Emma Lee French

After being converted by the Mormons, Emma Lee arrived in Chicago from England, then headed to Iowa, where she pushed a cart filled with goods given by her church and headed to Salt Lake City, Utah. She pushed the cart herself for the entire 1,400 mile walk, as one of the many Mormon handcart pioneers.

She joined a company of her church's members for that trip, of which 150 died during snowstorms. Many others suffered other illness, such as frozen feet, noses and other diseases. Emma Lee helped care for them, eventually leading to most of them having a full recovery. During the trip, she also served as midwife to a pregnant woman, carrying her in the cart as the woman was close to delivering.

Upon arriving in Salt Lake City, she worked for seven years as an indentured servant to pay for her trip from England. Afterwards, she met John D. Lee, a prominent man among Latter-day Saints members. Brigham Young himself married the couple on January 7, 1858. Emma was John’s 17th wife.[1]

John D. Lee was eventually convicted for his participation in a massacre of California immigrants (see: Mountain Meadows massacre) that left 140 people dead. Before this, John and Emma Lee were followed by federal marshals for about twenty years. At one time John Lee was tried but was freed after a hung jury. In 1868, George Hicks, a columnist from Harmony, Utah, wrote in a local newspaper that the Lees had to leave town in ten days or John would be hanged.

Emma then spoke personally with George Hicks, warning him not to keep making threats against her and her husband. Hicks relented, never speaking against the Lees on his column again. He did, however, complain about the Lees to the town's Bishop, who proposed that Hicks and Lee should be baptized together. Emma Lee agreed, but not without complaining; she told the bishop she'd do it "seeing that (the bishop) are so inconsiderate as to require a woman to be immersed when the water is full of snow and that too for defending the rights of her husband". She continued on, saying: "Perhaps if (the bishop's) backside gets wet in ice water (he) will be more careful how (he) decide again". Impressed by her speech, the bishop then agreed not to go on with the baptism.

Lee was ordered to carry out important tasks for the Mormons, and, in 1871, he was sent to the Colorado River, near the border between Arizona and Utah, to establish a ferry service, in a location now known as Lee's Ferry.

Because, under Mormon doctrine, John Doyle Lee was allowed to have multiple wives, he had to travel much of the time, to attend to his other wives and children. Lee often left to visit his "gold mines." As a consequence, Emma Lee was left to attend both the ferry and her children. When Emma Lee left Lonely Dell after Lee's death, she had several coffee cans of gold. At one time there was a gold map showing the location of the mine which is now under Lake Powell.

In 1873, a settlement of Navajos came to camp near the Lee home. Fearful for her children's fate, she decided to befriend the Navajos, and discovered that the tribe's chief was a friend of her husband's. They spent one night at the Navajo camp, after which the Indians left. At one time, a Navajo Chief came into Emma's lodge to attack her, but Emma had a steaming pot of water on the stove. She threw the hot water into his face. Later the chief came back and apologized and asked medical attention for the burns. Afterwards, he told his tribe that Emma was a very powerful woman and had a great spirit and to leave her alone. Another time, a group of warriors camped nearby, Emma heard them talking about killing her and the children. She took the children and camped with the Navajos. They were amazed she knew their language .

Later that year, Emma Lee gave birth to her sixth baby. With John Doyle gone, she had to ask the oldest person besides her at the Lee house, her son John Jr., to help her cut the umbilical cord. They did this task to perfection, and a daughter was safely born.

John Doyle Lee was caught by the US Army, tried again for the Meadow Mountain Massacre, found guilty, and shot by a firing squad on March 23, 1877, and buried at the site of the massacre. With small children and economically in need, Emma Lee sold the ferry to the LDS Church for 100 milk cows in 1879. She was helped by a Civil War veteran, Franklin French. French was a wandering gold prospector.

On August 9, 1879, Emma Lee and French married, in Snowflake, Arizona. They found a home near Holbrook, Arizona. They next moved to the White Mountains, but their ranch was just out the reservation. The White Mountain Apaches had an uprising in 1882 and killed 150 settlers that night. Emma was warned just before the attack on her ranch and was able to escape with her children and some ranch hands. She heard the shooting of the livestock and saw the smoke from the burning buildings. Later French sued the government for $10,000 for the loss of the ranch, but the land was resurveyed and was found to be on Apache land.

In 1887 she and Franklin moved to Winslow, Arizona, and established a dairy ranch. At that time the Santa Fe railroad was being built. Many times the railroad would send a special train to bring Emma to help take care of the railroad workers injuries. She was known as "Dr. French" although she had no official medical title, because of her ability to cure the ill. She helped multiple women, including Navajos and prostitutes, give birth.

In 1888, her daughter, Victoria Lee, committed suicide. In 1892, her son Ike confronted a man who was trying to seduce his wife and was murdered by the man.

In November 1897, as her husband was on an expedition looking for gold, she had a premonition of her own death. When French returned on November 16, the next day she was fixing breakfast and said "I don't feel too well" and suffered a heart attack. A crowd of businessmen, Navajos and prostitutes kept vigil outside her home as she lay in bed dying that night.

Her funeral was one of the largest held in Winslow. The Santa Fe stopped their trains for a tribute to her.

Her tombstone is in the old cemetery in Winslow, Arizona, marked "Dr. French".

• Lee's Ferry and Lonely Dell Ranch

• Leo Banks, Stalwart Women: Frontier Stories of Indomitable Spirit (ISBN 0-916179-77-X)
• Brooks, Juanita. Emma Lee. Utah State University Press, Logan, UT, 7th Printing 1984. ISBN 0-87421-121-2.

• Page about her on the website of one of her descendants