James Brace

James Brace

Born: Mar 6, 1854 - Died: Apr 4, 1915
Son of William Brace & Sarah Probert Brace
Short Biography by his daughter, Lousia Brace Olsen,
Written by her daughter Wanda Olson Clark the summer of 1979

James Brace was born the 6 March 1854 at (Forge Row Street), Ebbw Vale, Monmouth, Wales, at home. He was named after his grandfather, and lived in Ebbw Vale all his life, until he was converted to the gospel by Mormon Missionaries, and came to America.

James and his brother William John were the only children born to the family of William Brace and Sarah Probert. William John was born 4 May 1865 according to my father’s journal. A certified copy of a Entry of Birth pursuant to the births and deaths registration act of 1953 Entry 294 in the Register Book of Birth,. No. on the 17 day of Nov 1971. He was named William John but the birth certificate reads only William.

I Lousia Brace Olson feel my father was correct, and also on the death date of William John from the genealogical dept. of 50 East North Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah states William John died on 4 April 1915 the birth and death date is the same as my fathers James Brace. I am in doubt if this is so, that William Johns birth and death date are exactly correct, according to the vital statistics.

My father had a good education. He could read and write and spell two languages, Welch and (English) he learned after coming to America. I remember my father was about five feet tall broad shoulders, dark brown hair and brown eyes. He was a good looking man. He was very neat and clean and kept his hair cut short. He always wore polished shoes, except the shoes he wore at the Mines. My father had a beautiful singing voice and sang at church meetings and different programs. He really went over good on St. Patrick’s Day Programs because he had an accent that people enjoyed to hear. He loved to read. I had to go to the Post Office every night after school (This was my job) to pick up the Denver Post News Paper and years later when my father went blind I read the Denver News to him. I would be about 13 years old.

I helped my father in the garden, and once I went with him with a wagon and team up in the cedars to get a load of wood to burn. We cooked with wood in the summer time, and in the winter we burned coal. I used to take him for walks and also to do business when he went blind. He went blind because of a blasting accident. He understood blasting because of his many years (40) experience working in the coal mines. A Canal was being built from Schoefield, Utah to Miller Creek Utah. This one day all the shots fired but one, he and other men waited for quite sometime to see if it was just a delay then the men returned to the shot, just as my father got close the shot exploded and a rock cut my fathers head and severed the optic nerve. He lived a little over two years after this accident.

I am a coal miner’s daughter. His occupation was a miner in Wales England, and also in America, In Wellington, Utah I remember as a child my father raised a lovely garden and had a few animals like milk cows, pigs and enjoyed raising chickens, ducks, geese. He also worked in the coal mines. We lived in Huntington, Utah when he worked in the Schoefield mine. He worked in Sunny Side, Castle Gate, Kennlliworth and Spring Canyon. Because of mine lay offs he had to go to the mine where men were being hired, and this is the reason why he worked in so many different mines. He worked in the coal mines with his father William Brace in Ebbw Vale, Wales at the age of nine years. This was during the summer when he wasn’t in school. My father had a good education young because his father had him read the bible every night and then come to his father and tell him what he had read. It was when he was nineteen years of age when he was on his way home in Ebbw Vale one evening he noticed a group of people standing on a street corner and he was curious to know what it was all about, and as he drew closer he saw two young men neatly dressed and talking to the group, so he stopped and listened. He had studied the bible a great deal that when he heard these Mormon Missionaries he knew they had the truth. He attended their meetings and in the year 1873 was baptized by the Elders in Wales, but later he was re-baptized in the Price River at Wellington, Utah when I was baptized in 1914 because the record was lost.

After my father was converted and baptized he came to America and helped get some of the granite out of the mountain to help build the Salt Lake Temple. He also worked in Fountain Green, Utah for a sheep man who he knew from Wales. The mans last name was Lewis, and while he was at this place he received a letter from his family saying his mother was very ill and she wanted him to come home, so he went back to Wales. My father and mother Sarah Jane Davies grew up in the same town Ebbw Vale. The attended the Welch Baptist Church, but don’t know if they went to the same Church. His and her family knew each other. My mother Sarah Jane Davies was born in Ebbw Vale 1 Jan 1862. She was the youngest of three sisters and one brother. Her father died when she was very young. She never remembered her father. After the fathers death the family continued living in the same house with my Great grandmother and Uncle Will.

Sarah Jane’s mother Mary Davies had to work, so her mother Mary Davies took care of the three little girls and a relative took the little brother and cared for him so his mother could work. The Davies family rented and lived in this home over one hundred years. Sarah Jane’s mother took care of her mother until she died at home and was buried in Ebbw Vale, Wales.
When my father returned from America back to see his ill mother is the time he started to see and going with my mother Sarah Jane. They were married in Wales 22 Feb 1880 Llanwenarth, South Wales.

Sarah Brace their first child was born in Wales and then they came to America. My parents landed in New York City 3 July 1881. My mother did not speak much English. She saw the news paper boy shouting (Read all about it) she asked my father what all the excitement was about. He said “The President had been shot.” This was President McKinley. They stayed in New York that night, and then next day they went by train to Penn. James Brace and his wife and child left for America 22 June 1881.

In Wales at the train station to get to Liverpool to come to America other friends and relatives and her mother were crying that they would never see Sarah Jane again. A Irish neighbor lady put her arm around my mother and told her not to cry. She said “America is a wonderful country and you can buy a whole pork very cheap.” My mother Sarah Jane always remembered and laughed about this.

My mother told our family that this little girl Sarah was a little frail girl and the trip across the ocean was too much for her and she died a couple of weeks later 26 July 1881. She is buried in a Welch Cemetery at Hyde Park Penn. My father was not satisfied until he came back to Utah to live with the Latter Day Saints and being a coal miner he settled in Wellington, Utah where he died.

All of Mothers children called her Ma’Am, Welch for mother. She had Medium brown hair, blue eyes and pretty skin. She was a little plump and she had pierced her ears and wore little small gold earrings for years. She was short a inch or two taller than my father. She was a very good cook. She made meat and vegetables delicious and also made wonderful pies and raisin bread and rolls and rice pudding. She was thrifty and had a good sense of humor. A good neighbor and a Mother of thirteen children I Louisa was number 10 child. She never went to school very much and what she did it was in Wales. My father taught her many things in English that when you would meet her she appeared to have quite a good education although she never learned to read and write in English when she came to America.

My parents are buried in Wellington Cemetery by my brother William (who was killed by a cave-in in the Sunny Side coal mine). He was twenty one years old, and also Thomas Brace 3 days old and a grandchild Elmer Chub Brace and Jean and Blaine Olson my two children. I am thankful for my good parents. The good training they gave me. They were strict, because they loved us, and wanted us to be good Latter Day Saints and true Americans. They wanted us to be very true American Citizens, so they would not teach us the Welch Language.