Sarah Maria Perry Stokes Darrington

I talked a little about Lillie Veletty Stokes Smith, my great grandmother, in an earlier post.  Lillie's mother was Sarah Maria Perry.

Maria, as they called her, was born during the Civil War, although it may not have affected her much.  Her place of birth, now called Perry, Utah, was far removed from any battles.  One source says that she was baptized on January 1, 1869, but since this was before she turned 8, I have some question about that.

Endowment House

 She married William Stokes, Jr in the Salt Lake Endowment House in 1879, when she was almost 17 years  old.

Maria with husband William

William and Maria had two girls born in Perry (one of which was Lillie, my great grandmother) and then the small family moved to Elba, Idaho sometime between 1880 and 1883.  Lillie wrote that they were some of the first settlers in the area.  They had two sons born near Elba, but Maria didn't stay long after that because William died in 1885.  Maria moved back to Utah to be near family.

The story goes that a former neighbor from Elba, John Darrington, came to visit the Perrys in Utah to look for a housekeeper after his wife had died.  He asked Maria to come back to Elba to care for him and his children.  The response was that she'd go as his wife, not as his housekeeper. By 1887, Maria was back in Elba as the wife of John Darrington.

After she married John Darrington, Maria became not only a housekeeper but eventually, a dairy farmer. She lived the rest of her life in the tiny community of Elba and is buried in the Elba Grandview Cemetery.

Maria's grave marker