MARY ANN RINGROSE HASTINGS (1852-1889)
Mary Ann Ringrose was christened on 9 July 1852 in St. Michael’s Church in Coventry, Warwickshire, England. She was the last of 6 children born to her parents, Richard Ringrose and Ann Maycock.
Mary Ann’s parents were baptized into the LDS Church in 1853 soon after her birth. Her family left England for Utah when Mary Ann was about 8 years old, along with 2 of her sisters, Elizabeth and Lucy. (Her brother Samuel remained in England where he died in 1884.) They left from Liverpool on board the “William Tapscott,” which set sail on 11 May 1860 with 731 Saints and arrived in New York on 15 June 1860; they were detained in quarantine until 20 June due to the outbreak of smallpox aboard ship. After a steamboat journey to Albany, these Saints took a train via Rochester, Niagara Falls, Detroit, Chicago, and Quincy to St. Joseph, Missouri, then traveled by steamboat up the Missouri River to Florence, Nebraska, arriving 1 July 1860. Some of these Saints continued to Utah that year in the 10th and last handcart company. Mary Ann’s family, however, stayed in the Midwest another 2 years.
While preparing to go West, Mary Ann’s oldest sister Elizabeth married John Frost in St. Louis, Missouri on 24 March 1861. Mary Ann was baptized into the LDS Church on 4 March 1862.
Mary Ann, with her parents and her older sister Lucy, left Florence, Nebraska on 22 July 1862 with Captain Homer Duncan’s Church Train and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on 24 September 1862. Her parents settled in Ogden, Weber, Utah, where Mary Ann resided until her death almost 17 years later.
On 20 June 1870 Mary Ann was married to John Hastings, Jr. in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah. They had 8 children, all of whom were born in Ogden. Four of these children died in infancy: John Thomas Hastings died 7 August 1871; Alice Hastings died 2 August 1877; Francis Hastings died 20 October 1879; and an unnamed child, birth date unknown, died 3 October 1882. Mary Ann and her husband were members of the Ogden Third Ward.
Mary Ann Ringrose Hastings died on 30 July 1889 in Ogden. At her death she was said to be 35 years old, although she would have been perhaps 2 years older. Her youngest child and only surviving daughter Lenora (“Nora”) was not quite 5 years old. She was buried in the Ogden City Cemetery. Two months after her death, Mary Ann’s husband John married again on 29 September 1889 in Ogden to Jane Ann Goodyear.
Submitted by: Joy M. Belnap