Harriet C. Brooks
Born: November 10th, 1829
Died: November 2nd, 1907
Obituary
Daughter of Daniel Randall Williams and Mary Ayers.
Married Rufus Beach, 1846, in Iowa after the Saints had left Nauvoo. Son - Aaron Williams Beach.
Sealed for eternity to Wesley John Adair, 8 Feb 1849.
Married Francis William Brooks, 27 Jun 1851, at the home of Rev. Wm. Salter in Burlington, Des Moines County, Iowa. Children - Harry Edward Brooks, Caroline Brooks, James Wilson Brooks, Fredrick Hosford Brooks, Clara Arabella Brooks, Mary Peasley Brooks, Annis Copp Brooks, Francis William Brooks.
Married James Lasell, 10 May 1873, Burlington, Des Moines, Iowa. Daughter - Ruth Cordelia Lasell.
History - Harriet Cordelia Willams was born in 1829 in the state of New York to Daniel and Mary Ayers Williams. She was the third of four children and the only one who survived infancy. The Williams family migrated to Grand Blanc, Michigan shortly after Cordelia's birth and her mother died there. Daniel Williams married for a 2nd time in 1838 to Electa Caroline Briggs, a widow with two young daughters. They had three children. Cordelia shouldered a great deal of the responsibility of caring for her father's second family. They were introduced to the Gospel and the entire family, including two step sisters, two half-sisters, and a half-brother, joined the church and moved to Lee County, Iowa, and then to Nauvoo, Illinois in 1843. At the age of seventeen Cordelia was camped with her family on the banks of the Des Moines River in Iowa. Opposite them, across the river, was another group of Saints including Rufus Beach, a wealthy tavern owner, his wife Laura Ann, and two children. Harriet's father knew Rufus in Nauvoo, and even though Rufus was three times her age, a plural marriage was arranged between them. Their honeymoon began traveling with the Saints to Winter Quarters in 1846. Rufus provided Cordelia with her own wagon and provisions. They crossed the plains with the Daniel Spencer Company and arrived in Salt Lake on 24 Sep 1847. Rufus began to build a log cabin, but not soon enough. A baby was born to them on 27 Oct 1847, the second white child born in the Salt Lake Valley. They named him Aaron Williams Beach, and it was said that he was born in a covered wagon on old Pioneer Square.
Cordelia lived a colorful and prosperous life, marrying three more times after being widowed. She bore one child with her second husband, and he [the child] died at sea as they returned to the East. Nine children were born with her third husband. All of these children were born in Iowa except Caroline. She had one child born with her fourth husband. Cordelia was sealed to her second husband, on 8 Feb 1849 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah. She left the Salt Lake Valley and went to California where she was hired by Francis Brooks to cook and launder at his camp in the gold fields. They returned to the East and then to the midwest where she married for the third time-Francis William Brooks, 27 Jun 1851, in Burlington, Des Moines County, Iowa. She was again widowed when he died on 1 Apr 1869, a little over one month before her 9th child was born to them. She married a fourth time on 4 Jun 1873, to James Lasell, at Burlington, Iowa. They had one daughter, Ruth Cordelia. James died Nov 1888.
Gravesite Details
Cemetery records show a date of death of 2 Nov 1907, and there is a brief obit in the 4 Nov 1907 Burlington Evening Gazette stating the date to be of 2 Nov.