- Lorena Fitzgerald Nebeker, wife of John Nebeker was born April 25, 1819 in Monongahela County, Pennsylvania. The daughter fo JOhn Fitzgerald and Leah Phillips.
The Fitzgeralds are a very ancient branch of the noble and illustrious race of Geraldines seated at an early period at the castle of Pallice, in the county of Limerick, Ireland.
Maurice Fitzgerald, one of the first and principal invaders of Ireland first assumed that surname instead of Geraldine. He landed in Ireland during the reign of King Henry II, A.D. 1169.
Laurena Fitzgerald was the youngest of a family of five children. O her mother's side, she was descended from an old Pennsylvania Dutch family. Her mother being the daughter of a Methodist Minister. When she was but a child, her father moved to Reily, Butler County, Ohio. Which locality at that time was a dense forest.
As a child, she was a Bible reader and she received valuable training in sewing from her mother who had been a tailoress.
At the age of sixteen, she was married to John Nebeker, on October 25, 1835. They made their home at Reiley, Ohio for a time, and then moved to Vermillion County, Illinois, were she became a convert to "Mormonism" in 1842.
She was the first person bearing the name of Nebeker to join the Church. Four years later her husband was baptized. When the Elders first brought the gospel to her home, they were frequently in need of clothing, and on such occasions she would get busy with her needle and fit them out with what they needed.
In the fall of 1846, with her husband, she left her home in Vermillion County, and journeyed to Missouri River near Council Bluffs, Iowa, where they spent the following winter. With their own family of five children, George Nebeker, her husband's youngest brother, and her older sister, Barbara Fitzgerald, they crossed the plains in Captain George B. Wallace's Fifty. Her husband being Captain of Ten in said Fifty. They arrived in Salt Lake Valley September 26, 1847.
Sister Nebeker endured the hardships and privations connected with the settling of Salt Lake City. During the cricket famine she was 11 weeks without a loaf of bread in the house and there were nine in the family. Sister Nebeker was a very industrious, economical, and thoroughly practical individual.
In making homespun cloth and stocking yarn and other needed articles, she could scarcely be excelled by any other women. She was unusually benevolent and hospitable and became universally known and beloved because of her acts of charity.
She waited on prisoners, who were confined in her home with ball and chain, from lack of other quarters. At the time her husband was Assistant Marshall to John Van Cott and Horace S. Eldredge. The loss of an eight year old boy (Wiley) by drowning at the Warm Springs, July 23, 1860 was a most severe blow to her.
In the early sixties, when her husband was colonizing Southern Utah, he ran into a band of Piute Indians who had a seven year or eight year old boy whom they were going to kill because his parents were dead. Brother Nebeker traded the Indians some horses for the boy and brought him to Salt Lake City, where he was reared in the Nebeker home.
The Indian boy (Richard Pitarent) was a dutiful son to his foster mother.
The John Nebeker home, located at 446 West 2nd North Street, and built in 1856 was when first erected one of the best houses in Salt Lake Valley and it was always a place of hospitality and good cheer.
Sister Nebeker was the mother of thirteen (13) children. Of these 5 boys and 4 girls, namely Perry, Ira, Aaron, Ashton, Rosella, Almira J. Prescinda, Laura, and Aquila grew to manhood and womanhood.
Sister Nebeker was also a mother to her weakly sister Barbara who was in poor health for over forty (40) years.
When over sixty (60) years of age she took a motherless infant grand-daughter to raise; and also raised two older grand-daughters who had lost their mother.
Sister Nebeker was fond of poetry and took great interest in current events.
She died February 7, 1898 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Taken from: L>D>S> Biographical Encyclopedia Vol. 3 Page 178
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1819 - 1898 (78 år)
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