Mary Jane Leavitt Abbott was known in Mesquite as an Angel of Mercy who never turned people away without feeding them and kept a satchel filled with mustard plasters, castor oil, chaparral tea, and other supplies ready for emergencies. She delivered babies, cared for the sick, and brought hope to the disheartened, and when crises arose, calls to get Aunt Mary Jane sent her quickly into action across the valley. Born in 1873 at Gunlock, Utah, she was the tenth child and second daughter of Dudley and Mary Huntsman Leavitt. High spirited, independent, and outspoken, she moved with her family to Bunkerville, Nevada, at age four, met William Abbott there, later married him, and moved to Mesquite. She gave birth to thirteen children: Christina, Dorothy, Josepha, Orval, Emily, Oscar, Gussie, Anthon, Deloy, John, Rulon, Claude, and Allen. Shunning personal praise, she honored other women as her sisters, seeing them as wise, compassionate, and independent. Along with raising families, these women preserved food, rendered lard, and made soap and candles over open fires, attended to the physical and emotional needs of the living, comforted the bereaved, and made paper flowers to honor the dead. They also planted, tended, and picked cotton while babies played in furrows and children carried cotton sacks, and wagons hauled the cotton to Washington, Utah, where it sold for three-and-a-half cents per pound. In return, the women received brooms, oil cloths, petticoats, and other supplies, only a small return for their labor, while most of the profit went into a women’s fund for community needs such as cloth for burial clothes and casket linings. Their motto, Charity Never Faileth, was the way they lived, and Mesquite thrived because good women performed good works as an expression of their faith.