(Source Family History Library film #1421603 item 9. Put in paragraphs here, see 45 meg pdf file here for original). Click here to go back to Semira's genealogy page.
An abridged sketch of the life of Semira La Celestine Rosalin Bassett, second daughter of Oliver Harman Bassett and Lucy Celeste Stanton who was born June 4th 1838 Clay County, Missouri.
I was born in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My parents and grandparents, Daniel and Clarinda Stanton, joined the church at a very early period. Not more than 10 or 12 names were then enrolled while journeying from Ohio to Jackson County. I was born in a covered wagon. It was feared the Mob would attack the camp before my mother could be safely moved.
I was 10 months old when we moved to Quincy, Illinois. When 15 months old I fell from a flight of stairs. My breath to all appearance had left my body. My mother then had great faith. She sent for the Prophet Joseph Smith, placed me in a warm bath, rubbed my limbs until the Prophet arrived and he anointed and administered to me. I recovered quickly. My head that was injured by the fall did not get well for 18 months.
My father and mother separated when I was 4 years old. I then went to live with my grandparents in Lima. My father had so little faith in Mormonism he wished to return to Ohio to his mother and take his 3 children with him. We then lived with Bishop Whitney’s family and other friends in the church. I was 6 years old when the Prophets Joseph and Hyrum were slain. I can distinctly remember my relatives’ grief.
The spring before I was 8 years old, I moved with my grandparents to Council Bluffs. While traveling I fell from a wagon, the load weighing 2700 pounds. There was a gutter 18 inches deep under me. All present thought death must soon ensure. My friends administered to me, lifted me into the wagon saying, “Let’s hurry and make George A. Smith’s Camp so he can preach her funeral sermon.” We reached his camp. Brother Smith administered to me together with members of the brethren. I was healed and traveled the second day. I was baptized when 8 years old by my grandfather.
We lived at Bluffs some 6 years, raised flax, built meeting houses, raised our own produce, cattle and sheep, corded, spun and colored our own cloth, and I was obliged to work and travel until my education was quite neglected.
June 1, 1852 we moved to Utah, my father and brother going back to the Eastern States. We arrived in Salt Lake City September 28, after a long and tedious journey. My sister Ann, and myself remained in Salt Lake while my grandparents moved to Springville, where we now reside. My sister Ann lived with Zina D. Young. I lived with Bishop Whitney’s first wife, Anna, for 7 months. She was like a mother to me. We then moved to Springville and lived with our grandparents. The following winter I went to school to Lyman Stephen and Electa Wood. On Friday’s we wrote compositions. One of mine I will here insert:
Brother in a foreign land
Thy sister waits for thee
Waits with an impatient mind
To share thy company
But if one dearer thou has found
To share thy smiles and cares
May heaven shed its joys around
The vista of thy years
I am weary of this life so drear
Bereft of parents kind
No tender brother once so dear
To cheer my drooping mind
Yet I will strive to be content
And with the Saints will dwell
Future evils to prevent
And all may yet be well.
The next spring through my teacher’s advice I kept a small school in Provo. The 27th of August, 1854 I was married to Lyman Stephen Wood by Elder Daniel Stanton. He was the son of Gideon Durfee Wood and Hannah Daley. We lived with his parents until the following May when we moved to Salt Lake as my husband was appointed Indian Interpreter by the government for Garland Hurt, then Indian Agent.
October 27, I was sealed to my husband by Brother Brigham Young in his private office as my health was too poor to have my endowments. December 25, 1855 I gave birth to a son named Lyman Garland Wood. In the spring we returned to Springville and again lived with his parents. We kept house in the fall; our room joined his parents’ house as all lived in forts for safety from the Indians. I had my endowments and was sealed on the altar by Daniel H. Wells.
My husband left Salt Lake in 1857 on a mission to the Eastern States. October 4, 1857 I gave birth to a daughter we named Luella Wood. When she was three weeks old, I took a severe cold. His parents and my grandparents were with me all night. My grandfather administered to me and promised me through faithfulness I should live many years and meet my husband who was still on his mission. I got easy and dreamed a strange dream that I will here relate. My husband had never taken wives, yet in my dream I thought he had. I dreamed as follows:
My husband, yes, I love thee yet.
My covenants firm I ne’er forget.
For on the altar I did say
I would love thee, honor and obey.
Again I knelt, but by my side
Another came to be thy bride;
I heard thee say she, too, I’ll claim
To share my trials and bear my name.
I saw thee print on her lips a kiss
While her young cheeks glowed with
Thoughts of bliss.
While I fervently prayed that thy mind as thy bearing was noble, and thy reproofs stern. While thinking what next to pen, a hand took the pen from my hand and wrote the following lines:
Thou hast written a pensive scrawl,
I too will pen a ditty small.
Thy husband’s love is still the same
For her who first his love did gain.
With this then handmaid be content.
Let thy hours in peaceful joys be spent.
For by his prayers thou art buoyed up
Who shares with thee life’s bitter cup;
And soon before thee he will stand,
Will stand unchanged as he parted for
A distant land.
The pen was falling from the fingers. I turned in time to distinctly see the face of Brother Samuel Richards who, I afterwards learned, was that day set apart to go and call the missionaries home that were in the United States. June 16, 1858 my husband returned. It was a joyful day to me and all our relatives as fears were entertained of their reaching home in safety for many soldiers were crossing the plains that summer.
That fall my husband went to California to purchase goods. On his return he brought a Piute Indian boy of the Ute’s the 15th of April, 1859. We called him Frank Wood. We raised him and he still lives with us.
On August 13, 1860 I gave birth to a daughter whom we named Zella Lillian. The spring of 1861 my husband, myself and babe went with a company of 20 or 30 carriages as a guard for President Brigham Young who frequently visited the extreme southern settlements. We held meetings at every settlement. Where St. George is now built we held a meeting in our carriages. It was then predicted that a temple would be reared there, which has been fulfilled. Many saints have moved there and have done work for the dead. I have not as yet had the privilege.
November 26, 1861 my grandparents, together with 3 of their daughters and their families, moved to St. George. This was a grief to be deprived of their society. The 24th of December, 1862 my Aunt Harriet Stanton Grange died and is buried in St. George. On November 13, 1862, previous to her death, I gave birth to a son we named Gideon Stephen Wood. July 25, 1865 I gave birth to a son named Frank Solon Wood. On August 21, 1866 Frank Solon Wood died. This was my first great grief. Those who have not lost their babies cannot truly sympathize. August 23, 1867 I gave birth to a daughter we named Lucy Zina Wood. In 1869 on June 10, I gave birth to a daughter, Hanna Electa June Wood.
August 10, 1862 my mother came to Utah, whom I had not seen for 19 years. My joy was not full for I had a brother and a sister still gone. My brother I had not heard from for 6 years. In April, 1870 my sister and family came to Utah. In May, 1970 my brother came. Pen could not describe my joy, but Oh! How swift the change. June 2, 1870 my brother died at my house. I had not seen him for 20 years. Our grief was great.
April 12 I gave birth to a boy named George Harmon Wood. My dear sister died Sept. 14, 1871. She had 5 daughters, all of whom are married: Ernestine Foltz, Lucy Boyce, Ida Hall, now a widow, Inez McLenan, Minnie Lombard, none of them in the church.
May 1872 I visited my people in Panaca. October 9, 1872 my grandfather died at the age of 78 years. December 27 my mother married my father’s brother, Harmon Bassett. March 8, 1873 I gave birth to a son we named Ralph Eugene, the day my grandmother Stanton, who is now 84, was 76 years old.
April 26, 1877 my oldest son went to Montana, the first absence worthy of note of any of my children. In June he was taken sick, which distressed me greatly. September 12, 1877 I gave birth to a son whom we named Arthur Leroy Wood. On March 4, 1878 my dear mother died of paralysis after a month’s illness. To show you my feelings I here insert the lines I wrote March 10, 1878 to my mother:
To cheer my heart or soothe my pain
Thy willing feet have ceased to tread.
To watch, to linger near my suffering bed.
Thy dear loved hand will never press
Thy child or grandchildren in fond caress.
Thy lovely eyes on earth are closed,
Thy weary body has found repose.
Mother come back from that shadowy land,
Leave for a moment the dear one’s hands.
I know that thy dwelling there is fair,
Unshadowed by sorrow and dimmed not by care;
But hast thou forgot that there still is one
Who oft’ sits by the darkened hearth alone?
That this life is a weary path to stray
Where the loving and loved have passed away?
Oft’ they tell me of a beautiful stream
That is quaffed by those on that far-off shore;
And they say that but as a passing dream
Seen the things of earth forever more.
It may be that others, all others forget,
But I feel in my soul that thou lovest me yet.
And yet I know thou cannot miss me
Never, no never as I shall always miss thee.
I’ll miss thee at morning when sunbeams wake,
The lights and the shades on the dear old lake.
All through the long hours of the summer days
I shall miss thy sweet voice that has passed away;
But most of all in the long wearing hours,
While I sit and nurse my darling flower.
Round him as my arms will lovingly twine.
His hands will clasp mine as mine once clasped thine.
And the same firm love I trust will be there.
The stars, the moon, the heavenly air,
The waters that murmur the same refrain
All, all seem to woo thee back again;
To others the world is the same as of yore.
But to me it will seem the same no more.
A shadow is resting on mount and hill.
The sad sick night voices are sadder still.
For thy skillful experience I always knew
The poor and many others will oft’ miss you.
You must have trusted to justice beyond the grave
As accounts on earth you never have saved.
The sidewalks green have a sadder hue,
The beautiful sky not so bright a blue,
The lay of the songbirds too soon will pass,
And the flowers you cherished will fade too fast.
Mother come back from the shadowy land,
Leave for a moment the love one’s hands;
Take me forever with thee to dwell,
There they know not the parting word farewell.
Death’s river is dark, but I fear it not
For love can lighten the darkest spot.
Oh! I long for thy love on that far-off shore,
With thy smile beaming on me forever more.
December 22, 1872 my darling, Arthur Leroy, was taken from me by death. This was a severe blow. October 3, before his death, I was chosen as secretary for the Relief Society. It hardly seemed possible for me to serve after his death. I have served faithfully up to the present time.
March 4, 1879 my daughter, Zellie Lillian, was married to John Davis in the Provo Court House. This was a disappointment as we wished her to be married in the Endowment House. May 8, 1879 my daughter, Luella Wood, was married to Thomas Melvin Haymond in the Salt Lake Endowment House.
October 23 I visited my grandmother. These lines were written on my arrival:
O’er mountains, vales and deserts drear
With strangers I have passed,
Left husband, children, home so dear,
Thanks be to God I am here at last.
The brimming eyes, the meeting,
An abler pen could not explain;
The cordial grasp, the fonder clasp,
Has Myra come again?
After long years of parting,
Great losses, grief and pain,
Fond lips are joyously harping
Yes, Myra has come again.
She used to come our hearts to cheer,
One of the happiest in the land,
But now, alas, in grief and tears
She joins our broken band.
I miss my grandsire everywhere.
His feeble step, his reverend brow;
At fireside, table, evening prayer.
How lovely looks my grandma now,
His namesake, Daniel, slept one night
E’re morn was changed to sleeping clay.
The smile was there youth’s hopes so bright,
God changed that night to endless day.
Carlie, my sister, aunt, companion, friend.
For thee vain words cannot my anguish speak,
Your husband, children, may God defend
And soothe their torturing heartfelt grief.
My dear old family’s broken chain.
How often I the dear absent think
In heaven I trust we will all meet again
And join together each broken link.
My daughter, Luella Haymond, gave birth to a son February 25, 1880. June 23 I went to Panaca again where my people lived as my second daughter, Zellie Lillian Davis lived there. The 29th of July she gave birth to a son named Lyman Wood Davis. We returned home on August 20. April 11 is my husband’s birthday. The day he was 48 I wrote these lines. His people were all present.
We hail the day that gave thee birth,
Many happy birthdays may you spend;
We cherish and bless thy priceless worth,
Our husband, father, brother, friend.
Today fond memory swiftly flies
Unto thy worthy mother gone before,
Who watched with hopeful, wistful eyes
Your birthdays many near two score.
How brief the moments now appear
Since we our first birthdays thus shared,
Twenty-five fleet, successive years
Of pleasure, sorrow, toil and care.
Life bright before us parents told
How dark and rapid ran its stream;
It’s brightest treasure love, fame, gold
Were but the phantoms of a dream.
You are forty-eight today, still stand
Upon the edge of that dark stream,
The other shore is that bright land
Thereon doth light immortal gleam.
Wilt thou be ready! Life hath been
A pleasant yet a weary way;
Oh! Would you live the past again
Or younger grow a single day.
Say has it one experience brought,
So dark that you could spare its woe;
Each sorrow has this lesson taught,
Nearer our God and Christ to grow;
Then, fear not death for He hath given
This faith it is the path of God.
The path to His eternal heaven.
I trust the grandchildren who read this brief sketch will have time to copy and revise their lives in better shape than I have left you mine. Since my married life I have waited upon a great deal of company, mostly transient, yet some have boarded for months with us. I strive to attend my society meetings and also think it a duty and a pleasure combined to attend meetings on Sunday and keep the Sabbath day holy. I have parted with so many loved ones by death; I hope to meet them again. I shall strive to live an honest, virtuous life; doing all the good I can to the sick, poor and distressed. Yet I have many failings and weaknesses to contend with and ask God to protect and guard me that I may not do anything that will ever make you blush to hear rehearsed. I trust and pray that all my posterity, together with my husband, children and myself will be true to each other, their fellow-man and their God; that we may all meet in heaven where sin and sorrow cannot enter.
(Semira La Celestine R. Bassett Wood died Feb. 1, 1905 at Salt Lake City and was buried at Springville.)
Your grandmother and friend, Semira La Celestine Wood,
Secretary of Relief Society since October 3, 1872.
Pardon mistakes I have hunted updates and wrote and rewrote this since yesterday 4 O'clock.