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Rachel Corry Perkins
Rachel Perkins and Joseph Lyman
Rachel Corry Perkins
Birth: 28 Nov 1883 at Bluff, San Juan, Utah, USARachel was the daughter and third child of Hyrum Perkins and Rachel Maria Corry. She was the first of their children born in their log cabin at the fort in Bluff, Utah. (Pilgrims in Zion: Rachel Corry Perkins and Joseph Alvin Lyman)
“Her family was living in the fort when the rains came and didn’t stop for weeks and then months. How those pioneer women kept their children dry has never been recorded. The sod they used on the roofs dissolved and ran into the cabins in streams.” (Ibid.)
“Rachel was a bright, clever girl and had a good head for figures. At an early age she began keeping records for her father’s freighting business. She assumed responsibility for many of the tasks around the home. She took care of a flock of chickens. With a little help she planted a beautiful garden. (Ibid.)
“She helped her brothers in the fields harvesting the hay crops. She could milk a cow as well as her brothers. From her mother she learned housekeeping and cooking. In fact, she worked herself into a position where her father and mother could not see how they could get along without her. When it became time for her to go to high school in Provo, they couldn’t let her go and promised to consider letting her go the following year. But of course nothing had changed and she was needed at home just as much then as she had been before. (Ibid.)
“Her father was trying to get a herd of cattle together and, in an effort to help him, Rachel’s mother began a boarding business, which she had seen some of her folks in Cedar City do. Hyrum’s sister, Naomi Perry, provided food and lodging for paying guests as did William Corry, and seeing their success, Rachel and her mother began to provide meals and rooms for the men who came into Bluff seeking gold or oil, or to see the magnificent scenery that surrounded Bluff. (Ibid.)
“Rachel loved to dance and never lacked partners for the dances in Bluff. She had an opportunity to marry. Alvin Lyman sought her hand, but her father and mother discouraged that union. Alvin left the area and married another girl.” (Ibid.)
In the history of Ruth Mary Jones Nielson, Rachel’s niece, and my mother-in-law, we learn, “When Aunt Rate was younger, she had boyfriends. Many times she told us she had many young men who like to dance with her, because she was quick and fast on her feet. But one young man, Alvin Lyman, especially loved her and asked her to marry him. I think he was a little bit younger than she was. She wanted to marry him, so she asked her parents to give their approval, but they said, “no.” They felt he would never really be able to give her the comforts, which she was used to. So, they discouraged the marriage.”
Rachel told Alvin she could not marry him. “Sad, the young man, left Bluff,’ mother told us, and ‘married elsewhere, to a good lady… He had a large family of 12 children.”
“Rachael made extended visits to her sister Janet while she was a student at the University of Utah. She was in Salt Lake when they received word that their father had died suddenly. The two girls began the long journey home. (Margaret Tennity, Pilgrims in Zion)
“Rachel and her mother lived quietly at home until January 5, 1925 when Ruth [Rachel's younger sister] died, leaving her three little boys as well as the new-born baby girl, also named Ruth, motherless. Rachel went into Ruth’s home to care for the children for the next twenty-three years she devoted her time and energy to raising Ruth’s children. Leonard, the father of the children, succumbed to stomach cancer six years after Ruth’s death, leaving Rachel in sole charge of [her sister’s] children.” (Ibid.)
Ruth Mary Jones Nielson, Rachel's niece helps us understand more, “When I was a month old my Mother passed away because of the effects of child birth. My Father was left with four children; myself, [Ruth Mary 30th of November 1924] my brother Vincent, [Vincent Leonard 4th of October 1915] my brother Keith, [Keith Clifford 6th of May 1919] and my brother Curtis [Curtis Whitney 25th of May 1922].”
Ruth continues, “My Father was not in good health, even at the time of the burial of his wife, Ruth, he was very ill with rheumatoid arthritis. Six years later, he also passed away with cancer of the liver.”
“I’m sure he was devastated with the death of his beloved wife, but he was not left without the help he so desperately needed. Ruth had a sister Rachel, who had never married. She was 42 years old when she came to live at our house. I’m sure she hadn’t planned to stay for such a long time, as it turned out to be. We all shall ever be grateful for the sacrifice she made, to make her home our home. I was born in November and by December my mother was gone. Aunt Rate had to feed a newborn in the dead of winter. She walked clear across town, six to eight blocks carrying me to be fed by a wet nurse, how many times a day? I cannot begin to imagine her feelings at this time.
“Aunt Rate or Aunt Rae as she was affectionately called by all who knew her was a tall thin woman. She was proud of her size and always was careful to watch her weight by diet and exercise. She was an early riser and an extremely hard worker. Actually, she loved to garden and she loved animals. Because of her frugal ways we were never without the necessities to sustain ourselves. Her basement “larder” was always filled to capacity.
I’ve always remembered – even now when I see some sort of food – her enthusiasm for something she was doing. She really did not particularly care for housework. That was not her particular thing – although we had a clean house. She was a good cook. But she did love to garden! Her gardens always yielded beautiful fruits and vegetables. And she had a huge garden. We had cows and pigs and turkeys and chickens and we never were without. Basically back then, that is how people survived. They lived off the land. But it was always [enjoyable] when she would bring in perhaps some fresh peas out of the garden, or maybe some fresh peaches off the trees, ‘Haaaaa! [expressed excitedly with a quick breath inward] Look what we’re having today! Fresh peas and cream!’ Or, ‘These apples are just delicious! Taste them!’ She even raised her own popcorn and she’d pop it. Who could ever resist that kind of contagious talk! I love, to this day, peas and cream. Whatever she would bring in, her eyes would just pop wide open and she’d say, ‘Look what we’re having today out of the garden!’ It was wonderful.
“Our house was not comparable to the homes we live in today. But we had a bathroom and we had cupboards in the house and we had an electric washer. Our house was located east and south from the Kimberly house. It used to be yellow, but I think it is pink today. But, I’m sure, comparable to the homes back then I’m sure we had a very comfortable home. And I’m sure according to quite a few people it would be verging on a luxurious home. But in my eyes looking back it lacked a lot of things. We did not have a lot of the comforts that we think we have to have now days.
“In those days, eggs and butter were the same as cash. I made many trips to the store to purchase things with either butter or eggs, or both. I also made many trips back to the store, if a mistake was made in the finances. I would take a nickel back or get a nickel. No one ever questioned me when I told them a mistake was made. They knew Rachel Perkins was honest.
“She was also as careful with hers and our tithing. We owed the Lord his share, [and so] we paid tithing on everything.
“Aunt Rate also taught us to pray. I’m sure she felt her life was hard, but she trusted in the Lord and was faithful in her prayers. At an early age, I learned the power of prayer, because of her example.
“Aunt Rate’s life with us was hard, we had little money. She had no children of her own, but she inherited a family, some of whom were [approaching] their teen years.
“Because of her teachings and love for the family, she [nurtured], we were encouraged always to do our best in the Church, in school or where ever we were. We were always taught to believe in ourselves and that we were important and that our parents were concerned about us and expected us to measure up to their expectations. She would say, ‘Your parents are watching you, you better make them proud of you.’ I personally hope we have tried to be worthy of the great gift she gave us, that of herself.”
“Aunt Rate was our mother. As I think back on her life of service to my brothers and me, I cannot think of her without tears of gratitude for the good woman she was and the sacrifice she made to care for us, and look after her sister’s children, as her own.”
“After the door closed on Rachel’s service to Ruth’s children” Margaret Tennity writes, “another door opened. Alvin Lyman, the man Rachel had considered marrying at one time, came back into her life. His wife had died and he was seeking a companion. They were married in the Manti Temple on June 24, 1948 and made their home in the little town of Mayfield in central Utah.
“…when I got married,” her niece Ruth continues, “Alvin came back and asked Rachel to marry him. I guess all those years she had loved him. It really was quite sweet.
“He had an old pickup and it was not modern – even in those days. The two of them drove off in that pickup – together – to get married in the temple. Both of them were now in their sixt… fives? I’m sure you couldn’t have found a happier person than Aunt Rate, and I’m sure he was too.
“He took her back to the home where he had raised twelve children. It was much larger than the house that we had been raised in – of course they had twelve children. The house was in Mayfield – south of Manti. Actually it was quite pretty and we all loved her home – I’ve seen it. It had a long upstairs and I don’t know how many bedrooms. But there was not a closet in the house. There were no kitchen cupboards. There was no running water in the house, and there were no bathroom facilities. You had to go outside and pump the water from a pump outside.
“Again Alvin always raised a large garden. But the interesting thing about it was that Aunt Rate was married to him… oh about a year, and within a year – well… Alvin had a son that was a carpenter and he was a very kind man. He realized, I guess, that for her to be happy there were some changes that had to be made in that house. And bless his heart he made the effort to make those changes that she needed. Within a year she had at least one closet in the house for their clothes, kitchen cupboards, the water was piped into the kitchen, a bathroom was put into the house. I can’t remember about electric lights – they may have already had electric lights.
“I remember Curtis gave her a real nice little car and we bought them an electric fridge. She was a happy lady in her castle over there with Alvin.
“She did get homesick. She would come home. We at that time were running sheep in Colorado. They would come out and spend summers with us. She just loved Donna and Sandy – she just loved those little babies. She really did.
“Poor guy - he had a heart problem, but at that he outlived her. They were happily married for about ten years.
“She finally had a stroke. She had some serious problems because of the stroke too so [Alvin] had to put her some place. But it is a sweet story – real sweet story. I think the thing that is nice about it, is that she sacrificed so much to help raise her sister’s children… She was so generous and self-sacrificing…And the Lord blessed her. [Alvin] came back and was very tender to her and loved her.
“The story had a very happy ending.”
Aunt Rate died at the age of seventy-five on August 21, 1958, and is buried in Mayfield, Utah.
She is greatly honored and loved by all of her family for the wonderful and important life she lived. Her faith in keeping the Lord’s commandments, to honor her parents, in the face of extreme sacrifice, and her willingness to step up to raise her sister’s children, an equally challenging life assignment, is an example that will always be cherished and revered. We love her. We honor her as much as any would honor and revere their dearest mother and treasured grandmother. She lived a great example of one who not only believed yet lived fully, both of the two great commandments.
“Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
Sources:
1. Pilgrims in Zion: Rachel Corry Perkins and Joseph Alvin Lyman, by Margaret Tennity.
2. Oral and written histories of Ruth Mary Jones Nielson.
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Rachel Corry Perkins
Rachel Perkins and Joseph Lyman