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Cornelia Jane Espy

It’s a cause to be celebrated when someone one of us lives our lives in such a way that we are revered when we are gone. In other words, there’s a hole in the world when you’re gone. Such was the case with a most remarkable woman from our past.

Her name, Cornelia Jane Espy. She was born February 1820 in Rutherford, Tennessee. In December 1837, she married Seth Millington Blair and shortly after followed him to Texas.

In 1849, Elder Preston Thomas of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints taught the gospel to both of them, her and her husband. Her husband, Seth, joined the church immediately, sold his law practice and decided that he was going to move north, join the Saints at Kanesville, Iowa and then go on to Salt Lake from there. She went with him. Jane went with them even though she was not yet a member of the church. Two months later, she was baptized along the trail.

The family arrived in Utah in late 1850. Family records state “Two short years after arriving in Utah, Seth’s wife Cornelia Jane died along with her eighth baby in childbirth.” 

Seth’s world was shattered. He quit writing in his diary for three months. When he picked up his pen again, he recorded:

“Today, December 1, 1852, I take my pen in hand to record the most melancholy bereavement that has ever fell to my lot and one that I feel the keen anguish oft in the innermost recesses of my soul – one that time nor eternity can ever obliterate, one that is fresh in my mind today as the day that it transpired, one that has left an aching void that cannot be filled by no mortal save her, who it pleased our Heavenly Father to take from me. She denied herself many comforts of life to add to my happiness. Of her I can say that her jealousy was ever dormant. She bore her griefs and sorrows at her own expense. She called her little children around her dying bed and asked them all to be good children. She spoke to her female friends around her and said she would see Brother Joseph Smith the prophet and Bishop Whitney and would tell them how their wives were. In death, she was as composed as a summer evening. She retained her senses to the last moment.”

On what would have been Jane’s 33rd birthday, Seth invited many friends and leaders of the community, Salt Lake, and the church, to a dinner in Jane’s honor. Seth wrote:

“It was said to be the best and finest dinner ever seen in the gaps of the mountains at which all seemed merry and happy and felt to sing and praise the Lord and bless me, His servant, and all pertaining unto me and for which I feel grateful.”

When Jane Blair passed away, Eliza R. Snow, the imminent poetess of our past, composed the following poem (Speaking of Jane):

 

“She was a loving faithful wife.

A true unchanging friend,

A saint in every act of life and steadfast to the end.

Peace to her memory, all is well,

To her ‘tis gain to die

She left this lower world to dwell with holy ones on high.”

 

My friends, I hope that you and I are empowered by the grace of God to so live, as to be so missed.

 

Sources:

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWVS-Z6W

https://www.tellmystorytoo.com/member_pdfs/seth-millington-blair_220_212.pdf