BIOGRAPHY OF MARGARET BURCH GOFF
(Immigrant Pioneer)

Biography written March 1969 by Cleo Pierce Heavener, as told by Chilles Blanchard, Grandson of Mrs. Goff.
Submitted by Myrtle Childs May 1, l974.
Submitted by Judyth Ann Goff Cook for Gwen Goff Hobbs for use in webpages June 16, 2000.

Born: December 25, 1808, Unidella, Delaware
Daughter of George Burch and Sylvia Haskins Burch
Arrived in Utah 1850
Married to Peter Phillips, Hyrum Woodward, Peter Boyce and last husband James Goff.
Died at the age of 106 in April 1915, Springville, Utah.

"Grandma lived in Provo, Utah for 50 years. She came to live with us (Chilles Blanchard) in April 1903. She was a widow, 90 years old when she came here. She was in fairly good health. She had a stroke when she was 55 years old. This crippled her so that she had to walk with a cane. My mother was the 11th child of Sylvia Goff. Grandma helped a little with the housework and did a lot of knitting of stockings.

"I remember her telling about crossing the plains in 1852. She told about one son named Omri who jumped off the wagon and onto the back of the lead buffalo of a herd passing by. By the time the wagon train arrived at the next camp he had the buffalo killed and dressed. They had meat for the whole wagon train.

"We still have some of the things Grandma brought with her. She crossed the plains in 1852. She was 43 years old when she came to Provo City, Utah. She lived in an adobe house on the corner of 6th West and 2nd North. She kept house and raised chickens until she was 90 years old. She cooked good dinners when we went to see her.

"When Grandma was 104 years old she had an Edison cylinder record made of her singing. They sang "When the Gloom of Autumn-Alexander's Sekeo," and "The Life of Robinson Crusoe."
Words to the songs Grandma sang:

LIFE OF ROBINSON CRUSOE
I am a monarch of all I survey
My rights are none to dispute
Oh solitude where are they charms
I'm out of humanities race.

"This is a six-verse poem. Grandma recited two of them with promptings by my father, Ether Blanchard. She stopped between the verses and said, "I am 104 years old.") We still have this record. Glen Turner, art teacher at Springville High School, made a flat record from our cylinder record.

THE GLOOM OF AUTUMN
The gloom of autumn makes me melancholy
Strikes dejection to my soul
When I mourn my follies
Waves of sorrow o'er me roll.
When a few more years are wasted
When a few more springs are o'er I shall gain the other shore.

"Grandma died at our home at the age of 106. She died in April 1915. She is buried in the Provo City Cemetery on the Boyce burial lot. Her last husband was James Goff. His name is recorded on the monument in Pioneer Park on 5th West and Center Street in Provo City, Utah."

Next Christmas day will mark the 104th birthday of Mrs. Margaret Burch Goff of Springville, Utah, one of the oldest surviving pioneers of Utah. Mrs. Goff was born at Unidella, Delaware, December 25, 1808, the daughter of George Burch and Sylvia Haskins Burch. Her father served in the war of 1812, and her grandfather, also named George Burch, was a soldier in the Revolution. Mrs. Goff joined the Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) in Pennsylvania in 1834, four years after its founding. She came to Utah with a band of pioneers which had arrived in 1850. James Goff, her present husband, is the fourth to whom she had been married to. The others were: Leonard Phillips, Hyrum Woodward and Peter Boyce. She is the mother of 11 children, two of whom survive. They are Peter Boyce of Provo, 59 years of age; and Mrs. Sylvia Blanchard of Springville, 57 years of age. Mrs. Goff does not know whether longevity is a family trait, as she never knew or associated with her kin when she came west as a young woman. She attributes her long life to her strict adjerence to regularity of habit. She has always risen and retired at an early hour, and her evening meal consisted solely of bread and milk. Mrs. Goff lives at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Sylvia Blanchard.

She died in April 1915 at the age of 106. A poem about Grandma Goff who lived with Sylvia Blanchard the last 12 years of her life:

With willing hands and loving heart
We've cared for Mother dear.
Gently smoothed her silver locks,
And wiped away the tear.

Faithfully watched by her bedside
Heard her last feeble breath.
The angel of God came at last
And closed her eyes in death.

By Ether Blanchard,
husband of Sylvia