BIOGRAPHY
Emma Jane Hatch Cooper
--by May Cooper Burns

According to Andrew Jenson's Church Chronology, on Sunday, March 21, 1858, the citizens of Salt Lake City and the towns north decided to abandon their homes and go south. From eastern newspapers they read that an army was coming to destroy them. Grandfather Ransom Hatch and his family were among those who moved to Provo at that time. On May 19, while camped on the bottom lands near Provo, grandmother Lavern Bidwell Hatch gave birth to a girl whom she named Emma Jane in honor of one of her sisters. This girl was my mother. She was born in a makeshift tent. The rain leaked through on the mother and baby.

After they moved back to Woods Cross as the locality is now called, Grandfather built a home for his second family west of the Denver and Rio Grande railroad tracks. In March 1879, Emma Jane was married to Heber Kimball Cooper. Two children were born to them: Heber William Born October 14, 1879 and Emma May born April 13, 1883 (the writer of this sketch). When I was seven days old my mother passed away. My father's mother, Millizzer Robinson Cooper and my bachelor Uncle Orson Pratt Cooper took me into their home and raised me. My brother lived with them at first. Later he lived with father until old enough to go to Idaho where he worked and stayed with relatives part time.

My grandmother game me a patch work quilt and some of my baby clothes that my mother had made by hand. I have never seen neater or finer sewing.

Mother's girlhood home had only the bare necessities. No luxuries were to be had at that time. Through the unusual thrift of Grandmother Hatch her home was more comfortable than one would expect. A deeply religious atmosphere prevailed in the home. Many people who knew my mother have paid a very fine tribute to her personality and to her integrity.