Something I didn't know about my Tucker ancestors!

Fanny Tucker 1855-1892

Samuel Starkey Tucker- Fanny's Father

Ancestors of Fanny Tucker Stoker

Fanny Tucker was the daughter of Samuel Starkey Tucker and Emma Cotter. Emma Cotter was the only daughter of Adam Cotter and Jamima Pulling (Pullen).
The parents of Jamima Pulling were people of title and known as Lord and Lady Pulling. They lived on their large estate of beautiful grounds and a large beautiful home with servants in livery. Their coat of arms (their emblem honored by the king and passed on with their property) was upon the doors of their carriages and livery of their servants.
Jamima Pulling disgraced herself in her parents estimation by falling in love and marrying her father's coachman, Adam Cotter, and was consequently disinherited by her parents. At their death the property went to the only sister of Jamima whose name was Karran Pulling who never married but lived to be a middle aged lady and always said she would leave her property to her sister's (Jamima) children when she died. Jamima, however, died many years before Karran did.
Emma Cotter, only daughter of Jamima, used to take her oldest children to visit her aunt Karran Pulling , and the children used to speak of the beautiful home and its wealth of soft carpets, picture galleries, statuary and of the high post bedstead with its draperies of silk and of the caraway seed cakes she gave them.
Emma Cotter was a small woman with soft grey eyes and beautiful brown hair. She was well educated and was a very pretty singer and fancy dancer. She was taught to do all kinds of beautiful hand embroidery and before her marriage she had a millenary and dressmaking establishment with women and girls in her employ. She also made and sold fancy vests which were so much worn at that time.
In September 8, 1849, Emma Cotter married Samuel Starkey Tucker at the church of St. James in the city of Bristol, England, as appears by the register of the Parrish, W. G. Todd Register Clerk.
Samuel Starkey Tucker was a carpenter and Joiner and cab or coach maker having to work for seven years as an apprentice to learn a trade in the old country. Samuel Starkey and Emma Cotter joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the sixties and came to this country in 1864. Emma Cotter's aunt Karren Pulling thought this was a worse disgrace than the marriage of her sister to a coachman.
Samuel Starkey Tucker and Emma Cotter left their home, friends, country, and all they had for the sake of the gospel and journeyed to Zion, bringing with them Emma Cotter's father, Adam, and four little girls. They having buried three of their children, two girls, three and five years, and one boy, two years, who was scalded to death.
As near as can be found out, they sailed from Liverpool, England on the ship "Hudson" a sailing vessel, in the month of May 1864 and were six weeks on the water. They were three months making the trip to Salt Lake City. They traveled with ox teams and were in Captain Warren Snow's Company, with about fifty teams of wagons in the company. Samuel Starkey Tucker made the coffins to bury those who died crossing the plains in their company.
Emma Cotter Tucker was very ill all the way crossing the plains. She had gathered breasts and her husband Samuel and her father Adam walked in front of the wagon and picked up stones that would have jarred her had the wheels struck them. Two of the girls, Fanny and Belle, eight and ten years old, walked all the way to Salt Lake.
They lived in Salt Lake City for six months then moved to Ogden and built a home on 25th street near where Hudson Ave. is opened. Samuel opened up a homemade furniture store. The girls used to drive the horse around in a circle to keep the lathe going. Emma Cotter Tucker used to go to Salt Lake to conference in April and October if the weather was good and her health would permit her to. There she would buy the paints and things her husband needed for his business. There was no railroad at that time, and the people used to start out to walk and depend on a farmer or someone with a wagon coming along to pick them up or at least bring their things purchased in Salt Lake City back for them. One time Emma failed to get a ride and walked all the way to Salt Lake City.
She used to stay in Salt Lake with a man and his family who had been on a mission to Bristol, England and had made his home with the Tuckers. Emma was very religious and a zealous church worker. She had charge of the burial and temple clothes for the Relief Society in her ward.
She had one son born to her while living in Ogden, later she had very poor health. Their home was a gathering place for the young people. They had a large fireplace, and Mr. Tucker, or one of his hired men, would bring a bushel basket of shavings from the lathe and put it on the fire. They needed no other light. Belle and Fanny had an accordian and a concertina that they played, and they used to dance cordrills, waltzes, polkas, and the varsouvieme. Emma would dance the sailors horn pipe or the highland fling or some other fancy dance. Sometimes her husband would tell her she had better not dance as she would be sick the next day.
She made it pleasant for her friends, and they all loved her and used to love to spend their evenings at her home. They also came there for yeast to make their bread. They used to sing the songs of Zion on these occasions, and many times the tears would run down the cheeks of Emma and Samuel and her father, Adam Cotter, who live with them. Adam Cotter always had his arm chair on the left side of the fireplace and his lounge in the same corner where he slept and always was covered with a buffalo robe which Mr. Tucker bought to keep him warm. Mr. Cotter will be remembered by the early settlers of Ogden as always wearing his knee pants and long stockings with low buckled shoes.
The last two or three years of Emma Cotter Tucker's live was not as enjoyable. Her health being poor, she lost her speech five days before she died, but it returned the last hour and she surprised those present by breaking into song, singing the beautiful hymn of Eliza R. Snow, "Oh My Father," as it was her favorite hymn. After singing it all through, she kissed her five children and husband then closed her eyes and sank into rest. Her beautiful and gentle spirit left her body and she died May 26, 1870 and was buried by the side of her father Adam Cotter who had died in February of the same year. Samuel Starkey Tucker died February 18, 1893 in Salt Lake City, Utah and is buried there.

 

This is a biographical sketch taken from material furnished by Alice Rose Tucker Blair, sister of Fanny Tucker Stoker. It was written by J. D. Floyd Stoker who is the son of Edgar M. Stoker and grandson of Fannie A. Tucker and William Thomas Stoker. As found on ancestry.com.  Thank you!

Note:  I am a direct descendant of Samuel Starkey Tucker by his second wife, Elizabeth Neslin.  I loved seeing this account because it helps me to know more about Samuel and his family.  It was also fun to see pictures of him and his daughter, Fanny.  They must have been extraordinary people.