17 Jul 1853 – 1 Mar 1944
Daughter of Michael Beus and Marianne Combe (also from the Piedmont, Italy area)
Wife of Jean Paul Cardon
Extracted from Whence & Whiter compiled by H. Lynn Beus with Charlotte Gunnell
Magdalene Beus was born on the seventeenth day of July 1853 in St Germain. Piedmont. Italy.
This town is located high in the Alps. Her father, Michael Beus, was a son of James Beus and
Marie Madelaine Peyronel. Her mother. Marianne Combe. was a daughter of Jean Combe and
Anne Rostan.
Magdalene was baptized into the L.D.S. church sometime during the year 1862 in the Weber river in Ogden. Weber County, Utah by Bishop Robert McQuarris. She remembers that she was nearly nine years old.
They lived out of town at Burch Creek and did not have any close neighbors, so there were no playmates but brothers and sisters. She and her sister, Mary, played together.
There was one friend, Dora Browning, her close friend. when she had a chance to do any recreation, also Amanda and Miranda Stobie (twins). They played jacks, but used rocks for marbles. She and Dora spent a great deal of time in learning to talk correctly and corrected each other, which helped a great deal in learning the new language.
One time when she was very small she took very sick in the night and prayed to be healed and then called her father to administer to her. In the morning she was able to get up and do her work. Often, in raising her family, she would have her secret prayers for them. and they would get well through her faith.
Her father was in good circumstances and they had as good a home as anyone in those times. They all worked together to advance and make a living in this new world that had opened up to them when they accepted the gospel and emigrated to America.
Her schooling consisted of a few months each year, in the summer time when they were able to walk to town to attend. Her first teacher was a Mrs. Brown and also a Miss Canfield. She also had one other teacher who didn’t belong to the Latter-Day Saint church. The school house was a large building located on the west side of the block where the City and County Building of Ogden now stands.
Her home tasks consisted of several duties, such as helping cook, doing dishes, sweeping, dusting, etc. She loved to make quilt blocks and made up many new designs. When she was about eleven years old she made herself a dress, making her own pattern and sewing it by hand. After this she had all the sewing to do for the family.
She and her sister, Mary, spent many happy hours in the hills around their house. They would take the herd of cattle up in the hills to feed. While watching them they would take great pleasure in learning of the flowers, trees. and growth around them. When the weather was favorable they would walk from their place down to where the tabernacle of Ogden now stands to attend Sunday School and other meetings (Their home was where the Weber
school now stands). They would attend religion class after school, which was held in place of Primary.
One time, when she and her sister, Mary, went up in the hills to gather in the cows in the evening, their brother followed them and became separated from them. When they arrived home with the cows he had not returned. The family knelt down and prayed before they started out to find him. After quite a long search they found him fast asleep by a large tree.
On the 19th of December 1870 she was married to John Paul Cardon In the Salt Lake Endowment House. (She became his second wife, the first one being Susannah Goudin.) He lived in Logan. Cache Valley, and about once in a year he would go to Ogden to visit the Beus people, as they had come to this country in the same group and crossed the plains in the Edmund Ellsworth Handcart company in 1856. On one of these visits, he asked her parents for her hand. She was seventeen years of age, and his eldest daughter was just five years younger. She lived in Logan, Richmond, and finally settled on a farm in Benson. As she was the second wife she had to stay in the background. and hidden much of the time. She spent a lot of her early married life with Mary Cardon Merrill (now living in Preston. Idaho, a widow) the oldest daughter of her husband. She and Jean Paul Cardon were the parents of the following children:
Marian, who died as a child
Hyrum Michael
James, who died in childhood
George David
Amanda
Ernest W.
Oliver Beus, who died in young manhood
Violet
Katie
She had many hardships in her married life, as she was in a polygamous marriage and was alone in raising her family a great deal of the time. She was a very wonderful person, and no one ever heard her complain of her circumstances. She was faithful in everything that was asked of her, and her prayers were answered on many occasions. When she was a small girl one Sunday, President Brigham Young came to Ogden and all the people gathered together on Bishop West’s lawn and listened to him talk. When he had finished speaking be shook hands with everyone. At this time, he prophesied that the day would come when there would be a continuous city between Ogden and Salt Lake City and also that people should be careful with their needles as at some time, they would be hard to obtain. She saw these things come to pass.
She also knew Apostle Ezra Taft Benson and Marriner Merrill, Apostle Lorenzo Snow and many
others. Apostle Lorenzo Snow brought the gospel to her family in Italy. She, with her family, part of the Staley family, Susannah Goudin (first wife of John Paul Cardon) and the Chatelains came to Utah together in the Ellsworth company. They were 91 days coming from Liverpool to America. During the trip their drinking water was low and was portioned out one spoonful per person per day. She was carried a great part of the way across the plains, as she was so small. She spent the last years of her life with her youngest daughter, Katie Cardon Jensen.
