Elvira Stevens
Born 17 Mar. 1832 in Gerry, Chautauque Co., New York. [1] Daughter of Samuel Cunnable Stevens and Minerva Alshera (Althea) Field. [2] Baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Joshua Holman, 1844.[3] Orphaned shortly after moving to Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Illinois, 1844.[4] Migrated to the Salt Lake Valley with the Brigham Young pioneer company, arriving Sept. 1848.[5] Married first John Stillman Woodbury, 23 Dec. 1850, in Salt Lake City.[6] Accompanied her husband on a mission to the Sandwich Islands, 1851–1852.[7] Took in four foster children, 1855–1864.[8] Divorced by Apr. 1856.[9] Married second Oliver Boardman Huntington, 28 Dec. 1856, in Salt Lake City; divorced May 1860.[10] Attended Wheaton College, 1864–1866, in Wheaton, DuPage Co., Illinois.[11] Married third Royal Barney Jr., 6 Jan. 1866, in Salt Lake City; divorced 1890; adopted one child.[12] Served on the Deseret Silk Association Committee, by 1875.[13] Appointed to the Grain Storage Central Purchasing Committee under EBW, Nov. 1876.[14] Attended Deseret University, 1878, in Salt Lake City.[15] Served a mission to Philadelphia, where she continued her medical studies, 1879–1882.[16] Taught classes in medicine and obstetrics to women, by 1883, and served as a visiting physician at Deseret Hospital, by 1884.[17] Speaker at the Salt Lake City women’s mass meeting, 6 Mar. 1886.[18] Actively participated in the Utah Woman’s Suffrage Association with EBW, 1886–1994.[19] Interviewed Jane Manning James, by 4 Oct. 1899.[20] Attended the birthday celebration of Zina D. H. Young and Jane S. Richards with EBW, 31 Jan. 1900.[21] Author and editor of The Stevens Genealogy, 1907.[22] Died 12 Jan. 1909 in Salt Lake City.[23]
[1] “Sealings of Couples, Living and by Proxy, 1851–1889,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. A, p. 781, John Stillman Woodbury and Elvira Stevens, microfilm 183374, DGS 5265582 (restricted access), FHL. “Elvira Stevens Barney,” Go Ye into All the World (https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/missionary/, accessed 6 Jan. 2020). “Family Tree,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org, accessed 23 Apr. 2018), Elvira Stevens (LHV7-V1T).
[2] “Elvira Stevens Barney,” Go Ye into All the World (https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/missionary/, accessed 6 Jan. 2020). Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches, to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 76.
[3] Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches, to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 76. “Elvira Stevens Barney,” Go Ye into All the World (https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/missionary/, accessed 6 Jan. 2020).
[4] Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches, to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 77. Laron A. Wilson, “Biographical Sketch of Dr. Elvira Stevens Barney,” in Elvira Stevens Barney, The Stevens Genealogy: Embracing Branches of the Family Descended from Puritan Ancestry, New England Families Not Traceable to Puritan Ancestry and Miscellaneous Branches Wherever Found (Salt Lake City: Skelton, 1907), 257.
[5] “Elvira Stevens,” Pioneer Database (https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/overlandtravel, accessed 6 Jan. 2020). Laron A. Wilson, “Biographical Sketch of Dr. Elvira Stevens Barney,” in Elvira Stevens Barney, The Stevens Genealogy: Embracing Branches of the Family Descended from Puritan Ancestry, New England Families Not Traceable to Puritan Ancestry and Miscellaneous Branches Wherever Found (Salt Lake City: Skelton, 1907), 258.
[6] “Sealings of Couples, Living and by Proxy, 1851–1889,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. A, p. 781, John Stillman Woodbury and Elvira Stevens, microfilm 183374, DGS 5265582 (restricted access), FHL.
[7] Laron A. Wilson, “Biographical Sketch of Dr. Elvira Stevens Barney,” in Elvira Stevens Barney, The Stevens Genealogy: Embracing Branches of the Family Descended from Puritan Ancestry, New England Families Not Traceable to Puritan Ancestry and Miscellaneous Branches Wherever Found (Salt Lake City: Skelton, 1907), 265–266. Journal History of the Church, 26 July 1851, p. 2, CR 100 137, CHL. George Q. Cannon, Journal, 20 Aug. and 15 Dec. 1851 (https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon/1850s/1851/, accessed 6 Jan. 2020).
[8] Laron A. Wilson, “Biographical Sketch of Dr. Elvira Stevens Barney,” in Elvira Stevens Barney, The Stevens Genealogy: Embracing Branches of the Family Descended from Puritan Ancestry, New England Families Not Traceable to Puritan Ancestry and Miscellaneous Branches Wherever Found (Salt Lake City: Skelton, 1907), 266.
[9] Edward Leo Lyman, Susan Ward Payne, and S. George Ellsworth, eds., No Place to Call Home: The 1807–1857 Life Writings of Caroline Barnes Crosby, Chronicler of Outlying Mormon Communities (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2005), 412n36.
[10] Oliver Boardman Huntington, Journal, 14 Oct. 1823–7 Feb. 1907, pp. 261, 271, Brigham Young University.
[11] Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches, to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 80. Laron A. Wilson, “Biographical Sketch of Dr. Elvira Stevens Barney,” in Elvira Stevens Barney, The Stevens Genealogy: Embracing Branches of the Family Descended from Puritan Ancestry, New England Families Not Traceable to Puritan Ancestry and Miscellaneous Branches Wherever Found (Salt Lake City: Skelton, 1907), 266.
[12] “Sealings of Couples, Living and by Proxy, 1851–1889,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Endowment House, vol. D, 22 Nov. 1861–29 Dec. 1866, p. 575, line 8368, Royal Barney and Elvira Stevens, 6 Jan. 1866, microfilm 1149514, DGS 7226455 (restricted access), FHL. Betty Evenson, “Barney, Royal, Jr. (b1808) Divorce Certificate from Elvira Stevens 1890,” in “Family Tree,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org, accessed 8 Jan. 2020), Dr. Elvira Barney (LHV7-VIT), Documents. Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches, to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 80. Laron A. Wilson, “Biographical Sketch of Dr. Elvira Stevens Barney,” in Elvira Stevens Barney, The Stevens Genealogy: Embracing Branches of the Family Descended from Puritan Ancestry, New England Families Not Traceable to Puritan Ancestry and Miscellaneous Branches Wherever Found (Salt Lake City: Skelton, 1907), 266. 1880 U.S. Census, 6th Ward Ann Arbor, Washtenaw Co., MI, ED 225, p. 82, Alvira Barney and Leon Barney.
[13] Laron A. Wilson, “Biographical Sketch of Dr. Elvira Stevens Barney,” in Elvira Stevens Barney, The Stevens Genealogy: Embracing Branches of the Family Descended from Puritan Ancestry, New England Families Not Traceable to Puritan Ancestry and Miscellaneous Branches Wherever Found (Salt Lake City: Skelton, 1907), 270. Jill Mulvay Derr, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds., The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016), 455.
[14] Relief Society Committee of the General Board, “A Brief History of the Grain Storing,” ca. 1906, p. 2, CR 11 5, CHL. Jill Mulvay Derr, Janath Russell Cannon, and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1992), 103.
[15] Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches, to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 81.
[16] “Elvira Stevens Barney,” Go Ye into All the World (https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/missionary/, accessed 6 Jan. 2020). Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches, to Accompany the Picture Bearing the Same Title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 81. Laron A. Wilson, “Biographical Sketch of Dr. Elvira Stevens Barney,” in Elvira Stevens Barney, The Stevens Genealogy: Embracing Branches of the Family Descended from Puritan Ancestry, New England Families Not Traceable to Puritan Ancestry and Miscellaneous Branches Wherever Found (Salt Lake City: Skelton, 1907), 270.
[17] “To the Presidents of Stakes and the Bishops of Wards,” Deseret News, 20 June 1883, 345. Jill Mulvay Derr, Janath Russell Cannon, and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1992), 107. “Deseret Hospital,” Deseret News, 13 Aug. 1884, 473.
[18] “Mass Meeting,” Ogden (UT) Daily Herald, 9 Mar. 1886, 1.
[19] EBW, Diary, 12 Jan. 1889 and 3 Feb. 1894. Jennifer Reeder and Kate Holbrook, eds., At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2017), 80–81. Dr. Elvira S. Barney, “Prayer,” Woman’s Exponent, 15 Nov. 1889, 94. “Editorial Notes,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 Feb. 1894, 92.
[20] Dr. Elvira Stevens Barney, “Jane Manning James,” Deseret News, 4 Oct. 1899, 6.
[21] “A Double Birthday Celebration,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 and 15 Mar. 1901, 84.
[22] Elvira Stevens Barney, The Stevens Genealogy: Embracing Branches of the Family Descended from Puritan Ancestry, New England Families Not Traceable to Puritan Ancestry and Miscellaneous Branches Wherever Found (Salt Lake City: Skelton, 1907).
[23] “Utah Death Certificate Index, 1904–1961,” database and images, Utah State Archives (https://archives.utah.gov, accessed 7 May 2018); from Utah Department of Health, Office of Vital Records and Statistics, series 81448, file no. 61/650 (1909), Elvira Stevens Barney. “Utah, Salt Lake County Death Records, 1849–1949,” p. 15 (1909), Elvira Stevens Barney, Salt Lake County Management and Archives, Salt Lake City. EBW, “Woman’s Tribute to Dr. Elvira S. Barney,” Deseret Evening News, 16 Jan. 1909, 25.