835 the family moved to Kirtland where he assisted in the building of the temple.

In the fall of 1837 he went to Canada on a mission.  The season following his return to Kirtland, he was called to the First Council of the Seventies.  The Prophet requested the First Presidents of the Seventies Quorum to come to Illinois.

Eliza Jane was born inn the midst of many hardships and persecutions.  Often there was heartbreak and despair.  Her father helped to guard the Prophet Joseph Smith and had close companionship with him.  Eliza Jane remembered going to the temple with her mother to see and hear the Prophet speak at the dedication.  She was about four years old. She recalled what a nice looking man he was.  (Grandmother often told us stories of her life).

After the Prophet’s death, the Pulsipher family left with the rest of the Saints for the West.  President Brigham Young appointed Father Pulsipher to be leader over ten wagons.  Often he went ahead to prepare the way for his little company to follow.  The Pulsipher family tasted of the sorrow of the loss of their dear Grandmother Pulsipher, who died and was buried on the plains.  Great was the development of the courageous band of noble men and women.  They endured many privations.  The journey was long and hard but happiness and genuine satisfaction abounded among them.  Many were the spiritual manifestations one enjoyed during their journey, shared by old and young alike.

On September 23, 1847, they reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake, a barren desert to be cultivated.  They found the only houses to be the fort, which had been built by Saints, who had arrived earlier.  They had left their homes and possessions to seek a home where they could live in peace.  They loved the new home and worked hard to make it livable.  Father Pulsipher built the first gristmill, also the first saw mill in the valley.  Thus this family with the other Saints, helped to make “the desert blossom as the rose.”

Eliza Jane was eight years old when she arrived with her family in the West.  Her schooling began at nine years of age; but the greater part of her education was received while learning to perform the many duties in the home of her pioneer parents.  A kind mother taught her children to work while they were very young.  Eliza Jane mastered well the many tasks she learned to perform, as was evidenced by the industry of her more mature years.  She was well prepared for the life of an efficient, hard-working pioneer wife and mother.  

She learned to keep the commandments of the Lord in her youth at the knees of her faithful parents who loved the gospel of Jesus Christ.  They left their homes and loved ones to find a home where they could live in peace with the Saints, far from persecution.  They gave freely of their time and energy to help others.  Thus Eliza Jane had been trained from childhood to answer the call and not question the requests of the Church leaders—so when the stalwart Priesthood members were encouraged to practiced plural marriage, they again answered the call.

Thomas Sirls Terry asked her to become his second wife, having known her since she was a child.  He was fifteen years her senior.  They were married May 6, 1855, just before her sixteenth birthday.  When the Endowment House in Salt Lake City was completed, Eliza Jane had her endowments there and she and Thomas Sirls Terry were sealed August 8, 1856.  Mary Ann, Eliza Jane’s sister and Thomas Sirls Terry had been married December 25, 1849.  She was Thomas Sirls Terry’s first wife and they had been married when Eliza Jane was but nine years old.

Eliza Jane’s first child (Thomas Sirls Terry’s first son), Zera Pulsipher Terry, was born March 16, 1866.

Thomas Sirls Terry received a call to go to the States on a mission.  (Utah was then a territory).  He left for his mission in October 1856.

The Lord had been preparing these men and women for the lives they accepted and so nobly lived.  At the time Thomas Sirls Terry left for his mission, Mary Ann was living on the farm in Little Cottonwood Canyon, and Eliza Jane was living with Mother and Father Pulsipher in Salt Lake City.  But soon the two sisters (wives) exchanged places, Eliza Jane moving to the farm in Cottonwood and Mary Ann staying where she could be with their parents when her fourth child was to be born.

The sharing of one’s husband must have been equally hard for these stalwart pioneer wives.  Eliza Jane was now eighteen years old.  Many were the prayers she uttered in the privacy of her little hearth, the solitude of her days being spent with the babes she loved and cared for.  (Two of Mary Ann’s and her own baby, Zera, less than a year old).  Many were the long hours of work that she performed, the tasks accomplished, which kept warmth and food for herself and the little ones.  The snow was so deep that she walked on snowshoes.  She fed the stock, digging with her hands the frozen stalks of corn from under the heavy snow.  She ground the corn and wheat in a hand mill to make the flour for her bread.  Through the long winter months of 1856, she worked and prayed and waited, living miles from any neighbor.  

Throughout her life, she was thrifty and industrious, finding time to make clothes for her family, besides fashioning men’s suits and men’s straw hats.  A son, Thomas Nelson, was born September 11, 1858 and a daughter, Eliza Jane, on December 23, 1860.

These families lived in harmony in the Salt Lake area for fourteen years.  Then, Apostle Snow called the Pulsipher, Terry and Alger families to settle the Dixie Country.  They again left their homes and possessions and traveled without question to Southern Utah.  The children had whooping cough on the way.  It was a cold winter, but they arrived in Dixie in January 1862.   They were among the first white settlers there where they homesteaded all winter.  Eliza Jane’s fourth child, a daughter, Aluna, was born January 30, 1863, in a wagon box bedroom during that cold winter.

In the spring of 1863, they were asked to move to Shoal Creek, Washington County, Utah, to help take care of the cattle of the Dixie settlers.  Other than the families of Eliza Jane’s two brothers who had gone earlier, they found no one but wild Indians in Shoal Creek.  Three years later at the request of President Snow, they moved five miles from Shoal Creek to make a settlement, which they called Hebron (for Hebron of the Bible days). 

Eight more children were born to Eliza Jane and Thomas Sirls Terry, all at Hebron.  There was first a girl, Sarah Mariah, born September 13, 1866.  Twin sons were born March 29, 1898, but died in infancy.  Olive Amelia was born June 26, 1869.

Another daughter, Josephine Rebecca, was born on the 20th of June 1870.  Then came Frank Dermoth on December 18, 1872 and Tacy Roselee on January 18, 1875.  My mother Eva Elthera, was born June 28, 1877, the youngest child of Eliza Jane Pulsipher and Thomas Sirls Terry.

Thomas Sirls recognized the possibilities of a ranch being built at or near Moroni Springs, six miles from Hebron.  He built a home for Mary Ann and her family of girls in Hebron and took Eliza Jane and her sons and daughters to homestead the ranch and cultivate and make a home there.  It was known as Terry’s Ranch.  He built a large log cabin.  They cut posts for fencing, cleared land and built a large rock barn.  There were men hired to help with the mason work.  These men also were fed there.  It was a heavy task with a large family also to be care for.

Terry’s Ranch was on a main road between Utah and the rich mining camps of Nevada.  It was a stopping place for the United States mail carrier.  The stagecoach come each day from one direction and buckboards came from the other, meeting at the ranch.  Drivers were stationed at the ranch to relieve the other drivers as they came.  Passengers often came in on the mail coach from Silver Reef and Pioche, thus vastly increasing the already heavy duties of Eliza Jane.

As Aunt Mary Ann’s sons grew, she asked for the opportunity of having them grow up on the ranch, so Thomas Sirls moved her family to the ranch and moved Eliza Jane and her family to Hebron.  Eliza Jane went pleasantly, for she loved her sister very much.  Her sunny disposition was a helpful companion and her willingness to do as she was asked endeared her to her family.

Eliza Jane had the great ability of serving the sick.  In early, far distant Hebron, there was great need for a midwife.  Eliza Jane felt the need of training for this new task, so she went to Dixie to study with a trained nurse and midwife who had joined the church and came from the East and was giving training in obstetrics.  From this study, Eliza Jane returned home to her loved ones well prepared to carry on this necessary work.  Through the years she gave freely of her time and energy to relieve the suffering of childbirth.   She traveled by horse and wagon to the far distant town of Panaca, Nevada to assist her two married daughters who lived here.  This work and these hard trips took a great toll of her strength.  Her daughter, Sarah Mariah (Sadie) died from a weak heart following confinement, leaving two small children, so she (Eliza Jane) moved to Panaca to care for this little family.  Her services were in great demand in that area so she still carried on this great service, asking so little and giving so much.  Her joy was the satisfaction of a task well done.  Many people came to depend on her for advice and help.  In later years, she assisted the doctors, seemingly as capable as they.  She attended to her church duties, setting a fine example for her children and grandchildren while earning her living.

Grandma (Eliza Jane) seemed to have no unkindness or hardness in her heart—no murmur of such ever escaped her lips.





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