Nancy Marie Babbitt

Nancy Marie Babbitt

was born on September 7, 1854, in Salt Lake City, Utah, during the early development of the territory. Her father, Almon Whiting Babbitt, was a prominent political leader who served as the first treasurer of the Utah Territory and was a key delegate to Washington, D.C. Her mother, Julia Ann Johnson, was part of a prominent pioneer family with deep roots in early church history.

^{[GED]GED — Genealogy DatabaseGEDCOM Master File: William Erastus Platt}

In September 1856, when Nancy was only two years old, her father was killed by Cheyenne warriors on the Nebraska plains while traveling on government business. This tragedy left Julia Ann to raise Nancy and her siblings under the challenging conditions of the early Utah frontier, where single mothers had to rely on agricultural labor and close-knit ward networks.

Frontier Life in Arizona

Nancy grew up on the Utah frontier, developing the skills of household economy, gardening, and clothes-making. She married Charles Hamblin Littlefield Riggs, a farmer and rancher who carried the peacemaker legacy of his maternal Hamblin line. The couple moved to the high country of Apache County, Arizona Territory, settling in the Eagar area.

Nancy managed their ranch home in Eagar, preparing meals, preserving food, and raising their children during an era of extreme isolation and economic precarity. Her daughter, Adaline Amerilla Riggs, was born in 1879 and later married Lafayette Dana in Mesa.

A Near-Century of Change

In their later years, Nancy and Charles retired to Mesa, where they lived through the early decades of the twentieth century. Nancy lived to ninety-four, surviving her husband by seventeen years and passing away on February 9, 1949, in Mesa.

Her life bridged the era of covered wagons and the dawn of the Cold War. She witnessed Mesa grow from a small agricultural town along the canal lines into a modern desert city. Her granddaughter, Leona Dana, and great-granddaughter, Earlene Ellsworth Goodman, carried on the family's legacy of resilience in the Salt River Valley.