Eliza Christine Carolina Reiche
ELIZA CHRISTINE CAROLINA RIECHE WILCKEN
By Bertha Christina Wilcken Pratt, daughter
Mother; patience, enduring love, gentleness, unselfishness, these and
other virtues were exemplified in our Mother. She was the daughter of a
German miller in Neustadt on the North Sea. Her parents were
well-to-do people, for Grandfather owned his own mill, and took
apprentices and journeymen into his employ. I have heard Mother tell
how she first saw Father. She and a friend were on the staircase in her
home and through a window they saw a journeyman miller coming along the
road. It was Father. He was taken on at the mill and lived for some
time at the house. A journeyman was a tradesman who had passed his
apprenticeship but had not yet become master miller, and these
journeymen finished their learning by going from mill to mill and thus
getting a wide experience.
They were married and went to live in a place called Dama where their
first two children were born, Dora and Carl. At this time Father was in
danger of being called into the King’s Guard, because of his fine
physic, and not wanting a military life, he secretly left Germany. I
have an idea that even Mother did not know about his leaving. She lived
then sometimes at Father’s parents’ home, and some time at her parents’.
Both grandparents idolized the children, but I can imagine Mother was
sad and heartbroken. I don’t know how long it was before she heard from
Father, but I think it must have been some time since those were the
days of slow sailing vessels and coach service overland. Father had
intended to go to South America where he had a brother but the Lord
overruled for him to come to North America and especially to Utah, the
home of the Saints. This all is found in his biography.
After being established in Brigham Young’s employ, he sent for Mother
and the children. They joined an immigration company in Liverpool and
went with the company to Florence, and from there crossed the plains in
Ox teams and hand-cart. Mother was in special care of the leader of the
company. I think his name was Calkins. She couldn’t speak any
English. Father had arranged for her to have all the comfort that could
be had on such a journey, but she walked most all the way from Florence
to Salt Lake City. I think Father met the company in Echo Canyon.
What a relief, and what a joyful meeting it must have been, Dora and
Carl had both learned to talk English on the long journey. They never
lacked friends to look after them, though Mother was deathly seasick on
the vessel, and tired and weary always crossing the plains.
I’ve heard Mother tell of her first experience with tomatoes and
cornbread. It was somewhere between New Orleans and Florence. In some
Café or restaurant they saw these new richly colored foods, and they
bought some. Neither she nor the children could eat them. This is just
one instance of the new experiences she was obliged to go through, and
not having the faith of one of the saints because she had never heard
the Gospel, it must have taken a great courage to meet it all.
Arriving in Salt Lake City, Father took her to the Liberty Park mill
where he worked, they had a neat little cottage, and family life began
for her again. She soon learned English from the children and from
Father. She applied herself to the children’s school books and learned
to read and write English soon after arriving in Utah.
My sister Anna was the first born in Utah. I was the next, then there
came in order Wilhelmina (Minnie we call her), a boy Frederick, who died
young, and the twins, May and Emma.
Father had built the first mill in Heber City and Mother went through
all the hardships of a newly settled place that had a very cold winter.
The log houses were poorly chinked and unplastered, and though ours was
one of the best, it wasn’t any too comfortable. Father was called on a
mission to England, and left us in Heber City. I remember Mother
having to go with the children to cut holes in the ice to get water and
drag it home in barrels on a small sled. Dora and Carl were quite grown
up but they were working to help support the family. Dora was teaching
in Salt Lake City and Carl was freighting between Heber City and Salt
Lake City.
Mother suffered, I am sure; her constitution, never very hardy, was
undermined by the hardships she had gone through and by the time Father
came home, or soon after, she became an invalid with rheumatism, or
arthritis, from which she suffered the rest of her life. She gradually
lost the use of her legs. For over twenty years she sat in her
arm-chair and moved herself from room to room by hitching herself along.
She had to be helped to dress and undress and lifted from chair to
bed. Through it all few words of complaint ever crossed her lips, and
her smile and cheerful words were the light of home. She seldom got
out. Sometime Father carried her to the buggy and took her for a ride.
She was very sensitive, didn’t like to be in the limelight so she
seldom went to meeting though she was a faithful Latter-day Saint,
having accepted the Gospel soon after arriving in Utah. With this
terrible handicap of suffering and in ability to walk she managed her
household efficiently, ordered all Groceries and made the menus for all
the meals. She kept the drawers and wardrobes and closets in order, and
neglected nothing pertaining to an orderly home.
Mother had the sad experience of laying away in death, Anna when about
14 years old, and Freddie when just a small boy. She saw her other
children happily married, and enjoyed her grandchildren. She made a
trip to Colonia Dublan, Mexico, where Dora and I both lived and so got
acquainted with all of Dora’s fine family. Mother raised two of
Father’s children who were left motherless, one making three little
girls, was burned in a Fourth of July fire-cracker accident son after
she came to live with Mother. Mother also had Father's two boys, John
and David, living with her a good part of the time when they were boys.
She accepted plural marriage and upheld a high-standard in family life.
Father had three other wives, and Mother held them all in high respect
and esteem, and welcomed each child as one more gift from our Father.
The last thirty-five years of her life was spent in Salt Lake City,
before that at intervals she lived in Heber City, but never very long at
a time. I began my sketch with her heroic characteristics. These were
magnified throughout her life of suffering and culminated in her last
illness. Death relieved her valiant spirit, August 1906.
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