Daughter of Thomas Wilkerson and Eliza Followell

She married William Horace Casaday, 15 Mar 1850, Adams County, Illinois. She divorced William after he abandoned her for the gold fields of California.

Son - William Jackson Casaday

On 31 Dec 1854, she married Levi Stewart who was also married to her sister, Margery Wilkerson.

Children - Sarah Lucretia Stewart, Urban Van Stewart, Alonzo Lafayette Stewart, Mary Artemacy Stewart, Seymore Alexander Stewart, Brigham Freeman Stewart, David Brinton Stewart Sr., Ellen Lenora Stewart, Benjamin Levi Stewart, Ethel Stewart

She bore eleven children but only five reached maturity. William Jackson Casaday died at the age of 18 on 14 Nov 1870; Urban Van Stewart died at the age of 13 in the Kanab Fort fire on 14 Dec 1870; Mary Artemacy Stewart died at 15 months; Seymore Alexander Stewart died at 18 months; Ellen Lenora Stewart died at 2 months; and Benjamin Levi died at 29 years.

She had three babies which all died at a very young age, one being born just months after the Kanab fire which took the lives of her son Urban Van, and her sister, Margery, and Margery's three sons. Upon the death of Margery, she lovingly cared for Margery's children.

Artemacy had a two-month-old daughter when Levi died on 14 June 1878. The 1880 census of Kanab, Kane, Utah, records Artemacy (45), Lucinda (25), Brigham Freeman (15), David Brinton (12), Benjamin Levi (9) and Ethel (2).

From An Enduring Legacy, Volume Three, p. 155 and the History of Kane Co, Utah

Kanab's Midwife

When Kanab was permanently settled in 1870, Artemacy Stewart, wife of Bishop Levi Stewart, was the first midwife called and set apart by President Erastus Snow. In the blessing given her at that time, she was promised inspiration in her calling and that she should get up from her sickbed to care for the sick and in so doing be healed. I saw this verified at one time.

She had been very ill in my father's (William Thomas Stewart) home. John R. Findlay called for her to go and take care of Aunt Leah with her first baby. John was being told she wasn't able when she heard him. She called to her son "Tommy, come here." She had him wrap her in a quilt and carry her to the buggy, although he was afraid she wouldn't survive the ordeal. In a few days she came back to us healed.

Her husband, Levi Stewart, had a knowledge of the use of herbs, as also had his son, John Riley Stewart, who was a great student and pretty well read on medicine for that time. She often went to them for advice and aid.

At one time she was called to the bedside of two young women the same day to deliver their first babies. It was a cold, snowy day in December and a number of blocks from one place to the other. So the expectant fathers each kept a horse saddled and waiting at the gate. Artemacy was a small woman but very active. Putting her up behind them, she was conveyed back and forth to watch her patients. She delivered two baby girls that today are mothers and grandmothers.

She often said in later years, "Many times when it seemed that I would fail in my endeavors, I have bowed my head in my hands and asked God for that inspiration promised me. It never failed to come." A little child's scarlet fever was broken up with a tea of peach tree twigs in February. A little girl's burnt back was relieved by taking the skin of a cat while it was still warm and covering the burn. When the skin was removed the gangrene poison was drawn out. The child recovered.

Artemacy delivered babies in Kanab up until 1903 and was still at the same job until she was eighty years old.