Frances Mariah Stillman Russell Neff

The mother and three children joined the [“Mormon”] Church and moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. Here her mother married a widower with several children, Daniel Russell. When they decided to leave Nauvoo for the Salt Lake Valley, the eldest sister married Charles Parsons and remained in Illinois. Frances at the age of sixteen became the polygamist wife of Samuel Russell in the Nauvoo Temple. They began the trek to Utah. Samuel died and Frances married his cousin, Isaac Nelson Russell. They were the parents of two little daughters. One died and the other was named Harriet Ida Russell, born 29 October 1851, Mill Creek, Great Salt Lake Co, Utah Territory. This marriage did not work out well so Isaac left to seek gold in California. He remarried in San Francisco and to this marriage was born six children. He died in San Francisco in 1921 at age 93. Frances and her little daughter stayed in Salt Lake close to her mother. Soon after this Frances met Franklin Neff and they were married on 1 January 1855. They added to their family of two, nine more children. Three of these children died of dyptheria the same year. This was a great sorrow for the parents. Another daughter died of cancer at the age of 27 years.

Among other distinctions, Great-Grandpa Franklin Neff, the miller (after his father) of Winter Quarters and of East Mill Creek, is remembered for growing his hair and beard long, by assignment from our Uncle Brigham Young, and accompanying his brother-in-law, our Uncle Orrin Porter Rockwell, on missions of pacification to the Indians. The indigenes, it seems, would not take short-haired emissaries seriously. We’re told that if we could see the back of his head in this picture, we’d find a long braid.

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