WASHINGTON COUNTY NEWS
St. George, Utah
Thursday, 10 January 1952, Page 4

Short Creek Service Held for Almaretta S. Perkins

Almaretta Spencer Perkins passed away at her home at Cane Beds, Ariz., on Jan. 4, 1952, after a short illness incident to old age. She was born in St. George, Utah, July 5, 1868, the daughter of George and Emily Brown Bush Spencer. She had two sisters, Emily S. Miles and Julia S. Woodruff, and one brother, Frank, who have preceded her in death. She is survived by one brother, John T., St. George, Utah. Her father had two plural wives and the half-brothers and sisters of those unknown have preceded her.

When she was three years of age her father, who had been one of the first saints sent to colonize southern Utah, and also was one of the first school teachers in St. George, died, and her mother carried on, raising her family and teaching and writing prose.

She married Andrew Houston Perkins in the St. George temple, May 31, 1886. They lived in Kanarraville, where they farmed and raised cattle until 1892, when they took their cattle and went to help build a canal at Tropic and Cannonville, Garfield county, Utah. In 1908 they moved their family to Magrath, Alberta, Canada. In 1917 the family moved to Cane Beds, Ariz., where they homesteaded and helped in the building of the Arizona strip.

Mrs. Perkins had 11 children, of which nine survive. Her husband preceded her in death on March 22, 1942, and two daughters, Emily Jane Adair and Eda Almaretta. Surviving are Andrew C., St. George; George R. and John L., Cane Beds; Julia Leithead, Cannan Ranch; Ella Stock, Millville, Utah; Effa Hulet, Pocatello, Idaho; Dica Langston, Cane Beds; Karl S., Cedar City, and Alberta Hinton, Cane Beds, and 26 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren.

Services were held Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Short Creek school house, Short Creek, Ariz., with Bishop Edward Carroll of Orderville, a close friend of the family, conducting the services. The children of Sister Harriet Woodbury of LaVerkin, a life-long friend of Mrs. Perkins, sang the following selection: "Lead Kindly Light," "Ava Maria," "The Old Rugged Cross" and "I Know That My Redeemer Lives."

Bishop Carroll paid high tribute to her sterling qualities during her years of pioneering, and also read the twenty-third Psalm. Tillman Willis, a nephew from Snowflake, Ariz., spoke of his love for his mother's only brother's wife, and how she had kept God's commandments, having faith and charity, and had earned her life eternal. Colleen, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fern Esplin, Orderville, close friends of the family, read "Today, Mother," and due to Sister Woodbury's cold-her daughter, Melba, read "The Spirit," both from a book of prose by Mrs. Perkins' mother. The opening prayer was by Bishop Charles Allen of Leeds, and the closing prayer by Frank Swapp of Kanab, the son of a deceased half-sister, Mary Spencer Swapp. The pallbearers were her youngest son Karl S. and grandsons, Arnold Adair, Lamond Langston, Garn Perkins, Erold Perkins and great-grandson Dallas Adair. Interment was in the Isaac Carling memorial cemetery, Short Creek. The grave was dedicated by her brother, John T.