Samuel McRae Rooker LRGV-SCM and Permelia Emily Wooldridge K2H8-ZMF :

Written by Jerry Duke

Heber Valley Heritage Foundation

Samuel McRae Rooker seems to be the first of his family to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints. The ordinance records supply a 1844 date for his baptism and confirmation. There lacks any narrative surrounding these events and there are several dubious entries for him in subsequent church records; these recorded events in church sources should be treated with skepticism as they relate to him.

Samuel was born in York, South Carolina on October 13, 1813. He was the son of Jennings Rooker Sr. and Rebecca Woods. By age twenty-two, he had left home and was living in Macon. Noxubee County, Mississippi. Here he met and married a divorcee with three children, Permelia Emily Wooldridge Hundley, the daughter of Thomas Flornoy Wooldridge of Virginia and Cheriah Keziah Davis of North Carolina, who was twelve years Samuel’s senior. She was born in Elbert, Georgia on March 7, 1801. By 1839, they had three more children and at the age of twenty-five, Samuel was the head of a family of eight. The family moved to Grimes, Texas shortly following the Mexican American War. Those moving included Samuel, his children with Emily or Emelia, and her Hundley children along with their spouses. There were a considerable number of Hundley and Sprouse grandchildren as well.

There are church immigration records that indicate that the Rooker Family came to Utah in 1847. I believe this to be wrong. I feel that Emily’s daughter, Catherine Ann Hundley Sprouse, was the first of this family to receive the restored gospel when she met the Mormon missionaries in Grimes, Texas. Her son Bayless was also baptized with her in 1850. Catherine died the next year, but not before extracting a promise from her husband, John Sprouse, to take the children to live in Utah. John and his family immigrated to Utah in 1854 where he was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day-Saints. He remarried in 1857, but then died in 1858.

Samuel Rooker and the family group still in Grimes,Texas had become apprehensive about the state of affairs with national politics and feared impending hostilities over regional differences, particularly slavery. They wanted to leave for a safer locality and had discussed California, Oregon and Utah. Of course they had family in Utah that had just lost their father and that might have been a concern as well. They started for Utah in 1857 after disposing of their possessions. They had very few slaves at the time and it’s not exactly clear whether they remained behind or if they accompanied them. At least one family member has indicated that they had come to Utah. When they got to Arapahoe County in the Kansas Territory, they decided to stay for a time because of an approaching childbirth among their party. They built a rudimentary home for which the authorities gave them additional land for having built the first home in a particular geographical area that was soon to become part of Denver in the new Colorado Territory.

Samuel’s son, John Bunyon, was a young man of nineteen years. He wasn’t immune to trouble, and got into an argument with another over a poker game. Things escalated to the point that John shot and killed the other man. He was tried and found innocent, but the family felt it best to leave at least for a time. They went back to Texas only to find that things had deteriorated there. They turned around and went back to the Kansas Territory ( the Denver area) and then on to Springville, Utah. All this happened in the year 1858. Some of the family remained in Denver for several more years.

Samuel and Emily wanted to find a permanent home and they chose the Heber Valley as their place. They built a cabin in the Heber Fort during 1859 and then stayed the winter in the Provo Valley with those brave pioneers. They went back to Denver in 1860-1861 and then returned with all their family members to this beautiful valley and settled in the Center Creek area.

I had never heard of Samuel Rooker nor any of the Hundley family. As I did some research I found connections that I would never have known without some effort. It makes me appreciate the often unseen contributions of all of this pioneer heritage in Heber Valley. I found that my own great aunt, Martha Jane Duke, was married to James William Rooker, the grandson of Samuel Rooker. History is so much fun!

An article written for the invaluable book, How Beautiful Upon the Mountains, a publication from the Wasatch Chapter of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers says this about Samuel Rooker: “It is regrettable that so little was recorded of the life of Samuel Rooker in the Heber Valley. Even the date of his death has been lost, but love for peace and harmony among men made him a good neighbor and a tireless worker for the welfare of his family.”

That’s right his gravestone is missing along with some forty other markers that were there at one time. The date of his burial is known but not the date of his death.That’s a real shame and we should do all that we can to find and restore the identity of these builders of our community that were in the Center Ward Cemetery. A marker has been erected in the ground that says: “Known only to God.” We erect these small monuments so that there is a place to physically attend and honor our departed loved ones. This leaves a hole that must be filled. While that hole is open, we can’t be completely whole.

Apparently, Samuel was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day-Saints before the date when he and Emilia, that’s the name she went by, were sealed in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City in 1878. The date for his baptism in Church records is 1844, but I don’t see how that can be. Emilia was baptized on September 11, 1869.

She died in 1881 and he lived on for another thirteen years. They were both buried in the Center Ward Cemetery.

Children of Jordan Yarbrough Hundley and Permelia Emily Wooldridge

When Felix Joel Hundley was born on 25 August 1818, in Madison, Alabama, United States, his father, Jordan Yarbrough Hundley, was 37 and his mother, Permelia Emily Wooldridge, was 17. He died on 26 August 1842, at the age of 24.

When Catherine Ann Hundley was born on 9 May 1820, in Summerville, Noxubee, Mississippi, her father, Jordan Yarbrough Hundley, was 39 and her mother, Permelia Emily Wooldridge, was 19. She married John Sprouse on 6 January 1835, in Noxubee, Mississippi. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 5 daughters. She died in 1851, in Montgomery, Montgomery, Texas, at the age of 31, and was buried in Texas City, Galveston, Texas.

When Thomas Augustus Hundley was born on 4 January 1824, in Limestone, Alabama,, his father, Jordan Yarbrough Hundley, was 43 and his mother, Permelia Emily Wooldridge, was 22. He married Mary Jane Cotton on 30 March 1844, in Macon, Noxubee, Mississippi. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 3 daughters. He lived in Grimes, Texas, in 1850. He died on 15 July 1870, in Heber City, Wasatch, Utah, at age of 46, and was buried in Heber City Cemetery, Heber City, Wasatch, Utah.

Children of Samuel McRae Rooker and Permelia Emily Wooldridge

When James William Rooker was born on 14 June 1836, in Macon, Noxubee, Mississippi, his father, Samuel McRae Rooker, was 22 and his mother, Permelia Emily Wooldridge, was 35. He died on 17 July 1848, at the age of 12.

When Lucinthia Rebecca Rooker was born on 27 September 1837, in Macon, Noxubee, Mississippi, her father, Samuel McRae Rooker, was 23 and her mother, Permelia Emily Wooldridge, was 36. She married William Ether Cole. They were the parents of at least 2 sons and 1 daughter. She lived in Arapahoe, Kansas, in 1860 and Timpanogus, Wasatch, Utah, in 1880. She died on 24 June 1907, in Center Creek, Wasatch, Utah, at the age of 69, and was buried in Center Creek, Wasatch, Utah.

When John Bunyon Rooker was born on 25 April 1839, in Macon, Noxubee, Mississippi, his father, Samuel McRae Rooker, was 25 and his mother, Permelia Emily Wooldridge, was 38. He married Mary Elizabeth Smith on 7 March 1866, in Heber City, Wasatch, Utah. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 3 daughters. He lived in Grimes, Texas, in 1850 and Heber City, Wasatch, Utah in 1880. He died on 15 September 1908, in Center Creek, Wasatch, Utah, at the age of 69, and was buried in Heber City Cemetery, Heber City, Wasatch, Utah.

http://www.hebervalleyheritage.com