An Inspirational Story They are Sego Lilies, Willie Excerpt from Obituary
The following story was taken from the life of David H. Cannon.
Grandfather was a counselor in the Saint George Latter-Day Saint Temple to president John D. T. McAllister. One day during a session in the temple the officiator made a mistake in the wording of an ordinance and grandfather stopped him and said it should be... and he repeated the words. They then called President McAllister and he said he was not sure which wording was correct. So, they held a prayer circle. After the prayer, grandfather said, "The work must go on and I feel impressed that my wording is correct. Use this wording and I will assume all responsibility." The session proceeded as he directed.
Grandfather knew what a serious responsibility he had taken upon himself as he knew the ordinance must be word perfect. He worried the rest of the day and that night he prayed to his Father in Heaven for reassurance that what he had done was right.
As he lay in his bed thinking about all of this, his bedroom door opened and President Brigham Young walked in. Although President Young had been dead many years, Grandfather said he looked just as natural as he had in life and he knew him immediately. He said to my grandfather, "Brother David, the wording of that ordinance should be... " and he repeated it as Grandfather said it should be. He then turned and left the room. Grandfather lay in his bed thinking about what had happened when his bedroom door opened and again President Young came into his room and repeated exactly what he had said before. A little while later this visitation was repeated a third time.
By now it was almost morning and as sleep was far from him, Grandfather decided to get dressed and go over to President McAllister's home and tell him what had happened. As Grandfather reached his own front gate there stood President McAllister. Grandfather said, "Why, Brother McAllister, I was just coming to your house to tell you of a great experience I have had tonight." Then he told him all about it. President McAllister said that he had the same three visits from Brigham Young and had come to tell Grandfather that his wording in the temple that day was correct.
The information for this pioneer tale came from two sources: First the family recital from the members of the David H. Cannon family; and second: a penciled memoranda found in the records kept by James G. Bleak - Historian and Stake Clerk.
The memo stated that at the High Council meeting David H. Cannon reported having made peace with his wife Wilhelmina ("Willie" as she was called). Weeping almost constantly since they arrived in St. George, she promised to give her husband cooperation in this Dixie mission, if only he would prove to her that there was beauty in this wasteland by bringing her one flower to pin upon her dress. David reported that the Sego Lillie, which he found as he returned from the field, were a beautiful lavender and thrilled his wife, who said as she kissed her husband, "Any valley that can produce so much beauty is worth every effort on the part of men, and the wholehearted cooperation of every woman." This she henceforth willingly gave as long as she lived, and she lived to be near ninety.
Wilhelmina L. Mousley was hardly cut out to be a pioneer woman. She was born and reared in a back bay family in Boston. True, she had been self-supporting for a time working as a governess in well-to-do families, She married David H. Cannon in January 1859 -- almost immediately he left for a mission to England, and their first son David H. Cannon, Jr. was almost ten months old before his father saw him.
We can easily imagine the loneliness and privations she endured at this time.
Wilhelmina was small (about 5 feet tall and weighted around 100 lbs.) She had fine sensitive features. She loved books, poetry, biography -- she enjoyed beautiful music and always endeavored to make a spot of beauty with whatever kind of home she had.
David H. Cannon returned from his mission on August 16, 1861. In preparation for winter he began hauling wood from Cottonwood Canyon. A wagon load of wood tipped over on him, resulting in a broken hip. He was on crutches at the time of the October Conference where he, among the others of the original Dixie Pioneers, was called to Dixie.
At the time of the call to the Dixie Mission, Wilhelmina Cannon had barely achieved something like a home in Salt Lake City. We can understand how heart-breaking it was for her to leave this newly-made home and set out for an unknown destination in the desert wilderness.
On the third of November 1861, David H. Cannon, his wife and his small son, David, Jr. left Salt Lake City in company with those originally called to settle in St. George.
After a full month of back-breaking travel, creaking endlessly through desert sand, bumping and swaying over rocks, toiling up steep grades and sliding precariously down steeper ones, building roads as they came, the group arrived at the camp ground where the old adobe yard was placed.
What a sight met the eyes of Wilhelmina Cannon! Hills and hills! -- black and red! A valley full of red sand, grease-wood, mesquite and rabbit brush.
Here on the east side of the valley they camped in their wagons until the city could be surveyed and lots drawn. Almost at once young David Cannon began their simple home. There was no floor in this first house -- not much more than four walls and a roof.
Wilhelmina was glad for the tiny house, and she tried bravely to stand against the constant struggle of wind, sand, rain and mud. No curtains, no carpets, no pictures -- only the barest essentials. And always there were the desolate, barren hills... the emptiness... the barrenness, and the awful raw red of hills and sand. She felt swallowed up and defeated.
David spent his days working in the fields. Crops must be planted as soon as possible.
Often as she washed and cooked and labored with only her small son for company, her eyes would brim over with tears of loneliness and frustrations. Often David found her weeping. She knew she should be happy wherever he was. Having him and the baby and the gospel ought to be enough, but it wasn't
Wilhelmina shuddered and turned her eyes from the scene visible from her doorway.
“Oh David,” she said, “If you could show me anything about this country that was lovely or beautiful -- one single thing."
"And if I could?" he asked.
"Then I'd feel it was worthwhile staying here and working for the future."
David said, softly to himself, "One single thing of beauty."
Now April was melting into May. The fields of the Dixie Mission had been plowed and planted. Each trip David made home from the fields he recalled his wife's declaration. His eyes constantly searched for something beautiful, a flower -- some spot of beauty in this barren land.
Willie continued to battle dirt, insects and now heat. She banked her fire, she carried water, scrubbed her clothes to snowy whiteness, doing all the household chores until at night her small body ached with fatigue. But her heart was not in it. She didn't feel any strength of conquest. She had no faith that this barrenness could ever be beautiful and blossom as a rose.
Then one day David returning form the fields found what he was seeking. It was the beautiful sego lily. Their lovely lavender cups, so delicately shaped and shaded -- their golden brown eyes marked as by a master's brush!
Carefully he picked the gorgeous blossoms from the red sand bank above the stream. More carefully he carried them home.
To Wilhelmina he gave the beautiful flowers -- an offering of his devotion and faith.
"They are Sego Lilies, Willie," he said. "Later the hills around here will be covered with them, they say. They are beautiful aren't they?"
"Oh, David, they are the loveliest things I've ever seen. They're like fairy bells or something out of this world. How blind I've been! Any land that can produce beauty like this is worth every effort on the part of every man and woman!
From that time on friends and family agree that Wilhelmina Cannon had only praise for this land where she lived until she was nearly ninety years old. And although she and David have passed for this earth, the beautiful Sego Lilies still bloom in all their glory on the hills around St. George.
David H. Cannon was born at Liverpool, England, April 23, 1838, the son of George and Ann Quayle Cannon, natives of the Isle of Man. There were seven children in the family, namely George Q, Mary Alice, Ann, Angus, John, David H., and Leonora. They accepted the gospel at the hands of Elders John Taylor and Parley P. Pratt in February, 1840. David was blessed into the Church Feb 13, 1840.
The family sailed for America September 17, 1842, on the ship "Sydney." The mother died October 28, three days out form New Orleans and was buried at sea. On landing at New Orleans the whole family was stricken with a fever, which delayed the trip to Nauvoo.
During the winter of 1843-44 the father married Mary White, by whom he had another daughter, born a few months after his death, which occurred August 17, 1844. At the time Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred, George Cannon made the drag on which the bodies were brought to Nauvoo. He also made the death masks of the two. David was with his father at that time and after clipping a lock of the prophet's hair which had become fastened in the plaster mask, the father handed David the scissors to hold while he completed the work.
Shortly after the death of the father, Mary Alice married Charles Lambert, who was appointed by Judge Styles as guardian for David, his brother, Angus, and his sister, Leonora, while George Q and Ann made their home with John Taylor and his wife. Leonora, their father's sister. After crossing the river at the time of the exodus, David accompanied Charles Lambert back to Nauvoo to collect a debt owed him. The latter was caught by the mob who took him to the river and baptized him 12 times. He was then released and returning to the city they acquired a yoke of oxen for the Journey to Winter Quarters. During the winter the Indians killed off their cattle, requiring Elder Lambert to go into Missouri to work for a new outfit before starting for the west. In the fall of 1847 they returned from Missouri with the intention of starting to Utah in the spring of 1848, but in crossing the river the wagon broke through the ice with everything they had. They returned to Missouri and in 1849 came to Utah, arriving at Sal Lake about the middle of October.
When David arrived he learned that his brother, George Q., had left for California three days previously, to work during the winter and proceed in the spring to the Hawaiian Islands, where he filled a mission and translated the Book of Mormon into the Hawaiian language.
David went to work in June 1850 for the Dessert News as its first apprentice. Willard Richards was editor. Horace K. Whitney, foreman, and Brigham H. Young, compositor and pressman.
He was called May 2, 1856, on a mission to California, ordained a priest and on May 3 started with a few clothes in a pillow slip and five shillings in his pocket, given him by his sister, Mary Alice, after passing through the gate on his way. He drove a team for William Jennings to Carson valley, and walked across the Sierra Nevada mountains to Placerville. He became lost in the mountains and was provided with food and directed which way to go in a miraculous manner in answer to his prayer. He arrived at Placerville on Saturday, July 4, 1856, during a celebration. Having no money and not being able to find a place to stay, he slept in a livery stable that night. The next morning he met Henry Peck of Salt Lake, who paid him $1.50 which he owed him and with this David bought a ticket on the stage line to Sacramento. He then went up the canyon for a walk, and on looking back saw a dense smoke and on returning found the town on fire. The flames consumed all the buildings except the telegraph office and the stable where his bundle of clothes and his ticket were left. During the fire quantities of crackers and hardtack and other food were thrown into the street and left and he obtained what he needed. He again slept in the stable and next morning took stage for Sacramento. Here he was directed to the home of J. H. Baldwin, where he received food and shelter and had his clothes washed though Mrs. Baldwin had previously been very bitter against the "Mormons" and forbade her husband bringing any of them to the house. Next morning he succeeded in working his passage by boat to San Francisco, where he reported July 8, 1856 at the mission home.
During this mission in California, he spent most of his time working as a typesetter in the printing office of the Western Standard, then published by his brother, George Q. Cannon, and doing a little towards publishing the Book of Mormon in the Hawaiian language. On the approach of Johnson's army toward Utah in 1857 he was called home and after procuring a wagon and two yoke of mules he and Elizabeth, the wife of George Q., and her infant son, and made the trip to Utah, arriving at Cedar City Christmas eve, and reaching Salt Lake City on January 1, 1858. He hauled wood on shares from Mill Creek canyon, assisted by his brother, George Q., after his arrival from California in February, and in April he assisted in removing the the Deseret News plant to Fillmore, where it was planned to publish the paper.
The following winter he worked on the "Mountaineer," a paper published by S. N. Blair and James Ferguson. January 15, 1859, he married Wilhelmina Mousley and in the fall of that year went on a mission to England. Returning in the spring of 1861. He was called to assist Jacob Gates as emigration agent and while waiting for the first company to arrive from England, visited Martin Harris at Kirkland, Ohio, and David Whitmer at Richmond Missouri, who each bore testimony to him regarding the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and said the angel came and showed them the plates and said they were a true history of the ancient inhabitants of America and that they were translated by the gift and power of God.
Meeting the company of emigrants at New York May 18, he accompanied them to Omaha, where he and Jacob Gates entered into a contract with J. H. Creighton to furnish 75 men to set telegraph poles from the Missouri river to Salt Lake, where they were to be delivered not later than November 15, 1861. David was then placed in charge of a company of 270 people, 68 wagons and some stock, and started for Utah June 1, arriving there August 16.
At the conference, Oct 6, 1861, he was called to assist in colonizing Utah's Dixie, and with his family left Salt Lake City November 3, arriving at the old camp ground one mile east of St. George, December 3, 1861. The town was then laid out, and in January the people left the camp ground and moved onto the lots assigned to them.
November 14, 1862, he was made a member of the high council of the Dixie mission and in 1867 chosen a counselor to President Erastus Snow in the mission, which position he held until April, 1877, when he became bishop of the Fourth ward of St. George. During the winter of 1863-64 he labored as a missionary among the Moqui Indians and on Jan 9, 1877, was called by President Brigham Young to labor in the St. George temple. On April 17, 1877 he was set apart to assist President Wilford Woodruff and in May, 1884, assisted in the dedicatory services in the Logan temple and in opening it for ordinance work, baptizing the first 50 people in its font.
He was set apart June 14, 1884 as assistant to President J. D. McAllister of the St. George temple and April 14 was chosen second counselor in the presidency of the St. George stake. He was called by telegraph to take charge of the St. George temple, Feb 21, 1893, while President McAllister assisted in the opening of the Salt Lake temple and on Aug 28m, 1893 was appointed by President Wilford Woodruff as president of the temple. In September, 1893 he was called as first counselor to President Daniel D. McArthur of the St. George stake, which position he held until June 11, 1901, when he became senior member of the high council, from which he was released, March 18, 1923.
David H. Cannon died at his home in St. George at 5:00 am, December 24, 1924 passing peacefully away after less than an hour's illness. He was active until the day of his death, having solemnized two marriages in the temple the previous day.