Bump in the Road: Eunice Rosella Teeples

This month is the 50th anniversary of Eunice Rosella's death, so I thought I'd choose her next. I don't yet have any pictures of her, and very few stories, so I guess Grandma Heagy gets to be quizzed next. This is her maternal grandma. I particularly want to find a nice picture because then I can add a generation on my maternal line picture frame with all the women in the line at about the same age, around our wedding days. This story comes from Eunice's mother's personal history. Her name was Harriet Betsy Cook.

(Me-->Mom-->Beverly Ely-->LaRue McCann-->Eunice Rosella Teeples)

Harriet and her husband, William Randolph Teeples, were asked to settle in the Gila River area of Arizona. This is where Eunice was born. William Randolph Teeples died before they had been there long, and Harriet decided to go back to the Bear Lake area where the rest of her family was. In a wagon, with her children, by herself. Luckily, a young man, a neighbor, offered to help her travel when he heard the plan. Most of the history I have of her is about this wild trip they went on. Here is an excerpt.

"We started on the next day and while traveling along a side hill the upper front wheel of the wagon struck a large rock and the lower wheel dropped into a hole. It gave such a sudden jolt that it threw my three year old baby girl Eunice out over the front wheel into a sharp rock, and my fourteen year old boy was thrown over her, onto the ground. It did not hurt the boy, but the baby girl lay so still and white. I stopped the team and jumped out. Her brother had lifted her and ran to me with her in his arms. Her face was covered with blood and her head dropped down. I took her in my arms and ran to a little stream where I bathed her face in cold water. The fall had cut a large gash in her cheek through which I could see her teeth. She was some time coming to herself. This had all come so suddenly and I was so excited trying to bring her out of danger that I had hardly realized what had happened. When she opened her eyes and looked at me and began to moan, I began to shake and tremble and became so weak that I fairly tottered up and laid her on the bedding in the wagon. I then fell upon my knees and thanked the Lord with all my sould for sparing her life. She could not raise her head again that day but was much better the next morning."

This story makes me think of something I read this morning, Mosiah 9:17, "For we were awakened to a remembrance of the deliverance of our fathers." One thing I hope this collection of stories will do is to remind us how much the Lord loves us and has blessed our family and will continue to bless us.

Eunice Rosella Teeples McCann, wedding picture