Lucy H. Flake journals

Lucy Hannah White Flake (1842-1900)

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a new digitized collection: Lucy H. Flake journals (MSS SC 13). The collection includes three handwritten journals which contain Flake’s autobiography, covering the years 1842 to 1894. These items include details of her life in Beaver, Utah, and a detailed account of her experience colonizing Snowflake, Arizona. Also included are details of her funeral by her daughter, Roberta Clayton, and Flake family genealogical data.

Lucy Hannah White was born in Knox County, Illinois, to Samuel White and Mary Burton. She was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the age of seven and emigrated with her family to Utah when she was eight years old. Her family helped settle what is now Lehi, Utah. In October 1852, her father was called to help reinforce Cedar City and the Parowan in southern Utah from uprising of surrounding Native American tribes.

In 1857, Lucy met William Jordan Flake, and they were married on December 30, 1858, and had thirteen children together, eight of which lived to adulthood. They built a home in Beaver, Utah, and were sealed in the Endowment House in 1861. In 1868, William took another wife, Prudence Kartchner. In the spring of 1874, they joined the United Order, until it was disbanded in 1876. In 1877 William was called to a colonizing mission in Arizona, and they left Beaver in October. They would settle what is now Snowflake, Arizona, named in part for Apostle Erastus Snow and William Jordan Flake. Lucy died here on January 2, 1900, at age 57.