Date of Award

5-1965

Degree Type

Report

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

Department

School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Committee Chair(s)

Arthur D. Jackson

Committee

Arthur D. Jackson

Abstract

In 1856 , a handcart company pushed and pulled its way along the dry and dusty trail over the plains to Salt Lake City. An eighteen year old lad, David Bowen, walked stiffly along, eagerly scanning the west for the "Promised Valley" of the Saints. He had walked a thousand miles for his faith-leaving all behind and not looking back. Four years later , over the same trail, still marked by a spiraling column of dust, came an ox team company. The wagons were loaded and Annie Shackleton was young, so the nineteen year old girl , London born and bred , walked all the way across the plains. This same Annie Shackleton and David Bowen later met in Salt Lake City and were subsequently married there on February 16 , 1861. After living in Salt Lake City for a short time , the new family moved to Henderson Creek, Idaho, where they lived for about seven years. There being no school within reach of their farm , and with a family growing up , Annie Bowen did as her mother before her had done-she taught the children herself. Annie Bowen, in her autobiography, states that she was the ninth and last child of her parents . Her father died during her early childhood, leaving her mother to raise five children of "her own labor." (Four children died in infancy.) Under these circumstances, it was necessary that the remaining children assist in the support of the family as soon as possible , so school was out of the question. However, her mother taught Annie to read when she was very small. She states , "I can dimly remember standing by her side and spelling out words to her while she was working."

Included in

Education Commons

Share

COinS