Lulu Jane Steinagel Biography

Lulu Jane Steinagel Wall

Lulu J. Wall – Born Aug 11, 1890 in Stockton, San Joaquin County, California.

Lulu Jane Steinagel was born in Stockton, California on August 11, 1890. She was the third child of seven and the third girl of four to be born into her family.

She used to jokingly say that had she been born in China at that time she would have been drowned, because it was tradition to drown the third girl. She also said that she might have “driven her father to drink,” for it was after her birth that he developed an alcoholic problem.

She was tiny as a child, and she was also a small woman. As an adult she like to think that she was 5’1” tall, but she could never really stretch over 5’. Most of her adult life she weighed about 80 pounds.

One of her frustrations in life was her lack of education as she was brilliant intellectually. A teacher, who wanted to adopt her, commented, “Lulu is as nearly perfect as a child can be.” Although her formal education was limited to the ninth grade, she continued to study throughout her life.

She was an avid reader, and her children never brought home a school book that she didn’t absorb.

For most of her life she lived in a home where there was not enough money. As a result, she went to work at a very young age, and she worked hard all of her life. This led to a variety of work experiences, which included all types of cannery work, housekeeping, chocolate dipping, fountain work, millinery work, and practical nursing. She worked for a short while for an early “balloon man” who was preparing for lighter than air travel.

In her later life there was a great demand for her services as a nurse for new mothers who had just returned home with their babies.

She was married twice, the first time when eighteen years of age, to Elmer Flash. They were both excellent dancers, and together they won many dancing contests. He was not a member of the Latter-day Saint Church but had applied for baptism just prior to their marriage. This was never accomplished, however.

Soon after their marriage they moved to McCloud, California, where Elmer was employed in the saw mills.

From this union was born Elmer Allen Flash, later known as Eugene Allen Flash on April 6, 1910. He became seriously ill when a baby and Lulu took him to San Francisco for treatment. She was gone quite a while, and decided to surprise her husband by her return without his advance knowledge. She was the surprised one, for she discovered he had installed another “wife” in the home during her absence. This terminated any normal marriage relationship, but she hated the idea of a divorce. Finally, this became the only alternative.

She returned to San Jose with her young son, where she lived with her mother and siblings for several years.

It was during this time in San Jose that she met Leonard Wall. He was a missionary in the California Mission. She at first rejected him, because he had pretended to be married, and he had difficulty persuading her to the contrary. He finally convinced her, and they were married in the Salt Lake Temple January 16, 1918 a year after he had completed his mission.

After their marriage they went to live in Lyman Wyoming, a little town that his father had helped to establish. Most of the population was made up of members of two families, and there were the usual small town problems.

Lulu learned to love many of the people, but she disliked Lyman in general because of its barrenness. She was also extremely homesick for her family in California.

While in Lyman she also went through the tragedy of Gene’s death. He was baptized on his eighth birthday, and a short time later that same month he became ill and died as a result of food he had eaten at a Sunday School picnic.

She found it difficult to reconcile herself to the loss, and when Edna Viola was born on November 27th, of that same year, she greatly feared that she, also, would die.

Charles Leonard was born in Lyman on July 25th, 1920 as was LeRoy Albert on March 11, 1922.

When LeRoy was three months old, she and her mother-in-law came to Sacramento, California for a visit. Her mother-in-law, who was a widow, so loved California that she did not wish to return to Lyman, and it took little persuasion for Lulu also to stay.

Leonard sold his ranch and followed her to Sacramento a year later.

While in Sacramento, Betty Jane was born on July 27, 1924 and Robert Lyle was born on January 7, 1927.

They lived there until they moved to San Jose in July 1928, where Lulu remained until her death on December 1, 1951.

Although their income was extremely limited from the time of the depression, they took many young people (most of them motherless boys) into their home for varying lengths of time, thus acquiring many foster sons. This was truly a fulfillment of Lulu’s patriarchal blessing which had said that she would be a “mother to the motherless.”

She was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on March 15, 1903. She remained a very active member and always bore a strong testimony to the truthfulness of the gospel. She held many positions of leadership such as Relief Society President, Primary President, and Junior Sunday School Coordinator, but the position she enjoyed most was that of Sunday School Teacher to the young teenagers. She taught this group for a number of years, even until her death, and she was much loved by the young people.

She wrote poetry for which she won many prizes. She was a long-time member of the Edwin Markham Poetry Society. She said that her thoughts often came in rhyme and she had to transpose them into prose.

She was apparently blessed with ESP, or intuition, for she was often aware of events that had happened before she was actually informed of them.

She also had a certain ability for telling fortunes and in reading palms. She was asked for several years to serve as the “Gypsy fortune-teller” at the church bazaars. She became alarmed when some of her predictions came true, and some of the young people began to take seriously those things she was telling them. She then flatly refused to participate in any further fortune-telling activity.

At the age of 61 years she met violent death when killed by an automobile driven by a hit-and-run driver, who was presumably drunk. She was hit while walking along the road to her home, and she died eight hours later in the hospital without regaining consciousness.

She had dreaded the problems of old age and senility, and from this she was spared.