Daughter of Enoch Hunsaker and Martha Ellen May

Married Eli Carl Anderson, 30 May 1907, Honeyville, Box Elder, Utah

Children - Vesta, Maurine, Maurice, Reed, Ray, Carlyle, Dorothy, Max, Verl, Dean, Keith, Eloise, Gerald

Obituary - Mrs. Ella Hunsaker Anderson, 90, of Bothwell, died Wednesday at Pioneer Memorial Nursing home in Brigham City of natural causes.

She was born July 10, 1884, in Calls Fort, Utah, a daughter of Enoch and Martha Ellen May Hunsaker.

She was reared and educated in Box Elder county and graduated from Box Elder High school.

On May 30, 1907, she was married to Eli Carl Anderson in Honeyville. The marriage was later solemnized in the Logan LDS temple. He died on Nov. 23, 1946.

She had been a school teacher in Box Elder county schools for five years.

She had served as president of the Box Elder County Farm Bureau auxiliary. She was a member of the Bothwell LDS ward and had served as Sunday School, Relief Society and
religion class teacher and Relief Society visiting teacher. She was a charter member of Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Midland camp, and active in 4-H club work.

Surviving are six sons and four daughters, Ray H. Anderson, Max H. Anderson, Keith H. Anderson, all of Bothwell; Carlyle H. Anderson, McCammon, Idaho; Dean H. Anderson, Corona, Calif.; Verl H. Anderson, Fielding; Mrs Eph (Vesta) Jensen, Tremonton; Mrs. Joseph (Maurine) Toone, Credoyn, Utah; Mrs. Kenneth (Dorothy) Paskett, Bear River City; Mrs. John (Eloise) Martineau, Morgan; 50 grandchildren; 62 great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandchild.

Also surviving are three brothers and one sister, J. Ross Hunsaker, Milton L. Hunsaker, Mrs. Velda Cook, all of Salt Lake City; William Eldon Hunsaker, Honeyville.

Funeral services were conducted Saturday in the Bothwell Ward chapel.

Interment was in Valley View cemetery at Bothwell.

History of Sarah Ellen "Ella" Hunsaker

Ella Hunsaker Anderson was born at Calls Fort, Box Elder County, Utah on 10 July 1884, and was the eldest daughter and first child of Enoch and Ellen May Hunsaker. The family home was in Honeyville, Utah. She was born in the same old rock house where her mother was born. This home belonged to James & Martha Ellen Allen May.

All her grandparents were pioneers. Her grandfather, Abraham Hunsaker, was a member of the famous Mormon Battalion, which made the longest march in history.

Her great grandfather, Jude Allen, died when she was 16, and her great grandfather, Alexander Beckstead, died when she was 10 years old. Ella remembers them all as they all lived to be over 74 years old.

Her grandfather May had two families, and after spending 6 months in prison, he took the second family to Cardston, Alberta, Canada to live. When he came to Utah, he was just a visitor who came to the Hunsaker home. He often would come down to attend General Conference, but for Grandmother May's home was just the same to her as her own. Her grandfather, Abraham Hunsaker, had 5 wives and 52 children. She can just remember two of the wives and her grandfather.

She attended public school in Honeyville, and it was here that her name was changed. Her family had always called her Sari Ellie, which she disliked. One of her first teachers had had a similar problem with her name of Ellen. The teacherhad called herself Ella and took it upon herself to call Grandma, Ella, and the name has been with her ever since. Ella was known by siblings and parents as "El."

She went to high school in Brigham City, and after completing the required courses, became a schoolteacher, her childhood ambition. She taught for five years in all. She began at "The Sinks" a small school west of Snowville in 1902-1903 at the age of 18, taught at Honeyville 1903-1904, Plymouth 1904-1905, Bothwell 1905-1906 and back to Honeyville for 1906-1907.

While teaching in Bothwell in 1905 and 1906, she met Eli C. Anderson, whom she married on 30 May 1907. They were married at the home of her parents in Honeyville and a reception and dance was held the same night. The marriage was later solemnized in the Logan Temple on 31 March 1926. Eli gave Ella a gold band that was engraved on the inside, "From H to A." He also gave her a gold label watch with the engraving, "EHA."

Eli was a foreman for the Lindsay Bitton Livestock Company so their honeymoon was spent on Monte Cristo. It was a very gay summer with nothing much to do except horseback riding, picnics and dining out at the various camps.

Her best friend, Arvilla Wight, spent two delightful weeks in the mountains with them. The shepherds would flock to the Anderson camp during that time, and they all vied each other to see who could cook the best meal for the visitor.

The winter of 1907-08, they spent in Garland, Bothwell and Honeyville. In the spring they moved to the farm which Floyd Eggli now owns, and Bothwell has been home ever since with the exception of the summer of 1911 when they went to Rockland, Idaho to homestead land there. The homestead was up in the hills, and they had to haul all their water 5 miles. They became discouraged, and after planting their wheat they returned to Bothwell.

Bert Hunsaker, Ira Allen and Joe Priest had homesteads near theirs so they spent a very nice summer anyway. But they were glad to come back to good old Bothwell.


Description of Sarah Ellen "Ella" Hunsaker - told by her children, Eloise A. Martineau & Keith H. Anderson

Mother had blue eyes and all of her children had blue eyes. She had long dark hair before it went white. She would braid it and rolled it into a bun. Wearing hats was another love she had. She was taller than all of her daughters and most of her boys. She always wore a dress.

Mother had eleven pregnancies, two of which were twins, making a total of thirteen children. One of each set of the twins died in infancy and the youngest child, Gerald, was killed in an airplane crash at age sixteen.

It was necessary to have a garden and she loved the vegetables, many flowers and other perennials in her garden. The children's responsibility was to keep the weeds out of the garden and flowers. She made her own soap and always made white bread. It was necessary to store food for winter by canning, drying fruits and vegetables. When the chickens would not produce many eggs in the winter she was prepared by saving eggs when they were plentiful by putting them, the whole egg in a gel and storing them in the cellar. Before she had a clothesline, she would lay her clothes over a barbed wire fence.

She was known to often cook her meals at higher temperatures than necessary, resulting in burned food. Using watercress from the creek to enhance her meals was very common. She enjoyed eating wild game. Her sons and grandsons would go hunting ducks, geese or pheasants and leave them on the fence by her house for her to clean and cook for fresh meat. She saved the feathers for feather tick mattresses or pillows. She loved to go places and was always ready to go. She was afraid she might miss some important event. One time she was asked if she wanted to attend a viewing. Immediately she was jumping at the opportunity to attend. When they arrived at the viewing she ask, "Who are we viewing tonight?" If she was visiting overnight she would put everything she needed into a small sewing bag. She visited many interesting places including Europe, Canada, Hawaii and most of the continental United States. She helped raise Clair and would go to Montana to stay with Clair and Kaye in an apartment in Dillon where they attended school at Dillon High.

She liked to be around people and participate in activities with them. She loved to visit a lot. She was a charter member of the Midland Camp Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. She was president of the North Box Elder County Farm Bureau Auxiliary and with the 4-H clubs. She never learned to drive but she tried a few times to learn. This made her dependant on others for all of her transportation.

It was very important to her to attend all of her church meetings at the Bothwell Ward and she participated in many ways by accepting callings as a Relief Society Teacher, Visiting Teacher, Beehive Leader, Gospel Doctrine Teacher. She always enjoyed doing temple work.

She kept abreast of current events and had a fantastic memory. She naturally loved to learn by reading novels and the Salt Lake Tribune Newspaper. History was a particularly favorite subject for her and she was a stickler for accuracy of local, state, world historical events. She would test her children verbally and written. Mabel Anderson Stokes once said of Ella that she loved having her as a teacher when she taught school in Bothwell and she recalled how much fun she had in her class. She was a really good storyteller and would also make up stories to tell them at bedtime, and also recited nursery rhymes. She was famous for the amount of information that she could put on a penny post card.

She enjoyed sports and played softball with the kids even after she was past sixty. When she was in her sixties she got on a sleigh and would sled down the shoulder of the road down to the creek all by herself.

Mother lived a full and remarkable life. She often commented when she was visiting with us, how fortunate she was to have seen so many things invented and used in her lifetime. From the horse and buggy days of her youth to automobiles, telephones, airplanes, television and being able to see men put on the moon.

She loved sitting next to the radio and listening while she crocheted or did needle point. She also enjoyed word puzzle like crossword puzzles, unscrambling words, finding words, etc. She was given a television and didn't learn to operate it and thus didn't like TV.

She was a widow for 29 years, her husband Eli died of a heart attack on 22 November 1946. Mother passed away 07 May 1975 about 11 p.m. in the Brigham City hospital. In two months she would have been 91 years old. One of her unfulfilled desires was to be the oldest living grandchild of Abraham Hunsaker.