Sophronia Pemelia Hall was born 1 December 1864 in North Ogden, Weber County, Utah to Unknown Myers (c1840-) and Sophronia Priscilla Reid (1842-1870) and died 26 February 1870 North Ogden, Weber County, Utah of unspecified causes.
Research Notes
Her mother, Sophronia Priscilla Reid (1842-1870) had two husbands but neither of them were William Wood Hall (1832-1891). She was married to Truman Root Barlow back in Iowa, but he died of pneumonia before they came to Utah. When they got to Utah, she married a man named Myers or Meyers and they had the daughter you put with William W. I haven't been able to find much about Mr. Myers, but I am still looking. The daughter's name is given in the Temple sealing record as Sophronia Pamelia Myers, not Hall.[1] Her temple sealing record in Logan in 1889 says:
Sophronia Pamelia Myers, dead Born 1 Dec 1864 N. Ogden, Weber, Utah Died 26 Feb 1870. Sealed to William Wood Hall... and to the mother, Sophronia Priscilla Reid ...etc.
William was there and participated in the sealing. He would have provided her name so I think we can safely assume it was Myers, not Hall. Also the wording is wrong for him to be the father. When a person is being sealed to their parents, the wording always says "sealed to the parents" and then the name of the parents is given. Here it says she was sealed to William Wood Hall and to the mother.
The temple sealings for both Sophronia and her daughter were done after they died in 1870 and at the request of Almira Jane. She had stated that she didn't like either of Sophronia's husbands and so didn't seal Sophronia to either of them - she wanted to keep both her sister and her niece close to her and obviously figured the way to do that was to have them sealed to William W instead. Those kinds of sealing (called "adoptions") were not uncommon in that time period. The thing that has led people to assume William W and Sophronia were married is that Almira Jane's daughter (another Sophronia--we've got at least 4 of them!) listed her aunt's name as "Sophronia Priscilla Reid Hall" on occasion after the temple sealing--not because they had been married, but because in Almira's and her daughter's mind, they were all sealed to the same Hall family with Almira and William. Technically, her name should have been Sophronia Priscilla Reid Barlow Myers.
My reasoning and proof is in what Almira wrote about it in her record book (speaking of herself in third person): “While here [Easton in Weber County] Almira Jane burried [sic] her only sister and her sister’s girl which made her feel quite lonely as she had neither brother or sister to claim her or speak to her; and Almira Jane went down to the temple for her sister whose name is Sophronia Prissilla [sic] and she is seald [sic] to William Wood Hall who is Almira Jane’s husband…”
The couple sealing was done in 1873, but the sealing for Sophronia's daughter wasn't done until 1889. If William was her father I think he would have done it in 1873. And actually, if William had really married Sophronia Priscilla in real life, there would have been a living sealing ordinance for them instead of a proxy sealing ordinance. William and Almira were regularly doing temple work at that time, so there is no reason they would not have been married in the temple in the first place.
Siblings
Notes
- ^ Email submittal from Sharon Glover, 10-Feb-2021