Elizabeth Matilda Deem

Biography

Named after her mother, Elizabeth Matilda was born in Denmark in 1865. Her parents had Matilda and her siblings help with work such as sewing, selling fish, herding cows, and farming potatoes. Matilda’s father passed away when she was ten, leaving her mom a widow with six kids. Her father never joined the church, but her mother was a very faithful and selfless woman. Matilda and her siblings had to leave their mother behind a few at a time to come to Utah. She remembered eating lots of crackers on the ship ride over while encountering strong storms. Matilda and her siblings were sent to different families upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, but were well taken care of. For two years, she cleared rocks in Brigham City for work before moving around to labor in a few other cities. In her teenage years, she was reunited with her mother who had patiently waited to join the rest of her family. At 18 she was married to Isaac Shupe in the Endowment House and they started their life together in Ogden. Every week Matilda would make over 100 pounds of butter to sell. Even when the weather was 40 degrees below, Matilda and Isaac would travel through the canyon by bob-sleigh to deliver food to customers. The couple had three boys and six girls together. Matilda lost one son when he was young and then had to send the other two off to world war later on, but they both lived. Isaac passed away when Matilda was 54 and she passed away in 1936 at age 70.