HISTORY OF ANN SHELTON HOWARD

Born 12 February 1816 at Clent Hills, Worchestershire, England.

Baptized 27 November 1851 by William Griffin in England.  Baptized 3 December 1921.

End. 24 December 1930.  Sealed to Joseph Howard 10 January 1868.

Died 8 October 1864.

Mother:           Hannah Mills                                       Father:             Joseph Shelton

         Married:    Joseph Howard in 1842 from which union 11 children were born:

                                    Thomas Howard                                 John Howard

                                    William Howard                                 Samuel Shelton Howard

                                    James Howard                                                Matilda Howard

                                    Joseph Howard                                   Elizabeth Howard Dean

                                    Mary Ann Howard Tolman                Tamar Howard

                                    Emma Howard Corbridge

                                                All born at Aston, Warwickshire, England.

Sailed from London, England, 3 June 1864 in the ship “Hudson”, with her husband and nine youngest children, the two eldest having preceded them.  Arrived in New York City 19 July 1864, and at Wyoming, 2 August 1864 and continued journeying on with the Company until reaching a place called Bitter Creek, Wyoming about three hundred miles from Salt Lake City, Utah.  She died there on 8 October 1864. 

While most of the life of Ann Shelton Howard is included with that of her husband’s, a few more details might be of interest to the posterity of this wonderful woman.

At the time when she first met her husband, she clerked in a grocery store.  She was well built physically, well proportioned and weighed about 200 pounds.  She possessed wonderful auburn hair and took great pride in it and in the manner in which it was to be dressed.  She always had it in ringlets and curls all about her head.  She did it so until after her fourth child was born.  Then styles changed and she dressed it in the incoming mode.  She was gentle and mild having a feeling she could not be unkind with any of her children even to correct them.  She was loving and affectionate and generous. 

It was regrettable that she passed away enroute to Salt Lake City, as founding a new home and rearing the children in a new country, with customs and conditions so different needed a mother and her care.  The young women just budding into womanhood needed the advice and love of a thoughtful mother.  This was denied them as well as the boys who were very young, especially some of them, but the new wife, Caroline Woodall, did her best as she saw it.  She had never been a mother and had not experienced a mother’s love and anxious moments, but tried to do her part by these children who lost their mother out on the wilds of America. 

The wild grass waves, and the wind sighs mournfully over the graves of a wonderful mother and her two darling daughters, who shall have those resting spots until the trump shall sound and the resurrection of the just and true shall be consummated. 

In June 1882, Joseph Howard, son James and daughter, Emma, all journeyed to St. George, Utah and did the Temple work, including all ordinances for Ann Shelton Howard.