From Cordwainer's Widow to Second Wife

Maria was 34 years old when she became a widow.  She had five girls ages 14 to 4, one son (Fred) age 2, and was 5 months pregnant with twins.  The baby girl survived, the boy was born still.

She and her daughters made a living by opening a store that sold fruit, candy, and second-hand items.  

She also continued her husband's shoe store.  Her husband had been a cordwainer, someone who makes shoes (a cobbler is someone who repairs shoes).  Her oldest two daughters dropped out of school so that they could trim the shoes with fancy bows and buckles and pack the shoes in boxes for shipment.

Do you have anything in purple?

Yes, please!

They lived in Northampton, just under 40 miles north of London.  Home of Mansfield Park.

The Pack family were members of the St. Andrews Church.  They attended their meetings faithfully.

I would too if my church looked like that.

Three years after her husband's death, she meet two LDS missionaries.  Henry Yates and Roland Tanner, both from Utah.

The Packs were baptized in August 1884, four years after Maria's husband died.

Two years later, in 1886, she took all of her children but one, Frances, and they sailed for America.  Frances stayed with an aunt and uncle who had been unable to have children.

She moved to Salt Lake City and worked several months cleaning a building still under construction.

Salt Lake Temple

In 1887 she moved to Clarkston, Utah and married the missionary who baptized her, Henry Yates.  She was his second wife.  Henry's first wife, Ann Bromwich, was unable to have children.  Maria had a boy with Henry and named him Henry Bromwich Yates.

Maria would make a trip to the post office and collect the mail for many friends and neighbors who lived on her street.  She then stopped at each home and called out "Mail!"but because of her English accent it sounded like, "Mile!"

She repaired the shoes of the townspeople and made pretty bonnets and flower baskets.

She wore a neat black dress with a frosted lace collar, a black hat trimmed in roses, a checkered waist apron, and a dark wool fringed shawl around her shoulders to protect her from the cold winds.

Here's something that I found in a newspaper archive that isn't in Maria's personal history.

March 29, 1891 - p. 1 under "Deputy Marshal's Arrests."
  "For some time past Mrs. Jane Marie Pack, alleged plural wife of 

Henry Yates has been wanted, and on Wednesday Deputy Corey arrested her 

at Clarkston.   She was released on furnishing $200 bail."

      --The Standard, March 29, 1891.

Don't worry, Maria, you are in good company.  

Maria Holton Pack(e) Yates (1846-1922)

My husband's second great grandmother

Bradford William Pack --> Clarence (Bill) William Pack II --> Clarence William Pack --> Frederick John Samuel Pack --> Maria Holton Pack(e) Yates