Louisa Bingham Lee
Louisa Emeline Bingham Lee was born on January 1, 1879, in Clifton, Idaho. Because of her mother’s poor health and of her father’s work away from home, she began carrying much of the responsibility of caring for their home and her siblings when she was only eight years old. Her responsibilities went beyond cleaning, cooking, washing, ironing, and sewing; she also milked cows, planted crops, sheared sheep, took care of the animals, and went to school.
At the age of sixteen, she married Samuel Lee Jr. and eventually became the mother of six children, including Harold B. Lee who became eleventh president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Having learned to work hard as a child, she ably helped her husband manage their farm. She served in the Young Women’s MIA organization.
Louisa and her husband moved to Salt Lake in 1924, a year after their son Harold had moved there. They lived briefly in Green River, Wyoming, but returned to Salt Lake where they lived out their lives. She died on July 27, 1959.
Sources
Leonard Arrington, Susan Arrington Madsen, and Emily Madsen Jones, Mothers of the Prophets, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2009).
