My great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Gammon Bunnell, did not sail across the ocean and walk across the plains to Zion as had her mother and father before her.  She was a second-generation pioneer, born in a covered wagon in Provo in 1857 before her newly arrived parents could complete their adobe home.  When she was born, the same oxen which had carried her parents across the palins were still providing the family with milk.

I dont remember my great-grandmother because she died when I was only seven.  However, from what I have heard and read about her life and the evidences of greatness she has left behind her.  She is my ideal just as she is for hundreds of her descendants in Utah Valley.

Mary Elizabeth as shown be her pictures, was a beautiful, exquisitely groomed, and pround young lady.  Her prized possessions were a small trunk her mother, Elizabeth Day Gammon, had brought with her from Devonshire, England, as ornate organ, one of only two in early day Provo, and a beautiful silk shawl.

At the age of 10, Mary Elizabeth was a budding beauty, with a porcelain complexion, rosy cheeks, and black hair, who caught the eye of young Stephen Ithamer Bunnell, Jr., during sunday School at the old provo Tavbernacle.  When he returned home from Sunday School, Thomas announced to his mother that mary Elizabeth Gammon was the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

Stephen Ithamer Bunnell, Jr., was to become mary elizabeth Gammon's future husband.  he was also a descendant of pioneers.  his grandparents, David Edwin and Sallie Heller Conrad Bunnell, were among the first membersof the Mormon Church in New Yourk State.  David Edwin Bunnell was a cousin of Joseph Smioth's wife, Emma Hale, and Sallie Heller conrad Bunnell was a niece of Peter Whitmer's wife, and a maid in the Whitmer home at the time joseph smith translated the Book of Mormon.

David Edwin and Sallie Bunnell, like other pioneers of their day, followed their prophet, Jopseph Smith, from state to state to escape persec\ution.  After they fled the troubles at Nauvoo, they trekked to Zion with their young son.  Stephen Ithamer Bunnell, Sr.  In present downtown Provo (where the Community Church now stands), David Edwin and Sallie Heller Conrad Bunnell erected a permanent home.

stephen Ithamer Bunnell, Jr. (son of Stephen Ithamer Bunnell, Sr., the young man who had walked across the plains from nauvoo with his parents' famr in Lakeview.  It was a prosperous and beautiful farm, over looking Utah Lake, where his father raised thoroughbred horses and strutting peacocks.  Young Stephen Ithamer Bunnell Jr., and Mary Elizabeth Gammon fell in love when the Gammon family moved from Provo to lake View, right across the street from the Bunnells.

After Stephen Ithamer Bunnell Jr., and Mary Elizabeth Gammon married in 1878, they bought a large tract of sagebrush-covered land on a hill overlooking Utah Lake (in present-day Orem).  In 1896, the couple built a sturdy red brick home, and proceeded to develop their raw acreage into a thriving farm.  they grew every crop imaginable: several orchard crops, including the delicious apples they introduced to the area; table produce of all kinds, including celery, which they trench-blanched for several weeks to sweeten; and strawberries, which flourished in a rocky hillock near their home.  Their farm was self sufficient, and produced surplus produce, which they shipped to California.

theuy constructed a flume to carry irrigation water from one hill to another (in the summer, for fun, the Bunnell children used to ride from hill to hill through the flume, propelled by the force of the water).  They built a fruit packing shed to prepare their apples and other produce fro shipment, and a racetrack to exercise their thoroughbred horses.  Mary elizabeth loved to stand by the track with a watch and time and horses as they thundered by.

Mary Elizabeth vore six children - Elizabeth, who died in infancy; Steve; Mary Etta, who died in the great 'flu epedemic' of 1917; Joel; Emma, and Hulda.

From their home about half-way up their farm, the Bunnell family frequently watched native Indians engaging in ceremonial dances.  The family befrieded the Indians, and shared their crops with them.  As she stood on the hill and watched indian ceremonies below, Mary Elizabeth often remembered a frightening experience she had while she had been living in Provo.  It had occurred one day when she was alone.  she had put bread in the oven to bakd, and some time later had begun brushing her long, black hair in front of a mirror.  All of a sudden, in the mirror, she had glimpsed an Indian standing in the door-way watching her intently.  Mary Elizabeth hid her fear and tried to remain calm.  she de-fused the potentially harmful situation by offering the brave some of her newly baked bread.  He soon left, much to her relief.

Although mary Elizabeth is remembered as the mistress of a large and properous pioneer estate, she is most remembered by her descendants for her warm relationships with her numerous posterity.  Every one of her five surviving children adored her, because she made each one feel so special.  One picture of her shows a Mary Elizabeth sitting with her young brood on the grassy banks of an irrigation canal on the farm.  The old photgraph captures the serenity and contentment of the young pioneer family in their pastoral setting. 

After her beloved stephen passed away at the age of 53, the young widow survived an additional 33 plus years.  However, she was seldom alone during her later years, as her numberous grandchildren and great grandchildren shared their affection with "Grandma Bunnell".  All the Bunnell, Orvin and Blake grandchildren eagerly looked forward to staying with granma eating her famous yellow cake, cookies, and pies, and playing table games, such as "Checkers," "Rock" and "Go Fish" with her.  many stayed with her for extended periods of time and when she later became crippled by arthritis, they performed all her household tasks for her, even vying with one antoher for the opportunity to serve her. 

Just as she loved to spend time with her grandchildren, she shared her talents in the church.  For much of her life she served as ward organist and as a stake and ward Relief society leader in Provo, Lake view and vineyard. When Mary Elizabeth Gammon Bunnell died at the age of 87 in 1944, a large athering of her descendants and friends, whose lives she had so greatly enriched, attended her funeral and paid loving tributes to her.  

Besides her numerous posterity, she has left a brick-and-Mortar monumnet that endures to this day, although the irrigation flume between the hills, the fruit packing shed, and the racetrack are gone, and the laughter of happy children no longer resonates through its rooms, the old house, itself, endures, a testament to the pionewer life and times of Mary Elizabeth Gammon Bunnell.  the old red brick house has weathered a hundred years.  If it could speak, it would tell how its occupants reated to the cries of their day, including the travails of pioneer life; the furor over polygamy and the struggles to attain Statehood; the losses of friends and relatives in World War 1; the trials of the Great Depression, when the Bunnell family was forced to sell their beloved farm piecemeal in order to survive; the infamy of world War II and the coming of Geneva Steel, which inexorably changed the local economy from agraian to industrial; the Atomic Age wars, and finally, the explosion of growth in Utha Valley, leading to such curious innovations as the traffic roundabout at UVSC on the very ground where Mary elizabeth HGammon Bunnell and her family used top live, love, farm and play.
C student building and the McKay Special Events Center that surround it.  It still overlooks the area where it still overllooks the area where Indians used to dance their ceremonial dance (now the vaseball field) Where once it stood in solitayr spledor, it is an incongruity amidst its imposing surroundings.  some people who worship the bottom line, those with no sense of history, think it should be demolished so that a modern structure can take its palce.

Others say Ivy League schools would give their "eye teeth" for such a historic campus treasure in their midst, offering as it does an all-too-rare glimplse of the past and the pioneers of yesteryear.  The latter, including President Romesburg of UVSC, have caught the vision.  They see the importance of preserving the past, by letting ythe home continue to teach the lessons of history to present and future generations.

These visionaries of the futur see the home as a gem of the past, an alumni house, adorned with peoneer pieces and relics, such as those which Mary Elizabeth Gammon Bunnell used every day, a place where former and present students can savor their pioneer heritage and seek refuge from the frenetic pace of our times.

Article Written for Provo Centenial Catalog