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Brief History of Caroline Cordelia Thurston (Perkins)

by David Walton, 2015, from obituary

Born: 11 February 1870 in Cedar City, Iron County, Utah
Parents: Smith Butler Thurston and Mary Amelia Isom
Married: did not marry
Died: 30 September 1939, Provo, Utah County, Utah

Shortly after Cordelia's birth, her mother died leaving Smith Thurston with three other young children. Being unable to care for the infant, and as Mary Ann Williams Perkins had just lost her baby, Smith approached the Perkins to take the little girl as their own. While never formally adopted, Cordelia, for all practical purposes became one of the children of Benjamin and Mary Ann Perkins.
Thus, she participated in the journey to San Juan, sharing the story of Mary Jane, her older "sister." The family lived for two years in Bluff, then moved back to Cedar City, then to Teasdale, and again to Bluff.
In 1889, she moved to Monticello with the Perkins, where she generally resided for the remainder of her life, with short periods in Provo (at BYU), and in Delores, Colorado. While in Delores, she began a career as keeper of boarding houses, eventually establishing the Perkins Rooming House in Monticello. She became a very successful business woman, acquiring "quite a wealth" in real estate.
She is said to have been a kind and loving woman, greatly respected by all who knew her. She enjoyed good health all her life with exception of the illness which took her life September 30, 1939. Hospitalization, first in Moab, then in Provo, failed to find a cure for her heart trouble. She was buried in Monticello, with the family of Mary Ann Perkins.

Photos

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Mary Ann Perkins' children Kate, Mary Jane, Cordelia
Dan, John, and Naomi Perkins

Cordelia Perkins Cordelia, 1885

Cordelia Thurston Perkins Cordelia Thurston Perkins

Death Certificate Cordelia Death Certificate