MARY BINGHAM
Mary Bingham, the eldest child of Erastus Bingham and Lucinda Gates, was born April 1, 1820, at Concord, Vermont. She was sixteen years of age when her parents and family moved to Kirtland, Ohio, and later to Missouri, and then back to Illinois. She was old enough to remember the days of persecution.
She was married to Elijah Norman Freeman in the year, 1843, in ,Nauvoo, Illinois. May 20, 1845, she gave birth to a son which she named Elijah Norman Freeman in honor of his father.
She received her Endowments in the Nauvoo Temple 25th of January, 1846. May 6, 1846, she and her husband and baby left Nauvoo, Illinois, with the Bingham family and other Saints on their journey westward. They journeyed together as far as Council Bluffs; Iowa, here her husband volunteered his service to the United States Government and was recruited in the Mormon Battalion at Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Mary felt very bad to have her husband leave, but her faith in God gave her courage to continue on. She and her baby journeyed with her father and family in their travels across the plains to Utah. She received no word at all from her husband serving in the Mormon Battalion until after she arrived in the Salt Lake Valley September 19, 1847. Then she received a message reporting that her husband had died from fatigue and poor health on the 28th of November, 1846. His body had become weakened by the strain and hardship of the march to San Diego, California. He was buried four miles south of Secora on the Rio Grande (see Church Chronology Page 32 by Andrew Jensen). In the year, 1849, Mary Bingham Freeman was married to Willard Snow in Salt Lake City. While living in Salt Lake she gave birth to a daughter on the 9th of February, 1850. She enjoyed the companionship of her second husband, who served the community as councilor to Daniel Spencer in the Salt Lake Stake of Zion. In 1852 her husband, Willard Snow, was called on a mission to preside as President of the Scandanavian Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While he was on this mission, Mary gave birth to a son; and she named him Alma. He died soon after birth. Little did her husband think that he too would be summoned by death without seeing again in mortality his dear wife and daughter; but fate seemed to have decreed that such would be his lot and her sorrow. After he had served about one and one-half years in the mission field, because of ill health he was released to come home. On his way from Copenhagen, Denmark, to England he died Sunday, 21st of August, 1853, and was buried at sea. (See page 48 Church Chronology) by Andrew Jensen).
So within less than seven years, Mary Bingham had had lost a son, and two husbands, both of her husbands were buried in unknown graves while away from home serving their fellow men in civil and religious capacities. No one but she knew the sorrow and grief which those deaths brought to her soul; but her faith in God and her prayers gave her the necessary courage to be cheerful and patient, and to acknowledge the hand of God in all things. In December, 1853, she was married to Lorin Farr, President of Weber Stake of Zion, and a distinguished and active individual in commercial, civil, and religious life of Weber County.
Lorin Farr and his other two wives and families were united in love and respect for Mary, and made her life as consistently happy as possible. Her third husband erected a home for her consisting of a log cabin with two rooms on the ground floor and two rooms up stairs. In later years he erected a modern brick home on Washington Avenue for her, and did everything to make her life beautiful and happy. She administered to the afflicted, and watched over motherhood through the period of bringing precious souls into mortal life. She was always ready whenever, and wherever called. She was just another one of those great pioneer women. She died peacefully the 25th of September, 1893, at the home of her daughter, Mary Boyle. She was the mother of six children: Elijah Norman Freeman, Jr., born 20th May, 1845, who married 1st Anna Maria Poulson and 2nd Mary Ellen Farley; Mary Snow born 9th February, 1850 who married John Boyle; Alma Snow, who died soon after birth; Willard Farr, born 5th July, 1856, who married Elizabeth Ballantyne, and also a second wife, Mary Ann Ronney; Isaac Farwell Farr, born 23 May, 1850, who married Isabell Poulter; and Erastus Farr, born 14th. May, 1859 who died 28th June 1859.