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Married Mary Ellen Parry 1 Dec 1880, in St. George, Washington Co., UT. After her death 25 Dec 1912, he married Lillian Martha Murray 3 Oct 1916.

[Bio by his daugher, Emeline Cox Jewkes]
My Father, Sylvester Hulet Cox, moved to Orangeville from Manti with his wife and mother in February 1881. There was a lot of snow which made traveling very difficult. Sometimes the men would have to go before the horses to break trail.

On the first of September, my mother moved from Aunt Hattie Reids, just across the street, into her little log hut before the roof was on. She gave birth to her first son on 1 Sept 1881. He lived only a few hours.

Father had a few sheep and herded sheep for a number of years.

Father, along with Uncle Ed Cox and Grandfather, Alma Gardner Jewkes, marked off the cemetery for Orangeville. They used old Fanny Jack [a sorrel horse which was used as a saddle horse, too] and old Darcus. Father held the bits, Uncle Ed the plow, and Grandfather stood as marker. [Note: Emeline refers to Alma Gardner Jewkes (Sr.) as "grandfather" throughout her writings. He was her father-in-law and grandfather to her children.]

Mother and he loved and raised beautiful flowers and gardens. No weeds grew on their lot. He always taught that his yard must be clean, free from weeds and unsightly things, just as his life should be free from bad habits and sin. One of father's sayings was, "Please be decent and if you can't be all decent, be half decent, or at least just as decent as you can."

Father was called to go to the Northern States on a mission in the year 1898. Louis Kelch was President of the mission at that time. He accepted even though Vet (Sylvester Hugh Cox) was only sixteen and Hallie was four months old with the other six children in between. I feel that leaving to accept that call shows what great faith my parents had in their Maker. Mother worked hard to be able to earn twelve dollars to send Father each month.

Father was the first ward clerk in the Orangeville Ward under Bishop Jasper Robertson. He was ward clerk until Uncle Henry M. Reid was made Bishop and appointed his son, Fred, as clerk.

My Father possessed talents and they were used for the benefit of the various communities in which he lived. He evidenced a love for music in youth and was active, although merely as an avocation, in either choir or band work from his early manhood to his middle age. He was a member of the first band in Orangeville, playing the bass horn. He was a member of the ward choir from its beginning up until his death. As a young man he was a member of the Orangeville Dramatic Association and he assisted in community dramatics wherever he lived. He was among the first ones to take parts in the first theaters put on and was in them for a good many years or up until the pioneer's children became old enough to take over.

After the supper work was done, we would gather around the fireplace most every evening. Father would sing song after song and teach us some. Mother would have some of the children get either a pan of apples, pop corn, or make honey candy to enjoy. Sometimes Father would rake the coal through the grate onto onions and we would enjoy roasted onions. I have never tasted onions as good as those Father roasted.

Father loved his home. He believed in the fireside, in the happiness of little children, and the Gospel that builds happy, peaceful homes without which the deepest longings of the heart can not be satisfied. His home was the center of his affections, a refuge from the noise of the world, a place to rest, relax and enjoy. Underlying was an impregnable honesty.

He was a religious man. An every day kind of religion. Oft he quoted these sentiments: "I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day. I'd rather one would walk with me than merely point the way." (Edgar A. Guest.)

Father was not over pious, but his religion penetrated his thinking and motivated his actions. He had an unshakeable faith in the Redeemer of the World, in the officiating of prayer, in the restoration of the Plan of Salvation and its power to save all who obey it's precepts, in the divine calling of the Prophet Joseph Smith and of all who have succeeded him in the presidency of the Church.

Father was one of the number who heard the heavenly chorus sing at the Manti Temple dedication on 20 May 1888.

Varied interest plus a Church mission served in the late years of his life and kept him a happy man to the very end. Father's love for literature influenced his children greatly. Of sweet memory are those evenings in which our family listened to his low and mellow voice. Mother would be sewing or embroidering while Father read aloud . . . scriptures, poetry, prose, and stories. Although too young to understand at times, I was intrigued by the rhythmic beauty of Father's voice.

My father was the eighth child in a family of twelve children. Father's understanding of gospel doctrine was enlarged by extensive reading of scripture, commentary, and related theological works. One particular passage of scripture seemed fundamental to his religious beliefs for I remember his using it often. It is familiar scripture and concerns obedience to laws upon which all blessings are predicated. I can hear him now saying, "If we want the blessing, we must abide the law." I don't recall my father ever speaking ill of any person, express malice or any degree of envy.

Grandfather Jewkes said he doesn't think a man ever lived that was better or more thoughtful of his children or his wife than was Father. He said some could have been as good but certainly none any better.

Father's complete honesty was another outstanding characteristic. I'm sure I have never known any one more honest than he. It was not merely an honesty in dealing with his neighbor, it was an honesty in his dealings with God as well. Pretense in any form seemed to have no place in either his thought or action. It was his firm belief that success in life has nothing to do with honors of men, but that a man's belief, how he lives, and serves, and the extent to which he overcomes personal weaknesses is the only measure of accomplishment. In this humble and brief tribute to my father, in which I mention only a few of the qualities he had, I speak for all who knew and loved him. The example of his life to his family is an inheritance of high ideals, and good name.

HONEYMOON OF SYLVESTER HULET AND MARY PARRY COX
(As told by Fred Reid, whose mother was Sylvester's sister.)

Uncle Ed Cox (Sylvester's brother) and Sylvester Cox and his new bride, Mary Ellen Parry, Hen Reid, and Charlie Moffitt left Manti in February of 1881 to come to Castle Valley. Hen Reid drove a pair of oxen, Jack and Bolly, belonging to John Reid, and a team of horses besides. Uncle Ed had two teams. Sylvester had one or two teams. They were seventeen days making the trip.

It was three days before they arrived in Meadow Gulch in Salina Canyon. They spent another day before they reached the summit because there was deep snow. They kept to the ridges pretty well, where the snow had been blown off. Evidently, they drifted quite a bit south of the regular road. At last, the second night on the summit, they came to a place where they thought they could get off the ridges. They were really stranded right there.

They finally decided they would go right off the edge of a heavy ledge (covered with what they thought was scrub quaking aspen). They had bucked so much snow their horses refused to face the snow any longer. They wouldn't go through a drift so they used the two little teams of oxen. They had already worked them three days before they came to this ridge, so by that time the shoulders of the oxen were raw. The hide was worn off from the brisket and they hated to get out and pull in the snow. Sylvester and Ed thought of a way of overcoming this.

They had an old cowhide in one outfit; they cut it in two and fashioned some cowhide collars, which they fastened to the yoke on the oxen, so that they could push against the rawhide instead of against their shoulders.

They camped three nights in the one place just away from the top of the mountain. They finally decided they would have to remove the box of one wagon and make a sleigh. They put two dry quaky logs under the box. The snow had softened a little during the day and they succeeded in getting about a mile down the drift. They would take turns driving the oxen. The oxen soon got so good at it that when they said "Gee", they would swing to the left, and when they said "Haw" they would swing to the right. That way they took the weight of the snow with their breasts and didn't go down into the snow at all with their hind legs.

Uncle Ed said, "I hope it freezes tonight, good and hard, and we can get the outfits down." Sure enough, they had a cold night and they were able to pull the outfits down to where they had the wagon box. There they set up a new camp, still in plain sight of the previous night's camp.

From there down they went a little smoother and faster. They had to break snow through the drifts but it wasn't so heavy. They still encountered a lot of oak brush and it was slow traveling. In the middle of the morning, they got all the outfits organized so they could run as a traveling outfit.

Then they met two surveyors coming back from Castle Valley. They informed Hen that they better go back. They said, "You can't go through." Hen said, "We've got to go through. We are going on." Two days after this they reached the Quitchempah. Here they practically got out of the snow and made good progress.

After the tenth day they made fairly good progress. They crossed the Muddy River and came back onto where the present highway is. Then they went to Molen where they stopped one night. The next day they went to Wilsonville. The following day they made it to Orangeville.

When they arrived here, Sylvester and Mary had no home. They lived in a wagon box until they built their log house. Hen let him have one 40 of his ground – the 40 acres right over the Blue Ridge.

He built their sawed log house right where the old home stands today. It has one window in the front and the front room was about 16' by 18'. It had boards over the top and they plastered it with mud. It had a shanty kitchen in the rear. Their first baby was born there in the fall.

The men went back over the road to Manti the following summer to see what route they had actually covered. They thought it would be easy to find because of all the scrub aspens they had chopped down. They searched and searched the ridges and couldn't find anything but tall quakes. The finally discovered they had come right over the tips of these, and could see where they had topped the trees. The snow had been so deep they had gone right through the tops of them; they had gone over snow 35 to 40 feet deep.


[This last paragraph may have been added by Emeline as it is speaking of Mary Ellen Parry which is her mother. Fred Reid's mother was Harriet Cox Reid.] The latter part of November 1880, Father, Mother, his sister, Amanda and Horten Tuttle, and three other couples (one of each couple was one of the Cox's) went by team from Manti to St. George to be married. They were married on 1 Dec 1880. A goldsmith in St. George fashioned from a $5.00 gold piece rings for Mother and Aunt Amanda. When he sent them to Mother the one they all liked best had Mother's name attached to it. So Mother kept it. She said she thought the goldsmith knew she was the first girl (Mary Ellen Parry) born in St. George and knew her during the sixteen years she lived there. She felt the goldsmith thought she was somewhat special so he sent the best ring to her. When she died her ring finger shaped up somehow so the ring could not be removed. It was left on as mother wanted it to be.

[Minor corrections were made by the Sunflower Lady. These writings were found in Emeline's Book of Remembrance.]

View online death certificate
(Submitted by 'On angels wings' 10-24-2011)