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| Caroline Ely Partridge Lyman |
2nd Wife of Amasa Mason Lyman
Their children are as follows:
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| Martha Lydia Lyman |
Born 1 Apr 1853, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah.
Died 29 April 1922 at Oak City, Millard County, Utah
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| Frederick Rich Lyman |
Born 12 Oct 1856, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah.
Died 4 February 1911, at Oak City, Millard County, Utah.
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| Anne Lyman |
Born 2 July 1860, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah.
Died 8 January 1921 at Oak City, Millard County, Utah.
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| Walter Clisbee Lyman |
Born 1 October 1863, at Fillmore, Millard County, Utah.
Died 19 July 1943, at Blanding, San Juan County, Utah.
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| Harriet Jane Lyman |
Born 17 August 1866, at Fillmore, Millard County, Utah.
Died 30 March 1946, at Oak City, Millard County, Utah.
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CAROLINE ELY PARTRIDGE LYMAN was the fourth child of Bishop Edward Partridge and Lydia Clisbee. She was born 8 January 1827, at Painsville, Geauga, Ohio, into a pleasant and comfortable home. Her father was a successful "hatter" and had accumulated considerable property. She lacked a month of being four years old when her father was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑Day Saints, by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Two months later he was called to be the Presiding Bishop of the Church, and from then on they were persecuted and driven from their home, from place to place until they lost all their property. They lived in one Poor house after another as they were forced to move about.
When Caroline was six and her family was living at Independence, Missouri in July 1833, a number of armed men came into her home and violently seized her father and dragged him away to the Public Square. Later when he returned home after being tarred and feathered, his little daughter thought he was some fierce Indian and she ran and hid under a bed in her fright. That same summer their humble shelter of a house was burned by the mob and the family was driven across the river. Here their home was a log room with a dirt floor. Many times they found lizards and poisonous snakes behind trunks and boxes.
In 1835, when Caroline was eight years of age, she was baptized into the Church by Peter Whitmer. While living in the log house at Far West, her father was again taken by force by a mob along with other leading men of the Church and were thrust into jail. The family was forced to leave their home again. From here they went to Nauvoo where they hoped to find peace and security. As soon as her father was released from the jail he joined them at Nauvoo and began immediately to build a home for his family; but his health was broken in consequence of the cruel and prolonged persecutions. By the time the house was half built he collapsed and died. He left Caroline who was then thirteen years, old and his wife and five children.
Caroline stayed home with her mother and helped with a younger brother and sister. She worked out whenever there was a chance to earn a little, or she stayed with the children while her mother went out to earn, where and whatever she could.
In Caroline's seventeenth year on 6 September 1844, She became the first plural wife of Apostle Amasa M. Lyman. Later her sisters Eliza Maria and Lydia were also married to him. These three wives were as one in love, respect, and devotion to each other and to their children.
After the martyrdom, persecution continued to intensify until Caroline and her loved ones were forced once again to leave their homes. The trials and privations they suffered while crossing the plains are covered in another portion of this book. Suffice it here to say that they provided for themselves by their own industry, even to the laying of logs for a temporary home, Caroline and Eliza crossed the plains in their husbands company in 1848. The first winter in Salt Lake was very difficult. They shared a log hut which leaked onto a dirt floor with seven other people. The next spring when their husband was called and went on a mission to California, these sisters were without flour and it was hard to get, their sister Emily gave them 14 pounds of flour. Caroline and her sister and baby moved into their wagon box to live on their own lot. Caroline taught school at Farmington for two months to get something to live on. They had no soap, so when the snow melted Caroline went out not far from the fort and gathered up the bones of dead ox and boiled them for fat, which she combined with wood ashes to make some soft soap.
In the spring of 1851 when her husband left for California for the second time Caroline went with him where he went to preside over the Saints there. She stayed there for about two years then returned to Salt Lake City. Caroline was especially happy for she had prospects of becoming a mother, a Position she had almost despaired of for she had been married for very nearly nine years without such a prospect. Soon after their return her first baby was born, a girl which she named Martha, Two other children were born to her in Salt Lake: Fredrick Rich, and Annie.
After her husband's return from England they moved to Fillmore to make their home, where she gave birth to another son Walter Clisbee and to a daughter Harriet Jane. After her youngest child was one year-old, she separated herself from her husband and raised her five children alone. She found comfort once again in the companionship of her sister Eliza. They earned $102 in eighteen months weaving. They did sewing, spinning, coloring, house work, tending garden and almost every kind of work women could do.
Eliza's son Platte was called to Oak Creek to be Bishop of the ward there, Caroline's sons wanted to go with him to see if they could find work so Caroline, went with them to keep house for them. Very soon she bought a lot, which had a log room with a dirt roof. She and her family lived there until her boys were able to build a two-room adobe addition in front of the log room, which had two attic rooms that were usable for bedrooms.
Feed for animals was very scarce. Caroline had a heifer that looked as if it might not live until the grass grew in the spring, so each day Caroline fed her a few handfuls of straw from the straw tick on her bed. Often he was her own children's school teacher, and also the neighbors' children if they desired to come along.
The Relief Society was organized in Oak Creek Ward, 3 May 1874, and Caroline was chosen as president, a position which she held for 32 years. She tried through the years to relieve the poor and wait on the sick, prepare the dead for burial and comfort the bereaved. While in this office she worked and inspired the Society to build themselves a comfortable brick room for their meeting place.
In May of 1881, she and her daughter Harriet went with her brother Edward who drove down to St. George (it took them five days to get there), they met their sister, Emily, who went down on the train, where they spent a week working in the Temple for their kindred dead; they did the Endowment work for their parents and had their mother sealed to their father, and the three of them and their dead brother and sister were sealed to their parents. Caroline was very happy to be baptized for fifty of her dead kindred.
Her children married one by one and each one lived with their mother until they were able to acquire a home of their own. She enjoyed having her grandchildren visit her and she took pains to teach them never to waste food, for she knew what it meant to go hungry. A crust of bread or a kernel of corn would help keep a dog or chicken alive she would tell them. She loved to plant, cultivate, and garner the harvests. She had almost every plant, tree, or flower which was heard of in the locality. She got much joy out of drying vegetables and fruit which was the principal way of preserving food in her day.
She went to Salt Lake as often as she could to attend Conferences and visit her sister Emily Young, one of Brigham Young's wives. She always came back with clothing from the city relatives, and in return they appreciated the dried peaches and apples from Oak City.
About the last of March of 1893, Caroline received a letter from Box B in Salt Lake City which read:
Salt Lake City, Utah Territory
March 29th, 1893
Mrs. Caroline Ely Lyman,
Dear Sister:
The Dedication of the great Temple in Salt Lake City is an event of unique importance. We desire your presence on that occasion and cordially invite you to attend. We cannot forget the part which your noble husband, now deceased, took in contributing to its erection and the lively interest which he always felt in the progress of the building and its completion. We feel sure that you will appreciate the ceremonies, and therefore desire your presence.
It will be proper for you to be at the south gate of the Temple Block between half past eight and half past nine o'clock on Thursday morning, April 6th, 1893.
Very Respectfully,
Your Brethren
Wilford Woodruff
George Q. Cannon
Joseph F. Smith
(First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑Day Saints.)
Caroline was instructed by the authorities of the Church to bear her testimony about the Prophet Joseph Smith. Every Fast Meeting she would tell of some incident in her life which was connected with the Prophet and of her early experiences in the Church. She was at the meeting when Brigham Young was found to be the Heavenly appointed leader of the Church in the martyred Prophet's place.
On her 79th birthday she wrote, "79 years have passed almost like a dream and I wonder how many opportunities for doing good to my associates have I neglected. In all the years I have lived my desires have been to do all the good I could and as little evil as possible."
The first part of May when Caroline was 81 years and four months old she contracted pneumonia and passed away on 8 May 1908, in the south room of the adobe house which her sons had built for her. President Joseph F. Smith and Apostle Francis M. Lyman were the speakers at her funeral. She was buried in the Oak City cemetery by the side of her sister Eliza with whom she had lived with so much in life. In death they were not parted.
(This sketch was prepared by: Gene L. Gardner)
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