Joseph Barker and Mary Ann Doidge Barker Dunton
(Continued)

Mary Ann lived in southwestern Colorado until her death on June 29, 1910. She remained faithful to the church, paid her tithing, and was staunch to the end. She was at the home of Sarah and Will Devenport, at Redmesa, Colorado when her summons came. She was ill for many months. Her daughters shared in helping to care for her with assistance from the Relief Society.

Dora wrote, "Some time before her death, she said, ‘I’ll fight it till the last.’ ‘What will you fight, Mother?’ her daughter asked. ‘This old death,’ was her grim reply. She was ever a fighter for what she knew was right. Had she not been, she would have returned to her home in England when her brothers wrote her after she was left alone with her small children. ‘Just give up that church and come home. We will send you money and care for you and your children the rest of your lives.’ Had she not been of the tougher fiber, she would not have followed the road that proved to have the greatest resistance."

"Always, a love for the fine and beautiful things remained in her nature. It was once said of her that she never stayed overnight in a place that she did not plant some flower seeds in the ground."

Kate said, "My testimony to Mormonism is the example of my mother’s life. She told me many times that before joining the church her life was very pleasant and easy. Up to that time she had never as much as washed a pocket handkerchief. Then when I think of all the hardships she went through and how faithful and earnest was her belief in the face of all these hardships, I need no other proof of the truth of Mormonism."

Dora wrote that when her mother was lying ill before her death, Sarah’s husband, Will, asked her who she wanted for her husband in the next world. She answered, "Joseph Barker, of course."

Dora wrote, "May it be that we, who follow in the civilization which was wrought at the hands of such true pioneers as Joseph and Mary Ann Barker, when our summons comes, be there to say, ‘I see my mother, where’s the door?’"

Joseph Barker and Mary Ann Doidge Barker Dunton

Timeline:
29 September 1835 - Joseph born
11 April 1837 - Mary Ann born
5 June 1860 - Joseph and Mary Ann baptized
11 June 1860 - Joseph and Mary Ann married
24 April 1861 - Sarah Jane born
1862 - Came to Utah
30 January 1864 - Mary Ann Barker born
9 February 1866 - Joseph ordained Elder
22 July 1866 - Emma Amelia born
2 April 1869 - Catharine Maria born
4 June 1871 - Ellen Melissa born
25 November 1872 - Sealed in Endowment House
19 June 1873 - Georgena Madora born
April 1874 - Joseph left the family, went to Nevada
2 March 1878 - Mary Ann baptized again
About 1878 - Mary Ann married James Harvey Dunton
15 April 1879 - John Harvey Dunton born
1879 - Mary Ann, Ellen, Dora, and John left Parowan
1880 - Hole-in-the-Rock to Montezuma Fort
May 1881 - left Montezuma Fort to move to Durango, Colo
Fall, 1883 - moved to Mancos
About 1882 - Four older girls came to Mancos
19 May 1884 - Emma married to Joseph Willden
9 September 1884 - James Harvey Dunton set apart as first Presiding Elder, Mancos branch
5 July 1884 - First Relief Society in Mancos held. Mary Ann secretary
June 1885 - Catharine married to Charles Pinkerton
14 December 1885 - Sarah married to William McDonald Devenport
About 1886 - James Dunton returned to Utah, Mary Ann built a home at "the Park" where she lived in the summer
11 June 1888 - Ellen married to William Halls
1 January 1889 - Mary Ann Barker married to Roy Weston
May 1891 - 22 November 1892 - Mary Ann President of Relief Society.
29 October 1896 - Joseph died in Eureka, Nevada
16 May 1897 - Dora married to Lewis Burnham
29 June 1920 - Mary Ann died in Redmesa, Colorado
20 February 1924 - Ellen died in Huntsville, Utah
1 April 1939 - Sarah Devenport died
11 0ctober 1941 - Emma died
11 April 1954 John Harvey died in Pueblo

 

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