A Burning Desire

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Mary Wickersham Woolley joined the Church in 1837. Even though her husband didn’t join, he did have a burning desire to do what?

A   Pull a handcart

B   See the gold plates

C   See Joseph Smith

D   See the Kirtland Temple

Yesterday’s answer:

A   Doing the domestic chores of the family taking them

From the life of Elizabeth Betts Broadhead:   The Betts family was very poor. They were all employed as weavers in a ribbon factory. Elizabeth started working in the factory at age nine. She was allowed only four years of schooling and learned how to read and write.

Her father studied the Bible and read it to his family. They were all members of the Church of England. Their family heard the gospel in 1848, and were baptized as members of the LDS Church.

Through church association, her sister, Harriett, met and later married David Broadhead who was a recent convert to the Church. Three days after their marriage, they sailed from Liverpool to America. Elizabeth met a family who helped her financially. They promised that her pay would be her passage to America with them. She went to visit them one day only to find they were packing to leave for America the very next day. They only had enough money to take her as far as New York and if she could manage from there, she could go with them.

She left with them on the sailing vessel, “Antarctica,” and wrote to her parents telling them she had gone without the necessary clothing and bedding that was necessary. When they arrived in New York, the rest of the company went on without her. The Elders helped her to find work as a weaver.

The wages were better in America, she was able to save enough money to travel by cattle car to the Missouri River. When she reached there, she was out of money again and needed help. She found a family who would take her along if she would help with the children inasmuch as the mother was expecting another baby.

They were only a few weeks out on the trek across the Plains when the husband died and Elizabeth took his place in driving and caring for the team. She was of great comfort to this bereaved wife.

Elizabeth’s assignment on the trek was that of preparing the dad for burial, but she was more than willing to do whatever the leaders required of her. They ran short of food and clothing. The traveling was slow and the trail was rough. They were traveling with the John Smith Wagon Company.

International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Pioneer Women of Faith and Fortitude, (Publisher Press, 1998), 1: 365-366.