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Welcome to the Church History Library's Men and Women of Faith Lecture Series. Tonight's lecture is entitled "Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman: There Is Sure to Come a Ray of Light." Our presenter is Sherilyn Farnes, a historian working in the Church History Department. My name is Debra Xavier. I am the Marketing and Communications Specialist for the Department. Sherilyn Farnes received her bachelors and master's degrees in history from Brigham Young University. Her research focuses primarily on early Church History with a special interest in the family of Edward and Lydia Partridge. She has written and presented on various members of the family and is currently preparing the papers of Edward Partridge for publication. She has taught Doctrine and Covenants at Brigham Young University and Freshman Writing at BYU and community colleges in Washington DC and Salt Lake City. She currently works as a historian at the Church History Library. Welcome, Sherilyn Farnes. [APPLAUSE]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am pleased to be with you this evening. And thank you, Deb, for that introduction. I will say about Deb she is consistently cheerful and helpful in all my interactions with her. And I especially appreciate the help that she's given me preparing for tonight. Also other people at the Church History Library-- Elizabeth Myles has been helpful with the IP clearance and then others outside of the Church History Library, in particular a friend that has helped me with my PowerPoint a lot. Thank you, Daniel. I want to start with a story that I heard some time ago about the Prodigal Son. As a primary teacher, she was teaching her class-- can I move this? Am I allowed to-- and she was teaching a class about the Prodigal Son. And she wanted to review the story after she taught it. And so she asked her class, "who was sad when the Prodigal Son came home?" Meaning of course, the older brother. And this little boy raised his hand. He says, "Oh, I know who was sad when the Prodigal Son came home." She says, "Yes, Johnny, who's that?" And he said, "The fatted calf." [LAUGHTER] Now I tell this story because it's about having a new and a different perspective. That little boys has an equally valid perspective as what the teacher was thinking. Elder Oaks gave a devotional at BYU, 2002. And he opened it by saying the most persuasive or the most effective speakers don't just share facts, but they change their listeners' way of thinking about something. And I like that idea. And my hope for tonight is that each of us will not just think about Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman differently than perhaps we did before-- and some of us, I know, have come in knowing very little about her-- but I'm hopeful that we will think differently about Church History as well. That we will view Church History as people who lived and who were real people. And I put up this picture of the Founding Fathers. I want to start with a quote from author David McCullough. And I love the way he characterizes the people in the past and how we look at them. He says, "Nobody ever lived in the past. Jefferson, Adams, George Washington, they didn't walk around saying, 'isn't this fascinating, living in the past? Aren't we picturesque in our funny clothes?' They were living in the present just as we do. The great difference is that it was their present, not ours. And just as we don't know how things are going to turn out, they didn't either." Now as an aside, I have to admit I disagree slightly with McCullough here. We know the big picture will end happily. But like Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the other Founding Fathers, we don't know the particulars of our own stories. We don't know how our own particular path will turn out. And just like us, the Founding Fathers were anxious to find out the ending of their own path, the ending of their own stories. And as McCullough says of these Founding Fathers, he says they were not gods. He says, "Indeed to see them as gods or godlike is to do disservice to their memories. Gods, after all, don't deserve a lot of credit because they can do whatever they wish." And when I was growing up-- a little aside here to hopefully illustrate that point-- I noticed my mother was always cheerful. And I thought, well, that's probably just comes with being a mother. When you give birth to a child, you're just endowed with this infinite cheerfulness and patience, like it just comes. And one day it occurred to me maybe she doesn't want to be cheerful. Maybe she's actually making an effort to be cheerful. And all of a sudden, I appreciated a lot more her cheerfulness. And so as we go tonight, I invite you to look at Eliza and to look at these people in Church History that way. To look at them and to say, Oh, this is not just something they woke up singing "Come, Come, Ye Saints" every day as they walked across the plains. Maybe they woke up grumpy sometimes. Maybe they didn't want to wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning. And for me, when I look at them like that and I see them as real people, then that makes me appreciate their faith and their dedication so much more. McCullough, continuing with his quote here, he says, "Those we call the Founders--" I would say in context of tonight's lecture, pioneers-- "were living men and women. None was perfect. Each had his human flaws and failings, his weaknesses. They made mistakes, let others down, let themselves down." And with this, I'm not trying to say that Eliza or any of them were any less of a person, but seeing her as a real person makes her actions of faith that much more meaningful to me as I realize that life was hard for her and she struggled. And she admits it in her diary. And I'm grateful to her for that, because then I can relate to her, because sometimes I struggle. Elder Neal A. Maxwell also urged us to look at the pioneers this way. He said, "We must be careful not to canonize our role models as we have some pioneers and past Church leaders, not to dry all the human sweat off them, not to put ceaseless smiles on their faces when they really struggled and experienced agony. Real people who believe and prevail are ultimately more faith promoting and impressive than saccharine Saints with tinsel traits." He said, "It's not that we're searching for weakness as much as we are for growth." So as I was considering the title of this lecture series, I thought about the way that we view these pioneers, that we view Founding Fathers. And I don't think that it helps us to paint them as godlike or unhuman.

I think there's a reason that they are men and women of faith and they're not men and women who didn't need faith, because they never doubted and never wavered and knew how everything would work out. But it's men and women of faith. And so as we go throughout tonight, I invite you to consider that. I'll start with a story from Eliza. She says, "As they were crossing Iowa in 1846--" let me back up a little bit. So Eliza and her younger sister Caroline had both married Apostle Amasa Lyman. And they are crossing the plains. They go part of the way with her mother, her brother, her other sisters, one of whom is married to Brigham Young. And in Mount Pisgah, they separate. Eliza, who is eight months pregnant with her first child, and her younger sister Caroline move further West. And her mother, and her sisters, and her younger brother stay behind. A few days later, since there were messengers that traveled back and forth between the wagon trains, Eliza started writing a letter to her mother and her to her sisters. She starts by passing along some messages from others. She says, "Brother Lyman says tell Father Huntington--" who was Eliza's stepfather at the time-- "to tell Father Huntington the cattle he let him have are doing first rate. Daniel says, tell him the mule is the laziest thing he ever saw." She then wrote, "I do want to see you all very much but must not think of that. Do write every chance you have. If I could know that you are well and always would be, I should be contented for the present." So remember she's 26 years old. She's eight months pregnant. And she's heading out into the wilderness to have her first child. There's good weather for the time being, which she's grateful for but she also realizes, quote, "There is not much to hinder us from going ahead and taking us further from you every day." She continues the letter a few days later. And she says, "We are now camped on the bank of quite a river. Been nearly eat up with the mosquitoes. Had plenty of music from the wolves and owls. Had a little rain. And on the whole, had most anything, but sleep. I wish I could hear from you. I dream of you, but nothing good." You can sense the longing in this young woman's life to be near her family, especially as she's about to give birth for the first time. Several years later, her daughter Carlie, pictured here, was about to give birth to her first child. And Eliza was nearby, anxious to make sure that everything went well. And Eliza wrote about it in her journal. And so I'm going to let her tell much of the story.

And so this is March 7, 1879. She says, "Carlie very sick indeed. Sent for Platte--" Carlie's brother-- "in the night. Sent to Fillmore for Sister Anne Carlene as the woman we had said she'd done all she could." Sister Carlene is the midwife that's coming to help. "Sister Carlene did not get here till 7:00 in the evening. About half past 8:00, Carlie was delivered of a son weighing eight pounds. Carlie's sufferings during this day were beyond description. No mortal but a woman can suffer so and live. May I never witness such suffering again. The best sound I ever heard was when I heard the baby cry." And then four days later-- and you sense a little bit of frustration of Eliza here with her son-in-law, Carlie's husband. She says, "Platte has gone home--" who is Carlie's brother-- "and today--" names her son-in-law-- "has gone to Fillmore leaving his wife Carlie very sick and not able to move, and no man here now to help lift her. His back was getting lame, and he thought he had better go home." And so you sense just this frustration of, 'I want someone to help.' The few days later-- and I should say that's by no means a characterization of his entire life, but in the moment she was pretty frustrated with him-- or excuse me, the next day, "Carlie a little better, but not able to move herself." Two days later, "Carlie appears to be getting worse. She has fever all the time and has ever since the baby was born and has no appetite." But by the afternoon, Eliza wrote, "She seems more comfortable and natural than she has been since the baby was born." The next day, "Carlie has had a fearful night. Her pain seemed almost unendurable. She has given up all hopes of getting well and wants her brothers and husband sent for." Eliza says, "I sent for her brothers Platte and Joseph who came immediately. They were about 12 miles away. She talked to the family separately giving them good counsel, said she had no fear of death, but was perfectly willing to go for she had many good friends in the other and better world." Eliza wrote also, "I sent to Fillmore for her husband as she was very anxious to see him before he went. And so he arrived and he spoke with his wife." Carlie, her daughter, requested that instead of the father of her child raising that her mother Eliza would raise the grandson Joseph Platte. And Eliza agreed to do this. And so shortly thereafter, Eliza wrote, "It was plain to see that she was sinking very fast. We did all we could to alleviate her sufferings, which were very severe, but it was of no use. For no earthly power could save her. And although many prayers were offered in her behalf, the Lord took her from us at half past on the morning of the 20th of March 1879. Great has been her sufferings and great will be her reward. She was faithful and true to her religion." And then mentions that she was buried in the Oak Creek Cemetery by the side of her brother Platte's children. And so Eliza starts raising her grandson. At this point, she is 59 years old. And about eight months later, she mentions in her diary what's gone on in the past eight months. And you remember that there's no baby formula. And so for this baby to eat, she needs to find someone that can nurse him. And so she goes to one home, and then goes to another home, and then goes to another home as a daughter-in-law could help, and then another woman, and then a niece. She says, "The baby has always slept with me. And when he wanted to nurse, I had to get up, take him to another bed, and then get up again and go and get him, which took me out of bed from six to 10 times almost every night." So she's 59 years old and she's raising this infant. And she herself wrote on her 58th birthday, which was April 20, 1878, "I am 58 years old today. It does not seem to me to be possible that I have lived so long. When I see others that age, I think they are very old but I do not feel so." Although she didn't feel old, she did admit that it was old to be raising an infant. She says, "I am now in my 59th year and have this young babe left to me to take care of. I shall be under the necessity of doing whatever is for his best good." And I'll mention here this is the third time that she has commenced raising a child that's not her own. She had five children, four of whom survived to grow up into adulthood. And she raised one of her granddaughters for about a year. The parents of the granddaughter were not able to take care of her. So she raised that one as if it was her own. Her sister died and she raised two of her nieces for several years. And now she's starting to raise her grandson. And I was calculating the other day from 1846 when her first child was born until her death in 1886-- unless I'm mistaken-- she nearly always, if not always, had a young child in her home, was constantly raising for 40 years a little child, not just had children and then 30 years later they're 30 years and 35 years, but always had a small child in the house. But after noting some of the hardships of raising this grandson of the first eight months, she mentioned something. And I see a pattern in her life here. She says-- mentioning getting out of bed several times every night-- she notes, quote, "But I feel thankful to my Heavenly Father for the strength that He has given me to enable me to take care of the babe thus far." And over and over again, you see this in her journal. She will write about what is really going on in her life. She'll write about real life. And she'll say this is a hardship, this is hard for me. This is not fun. And she often will use the word "uncomfortable." When they get kicked out of Missouri, she says, "Very cold and uncomfortable was it moving this time of year." So I take the word "uncomfortable" is a bit of an understatement. But she'll write about what's going on. And then she'll say, "but I am blessed," and she'll name a blessing that she has, or "but the Lord has watched over me." And over and over again, you see this. You'll see it show up sometimes the same journal entry, sometimes it's after a few days. For instance, when crossing Iowa, she wrote in her journal on four successive days, "Woke in the morning and found it raining. It rained all day." The next day, "It has rained all night and it is raining yet." The next day, "The weather cloudy with some rain." And the next day, "Still raining." And so she'll write about it. She doesn't say, I'm very grateful for the moisture that we're receiving. This is a very good thing. She just says, "it's raining. I don't like the rain," basically. But it's so often her journal, she'll say "the sun rose again and with his genial rays warmed the earth." That when the sun comes out, she brings back this positive attitude. I want to jump ahead here to a quick story from Church History. Thinking about crossing the plains, we look at the pioneers and we hear good and bad stories. And it was a lot of different experiences for the different people. For example, some people, they said, you know, I walked across the plains. I don't remember it being particularly traumatic. And some, like her sister Emily-- they had a parade in Salt Lake City several years after they'd crossed the plains. And Emily wrote in her journal that when the pioneer wagons came by, she says, "They were too realistic. I could only sit and cry as they passed." And so for Emily, it brought back many, many hard memories. And so there was a whole spectrum. And I think sometimes we forget that these were real people crossing with real situations. So I'll share a quick story. And this comes from Mark Staker's book Hearken, O Ye People, which I love because it has a lot of personal details. So in 1847, there's this man by the name of Horace Eldredge. And he's woken up by Orson Porter Rockwell and Luke Johnson about 11 o'clock at night, because the night guard hears this sound. And they say there's like a mule choking somewhere. So they're trying to find where is this noise coming from. And so they look around. And upon further investigation, they discover it's actually the bishop snoring. [LAUGHTER] And you've got to mention that this is frustrating, right? You can picture they're pulling up the wagons, and someone says to her husband, "Why did we have to park by the bishop? He's going to snore all night. I don't want to park by the bishop." These were real interactions that they dealt with, annoyances. It wasn't just, "well, we got kicked out of our homes, it's OK, now we've got to deal with this." But I love the ending of Horace Eldredge's journal because after they discover it's the bishop, he ends with this-- oh, excuse me-- he says, the bishop was snoring, quote, "somewhat to the annoyance of some of the camp." And then he ends with this line, quote, "No harm done but ended in a little sport." So we don't know what they did to the bishop, but something happened. And so I've learned, as you have I'm sure, from reading pioneer journals and pioneer accounts that this was day to day life. They struggled to get along with people. They got frustrated. They got annoyed with each other. And Eliza was one of them. She couldn't see the end from the beginning. She knew what was in the day, but she always kept trying to look on the bright side. Let's travel now back to Painesville, Ohio. This picture is from Kirtland, beautiful green. Painesville is located just a short distance away from Kirtland, Ohio. And Eliza was born in the spring of 1820, perhaps about the same time that Joseph Smith was experiencing the First Vision. And as we make this journey with Eliza from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois and then to Utah, I invite you to figuratively come with me to those places. We won't go there tonight. We can't take all of us there, unfortunately. But I have been there and I've walked on those streets and I've been those places, and there's something magical, something powerful about being where these early Saints have walked. And one of those places, of course, is here in Salt Lake City. There was a man named Joshua Chamberlain, who was the hero of the 20th Maine in Gettysburg. And some years after the Battle of Gettysburg, he was invited back to Gettysburg to dedicate a monument to some of the men from Maine who had fallen. And when he went to dedicate the monument he talked about standing where something great occurred. And he says-- I'll find the quote here-- "In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass. Bodies disappear, but spirits linger to consecrate ground for the vision place of the soul. And reverent men and women from afar off and generations that know us not, heart drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them shall come here to ponder and to dream. And the power of the vision shall pass into their souls." And I love that line "the power of the vision shall pass into their souls." But fortunately I don't think we need to go to Missouri or to Ohio to always to see and to feel the power of that vision. In part, Eliza and others have left it for us through the records that they have left and through their journals and through their autobiographies. And in part, we stand where they stood because it's not necessarily a physical place, but it's a place of decision. It's a place in their hearts, if you will, where they fought out a battle to become a man or a woman of faith. And we don't need to go where their battle was, because we each have the decision ourselves to become a man or woman of faith. President David O. McKay says, "The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul." And so as you fight your own battles today, tomorrow, and the days to come, I invite you to look to the past as we are doing tonight and to consider like, author David McCullough says, "that history is filled with voices that reach out and lift the spirits, sometimes from the distance of centuries." And my hope, as I said earlier, is that perhaps something that Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman did or said can be useful to you in your battles. Let's look at a little bit about her family life now. Her parents were Edward and Lydia Partridge. And I think it's fascinating, they both came from Massachusetts, met in Painesville, were married in 1819 in August. And the following year, in April of 1820, Eliza was born. Within about five years of moving to Painesville, residents had unanimously voted Edward Partridge as their town treasurer. He appeared to be very well respected in the community. He was a hatter. He owned a hat shop and factory. And they had a home right next to that. I have the clip here of a Poll Book. And when they went to vote, only the men could vote. And so you went to go vote. The clerk would write down everybody's names. And you can almost hear Partridge's accent. Because if you look at what I've blown up here, you have his name, which is spelled Edward and then P-A-T-R-I-D-G-E. And so the clerk left out the first R, Edward Patridge. And so you can hear, I think, a little bit of his accent as he tells the clerk what his name was. And the court continued to make this mistake up until-- this is from 1830. So he's been there for 13 years. But that's how he said his name. So that's how he wrote it down. So Edward and Lydia-- Eliza is their first child. And they have several other children. A few years later, she has a sister Harriet that's born. And then her sister Emily is born, and then a sister Caroline. And then they have an unnamed-- and I'm sorry, I think I had this on the last slide-- an unnamed baby boy that died at birth. And then they have a son Edward, Jr. But at the time in the fall of-- oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll tell you a little bit about their house. Eliza's sister Emily leaves this great description of where they lived. She has this in her autobiography. She says, "The front yard had rose bushes and sweetbriar growing under the front windows. In back of the house was a garden with red and white currants. I remember an arbor or summer house, as we called it, with seats on both sides covered with grapevines with clusters of blue grapes hanging among the leaves and twigs beyond our reach. I remember a variety of flowers, such as daffodils, bluebells, lily, iris, snowballs, et cetera, that lined each side of the path from the house to the arbor. Not far from the house, next to the street, was father's hat store. And then further back in the lot was a large framed barn and a large yard full of black fowls, and sometimes the cow and horse." And so they're very comfortable, by all accounts. The land records also indicate Partridge began buying land and appeared to be doing quite well with that. So in the fall of 1830, four missionaries from Palmyra, or from New York, had come through on the way to Missouri, the missionaries to the Lamanites. They brought with them a new book called The Book of Mormon. Called at her father's hat shop. Her father sent them away. He called them imposters. And Oliver Cowdery said, "he was thankful that there was a God in Heaven that knew the hearts of all men." And actually after they left, something changed. I don't know if Partridge's wife or Partridge felt something, but something motivated Partridge to send a man after them and to buy one of their books. Eliza's mother believed. She recognized the gospel as she saw it in the New Testament. And she was baptized. This is the Chagrin River, pictured, in Ohio, which is where a lot of the early baptisms took place. Partridge himself, Eliza's dad, went to New York. He needed to investigate more before he decided to join the Church. But when he did a few months later after he joined-- excuse me, less than two months later-- he was called as the first Bishop of this dispensation. [COUGH] Excuse me. He had no Handbook, no stake president to turn to, no contemporary models to follow, just a prophet in his 20s and the Lord. And somehow he made it work. But her father is an entire story on his own. And so we're going to talk more about Eliza. They moved to Missouri. They moved there because, as her father's calling as first bishop, required him to move there. He actually went there on a trip. Eliza was so sick when he left, he didn't think he would see her again. And Eliza's mother got a letter that said, essentially, "we need to move to Missouri. I've been called to move to Missouri. Can you pack up the girls?" By now they have five daughters. "Can you pack up the girls and the house and come to Missouri?" And so she did. And he warned her in the letter, "We have to suffer, and shall for some time, many privations here which you and I have not been much used to for years." And the Partridges and others were very excited about Zion. They moved to independence. This is their actual home site in Independence, Missouri. They moved there. And they are building up Zion. But within two years, on July 20, 1833, and leading up to that as well, violence broke out on that day. Eliza's mother had just given birth. So she has her first baby brother. Baby brother is three weeks old. They're sitting in the home. We know the parents are and Harriet, and Emily, presumably Eliza is there as well. They're sitting in the home and a mob of 50 men come down the street from the courthouse, which is about half a mile away. That's not very far. So if you're familiar with the log cabin which is by the Church History Museum, then the courthouse would have been just barely on the other side of the Church Office Building. So these men come down the street. They surround the home. Two of the girls, Harriet and Emily, Lydia, Eliza's mom, sent to the spring. I don't know if she saw the men coming and wanted to get them out of the house so they wouldn't have to see whatever was going to happen. Sent them away. And three men came into the home, took Partridge. He made no resistance. He went with them. Some of the other Church leaders had gone into hiding, but he refused to go into hiding. He said "I've done nothing wrong. I will not run and hide." And so they take him to the square, the courthouse square, where they kick him to the ground. They punch him. They kick him. Essentially they beat him up. And it's interesting, because in their affidavit they said, "well, we did it out of self-defense." There were 200 or 300 to Edward Partridge. He was, apparently, a fairly strong man, but not quite that strong. And so they beat him up. And then they tar and feather him. And when he comes back to the house, Eliza remembers seeing him coming and didn't even recognize that it was her own father. And she ran and hid as did her sisters, because the tar and the feather smeared all over him. A few days later, the mob demands that the Saints leave Jackson County. And so wanting to save lives, the Church leaders agreed. And so I mention this about Missouri, because it's interesting as you look at Eliza and Emily's memories of their childhood, these are formative experiences to see their father taken away, to feel that safety of dad could be taken at any time. And it was said that at the time, the kids would be so scared that sometimes they would wake up in the night screaming, "the mob is coming, the mob is coming." That they were terrified because they'd seen these mobs. So Eliza and her family leave. The Saints agree to leave, and then they actually are forced to leave sooner than planned. And so they cross the Missouri. They go into Clay County. And Eliza remembers that her father was so busy helping everyone get across the river, which was the border between Jackson County and Clay County, the Saints had to leave Jackson County, that he didn't have time to get them a house until snow was on the ground. And then they found an old home that had been used as a stable. They moved in. Eliza's sister remembered-- so this is their new home-- that quote, "The rats and rattlesnakes were too thick for comfort. There was a large fireplace in the one habitable room. The weather was extremely cold, so cold that the ink would freeze in the pen as father sat writing close to the fire." But they lived there for a few years. Her father was called away on a mission. And she and her family stayed there. They actually also shared the house with another family. And so there were several people living there. Eliza found work as she could. She was about 13 years old, but there was not a lot of work to do. Within three years, they are forced to move again. They move up to Caldwell County, and they live in Far West. And then a few years after that, she and the other Saints are expelled. They're driven out of the whole state of Missouri in scenes even more violent than Jackson County. And they're forced to leave in winter. By now her father has been taken into prison. And so she and her mother-- you'll notice the pattern. Her father is always in prison or he's away on Church business. And so often it's her mom that's moving the family and moving them wherever they need to go. So they moved to Nauvoo. And so we have, in Nauvoo-- some death strikes their family. She'd lost a little brother at birth. But then her father fell ill. Excuse me, before that, her mother fell ill. Eliza's working about 28 miles away in Lima. And she gets a messenger that shows up on her door and says, "you need to come home, your sister Harriet is sick." And so she rides through the night. Gets home just about sunrise. Her sister was alive, but she died that day. And then her father fell ill. And he died less than two weeks later. And at that time Eliza was also ill. And she was too ill even to go to her dad's funeral. But she was taken in by some Church members who helped her to get better. She moves into the home of Joseph and Emma Smith with her sister Emily. And they both became plural wives of Joseph Smith. Now the secrecy was so great-- these sisters were probably fairly close-- the secrecy was so great that neither knew that the other was married to Joseph Smith as far as we can tell initially. So can you imagine that? Here you have this secret from your own sister, and you actually have the same secret. So they both are married. And then Emma eventually agrees to give Joseph two additional wives. She did not know that Eliza and Emily had already been married to Joseph. So the ceremony is repeated in Emma's presence. And now Eliza and Emily are both aware that the other one is now married to Joseph as well. However conflict in the home caused both Emily and Eliza to leave within a few years. And in 1877, Eliza reflected on this time in her life. And she wrote, "Times were not then--" speaking of the Nauvoo period-- "as they are now in 1877. But a woman living in polygamy dare not let it be known. And nothing but a firm desire to keep the commandments of the Lord could have induced a girl to marry in that way. I thought my trials were very severe in that line. And I'm often led to wonder how it was that a person of my temperament could get along with it and not rebel. But I know it was the Lord who kept me from opposing His plans, although in my heart I felt I could not submit to them. But I did. And I'm thankful to my Heavenly Father for the care He had over me in those troublous times." In June 1844, of course, Joseph is martyred. And so Eliza remarries. The plural wives of Joseph were encouraged to marry again. I believe, as I remember correctly, they were all encouraged to marry among the Apostles. She marries Apostle Amasa Lyman. It's spelled A-M-A-S-A. According to family sources that I've read, pronounced Amasi. And Amasa Mason Lyman in September. Her sister Caroline, also married Amasa Lyman. And once they got to Utah, their little sister Lydia would also marry. So we have three Partridge sisters all married to Brother Lyman. Her sister Emily married Brigham Young. And so starting about this point, we have this great treasure. And I'll actually hold up-- we have a published version from Scott Partridge, Eliza's journal. She wrote an autobiography. And then she says when she finishes, it's only just a few pages. She said, "I will now go back and copy from my private journal." And so she starts copying journal entries that she has from 1846 on. And she kept an amazing journal. Apparently her journal is one of the best in crossing Iowa, which is interesting because her father's journal is one of the best for the Kirtland Temple dedication. And her son's journal is one of the best for the Hole-in-the-Rock expedition. So you see this tradition of record keeping in the Partridge Family, amongst the Partridges and the Lymans.

I am grateful for this journal for a few reasons. One is because I spend most of my days reading people's journals-- people who are dead, of course, not people who are alive. And so although I did see this comic, which is kind of cute, between two roommates. The one is holding up a book. And she says to the other roommate, "In your journal, it says you think I'm nosy. Is this true?" [LAUGHTER] And you think, Uh, OK. And so there's obviously some danger if you have people around you. But I heard a neat-- well, actually we probably don't have time. So speaking of journals. So we have this journal that Eliza has. And so she's going across the plains. And so now, this is February 1846 that she's keeping this journal. And it was on February 19. She says, "I arose in the morning, found the ground covered with snow. Snowed all day which makes us very uncomfortable as the wind blows the snow in every direction. And our fire is out in the storm, so that we cannot get warm by it. I am almost frozen so I shall go into the wagon and make my bed and get into it, as I cannot get warm any other way. A few days later, we had a very cold night but--" and here again, you have this, here's the cold night. Here's the hard thing-- "but the sun this morning with his genial rays warms the earth and all nature revives again." She notes being caught in the cold once a few months later. And she was sent ahead. Her husband sent her ahead. Their wagon was stuck. So he said, here you get in the buggy and go ahead with one of the wives. They found Eliza's mother and stepfather. And so they stayed the night with them. But she notes there wasn't really enough room for everyone to sleep. And so she said quote, "We had to sleep as best we could, which was anything but comfortable. Some lying on boxes, some on chairs, and others in wet beds." She says, "I do not know why I did not freeze for I had no bed and very little covering. It must be that there was no room in the wagon for the frost to get in, it was so full of folks." So you see, I love her sense of humor. After about a month she noted a hard rainstorm in the night. And she says, "Almost everything we have is wet. But the prospect is fair for a pleasant day." So I love this looking on the bright side.

I think one of the things that I love about her journal is, like I mentioned several times, you see her as a real person. And as I thought about this idea of journal keeping, I thought about a devotional that one of my coworkers gave probably about a year ago. And he said that his daughter came to him-- he had a 17-year-old daughter-- and asked him if she could read his journals. He said after a little bit of hesitation, I agreed. And so his daughter started reading his journal. She started, of course, with the age that her dad was. She started when her dad was 17 years old and started reading those journals. And he said that it has, quote, "provided us with something new to talk about and laugh about and a new way of teaching my daughter about life, judging people, and growing up that I had never before considered. It's been an immensely gratifying experience for both of us." And this is my co-worker Andy Hedges, he says, "It reminded me of something President Kimball once said to the youth. Get a notebook, a journal that will last through all time. And maybe the angels may quote from it for eternity." And he says, "President Kimball's words have literally been fulfilled for me as I've seen one little angel in my life reading, quoting, and benefiting from the things I wrote 30 years ago." And so I love that. So I encourage you, keep a journal. Keep a journal or keep keeping one if you're already keeping one. And so we have Eliza keeping this journal. And she writes of July 14th, her first child was born. "My first child was born here in a wagon. I have named him Don Carlos." And then here's the honesty. "I am very uncomfortably situated for a sick woman. The scorching sun shining upon the wagon through the day and the cool air at night almost too much of a change to be healthy." She doesn't write for about a month. And then she writes, "Since I last wrote, I have been very sick with childbed fever. For many days, my life seemed near its end. I am now like a skeleton so much so that those who have not been with me do not know me till told who I am. It is a fearful place to be sick with fever in a wagon. All the comfort I had was the pure cold water from the spring nearby. But the Lord preserved my life for some purpose for which I thank him. My babe in consequence of my sickness is very poor. But as I get better, I hope to see him improve." And then she writes, "In the evening, we were alarmed with the cry that a mob was near us, but it proved to be false." She goes on just little mentions in her journal about her little baby. You can see her love for this little boy. "Don Carlos 10 weeks old today and as bright a little fellow as ever was." By the end of September, they're settling into Winter Quarters for the winter. She says, "Don Carlos is three months old today and weighs 11 pounds. I feel like we have taken possession of our log house today, the first house my babe was ever in. I feel extremely thankful for the privilege of sitting by the fire where the wind cannot blow in every direction and where I can warm one side without freezing the other. Our house is minus floor and many other comforts, but the walls protect us from the wind if the sod roof does not from the rain." A week later, she mentions that her hair is nearly all come out. So what little is left, she's cut off. She said, "My head is so bare I'm compelled to wear a cap." And then November 9th, she writes-- so they're sharing their log cabin with another family. And she writes that the little baby just three weeks old of the other family has passed away. And she says a few days later-- perhaps as she's thinking about the loss of this other family-- "Don Carlos weighs 13 pounds having gained 2 pounds during the last month. He is a great comfort to me." And then her baby got sick. On December 6, 1846, she wrote, "My baby is sick and getting worse. Has cried all day, but I cannot see what ails him." Six days later, she wrote in her journal. "The baby is dead and I mourn his loss. We have done the best we knew how for him, but nothing has done any good. He continued to fail from the time he was taken sick. My sister Caroline and I sat up every night with him and tried to save him from death, for we could not bear to part with him, but we were powerless. The Lord took him. And I will try to be reconciled and think that all is for the best." I love her honesty there. She says, "I will try." Not "I'm reconciled," but "I will try to be reconciled and think that all is for the best." "He was my greatest comfort and was nearly always in my arms, but he is gone and I cannot recall him. So I must prepare to meet him in another and I hope a happier world than this. I still have friends who are dear to me. If I had not, I should wish to bid this world farewell, for it is full of disappointments and sorrow. But--" there's that but again-- "But I believe that there is a power that watches over us and does all things right." And then speaking of her little boy: "He was buried on the west side of the Missouri on the second ridge back, the 11th grave on the second row being farthest from the river." And then she ends with this line: "This will be no guide as the place cannot be found after a few years." And then she doesn't write for almost a month-- or excuse me-- for over a month. In March-- so this is a few months after she begins writing again-- it is about three months after her baby has passed away. She wrote-- remember she left her mom behind at Mount Pisgah. And her mom, husband, the stepfather, Eliza's stepfather, William Huntington, had an assignment to remain in Pisgah. And she says-- so after three months later, we're now in March-- she says after so long her mother and family had caught up. "After so long a time, mother and family have nearly arrived. They are on the opposite side of the river from us and yet there is so much ice in the river that they cannot come over. Mother's husband died at Pisgah so she and the children are alone." And the next day Eliza records in her diary. "I went to the river and saw my friends on the other side, but could not speak to them. Sister Caroline went across, but not without danger." And so if you look at Eliza's perspective, look at what she's experienced in the past few years, I think we can see the effect that her mother has had on her. So Eliza has been married to Joseph Smith secretly. She's been widowed. She's been remarried, also plural marriage. She's negotiating that world. She's lost her sister Harriet. She's lost her father. She's been driven out of her home in Nauvoo. She's given birth to her first child. She's lost her first child. She's been so sick that people don't even recognize her who don't know who she is, basically who haven't been with her. She's lost her stepfather. And at this point, I think she's feeling the need to be around her family, especially around her mother. And I think what you hear her saying in this entry is in a very mature way, I want my mom. Sunday, March 21st. "The river is clear of ice on the other side. And a road cut for the boat on this side so that mother has crossed. And I am much rejoiced to meet her again and hope we shall never be separated again until death." And I'm sorry I got behind there. So Eliza, as she drew comfort from her mother's presence-- [COUGHS] excuse me-- she also was able to comfort to others. Six months after her own son died, she notes in her journal Sister Elvira Holmes' baby died. And the day after the baby died, Eliza receives an invitation to spend the day with Sister Holmes, which she accepts. And as she visited with her at the grave of her own child-- or excuse me, the grave of Sister Holmes' child, I can only imagine the comfort that Eliza was able to offer. So Eliza and her family stay where they are for about a year. And it isn't until 1848 that they started again for the Valley. Once again as they started on their journey, she's pregnant. She's seven months pregnant this time. So this is about two years after her first baby was born. And two months into their trip West, her son Platte De Alton Lyman was born on August 20, 1848. She wrote in her journal, "This is the second son that I have been born in a wagon. And I still think it a most uncomfortable place to be sick in. He was born on the east bank of the Platte River opposite Fort John or Laramie, Wyoming." So I put that quote up. So her first child was born in a wagon. Now her second child also born in a wagon. And as we get to this first surviving son, may I ask if we have any descendants of Eliza here. If you'd just raise your hand. Isn't that great? So these are all descendants of Eliza. And now if you're a descendant of Edward and Lydia Partridge-- so Eliza or any of her siblings-- would you mind raising your hand? So any and all descendants of Edward and Lydia Partridge, so all Eliza descendants and then all other descendants. Yeah, so we have several. Thank you. I love studying about your family. I wrote my thesis on Edward Partridge, Eliza's father. We're publishing her papers-- or excuse me, we're publishing Edward Partridge's papers. And I have written and presented on Eliza, on her sister Emily, on her mother. And so if you have any documents, feel free to come up and contact me after or through the Church History Library. I have a great respect for your family. So back to Eliza. She says, "She's been nearly helpless all the way." But she says, "It is all right. We are going from the land of our oppressors to where we hope to raise our children in the fear of the Lord and where they will never suffer by the hands of our enemies as we have done." So this is the day after she's given birth. She crosses the Platte River. And she says, "The rocks on the bottom are so large that it seems sometimes as if they would tip the wagon over I held fast to the baby and sister Caroline held fast to me so that I was not thrown quite out of bed." And then she writes as she reaches the Valley. "Reached the place--" and I love the mixture of real facts and her positive reaction to them-- "reached the place of our destination in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. I have been quite as comfortable on the journey from Laramie as could be expected under the circumstances. Some of the time, the weather has been very cold with rain and snow so that I could not be comfortable anywhere as I had no stove in the wagon, but I and my child have been preserved through it all and I feel to give thanks to my Father in Heaven for His kind care over us. We are now at our journey's end for the present. The weather is beautiful. The country? Barren and desolate. I do not think our enemies need envy us this locality or ever come here to disturb us." [LAUGHTER] Apparently she was not very impressed. So they settle into their new home. And even seven months after they get here, we see that she still kind of looking for permanence. She's, as a plural wife, you know Amasa's got to build lots of houses. And so in a period of time-- and this is May. They got there in October. So this is now May 1849. I think it's interesting to hear about her going back and forth. So I'll just read you a sequence of five days. She said, "Stayed at mother's all night." Her mother was living in the fort, Salt Lake. "Came home the next day, but the wind blew so hard and cold that I went back to Mother's again." May 19th, "our tent burned down." May 20th, "stayed at the wagon. Caroline came home, but I went back the same day. I went to the fort again in consequence of cold rain." And then this is the best or the worst. Three days later, "Snow blowing furiously. We were so very uncomfortable. Although we had a stove in the wagon, we thought best to go to the fort to mother's. We did so and found her worse off than we were for the rain was running through the roof and everything in the house was wet and the ground perfectly muddy under her feet. We thought it would never do for her to live that way, so we took her and her effects to the wagons deeming it more prudent to live out of doors than in such a house as this." And then we get to the part, this last part. Her journals get a lot more sporadic for a period of time, about 20 years and she's raising her young children, the four children that she gave birth to. She gives birth to her first daughter in 1851. Carlie is what they call her. They named her Caroline Eliza after her sister and herself, but they call her Carlie. And I have a picture. This is Eliza and her two little kids. So Platte, the older one-- so her Don Carlos is the first who passed away. And then we have Platte here and then little Carlie. So about 1852 based on the ages of her children. She has two more children-- Joseph Alvin who's born five years later, December 13, 1856, and then Lucy Zina who's born four years after that in 1860. And so much of the time when her kids are growing up, her husband is away. And so she's writing letters. And she writes all sorts of letters. And she actually apologizes once for writing letters. And we get a hint that Eliza actually really likes writing and then can write pretty easily. We had this great interchange with her sister Caroline who's also married, remember, to Amasa Lyman. Eliza writes, "I would not write as many letters as I do if Caroline and Lydia would do their part. But they will not so I must. Then--" since they'd often share space in the letter, Caroline starts writing after this. She gives about five lines of news. And then she says, "Eliza says if Lydia and I would do our part of the writing, she wouldn't have so much to write. But I tell her, if I could compose and write a letter as quick and as good as she can, I would not hate to write as I do now. But you know the old saying this-- practice makes perfect, but I'm afraid it will not prove true in this case. But I will try and do the best I can, and then we'll have to answer." And then Caroline writes a few more lines and then she says, "Well, Martha--" a little girl, a little toddler I believe at the time-- "Martha is crying and Eliza needs me to comb her hair for a party, so I will sign off now. And she ends her letter." Some of the letters were not as cheerful. This actually is a clip that's Eliza's actual handwriting there that you can see. But some of the letters are not as cheerful. Sometimes they write Amasa and they say-- in fact, a lot of them, they say "we're hungry. We don't have enough provisions." And one of them in 1870, she and Caroline write this joint letter in which they chastise Amasa for not providing more support. She says, quote, "We cannot sit down quietly and see our children starve. Can you not devise some plan whereby your family can be fed, and clothed, and have some little chance for an education? I hope you will excuse me if I have said too much, but I feel almost desperate sometimes." At times Eliza went to work outside of the home to support. She taught 60 scholars in the Fillmore statehouse for a period of time. And also shortly before that letter I mentioned was written, Amasa actually chose to leave the Church, to leave his apostleship, and his and Eliza's paths mostly separated at that point. They did remain in somewhat in contact and she did see him occasionally, but increasingly there was a lot of distance there. So kind of in closing, I'll mentioned just a couple of quick themes, some of which we've touched on briefly. One is gratitude. We see this attitude of gratitude of, "this is what's going on, but this is how the Lord has blessed me." For example, "Joseph Platte--" this is the little grandson she's raising-- "Joseph Platte, one year old today. And what a year it has been to me. But I thank the Lord that I have had the strength to bear what I have had to pass through, and pray continually He will stand by me and give me strength to perform all that is required of me while I dwell here on Earth." And then about a year later, her son Joseph was shot. They were going after some horse thieves. Joseph was pulling the boat to the shore. And the horse thieves are just shooting as fast as they can. She says, "They--" meaning Joseph and others-- "were shot at many times while crossing the river, but the Lord preserved their lives. And they recovered the stolen horses and would have come home all right but this shot. But I feel to thank the Lord that it was no worse for the bullets came like hail. And there was every chance for them to have been killed if there had not been an overruling power to defend them." Her faith also extended to the belief that the Lord would watch over her family members. When her son was 18, she wrote in her journal-- and excuse me, he was called on a mission to England at age 18-- she said, "I gave him to the care of the Lord, knowing that He would be his friend when all others failed." And she knew that the Lord would be her friend as well. And she was often lonesome, but she always trusted. She also worked hard. She said, "I have no time to idle away." She says, "I'm trying to do a little work, such as spinning wool, sewing, knitting, et cetera, but the most of my time is devoted to tending the baby." And she probably learned this work ethic from her mother who was Lydia Clisbee Partridge Huntington. And this is her mother's 83 years old. She says, "Mother is over 83 years of age and does a great deal of work, such as braiding straw hats, piecing bed quilts, and sewing carpet rags, making buckskin gloves, knitting mittens, socks, and stockings, mending the boys' clothes, and making herself useful in more ways than a person of her age could be expected to." So we have a treat this evening. Carrie Snow of the Church History Museum is going to come up here. And she's been very kind to share her time with us this evening and to actually bring over a lace cap that Lydia Huntington made. And so she has it up here. She's going to go ahead and hold it up. And I'm going to just tell you a little bit about it. It's machine-made lace, but Lydia apparently pieced it together herself. And so I'll give you a chance to look at that.

And so that I think is pretty neat to see what Lydia herself has done. We also have-- they were constantly knitting, sewing, mending-- this is Eliza's sister Caroline's mending basket. I'll put a picture of Caroline up. That's where she would put her mending. And so Caroline-- one of these most recurring themes in Eliza's life is family relationships. Thank you very much, Carrie. And so I love this interchange with her sister Caroline and with her daughters. In fact, one time her daughters left for two weeks. And when they returned, she said, "I was much pleased to see them as they were hardly ever away from me for a day, and I felt very lonesome without them." Her sons went on the Hole-in-the-Rock expedition. She was always writing back and forth with them, and she looked forward to letters. And then here's her sister Emily, who married Brigham Young. When Emily lived in Salt Lake and Eliza lived in Central Utah most of the time, so they were corresponding back and forth, as well as with the children. Eliza also corresponded with a cousin back East. She even did missionary work by mail. Visiting Salt Lake one time, she noted that she "posted two letters to my friends, purchased a Book of Mormon, and sent it to our cousin Helen Clisbee in Ohio." And she mentioned more than once writing letters to this cousin Helen Clisbee. In doing so, she kind of followed the example of her mother, who also corresponded with her siblings back East. Her mother Lydia got a letter from her brother John once. And John gave her some family information that Lydia had requested. And he mentions that one of their uncles had three wives. But then kind of slyly he says, that while their uncle had had three wives, it was, quote, "not all at once though." So you get this sense that there's a back and forth. But he closes the letter saying, "Hoping that you will write often and be as saucy as I have been. Yours in love and friendship, John Clisbee."

I want to you this picture. This is her son-- or, excuse me, her daughter Lucy and her grandson Joseph Platte Callister. Eliza starts raising him, but within about six, seven years, Eliza passes away. And so as I looked at this picture, I couldn't help but noticing the little Joseph kind of holding on to his Aunt Lucy's hand. And you get the sense that she's the stability in his life. His mother has passed away. And his grandmother who was raising him has also passed away, but his Aunt Lucy has always been there. She's been there while he's being raised by his grandma. And so we have this last picture of Eliza.

In her final journal entry, she wrote just a few months before she died. She said, "Bought some land to build on." And she gave the dimensions. And I don't think she ever got a chance to build on that land. And for this woman who was forced to move from place to place throughout her life, you get the sense that she wanted some permanence. She was always moving from here to there. Sometimes there was just more room, sometimes she took another child so she needed more room. But you got the sense that she wanted this permanence. And she didn't have a chance to build on that land. But I feel that she built something more important, that she built the testimony of the gospel. And that's what this lecture essentially is about, it's about men and women of faith, not men and women of perfection, but men and women of faith. People who sometimes feel like Eliza when she wrote, "I am 60 years old today and have like the rest of the world passed through a great many changes, some for better and many for worse. It may be that many things that cause us great sorrow here may prove to be a great blessing to us when we know more of the Lord's dealings with us." She also wrote, "I would be glad if I could live for the rest of my life exactly as I should." And one of the letters which I didn't cite from but she says, "I'm trying to overcome my weaknesses, and it's just so hard." But the sense, "I wish I could live the rest of my life exactly as I should and never say or do a wrong. And I pray my Heavenly Father in the name of His Son Jesus to help me so live so that I can be saved and exalted with the sanctified in His kingdom and be crowned with glory and everlasting lives. And I also pray that this blessing may be extended unto my children and their posterity that we may rejoice together to the endless ages of eternity." And I'm grateful that some of you are here who are her posterity. The image chosen to advertise this lecture is "A Sunset on the plains." And it's not the plains that the pioneers would have crossed, but I like the image for many reasons. It's actually from Australia. Not the pioneers we are speaking of tonight. And one reason I like that image is that you can't see any mountains coming up. You only know that you're already a long way from home, and you don't know what's ahead, but you must just keep going. As Susan W. Tanner once said, "I delight in the examples of those in the scriptures who walk by faith on their earthly journey. Each time I walk with Abraham and Isaac on the road to Mount Moriah, I weep knowing that Abraham does not know that there will be an angel and a ram in the thicket at the end of the journey. We are each in the middle of our earthly path, and we don't the rest of our own stories. But we, as Abraham, are blessed with miracles." Sometimes not seeing the trials ahead, I think, is a blessing. Eliza's sister Emily wrote in her journal, "The Lord in mercy withholds the future from our gaze, or that portion that would cause us unhappiness, and gives us strength to bear the reality when it comes, even that which we could not bear in anticipation." And so we'll end with our own Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman who wrote in 1880 shortly before she died, "I often feel as if I had gone as far as I could. But there is sure to come a ray of light from some source, and many times where I least expect it. And I cannot but acknowledge the hand of the Lord in my preservation. He leads me through deep waters, but it is all right, and I feel to put my trust in Him." And that is my testimony as well. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]

I forgot it is my job to now invite you to ask questions if you would like. So if there's any questions-- and I believe we have some roving mics. And so they'll bring it to you. And then you can go ahead and stand, just since they're recording it so that they can actually hear the question when they watch it later. My name is Barbara Jones, and Eliza was my great-great grandmother, as well a my three sisters. But we always said even though it says, "Maria," we always say-- and everyone in our family-- "Eliza Marie." Have you heard that in your research? I have. And I've actually seen it spelled that way sometimes-- M-A-R-I-E. And so since I saw it spelled M-A-R-I-A in her writing, I just pronounced it Maria, but I'd be interested to talk to you to know. Is that just the way that she pronounced it and we just spell it differently? That's in our family and passed down. We talked to our great aunt yesterday-- this morning, and she referred to her the same and she's 86. Yeah, and maybe like the Amasa that I always-- I used to say it Amasa. We, yeah, it's Amasi. That's good to know. Thank you. I appreciate that. I saw a few more hands. Thank you to those with the microphones.

Yes. My name is Dwayne Lyman Bishop. I'm a second-- Eliza Mariah, as we pronounce it is my second great grandmother. Do you have a copy of the letter that Eliza R. Snow wrote to her on the death of her first son Don Carlos at Winter Quarters? Oh, that is a great question. So I know that she copied it into her journal, which is where I've seen it. I don't believe I've actually seen the original. He's referring, Eliza R. Snow actually wrote a beautiful poem to our Eliza Marie or Maria or Mariah Partridge Lyman, and so, yeah, I don't know that I've seen the original, but I haven't actually looked for the original of that. There is one other thing I want to mention, that her first husband Joseph Smith advised her to keep a journal, that it would be important. She did not know how important it would be. In that she marks where her son Don Carlos is buried in the cemetery there in Winter Quarters. The Church used that journal when they were excavating for the temple to make sure that none of the burial sites were disturbed. And it was because of her following the counsel of her first husband that the Church was able to build that temple without disturbing the burial sites. That's wonderful. I'd love to visit with you after and get the reference to where Joseph Smith advised her, because that would make a lot of sense. Thank you. Please. My name is Clayson Wells Lyman. Eliza Maria is my great-great grandmother. Platte is my great grandfather. Albert is my grandfather. And Carl is my dad. Some of you might know these people who make me very grateful. I wanted to know if you were aware of that in the late '90s, we formed the Amasa Mason Lyman Educational Historical Society. And the founding charter president is this gentleman sitting right in front of me. His name is Jay Bishop. The organization is now under in the hands of Dr. David Busath. He's here somewhere. Where are you, Dave? Why don't you stand up. He's the current president of this organization. And our objective is to preserve the heritage of Amasa and his eight wives, and his 37 kids, and his 234 grandkids. That wanted to make sure you're aware of that. Yes, thank you very much. Dave Busath is my second cousin. And I appreciate that reminder. For those who maybe aren't aware of this organization, I think it is wonderful to become aware of that and to join. Yes, thank you so much for bringing that up. Yes, other questions? Any other questions? Yes, over here.

This may be somewhat of a trivial question. My name is John Lyman, by the way. I'm not a descendant of Eliza, but of her younger sister Lydia. I notice most of the Partridge sisters have middle names. Was that very common in that time? That's a good question. I've seen it both ways. I'm probably not the best qualified to comment on that, because I've seen a lot where there is no middle name. But then, yeah, like here you have Lucy Zina and Eliza Maria, and Harriet Pamela, and so. That's a good question. I would have to research that some more. Thank you. Good. Any other--? Yeah. My name is Gene Lyman. I'm wondering about the end of her life. Where was the property that she purchased where she wanted to have a place? And where is she buried? So she's buried in the Oak City Cemetery. And I wish I had a picture to put up here. And then the property, I don't remember offhand. I want to say it's in Oak City. But I would have to double check. So if you come up after, we can look up in her journal. But I believe it's Oak City. She lived a lot of the time in Fillmore, a lot of the time in Oak City. And then she pioneered in San Juan, but I know it was not in San Juan. So yeah, thank you. Yeah. Another one. And if you're not a descendant, you also may feel free to ask a question. [LAUGHTER] But we also like questions from descendants. Thank you. I'm not a descendant. Did Eliza and Caroline live in the same house? And another question, does the record show why Amasa became disaffected with the Church? Yes. OK, so on your first question, a lot of the time she'll mention-- and this is kind of what I alluded to and didn't get into, so I'm glad you asked the question. They often would live in the same house or near to each other. And sometimes she'll say, "I moved into a room of sister Caroline's, because their house was unfit." For whatever reason, it was too cold or something. And so oftentimes they're living-- but they didn't always stick together. For instance, when she got her grandson Joseph Platte to start raising and she needed to go where her daughter-in-law could nurse him, Eliza moved just with Lucy, her daughter, Joseph Platte, her grandson, and then the nieces of Lydia who Eliza was raising went and lived with Caroline elsewhere. So sometimes they were together and then sometimes not. And I just forgot your second question. Amasa left the Church. Oh, yes. Thank you. And so, yes, there's actually quite a bit of information. He joined the Godbeite movement. And so there's a biography by, I believe, Edward Leo Lyman that discusses that in some literature. Yeah, but there's a lot of documentation of what he did, kind of how he started leaving, and then what he did after he left the Church as well. So, yeah, and feel free to come up and contact me and I can point you to more specifically to those if you like. Also we can welcome you to the website for the Amasa Mason Lyman Society where there's discussion of that question. I am not a descendant and nor are you, right? This is true. I am second cousins with this leader, but not through the Partridges. And we're connected through my mom, not my dad, which is my Lyman side. But I am a descendant of Amasa. But my question is this: Did you come across any indication that Eliza was married for time only to Amasa or is that not yet a tradition until maybe a decade later? I know as recently as a decade later, it became a doctrine. That's a good question. I was actually doing a little bit of research-- thank you, Dave, for the question-- on that because apparently some of the sisters, canceled their sealings to Amasa and then were married to Joseph Smith. But I didn't do enough research to say, OK, here's the definitive original source. This is where it came from. So I have heard that, that she was married to Joseph Smith for eternity and then to Amasa for time only. But as far as the original, I would have to go back and pull up the original records to more fully answer that. If that helps. Yeah. Good. How long do we go for questions? OK. OK, we'll go a few minutes longer. Yeah. My name's Jay Stan Bishop. She's my third great grandmother. Wonderful. As I try to learn more about Platte, her son, and others that she cared for, I'm sure she was a great example. But do you know of any-- being that Amasa was away so often, who were the male members living that were influencing them, whether they're related or not? Do you know any of them or come across them in the history? Yeah, excellent question. And I actually was thinking about that in one of the parts I was reading through her journal. And she kept mentioning this brother that lived nearby that was helping them out. And I thought, "he was almost more of a help than her husband in some ways as far as the day to day." 'He brought a load of wood over,' or 'he cut our wood for us.' One of the biggest, I would say, is probably her brother, Edward Partridge, Jr., who was born in '33 and her oldest that survived was born in '48, so 15 years older. And so he was often around. Edward Partridge, Jr, was called on a mission to the Sandwich Islands, to Hawaii, and she wrote in her journal, it will leave us without man or boy to do anything. And so you get the sense-- and then in another letter, she says, essentially, we miss my brother Edward and we also miss his help. And so he was around a lot. He married two wives of his own, but he was a great help to his family. And then as her boys got older, they were some of the key male figures in the younger children's lives as the next generation came up. For example, like Joseph Platte Callister would have looked to his uncles and so forth. Does that help answer your question? OK. Great. Any other questions? Yeah. We have one in the very back here.

What can you tell us, if anything, about the journal, the Nauvoo journal, that she destroyed. OK. So excellent question. As I mentioned, so we have-- and so is the published version of a journal. And she writes an autobiography and then she says, "I will now go back and copy from my private journal." And so I've heard that there-- obviously, there is a journal, because she's copying from something. As far as I know, if any of you descendants have more information, feel free to come share. That there was a journal, she destroyed it for some reason, obviously, we can speculate, but there's nothing that I know that's definitive of where it was, officially why she destroyed it. We can speculate, 'did she want to edit the record?' Her father actually wrote his mission journal and then he went back and rewrote his mission journal. And we have both, so we can see how he edited it. Not significant, mostly just added or reworded to make it sound better. So I wonder how much that influenced her. Was that a factor? Did she just want to reword things or were there things in there that were maybe painful or just very private that she said, you know what, I'm going to leave my record for my posterity. And I will destroy my earlier journal. So that's probably the best answer I have for you unfortunately. Does that help? Well, it doesn't really help. I think we have one up here. OK.

All right. My name is Claire Hansen and I'm a descendant of Eliza through her son Joseph. And my grandmother was May Lyman which was the daughter of Joseph Junior, and then Joseph Senior, and then to sister Eliza obviously. OK, oral tradition. Here we go. We also pronounce it Mariah on my end too. Also the baby did have a name and his name was Da Clisbee. And I don't know why you don't have that, but that's oral tradition. So unfortunately I can't give you much else there. So her brother who passed away before her living brother was named Da Clisbee. And then oral tradition once again, she believed that there were some things that were in her record that if she felt weren't inspired of the Lord that might bring judgment upon her or upon others that she loved, that's why she burned parts of the Nauvoo record. A lot of her frustration, like you pointed out, was the fact that when people were suffering-- the Saints had suffered so much coming over from where they had originated in Missouri and coming across the plains as we all know-- and by the way thank you so much for your research-- by the time they got to the Valley and came around here and settled in Fillmore and the like, everybody was exhausted. That's given. But a lot of her frustration was they didn't keep up on it. So she didn't see it as suffering for suffrage's sake. She saw it as needless suffering. And she couldn't figure out why. And she couldn't figure out how to motivate others. Because everybody had been so afflicted, there was only so much that could be done. But she, like you've been very smart to point out, was a very intelligent woman who was humble and kind in her way with others. And I think we can all say we've been really touched by it, and thank you so much for your work. Oh, no thank you very much. And I appreciate you bringing up the baby boy's name. So I have heard that as well. I believe Emily in her record says that-- and this is just what I've read maybe research more-- that the baby was actually named in the St. George Temple, "Clisbee" because they wanted to do temple work, have them sealed and so forth. And so the reason I didn't put it on the slide is that I had understood that it was named 40, or 50, 60 years after that it actually had been born. And that it was the siblings that named it. So I'd be interested to hear if you have more information on that. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. Any other questions or comments? Yeah. This may be one or two more. OK. Where's our wonderful mic people. And then feel free to come up, we can visit more after.

You mentioned letters. We have a copy of the journal, but where do we find the letters? I don't think I've read any of those. Wonderful question. So in the Church History Library, which as you may or may not know, there's a catalog which is actually online. You can go online and search. And so when I have friends I say, "you should look in the Church History Library and see if you have relatives." And so if you go to history.lds.org, you can search in the Church History Library Catalog. The ones I referred to tonight mostly came from the Amasa Lyman Collection. And it's digitized. I believe it's accessible. If not, you can come to the library and then view digital images of it. Yeah, but it's a wonderful resource of letters to Amasa, well, from her. There's some from Platte. So if you're a descendant from Platte, there's letters from Platte when he's a little kid, when he's a teenager, just I believe two or three. And then there's also another collection, Paulina Phelps Lyman. I believe in her collection, I found two of the letters. And so, yeah, but in searching in the Church History Library Catalog or in searching the biography of Amasa Lyman, there's references in the back and he'll say, "here's a letter and this is the place that I got it from." So thank you. I think we'll go ahead and close. But thank you so much for your attendance, and for your comments, and the information that you shared with me. I very much appreciate it. [APPLAUSE]

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