Box Elder News, 1 Sep 1910, page 5

Our Pioneers
Mary D. Ensign

"O! woman-mother; Woman-wife --
The sweetest name that language knows;
They breast, with holy motives rife,
With holiest affection glows,
Thou queen, thou angel of my life."

When one thinks or speaks of Mary Dunn Ensign [1833-1920], it is with the profound admiration and devotion that clings to noblest womanhood. Gentle, patient, humble, affable, loving, faithful, and genuine through the through. The mother of noble women and men, who pay to her today the same homage that her sweet disposition drew from them when they were children upon her knee. Over them she exercises the same solicitude as of old, and with the increase of years her heart has enlarged so that her tender love extends to all mankind.

Mary Dunn was born nera Ypsilanti, Mich., November 2, 1823, and came to Salt lake City with her parents in 1848. In January, 1852, she married Martin L. Ensign, to whom she has borne nine children: Mary Adelaine E. Roberts, deceased; Georgiana E. Hill, Logan, Utah; Emma Lavinia E. Lee, Brigham City; Harriet Camilla E. Smith, Logan, Utah; Martin Luther Ensign, Jr., Brigham City; John Henry Ensign, deceased; Horace Ensign, deceased; Effie Celestia E. Merrill, Salt Lake City; Dr. A. W. Ensign, Brigham.

Mrs. Ensign has borne with heroic fortitude all the hardships and vicissitudes that attend pioneer life, and her sweet, cheerful disposition has maintained throughout, and you will rarely meet one today who will give you more hope and courage and cheer and make you feel that life is indeed a grand and noble thing than this good sister. When we called to see her we found her, despite her 87 years, on a ladder in the top of a cherry tree picking fruit, as happy and gay as a young robin, foreseeing, as we imagine, how her children and grandchildren will, when dreary winter comes again, put their feet under grandma's table,a and will tell her how they enjoy her cherries. May she live at least to round out her full century of years, and as much longer as she may desire.