WILLIAM GRIFFITHS REESE PROJECT
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 William Griffiths Reese married Mary Maria Rees on July 2, 1884. They had five children before Maria suddenly died of pneumonia in 1898. |
When they left Wales they had two small children; the oldest, a two-year-old, was William Griffiths Reese, whose story I would like to write.
The Reeses sailed the ship Underwriter, one that had been specially commissioned to carry Mormon immigrants to America. They reached New Orleans in May and from there they continued up the Mississippi River until they reached Bevier, Macon County, Missouri, where they ran out of funds. Charles worked in the mines to earn enough to outfit the family for the trip across the plains. They started the following April in a covered wagon pulled by two oxen, Buck and Berry. When they arrived in Utah they first settled in the little farming community of Hyde Park, in Cache Valley, but several years later they moved to five miles west to Benson, where they homesteaded 160 acres of land.
William grew up a studious young man, spending his spare time reading whatever he could lay his hands on. While he was still a teenager he began teaching in a log schoolhouse in Benson. He also attended Brigham Young College in Logan for several years, teaching between terms. In 1882, when William was twenty-four years old, he was called to serve a mission for the Church to England and Wales. When he returned in 1884 he married Mary Maria Rees, a young teacher, whose father had also emigrated from Wales. William continued his lifelong profession as a schoolteacher.
Five children were born to William and Mary and then, in June 1898, Mary suddenly took sick with pneumonia and died. This was, of course, a terrible blow. William arranged for a young Danish immigrant girl, Karen Andrea Andersen, to keep house and watch his children while he continued to teach school. He married Karen in November 1899. This union produced eight more children.
 After Mary's death, William married Karen Andrea Andersen on November 15, 1899. They had eight children. |
In 1906, at the age of forty nine, William again responded to a call from his Church to serve a mission—this time to Australia. While he was gone, Karen took care of the five children from his first marriage and two children of her own. William was a regular correspondent to the Logan Herald Journal while he was in Australia, and over fifty of his letters reporting on the state of affairs in the Antipodes were published in the paper.
There is a great deal of source material available for William’s history. Family member volunteers have entered the text of all the newspaper articles authorized by William into word processing software. We also have made electronic copies of the twelve or so handwritten volumes of journals that William kept, beginning with his first mission and continuing throughout his life.
I also plan to write about the lives of William’s parents, Charles and Sarah Reese. If you are a descendant of Charles and Sarah (whether through William or another child) I would like to hear from you. Please click on this link and send me an e-mail explaining your relationship. If you have the time, I would love to hear a little about you. Please also send a link to this page to other members of your family, so they will know about this project. – Thanks, Morris Thurston