Echo Lovina Squires

(Born in Echo Canyon 80 miles short of Salt Lake, youngest survivor of Martin Handcart Co.)
Echo Lovina was born November 27, 1856 at Echo Summit along the pioneer trail just two days prior to entering the Salt Lake
Valley She was the youngest survivor of the ill-fated Martin Handcart Company just 80 miles shy of the Salt Lake Valley. One of
the rescuers Robert Taylor Burton gave her mother his homespun undershirt shirt to keep Echo warm after her birth. Brigham
Young sent one of the best wagons out to get her and her mother and bring them in. They arrived Nov. 30th 1856. It was a
blessing that none of her family members died during the terrible experience.
Echo’s parents and siblings joined the Church in Hartford, England. After joining the Church, the call was sent that the Saints
should migrate to the United States and join the other Saints establishing the gospel in Zion. Her father sold off everything
they had for the passage across the Atlantic to follow the Prophet to Zion.
She was raised in the Kaysville area but her father returned to England because of his health and in 1866 at age 10 Echo, her
mother and a few of her sisters traveled to be with him this time crossing the plains in a prairie schooner supply wagon train. They encountered indians and had
other recorded adventures on the journey. On return to England, Echo attended a private school. She learned how to make hats and worked at that trade until she
left England. Echo wanted to know more about the Mormon church she had been born into and decided to return to Utah 1874 when she was 17 accompanied by
her mother and the youngest of her 12 siblings. This time the took the train. She received a testimony of the Gospel and was baptized when she arrived. Her mother
Sarah stayed with her for a year and then returned to England with the younger children. Echo never saw her parents again.
Echo married artist Reuben Kirkham in the Salt Lake Temple in 1876, and the family moved to Logan where
Ruben had a fairly successful art studio and photography business. It wasn’t an easy life for them. Not long after
her marriage, a financial depression hit and as an artist, Reuben didn’t make much. They also found out that their
tiny baby had spinal meningitis. God gave her three sons and four daughters to raise. Reuben was frequently
away traveling with his job or in his studio, which left her alone much of the time with her children and garden.
After Reuben’s death in 1886 Echo rented out his business space and moved back to Bountiful where they
had some property with fruit trees. She bought a cow and learned how to milk it and her and the children
collected and dried fruit to sell for other goods. She said “the Lord blessed us with great blessings and our
storehouse was like the widow’s cruise of oil, it never ran dry.”
After the death of her youngest child just over a year later, she moved the family to Idaho for a time to be closer
to her sister. She joined the choir and was a sunday school teacher and counselor in the primary. She nursed the
sick and laid out the dead and was a blessing to the community. Because the family was so poor she made most
of her children’s clothing and even re-soled their shoes.
After 6 years as a widow and single mother, she married David De Lee of Bountiful in the Logan Temple in 1892.
They had a happy life together and had four more children. Echo continued to serve her family and her church.
She passed away in 1943 just 3 months after her husband David.