Adelia Rider Carbine was born February 1, 1802, in
Greenville, Greene County, New York, the only child of Nathaniel Rider and
Julia Aner Horton.
In 1805, her father died. On her fifth birthday, her
mother passed away. She then went to live with her grandmother and her Aunt
Keturah Haight. She always called the latter Aunt Haight.
One of Adelia’s earliest memories was of her grandfather
reading the Bible and saying how I wished I could live in these days – when
those prophecies will be fulfilled – it all seemed so interesting to her.
As a child of five, Adelia attended Miss Brewster’s
school, a place she was long to remember and for a very good reason. One day
she and another girl were whispering together. The teacher told them to come up
to her and put out their tongues. Then she took scissors and clipped off the
tip of Adelia’s tongue. The other girl hurriedly tucked her tongue back in her
mouth and so escaped punishment.
Before school was dismissed for the day, the pupils were
ordered to go straight home and to tell no tales out of school. In spite of her
sore tongue, little Adelia kept silent, but a friend told what had happened and
she was withdrawn from this school. Adelia often repeated this incident to her
grandchildren, and she always kept the obituary notice of Miss Brewster. In
after years, it was jokingly said that she loved to talk so dearly because she
had had her tongue clipped like a magpie.
There are two other incidents that reflect the harsh and
cruel practices of school discipline in those days.
A boy who had seemingly misbehaved was sent out to gather
chestnut burrs. These the teacher put down the back of his shirt. Then, she had
a boy pound him on the back until blood ran.
The children used to play with corn silk, and one day
Adelia put hers inside her dress so she would have it when school let out. But,
a classmate got her into trouble saying, “Delia has corn silk in her bosom!”
“Have you?” demanded the teacher. “Yes ma’am,” Adelia
replied, but spoke so low the teacher thought she said no. So, for “lying,”
Adelia had to stand before class and eat the silk. “It wasn't bad though,” she
recalled. “It was green and she was glad it wasn't brown.”
Adelia had beautiful dark brown hair, which hung below
her waist. She often heard people say, “Look at that hair,” but it was not
until she was older that she realized these remarks were not made because there
was anything wrong with her hair, rather because of its beauty.
She was a sickly girl and every summer it was feared she
would not live until fall. In later years, Adelia said she thought a great deal
of this sickness was brought on by faulty diet. There were so many things she
was not permitted to do or to eat. Tomatoes were only raised for decorative
purposes. She was not even allowed to eat a raw apple. The closest she ever
came to it was the hard part of a baked apple. Near the core, it seemed hard
and almost raw.
When Adelia was a girl, she went with her cousin, Isaac
Haight, to a revival. A clumsy, awkward man they knew, Henry Peck, got up and
prayed and said, “Father, make something of me or nothing!” As they went home
she said to Isaac, “How much do you think the Lord would have to change Hen’
Peck to make nothing of him?” But Hen’ Peck afterward embraced the Gospel and
was a good church worker, so concludes Annie C. H. Carbine, the Lord made
something of him.
On the fifteenth day, the month of February 1823, Adelia
became the wife of Edmund Zebulon Carbine, a prosperous merchant of Cairo, New
York, a particular man who liked everything just so, a man fond of jokes, a man
with whom she was happy.
They were the parents of five children:
1. Mary Adelia Carbine, born March 1824, died November
13, 1906. She married 1) Amos Northrup, 2) Robert C. Petty, 3) George Grant, 4)
William Warren Taylor
2. Edmund Zebulon Carbine, born January 22, 1827, died
April 18, 1857
3. Elmira Dorcas Eugenia Carbine, born October 29, 1828,
died June 17, 1851
4. Julia Aner Carbine, born November 23, 1830, died
November 26, 1914. She married William Warren Taylor
5. William Van Orden Carbine, born February 17, 1835,
died May 11, 1921. He married 1) Susan Hulda Miller, 2) Sarah Jane Miller
The birth of the first child, Mary Adelia, left the
mother in very poor health. It was said her blood turned to milk. She and the
baby were nursed by an old colored woman, Aunt Kate. The Carbine family had had
slaves. They had been set free, but Aunt Kate continued to live with the
family. She helped rear all the children. Baby Mary greatly preferred fat,
comfortable Aunt Kate to her thin, bony mother.
Adelia’s husband was a “well-to-do” merchant, but he lost
his business in this manner:
On a buying trip to New York City, he met his brother,
Francis, also on a buying trip. In those days, a person did not have to sign a
note. His word was his bond. Upon being asked if he would give security for his
brother for $5,000.00, Edmund agreed. Later on, Francis failed in business and
Edmund’s business was taken from him, no notice at all being given him.
Now, the youngest child had been named after his brother,
but his name was changed and he was known as William Van Orden. He was about
five years old at this time.
Soon after this, Adelia, her husband, and three of her
children joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Adelia and her family had belonged to the Baptist Church
and she had been very prejudiced against the Mormons, she having read and heard
many of the stories then current about them. She had just returned from a trip
to Albany, when who should call on her but her favorite cousin, Isaac Haight,
the son of her Aunt Keturah. He was a Mormon Missionary and the children had
been reading the Book of Mormon. He said, “Shut the door on me if you wish,”
and she said, “Oh, I wouldn’t do that to a relative.”
Adelia being such a good student of the Bible, she
thought she would have no difficulty whatever in getting the better of him.
Instead, she was converted and was baptized December 12, 1841. Her son William
was only six at the time but he never forgot how frightened he was when they
cut the ice and baptized her.
It was not long before all the family except Eugenia and
Edmund joined the Church and prepared to join the other Mormons in their march
for a home.
Grandfather Carbine’s autobiography says:
“My father was broken up in his business by giving
security for his brother, Francis. Soon after this, he joined the Latter-Day
Saints, coming to Nauvoo in 1842-3, my father going by water, and taking charge
of some of the belongings of some of his relatives. The rest of us, with
Mother, went to Buffalo by team belonging to Uncle William Van Orden. Then she
and Cousin Isaac Haight went by water with his mother that was sick. The rest,
my sisters Mary and Julia, went with Uncle William Van Orden by team to Kirtland
where we went through the temple. After coming to Nauvoo, Father was sick and
the Prophet came in and administered to him.”
Later, the family moved out about six miles from Nauvoo
on a place belonging to Uncle William Van Orden. There, Father taught school at
a place called Camp Creek. (Mrs. Osborne who lived across the street from us in
Rexburg, Idaho, was one of his pupils at this place.) But the mob spirit was so
bad they had to move back to Nauvoo.
The boy, William, was nine years old when the Prophet was
martyred. Anti-Mormons were now very bitter; houses and grain fields were being
burned all around Nauvoo.
William was in the meeting when the mantle of Joseph fell
on Brigham Young. He said, “I as a boy was quite well acquainted with the Prophet.
I was sitting with my mother in the meeting, and I thought it was the Prophet,
and told my mother so during the meeting. There are a good many that have heard
my mother tell this.” His mother often related how he said to her, “See, it
sounds like him, too.”
In the spring of ’46, Hector Haight furnished Adelia and
Edmund a team so they could leave Nauvoo. It was stormy and the roads hardly
more than trails. When they arrived at Council Bluffs, they saw the Mormon
Battalion start out to march across the desert.
From Council Bluffs, they went to Hancock County,
Missouri, for the winter so that Father and Mary’s husband, Amos Northrup,
could find work and so buy provisions. Now tragedy struck. The husband and
Father fell sick – cholera. After one week of suffering, he died. This was
April 30, 1846. Mary, Julia, and Mary’s husband were very ill and all required
special nursing, especially Julia. At times, her pulse seemed to stop. Then
they very carefully raised her shoulders and poured some wine into her mouth.
When these three had recovered, Amos went out to cut some
cordwood. He said he hated to go. He had a presentiment that something bad was
about to happen. He never came back. They found him in the woods – dead. He had
been struck on the head. It was generally believed that he was murdered by
anti-Mormons.
Now, there were three women and a little boy of eleven.
It was a cold house that winter. Water froze when it was taken off the
fireplace. The latter was their only means of heating and cooking. William’s
father had never permitted him to touch an ax. Now, he had to provide all the
firewood. He cut down trees and the women helped roll them on the fireplace.
They would cut a back log which they would dry, then keep rolling green logs in
front of that.
When spring came, they returned to Winter Quarters. Here
the Bishop had a plot of land plowed for them and they put in some corn and
vegetables. Adelia cared for two old men for which service she received a small
amount of pay. The Church paid her. It was difficult for her, the men being
irritable and each doing all he could to rile the other. One of them, a Mr.
Holmes, died.
Now, another winter was upon them and the children sought
work. Mary worked for a family in Winter Quarters. William worked in Missouri
part of the time and washed dishes in the army camp band mess below Winter
Quarters for the remainder of the winter.
In the spring, Adelia left for New York, hoping to
persuade her other children to join her in the trek to the Valley. Julia and
Mary went back across the Missouri, after bidding her goodbye, William left for
the Valley.
Adelia stayed in New York State for five years, but her
children did not join the Church; nor did they agree to leave the old home
state and go with her. While Adelia was there, she earned her living by
braiding hats. It was a hard time for her. She, who had once been the richest
among her relatives, was now the poor relation. Her “comedown” pleased some of
her most envious kin. Then, there were other relatives who were bitterly
antagonistic toward the Mormons. But, on the whole, she felt she was well
treated.
During the visit, her daughter, Eugenia, died of cholera
at the age of twenty-one. The Doctor had left pills of two colors for her to be
given at certain times. A little girl had meddled with them, losing the ones
she needed to save her life.
Adelia left New York and crossed the plains to Utah in
1855, arriving in Farmington where she was reunited with her children. She kept
house for her son, William, and lived with him for the rest of her life, except
six years spent with her daughters.
During this period of her life, Adelia received
notification of the death of her older son, Edmund Zebulon. He died April 1857,
in New York City, where he had gone to learn the cutlery trade. The steel
filings poisoned him. He was buried in the Masonic Cemetery.
William married Susan Hulda Miller, February 25, 1861,
and Adelia continued to live with them in Farmington. During these years, the
women were often alone, William keeping stock at the Promontory, Brigham City,
Point Lookout, Malad Valley and Bear River. Adelia was with Susan when her
first born son died of diphtheria. They sometimes spent the summer in West
Weber, and there Edmund Z was born September 15, 1864. After Susan died, May
26, 1867, Adelia took care of little Ed.
In 1870, William married Sarah Jane Miller, a double
cousin of his first wife. They moved to Clarkston where they made their home
for sixteen years. This must have been a happy time for Adelia. Her son had
done well financially and she had the pleasure of seeing him take an active and
important part in civic and church affairs. It must have seemed good to be
prosperous once again. And her health had been good ever since she was fifty.
Life did not stand still. Sarah Jane and William presented her with twelve
grandchildren, three of whom died in infancy.
For six of these sixteen years, Adelia was away from
Clarkston visiting her daughters, Mary and Julia, in southern Utah.
Uncle Will says in a letter:
“Our two Aunts, Mary Adelia and Julia Aner, were both
married to William Taylor (Aunt Julia was first wife). They both lived at New
Harmony, about forty miles from St. George. Grandma had been making her home
with them but determined to go back with us. Both father and the girls tried to
get her to stay where she was, trying to tell her it wasn’t safe for her to
make that trip so late in the fall. But, she said she would go if she knew she
would die on the way, and she got her way at that.”
He says this was in the fall of ’82 when William and his
family had been visiting Sarah’s parents in St. George and his sisters in New
Harmony.
It is said Adelia was a bit jealous of Grandma Miller,
and since Susan, a babe of one year, took more to this grandma than she did to
Adelia, she never quite forgave her. Susan says she was never a favorite of her
Grandmother Carbine.
Adelia’s days of pioneering were not yet over. When she
was 84, William moved his family to Parker, Idaho. Adelia did not go with them
but left a little later, by train, and they went to Market Lake to meet her. I
am thinking now she must have hated that cold country. And there she was to
remain until her death 15 years later.
The first winter in Parker there was nothing to see but
snow. One could look outdoors and no sign of human habitation except Ed’s house
and the roof of another dwelling. Adelia was severely ill. Susan, not yet six,
looked outside and then at her Grandmother, “Do you think you’ll die, Grandma?”
Grandma said, “I don’t know.” Susan then said, “If you do, Grandma, do you
think anyone will come to the funeral?”
I guess life wasn't dull for her, though. It can’t be in
a big family. Three more grandchildren were born. Some of the boys married. She
was great-grandmother to many children before she died. She saw boys go off to
the Brigham Young University at Provo. How she must have enjoyed this, for she
was a well educated woman for her day, as were all her children, except
William, who was so young when they began their wanderings.
Adelia had her pets among the children. They were Lucy
and Francis, especially Francis whom she named. She couldn’t sleep until he had
kissed her good night. When he teased her, she blamed it on Julia.
The latter [Julia] says,
“An addition was
built on the back of the house so she had a room next to the kitchen, so that
it wouldn't be so hard for Mother to take care of her, as she was confined to
her room for the last few years. “Before her room was built, she had a shelf
over her bed where she used to keep some of her things.
Francis was her pride and joy. He was so full of
mischief, but she thought he couldn't do a thing. Every day he would get on her
bed and get into her things, every day I got a scolding for getting into her
things. But she finally caught Francis in the act.
“I remember her going to Church in her Sunday bonnet. It
was made of black satin and tied under the chin. For everyday occasions, she
had a cap she wore in the daytime. This was made of black lace over black
sateen and trimmed with black satin ribbon. She always wore a long black dress.
When she went to Church, she wore a black cape over the black dress. She
carried herself so straight and always looked so dressy.
“Until the time of her death, Grandma could talk religion
and politics with anyone she could find to talk with. She liked to have the
Bible read to her. Just before her death, I spent quite a lot of time in her
room. Her grandson, Ed, and Alma, were married. Will had just returned from his
mission. Dan, Susie, and Lucy were going to the Ricks Academy at Rexburg, and
Mother was busy, and she wanted someone to read to her from her big Bible. I
spent part of every day with her. I would read until she fell asleep, then I
would slip out, trying not to awaken her. The Bible isn't very interesting reading
for a child. I would read until I came to a word I couldn't pronounce, and then
spell it for her to tell me what it was. I spent most of the time spelling.
Just before Grandma passed away, she sang, “Oh, My Father,” from beginning to
end. I never hear that song without thinking of her. She had been unconscious
all day, hadn't recognized anyone. The house was so quiet. Then all of the
sudden, she started that song in a weak voice. Then she passed away. That was
one of the songs at her funeral.”
Once she picked up a hatchet to cut some kindling and cut
her finger instead. It hung by the skin, and nobody was home to help her. So
she bound it up, and it grew back on, only a little line showing where the cut
had been.
She had a wonderful memory and loved to talk. She knew
and liked to talk about United States History, the Bible, politics and
religion.
My mother can remember seeing her in her room crocheting
or knitting beautiful lace. She says she looked so smart.
Adelia used to write quite a few letters. Susan remembers
her writing to a Mrs. Littlebrant and to her husband’s cousin, John Lennon, of
Cairo, New York. His mother was a sister of Mary Crooker, her Husband’s mother.
I remember my father saying how well she liked her bear
meat.
Mrs. Fred Richards (Caroline Laub) once told me of
visiting the old Grandma Carbine in Parker. She said she was “an awful talker”
and that she seemed bitter over pioneer life. Also, she showed some pretty
things she had brought from her home in the east.
She liked to read Sarah’s magazines and then tell her
what was in them. So, Dan was told to give the magazines to his Mother first.
In that way, she could read them before she knew all about them. Then she would
give them to Adelia.
When it came to politics, Adelia was an orthodox
Democrat. She once told Brother Donaldson he ought to be cut off the Church for
being a Republican.
Adelia’s old family Bible was burned in the fire which
destroyed the home which had belonged to her son, William, at La Grande. She
would sit in her chair and read and snore, then read some more. A few leaves
would turn, so she would think she had read three chapters, whereas she had
probably read only three verses. But, she could always tell what was in the
verses if anyone tried to “trip her up.”
Grandmother Adelia walked with a bamboo cane and it could
be heard tapping as she walked through the house. A dress was not considered
complete until it had been torn and mended by Grandmother. Her stitches were
perfect.
For years, she had said she thought she would choke to
death. In the spring, she always said she knew she would die when the leaves
fell.
When she did pass away, it was December 5, 1899. What a
cold ride it was to the cemetery, as at that time the horses had to walk in a
funeral procession. There was a large crowd at her funeral.
Her life spanned nearly a century, and how we wish we
knew more about her than the incidents herein recorded. What one would give for
just one of her letters! And are there no pictures of her?
The above incidents were written by Aulene Carbine
Romney.
OTHER
MEMORIES ABOUT ADELIA RIDER by Aulene Carbine Romney compiled with notes with
various discussions, Contributed
By keyre · 2013-07-15
Our mother sang the songs to us that Grandmother Adelia
sang. It is said she was a good singer. Some were religious songs of the Savior
and some were probably sung at revivals (as she told mother of going to
revivals). There’s one to soothe a crying baby and some for amusement. I don’t
suppose we will ever know them all.
Mother said she was a “chatterbox” and liked to talk and
was very knowledgeable on politics. She was a Democrat as was her son. She once
said to our father, “Eddie, don’t you ever let me hear of a Carbine being
anything but a Democrat!” I think Papa was a ticket scratcher like me and voted
for the man he thought the best regardless of party.
About the last time mother visited me at the Horse Shoe
Ranch as we were sitting together one evening I was crocheting some lace and
mother asked to look at it. I passed it over and she said, “It’s pretty. I
would like to have a slip with some of this lace for burial.” I said, “I sure
will make it for you. Would you like a white taffeta dress to go with it?” As
she looked at the lace she said, “Yes. I have always regretted that I didn’t
make one for Grandma Carbine. Grandmother Adelia said to me, “Annie, I know I
won’t have a new petticoat for burial and I wish you would run yarn through the
hem of mine. Then after you wash and iron it, pull the yarn out and that will
make it look like it is new.” Mother said, “I did do that, but I have always
wished that I had made her a new one.”
Sometime back, I wrote each of the girls and asked them
to write anything they remembered mother telling them about Grandmother Adelia.
Myrtle was sick at the time and Ida wrote what she remembered mother saying
about her. Both Myrtle and Katie said they remembered her as being a tiny
little person and always very kind. Katie said, “She had a tiny little room
where she spent most of her time. Her eyesight was almost gone and she could
only tell each child by size.” “She had a nice feather bed and would make her
bed very pretty and neat, and when her back was turned, Francis would jump in
the middle of it and Julia would get the blame.” She would always greet us
sweetly and say, as she put her hand on our heads, “How are you, dear, let’s
see, are you Francis or Clara.” Her mind seemed real bright and her voice was
low and kind.
Myrtle remembered she always wore a black dress and a
little white ruffled cap. She didn’t know whether she wore the cap because it
was stylish or to keep her head warm or just to take care of her hair. She had
her own little room with a bed and rocker and a little table with her big Bible
that she read a lot, and a heater. Her eyesight was quite poor and she wore
glasses to help her read. When the kids came into the room, she could usually
tell them by their size. She would say, “Is it Myrtle? Come give Grandmother a
kiss.” And she also remembers her as being so kind and patient. She seemed to
love the grandchildren very much.
Thelma remembers mother telling her in speaking of her
marriage, Grandmother Adelia said, “We were married in the springtime when the
birds took their mates.” And she remembers too, of her telling Papa Edmund
never “let me hear of a Carbine being a Republican!” Then Thelma remarked, “She
must have been a very alert, wise and wonderful person, lots of character, and
a great personality.” One thing I remember mother telling of Grandmother Adelia
observing our Grandmother Susan Hulda. She wore hoop skirts and Grandmother saw
such a clean, pretty petticoat with dainty handmade crocheted lace.
She admired Susan Hulda so much and wanted her for her
daughter-in-law. And being a wise mother and knowing her son, she plotted,
using reverse psychology. William then came to the girl’s defense picking out
her good qualities, while all along mother’s tactic had the desired effect and
inside she was smiling to herself.
I don’t remember much about this Grandmother, but I
remember her room and how her bed was located and of standing by the window so
that she could see how tall I was. I remember staying overnight at
Grandfather’s home and of Clara carrying a candle as we went to bed, and of how
she blew out the candle just before we got into bed. Katie said she liked to
stay overnight at their home too. She and Francis were great friends.
The heart’s deep anguish
Only those can tell
Who’ve bid the dearest
And the best farewell
LETTER
TO ELMIRA D. E. CARBINE FROM ADELIA RIDER CARBINE
Elmira D. E. Carbine
To the Care of William Pearson
Catskill, Greene County, New York
June 3, 1846
Beloved Child,
I take my pen to write to you with feelings that cannot
be described. You no doubt think me negligent in writing and have expected a
letter before this time but I have put it off on account of our being undecided
about what we should do this spring and poor health. We are none of us very
well but are better than we have been. I have been almost helpless for nine
months and not able to do anything of any account. I cannot sew for my sight is
almost gone so that I cannot thread a needle and I (fear) you will never have
many more letters written with this hand.
I wrote a number last winter and fall to you that you
never got but I know they were directed right. I wrote to Mrs. Rose, likewise
your father wrote some in Nauvoo and I think he directed them wrong. We did not
receive your January letter until April and you may imagine our anxiety. Austin
Newcomb wrote that he thought you were indifferent about coming. But I thought
it was his opinion only, but if you had written your mind about coming here
before your Uncle William wrote I should not have troubled you with my opinion,
which you called desperation. Yet the only difficulty that I can see would be
in going from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, and the credit of those that engage to
see you safe there.
It would seem that you thought that your Mother did not
know the danger that young girls were in when traveling, and the character of
steamboat captains, but insults to a young lady on the Ohio would not be
tolerated and on the Mississippi there would be no danger for there are always
people enough that would protect in so short a journey. I should not be willing
to have you come by the lakes for there is a great difference in the manners of
the eastern and southern gentlemen. I believe, and I could tell you the whys
and wherefores if I could see you. I believed you had the courage to do it, for
I judged from what you were when a child appears from what you and Austin write
that you are not willing to come with a company of strangers, that is the way
that I have always expected you to come (if you came without Edmund) since (E.
Fuller ?) came here, but when your letter was received, we were at a stand what
we should do.
We were unwilling to leave you if there was a prospect of
your coming to us. Edmund could come better without you to where we are going
than he could if you were with him, and if you had treated Austin differently.
I presume that Edmund and you might both have come up with a company if you
chose to, but after a severe struggle I made up my mind that if we stayed near
here you would never come, and I must give you up and never expect to see you
again and I thought I had become reconciled to it but when the New York
brethren came in and we heard some that we were acquainted with expressing
their pleasure at meeting them we felt that when some rejoice others mourn, but
I have become calm again.
I know that if I am faithful, although I should never see
you again in this world we shall meet in the morning of the resurrection. I
grieve to hear your conduct toward Austin. I expected something of that kind
had taken place by what he wrote, but what it was I did not know, until you
wrote – now my beloved child do not think that I would willingly hurt your
feelings and unless I thought it for your good I would say nothing about it –
Austin’s wife writes that you came up to visit your
friends after Austin came home and did not visit them. I should have thought
that you would have wanted to hear from us and talk with him after his staying
with us. We would any of us have gone ten miles on foot if we were well to have
seen a Pearson that had stayed a day or two with you, but you slighted him and
his children which you will touch his feelings the most of anything. Was it not
an unkind act? Had he injured you or yours in any way that you should treat his
family thus? There was a time when you complained that you were neglected by
friends in Greene County that they neither wrote nor visited you. Mary F. would
pass you without stopping. But Austin called when he had an opportunity.
He offered to fetch you with his family, but you wrote
that Mrs. Pearson thought you could not go on deck. You might have known that
he would not put his family in anyplace that would be very uncomfortable, and
you say he was not very urgent for you to come. Of course, he would not urge
you to accept of his offer.
You tell me that you did not know him so well as you do
now, that it is having such men in the church that there is so many stories
told. So, was it for that, that your mother had so many falsehoods told about
her by the Baptists in Goshen, wretched by the good, fine Methodists and
Presbyterians, infidels and drunkards in the peaceable town of Windham among
those lofty people where everyone enjoyed the blessings of a free government
equally, have you forgotten those things? My dear child, if you know Austin N.
as well as some of his friends knows him; you would admire him as much as you
now condemn him. But, the time is coming when the secrets of men’s hearts and
their secret actions will be revealed, and they will be judged in
righteousness, and then perhaps A & L Newcomb will stand approved before
the throne of Jehovah while some that are called moral and pious will receive
the reward that they have escaped here. I am sorry that you have forgotten what
you once knew, and by your writing you would not enjoy yourself with us, but
the Mormons as they are called are my people, their God is my God, where they
live, I live (If I can) where they die, I die, and there will I be buried.
You see that I cannot come back. As to the hypocritical
cant that there are evil men, bad men, the innocent have to suffer with the
guilty, and such like expressions I have seen and heard so much of it that I am
sick of it, and you would be too if you were here, it is the cant of those that
would shoot us down like wild beasts, and it grieves me to see that my beloved
child is partaking of that same spirit though she does not know it. Do others
suffer for the guilty? Do not other churches have bad men in them?
If Elder Martin is in Windham or at Austin’s you can go
there, you can hear all about us, and if you should ever want a friend, and
Austin lives there, he will be a friend, and he would protect you. I shall
write to them to overlook your indifferences to them.
I must now tell you where we are. We are on the west side
of the Mississippi at what is called Jack Grove in Iowa. I commenced this
letter on the banks of the river this morning. There were many tents and wagons
around us but they were all strangers. It rained hard and I commenced writing
to you. It has partly cleared and we have come up to our friends. Our
habitation is a wagon covered over with bed ticks, wired and grooved, so as to
keep out the rain. By our side are Hector and his family. Next to them is
Isaac. Uncle is back of us. I heard him and our new aunt is talking just now.
He has got a smart wife and a go ahead. She is Moses Martin’s mother. Isaac was
sick and could not go in the winter. We were in East Fullerton, but he went
away five weeks since I was confined to my bed most of the time at that time.
Amos and Mary went with him. Mary was not well when she went.
We have been staying here three days on account of losing
cattle. They have found all but our cow. We shall go tomorrow without her in
the morning. She was the best in the camp. We are a family of brethren, if one
loses all suffer. But, we enjoy ourselves very much. We have excellent singing.
We have those to lead us and laws by which we are governed. We are driven from
an independent state which is stained by the prophet’s blood.
The best house that I was in, in Nauvoo was Moses
Martin’s. He has been sent back from the camp to go to England. He will go to
Windham and if he can find you, he will call. He has to go and leave his family
in trying times. But, he never refuses to go when sent. His wife is an
excellent woman. She says nothing against his going though the tears start when
she speaks about it. I do not know certain whether we shall go through to the
Pacific this summer or not but I think we shall. At any rate, we shall go
beyond the settlements. We shall suffer for water, and the heat will be very
oppressive, and I am not able to sit up near all the time when in a house, but
if my bones fall in the wilderness it will make little difference.
Do not lament for me, death has no terrors to me. I am
willing to be released as I am willing to suffer as long as appointed. There
will no elders be sent out to preach, nor has there been any only to call in
the branches since Joseph and Hyrum Smith’s death. The gospel is about being
sent from the Gentiles and the reason that I left as I have was on that
account. I wrote to you, the particulars last fall but you did not get it. Your
father has not had time to write, but will write to your Uncle W. soon. Julia wishes
to see you, but she appears more reconciled than she was. She has it very hard
to take care of us.
Your Mother,
Adelia Carbine
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