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“God Was Behind It All” Ann Coope Harvey

Ann Coope was born 13 April 1836 in Stockport Cheshire England the fifth of eight children. Her father was a successful manufacturer and the future prospects of the family were bright, until the year 1835 when he was burned to death in a factory fire.

Ann went to work in a cotton mill to help the family make ends meet. Times were hard. Then when Ann was about 15, she experienced a very unusual dream. She said, 

“I was working hard in the factory and helping mother what I could with my means I had a strange dream. I thought I heard a stranger preaching. He said it was unusual for elders to take a text, but he would take one from the 14th chapter of St. John. “In my Father’s house are many mansions, I go there to prepare a place for you, that were I am you may be also.” He preached about the wicked who would not receive the warning and called them a generation of vipers who must flee from the wrath to come. The following Sunday my companion told me about a stranger who was going to preach at a certain place that day, who was representing a new sect, and proposed that we go and hear their doctrine. I consented so we left the Sunday school and went to hear him. When we had taken our seats in the meeting: house I saw the preacher just coming in I looked at him and recognized him immediately as the man I had heard preach in my dream. I was convinced of my conclusions when he took the same text and preached the same sermon I had heard in my dream. I afterward learned that his name was John Banks of Manchester England.”

Ann was convinced that the Restored Gospel was true and was baptized by Elder John Wood, notwithstanding her mother and brothers all opposed it. 

In January 1846, she married John Hinchel, a member of the Church. Together they decided to emigrate to Zion. John went first and then in 1849, sent the money for Ann to come. She spoke of the ordeal of her departure from her family. 

“This was a very severe trial to me on account of leaving my dear kind mother. We wept to think that we should never see each other again in this world…. When I was ready to take the train and part with my mother, I felt like I never knew how much I loved her. She offered me clothing in the first fashion and my brother Jacob offered to pay all my expenses to learn to be a milliner. I told him I believed I had embraced the gospel of the Lord which justified me. I felt so bad my heart seemed to turn over. I had an impression not to look at my mother again; so I took my babe in my arms, stepped into the train, turned my face toward Zion and left the home of my childhood, all my kindred and associates for the Gospel sake.”

The date was July 1892. The sisters of the Center Ward Relief Society came together for their monthly meeting. In the course of the meeting, Anne felt to bear her testimony. The minutes record, 

“Ann herself was a convert from England and had done the hard thing as a young woman by leaving her native land and extended family and heading off into the great unknown–heeding the call to gather to Zion. Her first husband had died on that journey, which was a heartbreaking thing, leaving her a young widow with a small girl. But his death had also led to her marriage to John Harvey and the six children they would have together in Utah. It was impossible for Ann to imagine her life without them. Now, forty years after her emigration, she was reflective. What if the missionaries had never converted her family in England? The whole course of her life would have been different. There was one thing she knew: God was behind it all.”

And indeed, He is!