Nabby Howe Young: Getting to know Brigham’s mother (comment by Brigham)

Nabby Howe Young: Getting to know Brigham’s mother
By Susan Evans McCloud
Deseret News/Thursday July 14, 2011
 On June 11, 1815, Nabby Howe Young died of consumption, the disease which had been torturing her flesh and her spirit for many years. Ten days before, her ninth child and fourth son, Brigham, observed his 14th birthday.
 Abigail “Nabby’ Howe was one of five sisters, all pretty, vivacious girls, all possessing sweet, kindly personalities and musical talent, often performing duets of the simple folk songs enjoyed so much in that day. According to the description left by Brigham’s daughter Susa, Abigail “Nabby” Howe “had blue eyes, with yellowish brown hair, folded in natural waves and ringlets across her shapely brow.”
 Nabby married John Young when she was only 19 years old—on All-Hallows Eve, Oct. 31, 1785. He was a handsome, promising Revolutionary soldier, and times were hopeful, with the colonies having just won their independence, land available for farming and the commercial center of Boston nearby. Nabby entered marriage with a devout religious nature and a delightful sense of humor, which balance helped her to endure the many trials of her shortened life.
  By 1799, John and Nabby had lived in Hopkinton for more than 10 years, and now had 8 children to feed, clothe and raise. Why did John Young pick up and leave in the middle of the winter of 1800-1801, taking his pregnant wife and his children through the bitter New England weather to settle in Whitingham, Vt.?
 Here, as summer greened and the weather softened, Brigham was born on the first day of June 1801. Because of Nabby’s physical weakness, the daughters took the little one under their wing, and Fanny, not quite 14, carried him around on her hip while she did her household chores.
 Life was harsh, but there were love and unity in the Young home. Brigham learned to cooperate, he learned to obey his strict Methodist father: “It was a word and a blow with my father, but the blow came first,” he later expressed. But, it was remarkable that Nabby quietly went forward being herself, realizing the importance of her influence in the home. As Susa said, “Her sympathies were so broad, her vision so clear, her grasp of human values so perfect that friends would come for her when their children were married and take her in a wagon or sleigh to spend a few days in counsel and assistance to young couples who were starting out life.”
 After only three years in Whitingham, John moved his family to Sherburne, N.Y. again, with high hopes and hard labor, clearing land for a farm. Here, 14 year old Nabby, a daughter who was named for her mother, died of consumption.
 In this household Brigham learned the beauty of suffering with faith, dignity and even humor. He learned the power of example. He learned the importance of godliness. His brother, Lorenzo, described their mother in the following vivid words:
 “She was a praying, fervent woman. She frequently called me to her bedside and counseled me to be a good man that the Lord might bless my life. On one occasion she told me that if I would not neglect to pray to my Heavenly Father, he would send a guardian angel to protect me in the danger to which I might be exposed.”
 Nabby softened her husband’s strict ways, and from her Brigham learned how to be a tender, nurturing parent, as the shape of his character began to be formed. His daughter Susa wrote; “The Lion House was the loved home of as healthy and happy a family…..as ever dwelt beneath a roof. Of this I speak with knowledge in this intimate revelation of Brigham Young’s home life, for I was the first child born under its unique roof…In all my life in that beloved home I never heard my father speak an unkind or irritable word to one of his wives.”
 Brigham, following the teachings of the Prophet Joseph, instructed men that women should be treated with deference and respect. “The man who treats a woman disrespectfully,” he taught, “does not know that his mother and sisters were women.”
 Brigham held women in the highest, most tender regard, and labored to promote their well-being, and secure opportunities for them. He believed in women and their God-given capacity to lift, support and inspire men. He paid a reverent tribute to his mother:
 “Of my mother—she that bore me—I can say, no better woman ever lived in the world than she was…my mother taught her children all the time to honor the name of the Father and the Son, and to reverence the Holy Book. She said, “Read it, observe its precepts and apply them to your lives as far as you can. Do everything that is good; do nothing that is evil; and if you see any persons in distress, administer to their wants; never suffer anger to arise in your bosoms, for if you do, you may be over-come by evil.”
 These were the great truths Brigham lived by, picking up the threads of his mother’s sacred faith and weaving them into his life—acting “the part of a father to all,” and bringing the children of Israel safely home to the valleys of Deseret.
 It is the light of the mother that shines in the souls of her children. All of Abigail’s family joined the LDS Church and lived lives of faithful, devoted service, blessing others, as their mother had taught them to do.
 This, of course, was the consummate tribute to a woman who took what little life gave her without complaint—magnifying her gifts, magnifying the truth she cherished—raising up a son to become a Prophet of God.

Abigail Howe (1765-1815)

Abigail Howe (1765-1815)
[The following history was written by Susa Young Gates and published in The Juvenile Instructor, January 1924]
Abigail Howe was born in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, on the 3rd of May, 1766...She was but nineteen years of age when she married a Revolutionary soldier named John Young.
There were five Howe sisters, and all were said by pioneers who knew them to be pretty girls, vivacious, musical and very popular in their pioneer communities. Theodosia Kimball Young, wife of Brigham Young's oldest brother, John, and Maria Haven Burton, wife of Bishop Robert T. Burton, who lived in the same village and knew them well, bore testimony to the gentle vivacious, and attractive characters of those Howe girls. They were all singers and many social affairs were brightened by the duets and simple folk songs essayed by the Howe sisters. All were very devout and deeply concerned with Puritan religious life.
Abigail herself, though not as tall as some of her sisters, was a little above medium height. She had blue eyes, with yellowish brown hair, folded in natural waves and ringlets across her shapely brow. She was exceedingly methodical and orderly in her temperament. Neatness, as the old term was used, belonged to her as of inherited right. Not robust in her constitution, she burned up her fires of youth in impetuous toil while constantly on the move with her pioneering husband. She was the mother of eleven children. She died 11th of January, 1815.
She was brought up in Shrewsbury, which is not far from Hopkinton. Those little New England towns fairly joined each other through their outstretched farms. Sleighing parties, quilting bees, picnics and religious revivals drew the young people together from contiguous settlements. Abigail, or Nabby, as she was nicknamed, was skilled in housewifely arts, knitting, hemstitching, a little embroidering, and a great deal of spinning and weaving, baking, scrubbing and household adjustment occupying her busy hours. She had unquestionably good schooling, such as was possible for prosperous farmers in those colonial days, and she helped her children over their primary pitfalls. She was intensely humorous in her tendencies and that sense of humor formed a balance which carried her over the frequent pilgrimages of her husband to settle up new countries, leaving her with the difficult burdens of childbearing under such circumstances, child-rearing and homemaking.
The family lived sixteen years in Hopkinton, Mass. Here the most of the children were born. Moving in January, 1801, in the violently cold season of New England weather, she accompanied her husband, John Young, into the remote hills of Vermont, settling in the little village of Whitingham, Windham County, living there long enough for Brigham Young to be born, June 1st, 1801, in a log cabin at the edge of the village. Then the family removed to Sherburn, Chenango County, New York, but did not remain there very long. In 1807 they removed to Smyrna, Chenango County, New York, where her younger son, Lorenzo was born. Moving again to Genoa County, New York, the mother died there the 11th of June, 1815. The mother's health was poor for a long time, and it was a family tradition that Fanny, the elder sister, "raised" Brigham. It is a remarkable thing that all but one of Abigail Howe's children, six daughters and five sons grew up, married and all joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with their families, all remaining faithful to the end...
Abigail Howe Young was a born reformer, so we are told. She was an invalid the last few years of her life, troubled with the frequent New England complaint of consumption, but she kept an active finger on the pulse of the neighborhood. Her sympathies were so broad, her vision was so clear, her grasp of human values so perfect that friends would come for her when their children married and take her in wagon or sleigh to spend a few days in counsel and assistance to young couples who were starting out in life. She was greatly beloved by her associates. Her children are her noblest monument.
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The ChildrenNancy Young (1786-1860
Fanny Young (1787-1859)
Rhoda Young (1789-1841)
John Young (1792-1870)
Nabby Young (1793-1807)
Susannah Young (1795-1852)
Joseph Young (1797-1881)
Phinehas Howe Young (1799-1879)
Brigham Young (1801-1877)
Louisa Young (1804-1833)
Lorenzo Dow Young (1807-1895)

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ckph/youngj.html