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Sally, Where Are You Going?

On Oct. 9, 1843, Joseph Murdock passed away in Nauvoo. He had joined the Church in 1842 after receiving miraculous healings, one of which came at the word of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Just before he passed away Joseph made his wife promise to take their only young son, Nymphus on to the Salt Lake Valley with President Young and the Twelve. According to the family records,

After her husband’s death, Sally was very lonely and realized she could not sell her property in Nauvoo if they were driven out. She also received many letters from her people in New York pleading with her to return to them with her son. They also made tempting offers of money and land if she would come and live with them and reminded her that she would also be free from persecution. They finally persuaded her to return to her old home and she started down the river on a boat.

It is reported in the family records that when she was only one day’s travel down the Mississippi River she heard her husband’s voice say to her,

“Where are you going? You gave me your promise that you would see our son Nymphus raised in the church and go with its body to Zion!”

Sally returned to the Church the next morning and never left again. She took her family and went west, settling in Salt Lake City. It was later written of her,

On Sept. 25, 1864 Sally Stacy Murdock died at the adobe brick home she and Nymphus had built at 3rd South and Main Street in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was 86 years of age…. She had suffered through the trials at Nauvoo and the hard times at Winter Quarters…. She was always the first to help the less fortunate and was beloved by all. She was a stalwart in the Church and raised her sons to become the pioneers, colonizers and church leaders they became noted for.

Today there are too many getting on the boat, as it were, and sailing away from the Church. I wonder, if they could, what would their pioneer fathers and mothers have to say to them about such a choice regarding that Church for which they gave so much.

Source: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWJD-VKH