Elizabeth Maria Lambert (1874-1940)
and
Joseph Smith Porter (1865-1949)

On December 29, 1874, there was welcomed with love-hungry arms a tiny baby girl. This little girl, now known as Elizabeth Maria Lambert Porter, came to a humble adobe house on 7th South Street, between 3rd and 4th West in Salt Lake City, Utah. A daughter of pioneers, she was born into a home fashioned by pioneers, and to a city rapidly becoming urbanized as the center of a pioneering territory, which was rapidly radiating in all directions. Her mother, Euphemia M. Gilhespy, had been born May 29, 1850, at Newcastle on Tyne; and her father, Charles Lambert, claimed England as his birthplace also, being born in Yorkshire, August 30, 1816.

Theirs had been a unique romance-one truly typical of early Utah days. Euphemia had, with her good mother, who used to entertain the missionaries and even pawn or sell her best clothes in order to feed them, responded to the call of the gospel, and hastened away to Zion. On the ship coming over she became acquainted with Charles, also Zion-bound, but he was returning from a mission, and Utah was not an unknown, mysterious land to him. Much attracted by this lovely, spiritually radiant young country-woman of his, Charles had bestowed upon her much courteous interested attention, happy to answer her eager questions about her future homeland; but it was not until after she and her family settled in their little home on 7th South, that he came to her saying: "I love thee, girl, and want thee to be my wife."

Happily Euphemia consented, for she was not too young nor too inexperienced to recognize the sterling qualities of a real man. Besides, her heart's desire had been to be considered worthy by God to enter into Celestial marriage. And so, after prayerful consideration, she accepted his proposal, and they received their endowments together in the Endowment House, the temple, which Charles, an expert mechanic, was assisting to erect, it being not yet completed.

Until Charles could manage to build her her own dearly beloved home on 1057 South 2nd West, Euphemia shared the adobe home with her mother, who died when Elizabeth was just over a year old. Soon after her mother's passing, which Euphemia felt very deeply, she moved into her new home, which she loved very much.

Charles love it, too, and he loved to retreat to it. He called it his "haven of rest." It is only natural that he would enjoy himself with a family who worshiped him as his did. It was a "red-letter" day to the children every time he came home, and Charles must have adored their clamorous embraces, their eagerness to be near him and to do things for him. Frequently - for he was not only affectionate but very demonstrative, he would say to Euphemia: "Come, girl, and sit on my lap a bit." Elizabeth (or "Betsy" as she was called then, and "Lizzie" now) likes to tell of the time, she was only fifteen then, when her father found out that she had received her first love-letter, just a short while before his death. He had taken her, in whimsical playfulness, upon his lap and said, "My little girl getting love-letters already," and after he had bantered a little with her, he held her closer as, in all seriousness, he said, "You are a beautiful girl, dear. The fellow who gets my daughter will be a lucky man. But don't forget to pray to our Heavenly Father to be guided to the right one. Be sure to get the one you love."

Elizabeth's childhood days were happy, as is the childhood of every youngster born into a loving and congenial home, where real values are sought. She was active in the church affairs of the Fourth Ward. At the age of three, she recited in Sunday School a little verse commencing: "It is a sin to steal a pin, much more a greater thing." Before she was well into her teens she was teaching in Primary and Sunday School. She was baptized 5 June 1883 and endowed 29 May 1899.

In the days of her budding young womanhood it was "Rae" (Rachel Porter Smith) who became her bosom pal. Rae had come to Salt Lake from Porterville to live with her sister, Addie P. Hunter, and family. Also sharing the Hunter home was one of Rae's brothers, Hyrum, attending the L.D.S. Business College. He liked Rae's friend, and picked her out as a good companion for his older brother, Joseph. He even made bold enough to confide his selection to that brother, who retorted somewhat haughtily: "I thank you for your interest in me, but I think that I am capable of picking out my own wife."

But this was before he met Elizabeth. In fact, most of his family had met her before he did, as he was on a three years mission at the time the friendship of Rae and Bessie had ripened. And so, when Elizabeth accompanied Rae home one snowy Christmas season, she didn't meet there the much talked of missionary brother, but she did see his picture and she learned to love and to be loved by, other members of the family. In fact, she appealed so much to the father that he is reported to have said: "I hope one of my boys marries that girl."

As for Elizabeth herself, she enjoyed the family and was duly impressed by mother Porter's reminiscences of her son, Joseph. She was even more impressed by his photograph, which left her with the conviction that she had seen the likeness of her future husband. Yet these were but transient silhouettes in a young, eager life filled with actual experiences - her Relief Society Nursing course under Dr. Shipp, her work in the millinery department of the Z.C.M.I., her teaching activities in the church, her many young men friends. Even that Christmas of her visit to Porterville she had mischievously played a joke on one of her admirers, sending to him a doll, hidden with the recesses of numerous boxes, and addressed by Addie Hunter, and mailed from Farmington in order to mislead him as to the identity of the sender.

It was during this first visit at Porterville that Elizabeth received her first patriarchal blessing, given to her by "Uncle" lama Porter. ... One of the significant things about the blessing was that it promised her surely that she would be a mother. In after years, when six doctors told her that it would be impossible for her to ever become a mother, she took comfort from this blessing, and her faith didn't falter. She knew that God would keep his word, and that she was to have a family of her own.

Back in Salt Lake again, the girls plunged with renewed energy into their work. Rae, to her dress-making, Bessie to her millinery.

Among her experiences of that period one stands out especially to Bessie. It was when she found her mother almost dead, cold and unconscious, and being unable to find some elders, she had annointed and prayed for the dear one's recovery herself. Then she rubbed her mother's cold limbs until the warm life-blood started circulating, and she showed unmistakable signs of recuperation. This was the first but by no means the only, time that Elizabeth's great gift of faith and nursing ability was used to heal the sick. It was but the beginning of one of many diverging streams of activity of her life.

The time sped by, until one day Rae informed Bessie that her brother had returned from his mission and was in Salt Lake. After their introduction, Joseph divided his attentions to the sister of a missionary friend with Lizzie, as he chose to call her. Elizabeth was not jealous-nor was she worried about it. "Could it be that I was wrong?" she asked herself, recalling her conviction about Joseph. But she was unafraid. She knew her "own" would come to her.

And it did. Even though Joseph, mischievously seeking her out, caught her in the midst of her morning's cleaning in an old faded dress that had just torn out at both shoulders while she was working, and which the disconcerted maid tried to hide by instinctively crossing her chest so that each palm covered a hole. Just the same, the following morning, as Joseph and his brother, Hyrum, were traveling horse-back over the mountains to Porterville, and Hyrum asked: "How do you like Miss Lambert?" Joseph replied laconically, "Pretty well. I became engaged to her last night." Hyrum's retort was equally laconic: "She's the one I had picked out for you."

The wedding occurred early the next spring, on March 29, 1899, in the Salt Lake Temple. In the meantime, most of their courting had been done by correspondence, as Joseph had been called on another short M.I.A. mission to Idaho for the winter months. In her mother's home a lovely reception was given, at which Lizzie wore a gorgeous blue wedding dress made by Rae, who made also the white one she wore to the temple. The dresses had yards and yards of ruffling, to be made up years later into dresses for Faith, the eldest child of the union.

For awhile after their marriage, bride and groom both worked in the temple, until Joseph had to leave for his ranch in Star Valley, Wyoming, where he prepared a home for Lizzie. In July, he returned for her, taking Rae back with them also. Real pioneering had begun for the young bride.

While Joseph pursued his outdoor tasks of taming the wilderness and caring for his cattle and other stock, Lizzie proceeded to make a little paradise out of the simple shack, which was to serve as their dwelling place. It was a discouraging situation. One autumn morning, Joseph, coming in unexpectedly, found his young wife crying as she stuffed rags between the cracks of the kitchen walls. "I can't help it," she sobbed in response to his anxious query. "I'm not complaining, but it's so much different from the kind of home I had dreamed of."

"I know it isn't much of a mansion," Joseph admitted, "but it's the best we can do now."

Before long, however, it began to take on aspects just as inviting as a palace to Joseph. With the kitchen stove moved to the backroom and the new furniture which had been shipped from Salt Lake arranged into the freshly papered and cleaned front room, their home assumed an unusually attractive appearance. The artist in Lizzie could not be suppressed, even in the most discouraging of rough, uncultured and frontier circumstances.

One of the happiest advantages of pioneer life is the democracy which not only accepts, but demands, the talents of everybody. There is no cast system, no "holier-than-thou" society. Whatever you can do you have an opportunity to do, and thus you are kept busy and filled with the contentment of knowing that you are filling a useful niche in the world.

Joseph with his missionary experience, and Lizzie with her talent for teaching and her training in Salt Lake in the church, were absorbed at once into positions of service. They were leaders in the social activities of the district, and took leading parts in the plays.

Surely there was plenty to do for both Joseph and Lizzie! When they took James Gilhespie, a twelve-year-old cousin of Lizzie's, whose mother had died and left a large family, they added still another responsibility to their many duties, although James soon became quite a help to Joseph. But with keeping up her home, laundry, feeding several hired men during the summer, and taking care of her church duties, Lizzie had little time to realize just how profound a change had come into her life.

In the winter time, when there was not much to do on the farm, Joseph found it practical to leave the valley for several months, and go to Salt Lake to work. During the second winter after his marriage, he became enthused about the movement centering around Raymond, Canada. A number of Saints were going out to colonize and develop that region, whose fertile soil offered boundless opportunity. It was too much of a temptation for the pioneer-hearted Joseph. Since he was just getting started, he might as well go to the right place. When he returned to Star Valley the next spring, then, it was not to prepare for his summer's work there, but to pack up for Canada. With two carloads of cattle, chickens, implements, and furniture, Joseph and James entrained for Canada. Once there, they immediately put in beets and other garden stuff, and started to get a house ready for Lizzie who joined them in July.

Thus it was that the early years of the twentieth century found Joseph and Lizzie becoming a part of the fascinating, romantic Canadian group from Utah ... Certainly life had a number of unique and precious experiences to offer them there.

First of all came their home and their crops. When Lizzie had arrived in Sterling, Canada, she had been met by Joseph and conveyed in a big lumber wagon to a makeshift home in a barn, as the house was not yet finished. Steadily the work progressed on their home, however, until soon they had a lovely residence, one half block off Broadway - the only house in Raymond with a glass door. In order to get his land under rapid cultivation, Joseph hired three men; and cooking for them besides Joseph and James, kept Lizzie well-occupied within the walls of her home.

Nevertheless, she found time for a great deal of community service. The Alberta Stake was divided at this time, and the process of reorganization opened up places for both Joseph and Lizzie, he in the Sunday School Stake Board, she, as second counselor to Jennie Brimhall Knight in the Stake Y.L.M.I.A. Nor was that all. She was responsible for a group of seventy-five children. She loved this work, for she was a "natural-born" teacher. Children adored her. Brother King said to her once: "You certainly have the love of the children."

"I'd rather have their love than the admiration of grown-ups," Lizzie answered.

Lizzie loved to plan socials for the little ones. A party that was long remembered was given for the Kindergarten youngsters. All the young ladies of the ward wanted to help. They pitched a tent on the beautiful expanse of the natural grass that abounded in that vicinity. One little girl, whose birthday it was, was made queen, and wore a crown of sweet peas. Her throne was a sheet-draped chair on a box.

Little makeshifts such as these were typical of their life in Canada. One had to be ingenious, and it was lots of fun. Lizzie painted scenes upon canvas, using blueing for the sky, and soot for the outlines of mountains and trees, for their plays, and took the feminine lead in a few of them.

Several years sped by in much the same manner. Lizzie's routine would have been considerably changed had she accepted a position that was offered her as head of a millinery department in one of the store in Raymond. However, as Joseph wanted her in his home and objected to the idea, she rejected the offer.

Another incident of this period was the washing and anointing of one of the sisters of the ward who had never been able to give birth to a baby that lived. Lizzie felt impelled to bless this discouraged woman promising health for the coming babe. That child, named Zina, did live, and has been a number of years herself a mother.

The ensuing winter, Lizzie went back to Utah to spend Christmas for the first time since leaving her old home for Canada. While there she consulted Dr. Cannon, distant kinsman of hers. He advised her to build herself up and then come back for an operation.

Until February, she just visited around, spending considerable time in Porterville. It was at this time she happened to call in one evening to visit "Aunt Jane Porter" who was away at the time, but whose young son Horace had just plunged his hand into a kettle of hot ashes. Lizzie appeared on the scene providentially, and probably saved his hand by having it wrapped in a poultice of consecrated oil, flour and baking powder.

She was in excellent physical condition when she reported back to Dr. Cannon for her operation, but not in any too good a condition for the ordeal before her. She needed every ounce of strength she had. Five different operations, with two large incisions were performed while she lay under an anesthetic on the operating table for two hours and twenty-five minutes. Her coccyx bone, which had been injured when she was thrown off a horse at the age fourteen, was removed. Six doctors were present at this operation, and after it was over, all six agreed that the patient would never have any children.

That was indeed a dark, discouraging period for Lizzie. Her hopes, which had led her to consent to the operation, that she would thereby be enabled to enjoy motherhood, were crushed, completely shattered. Was all that suffering, all the expense, to be in vain? And what of the promises given in her patriarchal blessing? Wasn't God going to let them be fulfilled? Was He forsaking her? And Joseph - what of him? He would be just as disappointed as she; perhaps more. Would he not regret that he had married her? What was she good for anyway? As she was lying there in bed, so weak, so much in pain, so bandaged up, with part of her skeleton removed, she felt as though she never could walk again. Oh! If God would only take her!

Even her old faith that "her own" would come to her could not return until hope and encouragement visited her. That, Joseph supplied when he wrote and mailed a poem written for their sixth wedding anniversary. Those verses gave Lizzie a new life, a new incentive for living. We can imagine how she felt when she opened up the envelope and read in her lonely hospital room these lines:

"You should get better fast now," Dr. Cannon told her when he read this. "When you have a husband who appreciates you that much waiting for you."

... In April, however, she was permitted to leave the hospital and convalesce in the home of her mother...

Her welcome back to Canada was one long to be remembered by Lizzie. James and Joseph did everything possible to show their joy in having her back, and both were very sweet to her. Her little Sunday School children bedecked the house with berries and flowers, and neighbors had come in to get the house all in readiness for her. Again, with such ceremony, she was ushered back into her old life.

But really it turned out to be a new life-a wonderful new life. Because, miraculously, the doctors hadn't known and God had! In spite of human knowledge to the contrary, two years later, she entered into her much desired period of motherhood.

Faith May-for was she not a child of Faith?-came first on a bitter cold January day in 1907. Never was a child more loved, more appreciated. She was a lovely ray of sunshine in their home, brightening everything with her constant happy smile.

She grew up having faith, too. One time when she saw Lizzie in great distress, she lisped (she was only two) "Oh muvver! What's the matter? I pray for you." While she was still a baby, teething, Joseph and Lizzie moved to Barnwell, Canada, where, although they started out living in a dug-out, Joseph began to really get prosperous. It was in Barnwell that they celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary. They were entertained by the Johnson's at a "mysterious" supper, where a farce meal of tomatoes served on new tin plates from the tin factory, dill pickles, and a glass of water was followed by a very sumptuous dinner. The wedding presents, tin decorations, and a tin bell to call the guests together, added color to the occasion.

In June of 1909 Lizzie took Faith to Utah for the first time, and remained until after the birth of Lambert Osgood, born on her birthday, December 29th. Joseph had joined them for Christmas, but had to go back before the others, who returned in June.

Busy days followed. Joseph's vegetable garden and his fifty-three acres of flax, together with his frequent trips to Raymond, almost sixty miles away, so took up his time that Lizzie had lots of responsibility at home alone. Once a mare got caught in the fence and Lizzie had to help her out, and another time she found little Lambert squeezing baby chicks to death...

In the fall of 1911, she took the children back to Salt Lake where Martha Electa, known as "Dot," who weighed less than five pounds, was born February 5, 1912.

Lyman K. was born on March 31, 1914 in the L.D.S. hospital. Lizzie nearly lost her life at the birth of this, her youngest child. Lyman was a beautiful child, and has always been a comfort to her and a source of pride and strength.


Joseph and Elizabeth's young family in 1915
When he was about a year old he fell into a well, and for a while no one knew how badly he was injured. Joseph, who had sold out in Barnwell, was at this time away from home again, working on a homestead in Millard County, Utah, where he planned to make their home, but Tom's wife, Pearl, came to the rescue in this emergency, and, after doing some first-aid, prayed over the child, who went directly to sleep, and afterwards was all right. Their prayers had been answered.

In that same summer of 1915, Lizzie took the children by train to Delta, Utah, where Joseph was to meet them and take them by team to the homestead about forty miles away from the railroad. This trip was one big episode of trouble. First, there had been the struggle of leaving Lizzie's mother. They had sold out in Canada so that they could be near their folks and the advantages of civilization again, and Sister Lambert had been making plans for, and was counting upon, their building a home on the lot next to her, which she had given to Lizzie for that purpose. Elizabeth knew her mother's plans and desires, and the years of waiting for this to happen. But she felt that her duty to her husband came first, and the itch to be out on a farm kept him never satisfied until he was at it. It seemed that he couldn't be happy in the city. So Lizzie consented to go, although she felt that her mother's heart was breaking at this new disappointment.

The pain of leaving her mother so unhappy was sometimes forgotten in the new worries and anxieties attending the trip. Lambert became very sick on the train, and the other children were fussy and unhappy. Then, to her despair, Joseph was not at the station to meet her, due to a misunderstanding, and she had to take hotel quarters and try to locate her husband by phone. Little dot had her new parasol stolen from the hotel, and was heartbroken about it. Altogether they had troubles enough to drive anyone frantic.

Lambert was getting better, though, by the time Joseph succeeded in getting to them, and happy at being reunited, they started out on their slow, hot journey toward the arid, barren homestead, about nine miles west of Fillmore, Utah. Here they built an attractive little home, doing most of the work on it themselves. One of the most comfortable rooms was made in the basement, a cozy bedroom apartment, where they could get delightful relief from the heat.

The months of hard labor and the money spent on the homestead was just time and means wasted, though. The odds were too much against them. It seemed that nothing much would grow in that dry, alkaline land, and what did come up, the gophers nibbled down. As an alternate means of making a living, Joseph invested a large part of the $6000.00 saved from the sale of his land in Canada in a meat market with his brother, M. Porter of Nephi, Utah. This business took the family to Nephi for the school year of 1918 and 1919, and as they lived next to the Presbyterian Church, with a bell, the children were among those who rang bells on the morning that the Armistice was signed.

On the homestead below Fillmore, another cozy little home had been built by Joseph and Lizzie, mostly their own handiwork. A well was dug, gardens planted, stock and farm machinery accumulated, outbuildings put up. But life there, however interesting to the children and pleasant at times, was economically so unprofitable and so destitute of educational advantage, that gradually a complete break had to be made, and the farm abandoned. While still holding the homestead, Joseph invested in the meat business with a half-brother in Nephi, Juab County, and "wintered" there with the family. The winter before, Faith had spent in Salt Lake with her Grandmother Lambert, coming home in early spring with Joseph as he returned from attending his mother's funeral...

Due to circumstances outside of his control, Joseph was not successful in his business venture in Nephi, but the thorns of financial adversity produced a rose for Lizzie in that they moved back to Salt Lake again, in her mother's old home, so dear to her, and there they have remained. Pioneering days were over!

Nevertheless, there was pioneering of a new type to do-readjustment financially. All the savings of their hard work in Canada had vanished in thin air, and they had to start over again. Fortunately they had the old home, and Joseph found employment, which he still retains, in the Zellerback Paper Company, which at the time was the Lambert Paper Company, managed by Lizzie's brother. The children were placed in school, and life went along normally again...

Joseph and Lizzie were faithful and dependable members of the church, well-known and loved in the ward where they reside (30th Ward-Pioneer Stake). For twelve years after their return to Salt Lake Lizzie taught Religion Class, and Joseph was absorbed in his Priesthood and genealogical labors. They both took part in a memorable pageant produced by the ward Genealogical Society. It was called "Ella's Dream" and was presented many times. Always it was highly appreciated receiving much praise for its excellence of performance and its beauty and inspirational message.

Thus we leave them in life's late afternoon, rich in the memories of many sacred, sweet, sad, happy, amusing, and interesting, if hard, experiences. They have drunk deeply from the cup of life, and through the power of the gospel have found even the bitterest drops mellowed. The vicissitudes of life have made them wise and sweet, not prejudiced and cynical. They did not hate life; they still enjoyed it. While waiting confidently and calmly for the Master's summons, they were ever ready to do His will on earth as far as they understood it, and to serve their fellow men. With her artistic flair and skill of nursing and her culinary art, Lizzie brightened many little nooks in life, ever thoughtful of the sick, aged, and needy, always giving of her substance to others less fortunate, joyous in being a "good and faithful servant of God."

She died March 22, 1940, at Salt Lake City and her funeral was held on Easter Sunday, March 24th. She was buried in the Wasatch Lawn Cemetery.