Ann was born 10 August 1814, in Newbury, Berkshire, England to James Miller and Ann Elkins. All of her family belonged to the Baptist Church; her father led the choir for the church.  She was brought up to be very religious.  She always went to Sunday School. The teachers would give a gift to the child learning the most verses of the New Testament within a certain time. Ann learned all of the verses and on her tenth birthday they gave her a Bible.  The Bible it is still in the family, in good condition, with many verses marked that are good to read.  At her death the Bible was given to her granddaughter Lucy Ann Jensen and is now in the possession of her great-great-great-granddaughter Sarah Ann Clark Balls of Clarkston, Utah.

Ann was the third child of the family, consisting of three sons and seven daughters.  Her mother died when she was sixteen years old.  As her two older sisters were married, she was left to take care of the family.

When twenty-one, she met James Joseph Keep, a widower.  Her girl friends often teased her about him, but she would say to them, “I wouldn’t marry him if every hair in his head was gold.”  She married him on the 24th of July 1836, at the age of twenty-one in Reading, Berkshire, England.  At this time she still believed in the Baptist Church.

One Sunday she and her husband were late for church, so he got her to go with him to the Latter-Day Saint Church, and it was there that she heard the first Elders preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Her husband joined the church of Jesus Christ of latter Day Saints, 25 July 1848, and she joined in September of the same year.
 When she married James Joseph Keep he owned a number of homes and other properties of different kinds.  After they joined the Church everything went against them.  They lost all of their properties.  In February 1850 their eldest son died with smallpox, and in March 1850 Ann became very sick, having a cancer in her left breast.  Her five-week-old baby had to be put on the bottle.  The cancer grew very fast and became very large.  She consented to have it cut out.  Her father went with her to the doctor to see the operation preformed and on the way he told her she might die, because it was above her heart.  She then said, “I won’t be operated on then.  Take me back home and let me die with my family if I am to die”.  When she got home she went with her two daughters Ann and Sarah to the L.D.S. church meeting to ask the Elders to give her a priesthood blessing.  They inquired if she had faith in God, she told them she had the faith, and they said, “So have we.”  They anointed her breast with oil and laid their hands on her head and sealed the anointing, then gave her a priesthood blessing.  The pain in her breast went away and she never felt the pain again.  From that time on the cancer grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared, and that breast was as well as the other.  She nursed six children on it after that.  The account of this healing can be found in the Millennium Star.

The Elders came to their home and held meetings once a week until James Joseph and Ann moved to London in 1854.  While in London their nine-year-old Jane Keep and their six year old son William Richard Keep died with Cholera.  They were both buried in the same grave.  This was a great trial for Ann, after losing all of their property and becoming very poor.  It seemed like every thing had turned against them.  The children that were old enough had to hire out in service to earn money for clothing and to help buy other things that family needed to keep the home going.  Ann the oldest daughter did washing and ironing to help her father’s family.

In time things began to change and they began to prosper again, but in 1856 their daughter Emma Martha Keep died; she was three years and 8 months old.

On the 23 May 1866, Ann left with her husband, four daughters, a son-in-law and a small granddaughter for America.  The sailing vessel was The American Congress.  It took six weeks and two days to get to America.  They arrived in New York July 4, 1866 just in time to see the beautiful fire works displayed.  While in the city Ann’s daughter Lucy gave birth to a baby.  They had to leave her in New York City in order to come west with a company of Saints.  The next year her daughter, along with her husband and baby, returned to England never to cross the water again. This made Ann very unhappy.

Ann and James crossed the plains by ox team.  She had to walk most of the way.  While on the plains her husband got Rocky Mountain Fever and they had to stay back until the next company of Saints came along.  They arrived in Salt Lake City in the month of October 1866.

She lived there until 1869 when they moved to Clarkston, Cache, Utah.  They lived in Samuel Stewart’s workshop, it had no floors just the earth.

In 1870 they moved to Newton and lived there two years, and then moved back to Clarkston.  Ann’s husband had built a nice one-room rock house.  H was a bricklayer by trade, so he completed it himself.  They lived in it until they were very old.  She helped in the fields with her husband to raise their crops.  They had oxen for their team, which they did their farming with.  The oxen’s names were Jack and Joe. Ann would call them by name and they would reply by their action.  At night, they would turn the oxen out in the hills to feed, and then go after them in the morning and many times they could not find them.  Sometimes Ann would be so very tired when she got home.

She loved flowers and had them in the windows, and all around the house.  There were flowers in front of the house and a fine orchard of apples, English Currents, Gooseberries, and always a fine garden with all kinds of vegetables.  She would help to take care of the garden. There was a small porch in front of her house, with hop vines all around it, and they would grow and run all over the porch, making a nice shade in the summer time.  In the fall she would gather the hop vines and dry them and make yeast with them three times a week.  The neighbor women would trade a cup of flour for a cup of yeast to make their bread; this way Ann always had flour to make bread.

Ann received her Endowments in 1867 in the old Endowment House. She was chosen as first counselor in the Clarkston Ward Relief Society to Mary Griffin the 12 of February 1875, and she was released in 1885.  Ann and her husband were getting old and could not do the work that needed to be done around their place, so they decided to sell their home and property and live on the principle and the interest.  In 1890 they sold the property and moved to Lehi, Utah to live by their daughter, Mary Elizabeth Turner.  Here they lived for two years and then they returned to Clarkston and lived in part of her granddaughter Lucy Ann and Hans Jensen’s old log home.  They lived there for four years.  In 1896 Ann had a very bad sick spell and it took her a long time to recuperate.  After she had recovered from this sickness they moved to Newton to live with her daughter Ruth Griffin.

Ann Keep was a very busy woman.  When too old to do heavy work she would sew quilt blocks for the Relief Society and her grandchildren or anyone who would let her do for them (Two quilt blocks she made by hand are now in the possession of Sarah Ann Clark Balls of Clarkston, Utah).
 
Ann was the mother of eleven children as follows:
 Ann                                  Jane                                 Maria Jane
 Mary Elizabeth               William Richard                    Sarah
Harriet                            James Joseph                  Emma Martha
  Lucy                               Ruth

Just before her death she bore a strong testimony to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, telling her daughters and families to hold fast to the end for this was the true church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and to do all they could for the dead.  She told her nurse Caroline Thompson to hold her pocketbook.  She took out a dollar and passed it to her daughter Sarah Buttars and said, “ Get my brother Joseph’s temple work done for him; he was a good man”.

She died at the age of 82, the 25th of October 1896, leaving her aged husband, three daughters, a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren to follow in her footsteps.  She was buried in the Clarkston Cemetery, 27 October 1896. A nice monument marks her last resting place.

     Written by her granddaughter
      Mrs. Lucy Ann Jensen
     Clarkston, Cache, Utah
 
 
 

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