SARAH SLUSSER NISONGER

 

 

SARAH  SLUSSER  NISONGER

     Sarah Slusser was born in Clear Creek, Warren County, Ohio, near Dayton, on April 26, 1812.  Her father’s name was Peter and her mother’s name was Mary Deam (Diehm) .  The Slusser family was large and included nine children.  They lived on a farm about seven miles from Dayton.  They had many cows, chickens, horses and were considered prosperous.  
    Near their home, was in a thick wood with many kinds of nuts.  There were walnuts and almonds that were gathered in for the winter.  They also raised popcorn and enjoyed apples and popcorn around the fireplace during the wintertime.  When they wanted turkey, they went into the woods and killed them, as they were wild.
    Sarah married Henry Nisonger on March 3, 1836 and from that time on she led an unsettled life.  When they were first married,  she went with her husband into the woods where he cut wood.  She cooked  for workers while they were thus employed.  It was about this time they met the Mormon Elders and immediately joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and where faithful members from that time forward.    
     Sarah and Henry had  nine children: David, born in 1837, Mary, born in 1840, Chester, born in 1841, Carmen, born in 1842, Airon, born in 1845, Sarah Jane, born in1846, Lydia Ellen, born in 1849, Phoebe, born in 1851 and Elisie, born in 1854.
    They moved to Saint Louis, Missouri where they were forced to live in a log house with several other families.  The children of the other families tormented her children all the time because they were Mormons.  Her husband couldn’t get work, so Sarah went to work at a shirt factory to help support the family.  They were planning to go to Utah so her husband took a contract to cut wood for the railroad.  This job lasted for two years.   She cooked for the men and cared for her family.  In this way they earned enough money to be able to travel to Utah.  Their outfit included two wagons and eight head of oxen.  One wagon was without a box and was loaned to a man by the name of Knox.  They got along with just the one wagon.
    They came west with the Milo Andrew’s Company and arrived in Ogden, Utah in the fall of 1856.  They rented their first home.  It was only one room which they shared with another family as it was hard to find a place to live.  The winter was long and cold.  It was very inconvenient as the children had whooping cough and one little girl died.  Henry was away working in the canyon a good part of the winter.
    Sarah joined the Relief Society while they were in Ogden.  On one occasion a neighbor had a baby and she had no pins for the baby’s clothing, so Sarah went to Relief Society and asked for pins which the sisters took from their own clothing and sent them to be used for the new baby.
    The next spring they moved to the bench where they rented a house for several years.  They bought a lot and started to build a dugout, but before it was finished her husband, Henry, was called to go to Echo Canyon to help keep the United States Army out of Utah.  Sarah and the children were left in an unfinished dugout.  Henry was gone all winter and the dugout was cold and leaked everywhere.  They were forced to sleep in wet beds a lot of the time.
    When Henry returned, they moved to Payson, Utah, where they lived in a brush shack in the southeast part of the city, for a short time.  They then moved to Camp Floyd where they lived for eighteen months.  Here Sarah washed clothes for the soldiers and baked pies and sold them.  They then moved to a ranch located at Pelican Point on the west side of Utah Lake.
    When Sarah wasn’t cooking, she cored wool, spun the yarn, and wove the thread into cloth to make clothes for her family.   She was alone with her two girls a lot of the time and it was ten miles from the nearest neighbor.  
    On one occasion, ten to fifteen Indians came along the road.  There were no Squaws or Papooses with them and Sarah was very frightened.  She put on a brave front and got out a large flint lock gun and put it on the loom where she was weaving.  The Indians came and saw the gun and started laughing and slapping their legs and talked in their own language.  Presently, her daughters came down off the hill where they had been tending sheep.  As they came near the house their dogs and the Indian’s dogs began to fight.   Sarah got up from her loom got a bucket of water and threw it at on the dogs causing the Indians to really laugh.  To the great relief of the family they soon left.  Sarah and her family went up into the hills that night and took the bedding from the dugout so if the Indians came back they wouldn’t find them.
    From the ranch at Pelican Point,  they moved to Goshen and from there to Santaquin.  Their first home in Santaquin was in the southeast end of town.   It was a one room log house.  Two of her children, Chester and Sarah Jane, were married there.  She continued to cord, spin, and weave.  A few years later Phoebe was married.   They moved to Diamond in the Tintic District.
    Sarah lived with her daughter Phoebe in Santaquin for the last two years of her life.  She passed away on April 2, 1900 at the age of 88.  She is buried in the Santaquin Cemetery.  Her husband Henry died November 27, 1872 in Salt Lake City, Utah where he is buried.