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Jedediah Morgan Grant

Years ago I had the experience of standing on the high plains of Wyoming near the common grave of some pioneers. Now, I did not know them or anything about them, yet there was a hallowed presence there I have not forgotten. I stand in awe of the stamina and heart of those who buried their loved ones and walked on.

In the late summer of 1847, Jedediah M. Grant left Winter Quarters, Iowa, and set out for the Salt Lake Valley with his wife, Caroline, and his infant daughter, Margaret. Cholera broke out in the camp on the banks of the Sweetwater River in Wyoming. Caroline and Margaret became ill. Four-month-old Margaret died. Jedediah was forced to dig a shallow grave and leave his precious daughter behind.

The death of her baby deeply affected Caroline, and her condition worsened. The camp fasted and prayed, but it soon became evident she was not going to live. Around midnight, she called her husband, Jedediah, looked into his face and whispered, “All is well! All is well! Please take me to the valley – Jeddy. Get Margaret – bring her – to me!”

[Jedediah] answered tenderly and meaningly as he sobbed with sorrow, “Yes, yes, Caroline. I’ll do my best. I’ll do my best.” [Gene Sessions, Mormon Thunder: A Documentary History of Jedediah Morgan Grant (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), p. 68]

And she was gone – four days after her daughter. Jedediah built a coffin for his wife’s body and drove day and night the remaining 75 miles to the Salt Lake Valley where he buried her. The next day Jedediah, true to his promise and with his friend, Joseph Bates Noble, set out for Wyoming to bring back the body of little Margaret. After several days, they stood once more on the banks of the Sweetwater River.

Bates Noble records the following, “… We stopped our rig where just a month previous a terrible night had been spent digging a grave in a driving thunderstorm. We now stepped forward, carrying the boxes and shovels. A few paces from the little grave we stopped hesitatingly, set down our things and stood with eyes fixed before us. Neither tried to speak. An ugly hole replaced the small mound: and so recently had the wolves departed that every sign was fresh before us. I dared not raise my eyes,” he said, “to look at Jedediah. From the way I felt, I could but guess his feelings. Like statues of [in] the wilderness we stood, grown to the spot, each fully realizing that nothing more could be done. After several moments of silent tears, we quietly withdrew carrying away again only that which we had brought.” [Sessions, Mormon Thunder, p 69.]

Jedediah returned to Salt Lake knowing he had done his best. Now, many years later, shortly before his own death, Jedediah Grant was given the opportunity to enter the world of departed spirits. He saw many things. But significantly, the first person who came to him was his wife, Caroline, with their daughter, Margaret, in her arms. Caroline was beautiful.

“… Here is little Margaret;” she said to him, “you know the wolves ate her up, but it did not hurt her; here she is all right.” (Heber C. Kimball, Journal Of Discourses, 4:135-38)

Now, in conclusion, all around us today are those who fall, some physically from the effects of disease and death, others spiritually from the deadly effects of sin and addiction. We love them and nothing will ever change that, but are we going to languish in memory-laden misery? No!

Walk on! Bring honor to the memory of those you love, past and present, by getting up, in spite of the pain, squaring your shoulders, and going on, building the Kingdom of God as you go. Carry on! Oh, carry on!

Brent L. Top, It Still Takes Faith, BYU Devotional, 22 July 1997, p. 9-10.)