LOUISA LETITIA (LETTIE) PEERY - 1911 Photo

Louisa Letitia (Lettie) Peery Richards was born 14 July 1860, in Burke's Garden, Tazewell County, in Southwest Virginia, the second of three children of David Harold Peery and Nancy Campbell Higgingotham Peery. Her father was a successful merchant in Burke's Garden. People came from all around to do business with him at his store.

On April 12, 1861, when Lettie was 9 months old, the Civil War officially began when Confederate forces bombarded the Union controlled Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay.

By the end of September 1862, six family members had died, mostly of Typhoid fever, including her mother, two young brothers--Thomas Carnahan Peery and William Harold Peery; grandfather Major David Peery and grandmother Eleanor Harman Peery; and grandfather William Elliot Higginbotham.

Her father volunteeered to serve as an officer in the army of the Confederate States of America. He came down with Typhoid twice, nearly dying both times. While he was in the army, Union soldiers burned his store and warehouses where he stored his merchandise. It was a total loss with no insurance.

The Peery and Higginbotham families were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1864, Lettie's father and grandmother, Louis Ward Higginbotham decided to leave Burke's Garden and emigrate to Utah, to be among the Mornon people. Lettie, who was four years old, together with her mothers surviving Higginbotham siblings--Simon Shelby, Elizabeth Letitia and Francis David were to travel west with the family.

On June 4, 1864, they left Omaha in three covered wagons, each with ox teams, with an independent company led by Captain William Pritchett. After a hazardous trip across the plains, they arrived in Salt Lake City on August 31, 1864. In the fall of 1866, they settled in Ogden, Weber County, 35 miles north of Salt Lake City.

On 30 Dec 1852, Lettie married Charles Comstock Richards, an attorney. They resided in Ogden, where they had eight children, six boys and 2 girls.

By Paul Davis Peery, nephew

Ogden City Cemetery, Ogden, Weber County, Utah, USA

Ogden City Cemetery, Ogden, Weber County, Utah, USA