Henry and Nancy Ann Elliott Grow arrived with Captain Jas. Cummings wagon train in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 1, 1851, and on November 15, 1852, a daughter was born to them, Josephine Streeper Grow. Henry's was a polygamist family, so when growing up, Josephine had a lot of half-brothers and sisters to play and work with. There was a lot of space for this, for at that time the Salt Lake area was mostly undisturbed, sprouting lots of sagebrush where these poor, barefoot children could romp and play without fear of anything but snakes and wild animals. They went barefoot out of necessity because there were no shoes, and Josephine told of sometimes going out in the countryside to dig roots for food. She remembered the first white flour she had ever tasted, just flour with a little water mixed with it, and that was the family' porridge. Girls as well as boys were required to help in the fields that were dredged from the sagebrush, but she said no one minded doing that, and she remembered that, best of all, everyone was happy.

She married George Lawson Scott on May 16, 1870, and they made their home in Salt Lake City. The couple eventually had eight children. When one of their sons, George Grow Scott, lost his wife in childbirth, Josephine and George took in his little two-year old boy, George Milton Scott, and raised him, too. As grandchildren came along, some went to stay with her for a time, and they all loved to go there. Some of the children came back occasionally, with their growing families, and lived with Josephine after she was widowed, and she went to their homes to help out whenever she was needed. My father, Sylvester Scott, left home frequently and stayed at his grandmother's home. He had nothing but good to say about her, and he remembered her reading to the children at bedtime. Perhaps that is where he learned to love to read - anything and everything that he could get his hands on. Some of her love of flowers that she grew and picked for the vases she had in the home may have rubbed off on Sylvester. because he always loved them, too.

Her girls were all taught to wash dishes, mix bread, make cakes and pies and cook a regular meal way before they were 14 years old. A daughter, Grace Scott, wrote: "We could never go anywhere until our work was done, We had to keep the house 'spotless'....When mother had company, I would fix the lunch and then I could go to play." She was not taught to sew, though Josephine sewed for the family as well as for other people Grace shared one of her mother's recipes, saying "It might be interesting to you": 3 quarts dandylion flowers, 4 quarts boiling water, 3 lb. sugar, 3 oranges, 3 lemons, put boiling water on flowers; let stand over night, strain, then stir in your sugar; slice your oranges and lemons and mix with the others; let stand fourteen days, then strain into bottles, but do not cork for five weeks.

A petite, gentle woman with a quiet voice and a sweet, simple, and beautiful philosophy of life, Josephine lived her Mormon religion and was very strong in her beliefs. She had been given a blessing by a patriarch of the church, in 1921, telling her that she would retain the use and control of her mental and physical powers for her own good as well as the good of those among whm she would minister, "even unto the latest hours of life."

Josephines husband died January 3, 1903. She had not participated much in the church until after he died. Then she became one of the first teachers of religion in the Wilford Ward that she belonged to. She also became very interested in genealogy and in searching for ancestors on her husband's side of the family. She carried on quite a lot of correspondence with George's Easten and Scott relatives in England, of which I have a few copies. Her husband's mother, Ellen Easten Scott Douglass, had made a quilt top and Josephine donated it to the Daughter's of Utah Pioneers, of which she was a member, after Ellen died. A photo of it is in Ellen's profile on Ancestry.Com, and it can still be seen at the D.U.P. museum in Salt Lake.

The radio station, KSL, on December 5, 1938, paid her a tribute by presenting to her over the airwaves their "Bouquet of the Day", which honored someone outstanding in the Salt Lake region. She was 86 at the time, and true to the blessing she had been given, still had her mental and physical faculties intact. At the time of her death on March 26, 1940, she had lost five of her eight children; only Albert Addis, Ernest Easten and Grace were living . She had at that time 32 grandchildren, 60 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild. My dad was one of the grandchildren and I a great-grandchild who were honored to attend her large funeral. A truly lovely lady.