Personal History of Sarah Huston Pratt Tausig
Mother of William Gardner
Compiled by Louis W. Gardner
April 26, 1983
This history is prepared from the information supplied by Wilma Gardner Winkel, the fourth daughter of William and Annie Gardner and granddaughter of the above named Sarah Huston Pratt Tausig.
Sarah Huston was born in Stark County, Ohio, August 3, 1822. She joined the Mormon Church and became the seventh wife of Parley P. Pratt, who was an early Mormon convert. He had twelve wives and a total of thirty children. The Mormons were moving westward at that time and spent the winter of 1847 at Winter Quarters in Nebraska. This was where Parley P. Pratt’s seventh wife, Sarah Huston, gave birth to her first child, Julia Pratt. After arriving in Salt Lake City, Sarah Huston gave birth to three children by Parley P. Pratt. Her children by him were as follows:
Julia born in 1847
Mormon born in 1850 (died in infancy)
Teancum born in 1851
Sarah born in 1856
Their father, Parley P. Pratt, died in Van Buren, Arkansas in 1857. Soon after her husband’s death, the widow, Sarah Huston Pratt, married Louis Tausig, a church convert from Vienna, Austria.
They were married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City by Brigham Young. Sarah Huston Pratt Tausig was then thirty six years old. Her husband, Louis Tausig, was thirty eight years old. Three children were born of this marriage:
David, born in Payson, Utah
Belle born in Payson, Utah
William born in Goshen, Utah, June 6, 1862 (in a pioneer covered wagon)
After the birth of her seventh child (third child by Louis Tausig), Sarah Huston Tausig was in frail health and her husband, Louis Tausig, had left Utah for the gold fields of California. She was unable to maintain a home for herself and three babies.
In the meantime, her oldest daughter by her first marriage, Julia Pratt, had married John Gardner and Sarah Tausig let her daughter, Julia Gardner, raise her baby son, William Tausig. In this way, Julia Gardner became the foster mother of William Tausig, the baby boy, who was actually her half-brother, since she and William were the first and seventh of Sarah Huston Pratt Tausig. Julia was fathered by Parley P. Pratt and William was fathered by Louis Tausig.
In 1873, John Gardner moved his family to Sevier County, settling near Richfield in a pioneer settlement then called Prattville, which was located in the middle of the valley near the Sevier River. He brought with him his wife, Julia Pratt Gardner, and several of their children as well as foster son, William Tausig, who had then been adopted and was known thereafter was William Gardner. Sarah Huston Pratt Tausig also came with the family. Her other two children, David Tausig, and Belle Tausig stayed in Salt Lake City with other members of Parley P. Pratt’s family and they took the name of Pratt for their own instead of their real name, which was Tausig. David went to Idaho as a young man and became a prominent rancher there, while his sister, Belle, married a Mr. Cuthvertsen and moved to South Dakota.
After their arrival in Sevier County, Sarah Huston Pratt Tausig apparently never heard from her husband, William Tausig, again and thereafter become known as Sarah Pratt.
Her second daughter, Sarah Pratt had married Culbert King and was living in Coyote, now Antimony, Utah.
Sarah Pratt went to Antimony to visit her daughter Sarah King. She became ill while there and died on May 26, 1886. She was buried there and quite a few years later her son, William, accompanied by his son Lewis, the writer, made the long trip to Antimony to install a headstone at his mother’s grave. The headstone reads: “Sarah Huston Pratt, Wife of Parley P. Pratt.”
William Gardner, her son, once remarked that he bore the name of John Gardner and was sealed to Parley P. Pratt but had no blood of either of the two men in his veins. This unique relationship was of course the practical result of pioneer travels and hardships mixed with normal, human emotions and religious doctrine and influence.
[Gardner Cousins, Blane Gardner, 1983]
[transcribed by David Grow, Feb. 2007]