William Levi Wheat

Among the characters who have enriched my life, by association and intimate acquaintance is Martha Belzora Williams Wheat, a lovely neighbor and fellow ward member for over twenty years. A few statistical items are those gleaned from conversation with her, in her home but the impressions are those of seeing the life of a saintly woman, lived according to the dictates of a beautiful conscience. Sister Wheat was born in Carroll Tennessee, 3 March 1872 to Burrell Templeton Williams and Nancy Katherine Sudbury. Her father was a robust Southerner of the Missionary Baptist faith and implanted in the hearts of his children a love of the Bible and a proper Christian life. Her mother was stricken with a stroke at the age of forty or fifty and was never well again, though she lived to be seventy five. This placed much of the responsibility of the family and the then, strenuous work of the farm on the father and children. Martha attended school only to the "8th Reader", and spent the rest of her young life on the family farm. At the age of fourteen she heard of the Mormon Elders who were to preach in the local school house and plead with her father that she and her sister might attend and see what it was all about. The father, though a devout Baptist, agreed with the warning that they were a low type people and what she heard must not be taken seriously, lest it contaminate them in the faith of their fathers. She was questioned by her father on return, her sister being rather indifferent but she with a conviction that what she had heard was true, if truth was on the earth. Obedient daughter that she was, she let it go in one ear and out the other, so far as any further action in the matter was concerned but held with-in her hear, the testimony that had come to her, until later years. She still, at eighty six years, dates her conversion to the time her first contact with the Elders. Her father lived to the age of seventy eight in good health and reared to maturity four of the eight children of which Martha was one. At the age of twenty two, Martha married William Levi Wheat from Illinois. He was a jolly fun loving individual and was, at the time employed by the U. S. Government in a capacity similar to our present F.B.I.. They later moved to Arkansas and acquired a large farm upon which they prospered and were very happy. He took no serious interest in her religious yearnings but entertained the Elders regularly and was happy to have them around. She told him on one occasion that if he didn't want her to be baptized into the Church, he had better quit entertaining the Elders. He replied that if it would make her happy she had his permission to join the Church. After six years of married life, he accepted the Gospel and both were baptized by Elder R. D. Brown of Ogden, Utah. Following their baptism, his love for his farm was overcome by his intense desire to gather his family to Utah. They had buried three children in their home state. They settled first in Taylorsville where where Bishop Heber Bennion recommended them to the Temple, six months after their arrival and they were married for Time and Eternity and their children sealed to them. They farmed in Downey, Idaho for a time but later returned to Salt Lake Valley and remained. They have buried two of their children in Utah, William Wheat and Claud Wheat. As of this writing in 1958 they still have four sons and three daughters living and each have families and family's families until she lives at this writing at age 86 with a large group of grandchildren and great grandchildren. Brother Wheat died a High Priest in East Millcreek Ward, in 1938 after suffering a stroke. She married Brother John I. Sherman, a widower in 1941 with whom she enjoyed her companionship for a short eight months when he also passed away. All who have known this colorful little lady, associate her with a shiny Model A Ford which she drove everywhere until very recent years. She loved life and people and devoted much time in circulating among her loved ones and friends. She was always immaculate in her appearance, wherever she was seen and until afflicted with a broken arm and several other misfortunes of recent years she carried the appearance of a lady, easily twenty years younger. She is outstanding for her droll southern humor and even in her declining health is more interested in the welfare of her neighbors and friends than in herself. She loves to talk with people and is full of appreciation of a brief call by old or young. She loves the young people of the community and that love is mutual because no one can know her without appreciating the greatness of her soul. Her children do, and well they might, call her blessed for she has a marked a well defined path worthy of any one's emulation. As she reaches the afternoon of her life, she makes the simple declaration, "I have tried to do my best and am not afraid to go when my time shall come:. Truly she has come, she has seen, she has conquered, in the real sense of the word. My humble tribute to her is that she is, indeed, one of God's noble women of whom it may truthfully be said "she has filled her niche, she has finished her work, she has left the world better than she found it".