Mary Ann Elizabeth Waters 1868-1948

Born:  27 January 1868   Beaver, Utah

Died:  9 June 1948  Glendale, California

Buried in Glendale, California

Father:  Allen Benson Waters

Mother: Mary Jakeman

Siblings:

   Allan George Waters  1865

   Marthy Marier Waters  1870

   Sarrah Ellen Waters  1872

   James Robert Waters  1875

   Henry Larkin Waters   1877

   Susan Netey Waters  1881

   Ralph Waters  1883

   Fredrick Waters  1887

   Vivian Waters  1892

Married:  Walter Henry Bagshaw  on 28 March 1887  (died June, 1898)

Married:  Judson Heber Wilkins  (between 1898 and 1901)

Children:

   Martha Bagshaw  1887

   Walter Smith Bagshaw  1889

   Mary Ethel Basgshaw   1893

   Zella Bagshaw   1895

   Susan Bagshaw   1898

   Heber Benson Wilkins   1901

   Adelia Wilkins   1905

   Mary Alta Wilkins   1909

Alta, Mary Ann Elizabeth, and Heber, 1917? (probably not long after Adelia died)

Alta (diagonal stripes) next to her mother, Mary Ann (floral) with daughter Zella (I think - looking to side) behind and Mary Ann's sister Marthy (vertical stripes). I don't know the rest.

I don't know much about this great-grandmother beyond what Alta Mary Sterndahl wrote about her mother, but I can imagine that she had a tough life.  She was 19 years old when she married Walter Bagshaw, a 21 year old immigrant from Leeds, Yorkshire, England. 

If the paperwork I have is correct, their daughter Martha had been born and died at birth four months earlier. Or maybe the paperwork is wrong and she got pregnant right away after marriage. Either way, the baby died. A few years later, another daughter, Mary Ethel, died at only 19 months of age. Husband Walter died after eleven years of marriage, only 32 years old , leaving her with Walter and Zella and eight months pregnant with Susan, who also died at birth. Judging by their ages, I assume the older children were on their own by then.

In the meantime, her sister Marthy had married James Ormand Wilkins. James' brother, Judson Heber Wilkins, had married Mary Ann Eveline Jacaway, who had also died the year before at 32 years old, leaving him with at least one child. So Judson and Mary Ann Elizabeth meet, get married, and have three more children.

In 1915, after about 15 years of marriage, Judson, 55, also dies. And two years after that, their daughter Adelia, eleven years old, joined her father. Alta wrote about how difficult life was for them as she grew up in Utah. Eventually, Mary Ann Elizabeth moved to California to live with her daughter Alta.