Mary Ann Dana's First Winter on the Farm

Mary Ann Cato arrived in Salt Lake City on September 12, 1857. Two days later she, her friend and traveling companion Ann Barlow, and two other women, sisters, were married and sealed to Charles Root Dana in the Endowment House. They spent the first winter in Charles' four-room cottage in Ogden. With the coming of Johnson's army in 1858 in the "Utah War," Charles moved his family south to Fillmore, where Mary Ann gave birth to her first child, a son who was born prematurely and died at six weeks. The family returned to Ogden once the threat of war had passed. In 1859 Mary Ann had her second child, a daughter. To accommodate his growing family, Charles traded his house in Ogden for a smaller town house in town and a farm located about two and a half miles away in the village of Mound Fort. The sisters took the town house, and Mary Ann and Ann moved to the farm, which had no house, but only a dugout to live in.

The following story was recorded by Mary Ann's daughter Sarah Helen Dana, in a history of her mother written as if to her own granddaughter Judy Thomas.

Now, Judy, just picture it! A hole in the ground for a home; the nearest neighbor at least one half mile distant; the winter snows piling up, almost burying them; no living creature around except, perhaps, a predatory animal. At night the howl of the wolf was sometimes heard and, at a later date, bears were seen in the vicinity. Even I can remember the men going to hunt a wolf that had been seen in our meadow. Then there was always the fear of Indians molesting unprotected females. And there was mother, a girl that had been tenderly raised, with her little babe and, except for Ann, alone most of the time. The winter must have been a long, long one and supreme courage and faith was what it took to see winter through. But they survived and, with the coming of spring, hope was born anew.

At this time mother's sister, Eliza, was living in London and, during the winter, she had a very significant dream about mother that I will relate, as she told it to me. Said she: "We had not heard from Mary Ann for a long time and were dreadfully worried about her. At last I felt that I could endure the suspense no longer and I prayed earnestly to the Lord asking Him to show me Mary Ann as she actually was. Then I had a dream; I saw Mary Ann in a little, low, mean room devoid of all comforts. In one end of the room was a door, in the other a tine window. On a chair before an open fireplace sat Mary Ann with a babe on her lap. She was swaying to and fro and was the picture of misery. 'Oh! no.' said I, 'that can't be true. Things may be bad with Mary Ann but not as bad as that.' So I refused to believe the dream and dismissed it from my mind. However, a few years later I came to Utah and out one day on the farm we came across a dugout and I was told Mary Ann had lived in it the first winter on the farm. I peered in and exclaimed: 'That was my dream! It was in that room I saw Mary Ann and could not believe it was true.' It was too awful to believe."