Ida's parents are Lydia Ann Mangrum Crocket and William Henry Apperley.
Behind all the names Ida's mother caries, lies some history. But that is for later on. First let's meet Ida's father:
Ida's father - William Henry Apperly
William Henry Apperley was named after his father who was named after his father. (One William following another ...)
William's father - Ida's grandfather - was a mormon pioneer. So it comes as no surprise that they are fairly well documented on familysearch. (Mainly by church documents I assume.) Click
William's parents were born in Ireland. Leatrice Joy's biography "Dark Star" tells of how William's father was a British officer in India and while he was away his wife became mormon. Upon his return to Ireland, William became a mormon too. The family immediately immigrated to the US.
There are many resources for the mormon pioneers on the internet. And certainly even more in libraries and archives. The pioneers started to form groups who would take the long and dangerous travel together. Usually that group formed even before they stepped onto a ship.
William, his wife and their son William were part of the so called "Richard Ballantyne Trail/Company".
Richard Ballantyne was a missionary in India at the time William was in India. Shortly after his missionary service in India was over, Richard Ballantyne went to Liverpool to gather the people who would be part of his company. William went back to Ireland, picked up his family and went with Ballantyne.
A detailed report of the Ballantyne Trail can be found here
The Apperleys (along with the Ballantyne Company) boarded ship in Liverpool on January 15th 1855. The ship was called the "Charles Buck". Two days later the ship set sails. During their trip children died (one of which had been born aboard), several members of the company were shunned (including a woman who spoke to non-mormons). You have to picture the situation - families either left their home countries because they were religiously oppressed or couldn't make a living anymore. Only very few people immigrated for sheer adventure. And you would have to travel in a group because there were so many obstacles, it just wasn't a good idea to go alone.
The Apperleys were mormon pioneers who fled religious prosecution.
The travel diary linked above gives you a small look into their hardship.
The Charles Buck arrived in New Orleans on March 14th 1855.
From there the group travelled by the steamboat Michigan all the way up the Mississippi to St. Louis. There they embarked a river boat called Golden State, shipping on the Missouri River all the way to Atchinson, Kansas. They arrived there April 5th 1855.
By now the company had travelled for almost three months. But the hardest and most dangerous part of their trip lay still ahead. First they started getting ready for the trek across the plains. Filling stock, building waggons. Every man who was capable was equipped with a gun. The families were put on waggons.
On July 1st 1855 the Trek started in Atchinson. Ballantyne had 414 people on 46 waggons with him!
Surprisingly only 5 people died during the trek - 3 were shot by accident. Eight people had been rolled over by waggons, that would have caused horrendous injury.
The trek arrived at the Salt Lake Valley on September 25th 1855.
That was three quarter of a year after they had set foot on the Charles Buck in Liverpool.
The Apperleys were a family among many: William was the oldest (living?) son of William Apperley and his wife Susan Meaton. When their trip started William was nine years old. His sister Unity was seven, his sister Sarah four years old.
In the US Census 1870 we find the family in Logan, Utah. Both parents live with their grown up children William and Sarah in one household.
I couldn't find out when Ida's parents William and Lydia met or married. But the couple's first child Millie was born in January 1875.
1877 William's mother - Ida's grandmother - Sarah died. Widowed William remarries.
Around this time William - the younger - started working at the Brigham Young College in Logan. This college was a combined high school and university. William becomes a teacher and professor.
Here you can take a look at him. This article features a photo of William.
And you can even read William's own words! For a bonus we get some biographical information.
While he was teaching at Brigham Young College wasn't paid handsomely, it did secure him some income. The farm he lived on and maintained as told by family members was to provide for him and his family. (A custom that was common for everyone who did not live in a big town.)
What we learn from this article is that he worked at Brigham Young College until his retirement and lived in Logan the rest of his life. The only exception being his time as a missionary in England in 1882.
What did William teach at Brigham Young College?
"The college circular for 1893 reports that he taught “Spanish,
Book-keeping, Grammar, (Winter Course), Book of Mormon Studies, Key to
Theology, Orthography and Punctuation, English Classics, Ethics.” He
published a slim volume of poetry in 1910, A Souvenier, and gave one of the lectures in the Logan Temple Lectures series (1885-1886, published 1886) entitled Language and English Literature. This extract is taken from that lecture."
Go to the website to read a part of William's writing about English literature.
Be careful to not mistake Brigham Young College for Brigham Young Academy which still to this day exists in Provo, Utah. The College in Logan was closed in 1926. Its books were given to the State University of Utah, located in Logan. Some of the property went to the University too, one building was turned into a high school. The rest was torn down.
But William was already dead then. He died on April 14th 1923.
You can take a look at his grave on findagrave.com. Click
He was laid to rest on the cemetary in Logan which today is part of the University grounds.
So we've learnt a lot - William grew up in a family of mormon pioneers. They settled in Logan, a town which mainly consisted of mormons. He was a teacher/professor, taught English literature (among other subjects). (His interest with English literature would have been shared with Ida and Jack!) To provide for themselves they had their own small farm.
The Apperleys don't fit the cliché of the uncultured farmers living at world's end!
Jack would have missed the perks of city life and he would have had to work on the farm. But on the plus side he would have had access to books which meant the world to him! (When he was travelling with Ida, he could not keep books as the transport was too difficult.)
But let's take a look at the sources to get a proper timeline:
US Census 1870 here
Started June 1st 1870.
US Census 1880
familysearch here
The Census started August 1st 1880.
Head
William Apperley
35 years old, born in Ireland
Wife
Lydia A. Apperley
23 years old, born in Utah
Daughter Lydia A. Apperley - that's Millie
4 years old, born in Utah
daughter Serrah J. Apperley - that's Ida!
3 years old, born in Utah
Son William Apperley
less than one year old, born in Utah
listed as "other" in the household is
Mary Christianson, 17 years old, born in Denmark.
William is married, US citizen, "school teacher". He was born in Ireland in 1845.
The names of his parents aren't given. (But could have been filled in.) Both his parents were born in England.
January 15th 1908
Widowed William marries Lottie, his second wife click here
US Census 1910
here
William lives with his wife Lottie alone in Logan.
William H. Apperley is 65 years old, born in Ireland in 1845. He immigrated in 1855.
Place of birth of his parents - England.
His wife is Charlotte L. Apperley.
US Census 1920
here
January 1920
William and Lottie still live in Logan.
On April 14th 1923 William dies.
Death Certificate William Henry Apperley.
occupation "retired teacher".
See it here from the collection "Utah Death Certificates, 1904-1956". Click
Entry in the Utah Death Registry "Utah, Salt Lake County Death Records, 1908-1949" here.
There is an entry for him at billiongraves.com here.
Ida's Mother - Lydia Ann Mangrum
In "Dark Star" we hear about her: Lydia had been an orphan as s small child. She grew up as a servant in Washington, Utah. After ten years of marriage and eight children, Lydia had enough. She was tired of the poor teacher's earnings and she fled to San Francisco. William brought her back but Lydia later ran away again, never to return. They got divorced. The children were scattered all over Utah. Only Ida Adair stayed with her father William, because she was his favourite.
Let's see what we can find out about that.
First let's check out her name.
Lydia Ann Mangrum Crocket Apperley.
Lydia Ann are her "first names".
Apperley is her married name.
Leaves us with Mangrum and Crocket.
Mangrum will be her born family name. According to "Dark Star" she was an orphan, so Crocket will be her adopted name.
Already in her name a lot of history.
Check out Lynn Anns data at familysearch family tree. Click
Lydia was born March 13th 1856 in Washington, Utah.
Her father was James Mitchell Mangum. Her mother Eliza Jane Clark.
Eliza Jane died February 21st 1859 in Washington, Utah.
Her father died many years later. So Lydia was not an orphan, she was semi-orphan.
She did however leave her birth family and lived with the Crockets who adopted her.
From "Dark Star" we know that she wasn't treated equal to the other children in the family. She was the family's servant.
In the US Census 1860 Lydia shows up in the Crocket family.
Before 1875 Lydia marries William Apperley. Soon after she will start having seven children with him.
After the birth of her youngest child Clifford, we kind of loose track of her.
We know she ran away from Logan, but when we do not know.
But Lydia probably left the family before June 1900 because in the US Census 1900 which was taken in June that year, Ida is travelling with her youngest sister.
Maybe there wasn't anyone at home in Logan who could take care of the kids? Maybe Lydia had taken her youngest Clifford with her? We do not know.
Next time we can pinpoint Lydia is in the California Death Index.
She died January 20th 1919 in San Francisco.
For her last couple of years she seems to have been looked after by her son Clifford. That's what Clifford WWI drafting card suggests.
I found no more documents for Lydia. But I did find information about Lydia's father online - James Mitchell Mangum.
The mormons were not only a religious group who suffered intolerance, there is unfortunately also a massacre in their history. The so called Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Here I will link to a short video which discusses the Mountain Meadows Massacre. This is a mormon presenting what he knows about the massacre, but it is very balanced and he gives links and tips for further reading and not just mormon-friendly sources.
I've read quite a lot about the massacre by now and there are a lot of very disgusting details about the whole affair. The question whether church leaders knew or even promoted the course of action is heavily disputed. We can only hope that the victims of this crime found some peace.
James Mitchell Mangum was one of the men who participated in the massacre. He was a perpetrator not a victim.
The massacre took place on September 11th 1857.
The only survivors were 17 children under the age of seven. (It was considered the children would be too young to be able to remember.) What would have been the right thing to do, was to give the children to surviving family members.
But that of course would have been telling that their parents were dead. So the kids were given to local families and the relatives did not learn about the fate of the victims and the surviving children. In 1859, two years later, the children were returned.
What really gets to me are the parallels in Lydia Ann's life.
I am not saying that her parents too were murdered in the massacre. But she was moved from the family she knew to a new family that same year.
And because her father was part of the massacre and years later arrested because of it, she must have been aware of this. Maybe not as a child but some time in her life, she would have heard about it.
So there is a clear shadow above Lydia Ann's life.
Lydia was born in March 1856 in Washington, Utah.
February 1859 her mother Eliza died.
June 1860 Lydia lives with the Crocket family.
Take this with Leatrice Gilbert's statements, saying Lydia had had enough of taking care of children and doing the household. Well, Lydia had done nothing else in her life. Worse still, she was treated poorly.Then she asked herself, just who were my parents?
Eliza was dead.
James Mitchell ... well, he sounds like a real sunshine.
The Crockets never were a family to her.
Then came talk about the massacre. (Only years and years later people would start talking about it! It still is fairly unknown to general public. I have no idea of how aware mormons are of the massacre.) Lydia just had enough of it all and ran.
There is no proof for this as I found little paper trail of Lydia.
But indirectly there are signs ... look at the documents Lydia's kids left behind concerning their heritage.
Consistently they said their father's family came from Ireland/England.
But their mother's heritage was always flipping from state to state. Either they didn't know or weren't sure. Or they knew that Lydia had been told one thing and later found out that this wasn't correct at all.
Another very interesting clue is Jack's mother's name - Ida Adair!
Why did she call herself Adair??
Well, Lydia Ann's grandmother (Eliza Jane's mother) was a born Adair! Click
So - frustration about unfair living conditions throughout her life, then she hears about her personal family history ... she was just fed up. She went to San Francisco.
(And why San Francisco? Interesting question but I have no clue.)
Lydia's children leave Logan also. Her husband gets divorced, writes poetry and articles about English literature on his farm in Utah, teaching class and remarries.
None of his children will live with him.
But they do live near Lydia in San Francisco!
Lydia didn't really know a good family life from her growing up years. Her family life is a mystery, but she did leave the family.
That influenced Ida Adair (Adair!). Ida tried the best, but she had limited skills to begin with.
Next time we'll take a look at Jack's fathers.
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