The Southwest City Cemetery sits in the woods off Highway 43 about a mile north of downtown Southwest City. It is a well-kept cemetery with a narrow asphalt road leading west from the highway.
The farther one drives into the cemetery, the older the majority of the stones are. In the midst of the old moss and lichen covered stones stands a new tall, gray granite memorial. This memorial stone tells the story of Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdrey and her daughter's family.
Although nearly unknown in her own community, in the history of the Mormon religion, Mrs. Cowdrey stands tall. Her husband Oliver was one of the three men who testified they saw the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated. They also said they saw the Angel Morini who delivered the plates to Joseph Smith.
Oliver Cowdrey was a cousin of Joseph Smith and helped him write the Book of Mormon. Some sources list Cowdrey as "a scribe" and "the second elder."
Elizabeth Ann Whitmer was in attendance when the Morman church was organized on April 6, 1830, and a dozen days later was one of its first baptized members. Twelve days after the Mormon Church's formal organization in 1832, she married Oliver Cowdrey.
The couple were separated for much of their married life since he traveled far and wide helping establish the church. During their marriage, Elizabeth gave birth to six children, but only one, Maria Louise, lived to adulthood.
Elizabeth and Oliver's only child married a Dr. Charles Johnson, and some time later, they moved to Southwest City. When Elizabeth's husband, Oliver Cowdrey died, she moved to Southwest City and lived with her daughter Maria Louise, staying with her daughter and son-in-law for the last 35 years of her life.
The mother and daughter were very close and died within two days of each other. Elizabeth died on January 7, 1892, and her daughter, Maria, two days later.
The mother and daughter were buried on the west side of the Southwest City Cemetery, where their graves were side by side marked with a double stone. Dr. Johnson died in 1906 and was buried nearby. These graves remained obscure for 100 years.
In 1993, a California researcher discovered the whereabouts of Elizabeth Cowdrey's grave and made a visit. Two years later, the Latter Days Saints Boy Scout troop from Anderson, remarked the grave, cleaned the stones, and laid a ceramic tile walkway around the graves.
