Amanda Knight an important woman in BYU history

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    By AMBER MEAGER

    Female figures in BYU history take their turn in the spotlight as National Women’s History Month progresses.

    Amanda Knight, whose name was given to the Amanda Knight Hall, was a woman in history whose contributions cannot be easily overlooked. Her name is on one of two BYU buildings named after women.

    The Amanda Knight Hall, built in 1939, was originally a resident hall for women funded by the Jesse Knight Endowment Fund.

    Female residents of the building, with its three floors and 43 rooms, were allowed to work in the kitchen and the laundry and do janitorial work for credit toward room and board, according to Dedication and Naming of 22 Buildings, written in 1954.

    Since 1964, the Amanda Knight Hall has accommodated the LDS Church Language Training Mission, the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies and the English Language Center.

    The Amanda Knight Hall is uninhabited now and bids are being accepted to decide a use for it, said Brenda Wadley, an assistant international adviser for International Services.

    We want to see this beautiful and historic building preserved because of who Knight was, Wadley said.

    Amanda McEwan Knight was born in Salt Lake City in 1851 of pioneer parents, John McEwan and Amanda Higbee.

    In a family of nine children, Knight learned the value of adjustment, unselfishness, thrift and pride in a work well done, according to the Dedication and Naming of 22 Buildings.

    As a young girl, Knight moved with her family to Provo, where Jesse Knight, who would soon become her husband, lived.

    They were married January 18, 1869 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City shortly before her 18th birthday, according to the book The First One Hundred Years, edited by Ernest L. Wilkinson

    Knight’s early married life was full of hardship as she cared for her five children and worked on a ranch in Payson. Her sixth child was born later in Provo.

    “She made butter and cheese for market and cooked for her family. Her courage was strong as she tenderly cared for the family of growing children, although doctors, neighbors and relatives were far away,” wrote a nephew of Jesse and Amanda Knight in his journal.

    Jesse Knight described the integrity of his wife as they toiled on the family ranch in a journal entry.

    Jesse wrote that he had to work 16 hours a day to make a living as a farmer and was given the opportunity to go in the saloon business in Payson.

    It would be so much easier to make a living that way, Jesse wrote.

    “When my wife was asked about it she said, ‘I would rather eat bread and water all the days of my life than have you go into such a business, for every dollar made that way is somebody’s sorrow,” Jesse wrote.

    Her children and the community recognized Knight’s integrity and other notable qualities.

    Knight held the key of wisdom, maintained beauty of mind and body and possessed a sense of justice that made each family member feel equally loved, remarked her children and grandchildren as recorded in the Dedication and Naming of 22 Buildings.

    By the time of her death in 1932 in Provo, Amanda and Jesse Knight had contributed much of their wealth to Brigham Young University and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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