Mary Stephens Holmes

1797 - 1885  (88 years)

• Name	Mary Stephens Holmes
  Birth	15 Sep 1797	Warwick, Franklin, Massachusetts   [1, 2, 3]
  Gender	Female
  Death	20 Nov 1885	Ogden, Weber, Utah   [1, 3]
  Burial	Ogden City Cemetery, Ogden, Utah   [1]
  Person ID	I40565	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	25 Apr 2024

  
  

  Father	James Holmes
  Mother	Milly Rawson,   b. 19 Dec 1775, Warwick, Franklin, Massachusetts d. 16 Jun 1809, Windsor, Berkshire, Massachusetts (Age 33 years)
  Marriage	30 Jun 1796	Warwick, Franklin, Massachusetts   [4]
  Family ID	F23766	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Augustus Oliver Artemas Stowell,   b. 4 Jun 1783, Stafford, Tolland, Connecticut d. 23 Aug 1860, Westfield, Chautauqua, New York (Age 77 years)
  Marriage	1820  [3]
  Children	+ 1. William Rufus Rogers Stowell,   b. 23 Sep 1822, Solon, Cortland, New York d. 30 May 1902, Colonia Juárez, Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico (Age 79 years)
  Family ID	F23765	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	25 Apr 2024

  
  

• Notes

  She came to Utah with her second husband William Garner in the Harmon Cutler Company, 1852. Her obituary in the Ogden Herald (citation details below) has a phrasing that is interesting in light of the family history transcribed from The Stowell Genealogy in our entry for her first husband Augustus Oliver Artemas Stowell. It says "In 1848 she reached Council Bluffs, where she married Wm. Garner (her first husband is dead); remained there until 1852, when she crossed the plains to Salt Lake valley, arriving in Salt Late City in the fall of the same year." Note that although the overall sentence is in past tense, the parenthetical doesn't say "her first husband was dead" or "her first husband having died"; it says "her first husband is dead", which was literally the present-tense case in 1885 when this obituary was written. Augustus A.O. Stowell wasn't dead in 1848, nor had she and he divorced; from what we can discern in The Stowell Genealogy, it would appear that they parted ways over his refusal to continue in the Mormon church and her determination to do so. But no official divorce appears to have taken place -- a fact papered over, evidently deliberately, by the Herald's brief change of tense.

  
  

• Sources

  [S7505] Find a Grave page for Mary Stephens Holmes Stowell Garner. [S7510] The Stowell Genealogy: A Record of the Descendants of Samuel Stowell of Hingham, Mass. by William Henry Harrison Stowell. Rutland, Vermont: The Tuttle Company, 1922. [S7517] "Passed Away: A Mother in Israel Dies in the Lord in her 89th Year." Ogden Herald, 27 Nov 1885. [S3431] Massachusetts, town clerk and town records, 1626-2001, on familysearch.org.