Elizabeth Mason Gardiner

Elizabeth Mason Gardiner, about 1838-1895
Textile Mill Worker and Hotel Manager
 
Buried in Porter Cemetery, Lot 46, Grave D

(Generic image created using Dall-E 3 via MicroSoft Bing)

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England’s industrial revolution of the early and mid-1800s created jobs for many women in textile factories.
 
Elizabeth Mason was born about 1838 in Gloucestershire, England.
 
On April 1, 1862, she married a local man named Jehoiada Gardiner in the Registry office in Stroud, Gloucestershire. The young couple had decided to emigrate to the United States in hopes of making their fortune there. Three weeks after their wedding, Jehoiada boarded the ship John J. Boyd, sailing from Liverpool to New York. He intended to send for Elizabeth after he had found employment. Unbeknownst to him, she was already pregnant. She gave birth to their son, John Mason Gardiner, in December 1862.
 
At first, the couple exchanged letters. However, when the letters stopped sometime around 1869, Elizabeth assumed that Jehoiada had died. Left to raise her son alone, she found work in a woolen mill.
 
In 1882, Jehoiada turned up while visiting England. What a shock it must have been for Elizabeth to discover that her husband was not only alive, but a successful businessman in Arizona and remarried to another woman!  
 
Jehoiada, who was now calling himself John J. Gardiner, arranged for Elizabeth and their now 20-year-old son to travel at once to the United States—but he asked them to remain in Salt Lake City while he broke the news to his second wife that they were not married after all.
 
Two years passed, and John J. was still working on a legal settlement that would provide for the woman who had been living with him as his wife for nearly fourteen years. Frustrated by the long delay, Elizabeth and her son John moved to Petaluma, California, where she began divorce proceedings herself. This got John J.’s attention. He persuaded her to drop her case and remain married to him.
 
In 1885, Elizabeth and her son finally joined John J. in Phoenix. Elizabeth helped to manage the Capitol Hotel, and John J. gave his son a job in the Phoenix Water Company.
 
In 1887, Elizabeth’s son John wed Honora Reppy. In due course of time, they presented John J. and Elizabeth with a granddaughter named Hilda and son named Charles.
 
Elizabeth joined the local Church of Christ. During the last year of her life, she contended with heart disease and asthma but bore her sufferings with Christian fortitude. Death was expected and came on April 13, 1895. Elder W. H. Matlock was in charge of the funeral, after which she was buried in Porter Cemetery.
 
© 2026 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 23 June 2026.

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