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What Have I Sacrificed?

Sarah Jane Richards was born in 1833, in Wales, the daughter of a Baptist Elder and fisherman. In 1846, Sarah and a friend decided to go to a Latter-day Saint meeting. Their intent was to make fun of it and annoy the elders. However, they found themselves taken with what they heard and wanting to know more. When Sarah told her family about it, her father forbade her any more association with the Mormons. Sarah went anyway. To stop her, the family resorted to locking her in her room with a diet of bread and water, whipping her, and even sending her to a boarding school with rigorous discipline.

“Nothing changed her strong desire to join this Church. She was baptized in 1848, even though her friends and sweetheart made fun of her and even threw rocks at her. Her father put her bodily out of the house and told her she wasn’t a daughter of his. She left without money, clothes, or any belongings.”

 She went to work shoveling coal to save money to come to America. “One day at this work, her hand was broken and crushed so seriously that the doctor insisted on amputation for it. She begged him to delay and he granted her one day. She had complete faith she could be healed, and so she prayed constantly for the Elders to come and give her a blessing. That night they came, telling her she literally prayed them there. They administered to her.” The hand was healed and in time the only evidence of the accident was a crooked little finger.

At age seventeen, Sarah Jane finally found a way to Zion. She worked her way across tending children for part of her fare. Right up to the time she left, her parents pleaded with her to stay and give up her church. She refused.

 The ship sailed to New Orleans and from there up the Mississippi River. Upon arriving in St. Louis, smallpox broke out. Sarah became so ill that she was given up for dead. As she lay there suffering, she saw a pail of water. She rolled off the low bed and drank long and deep of the water. “From then on, she was better.”

 There in St. Louis, Sarah Jane obtained work with a Jewish family, and contracted typhoid fever.

Finally, in 1851, she joined up with a family to cross the plains. She walked most of the way to the Salt Lake valley, driving cattle and tending children. “One day, feeling sick and tired as they gathered chips for the fire, she sat down to rest. Her companions returned to camp, not knowing she had been left behind. She became confused as to the directions and called out, but no answer came. As night was coming on, she became frightened. She saw the glaring eyes of some animal. She sat down and cried bitterly, wondering if she had gone through all of her trials only to now be devoured by wild beasts. She heard a voice say, “Sarah, where is thy faith?” She felt ashamed of this attitude and immediately prayed once more with her old faith. Upon rising, she saw a light, followed it, and was guided back to camp by it—when it vanished.”

 Sarah Jane Richards settled in the Salt Lake Valley, married William Perkins, and raised 13 children. She was true and faithful all her days and “never tired of doing for others.”

Roberta Ward, Sarah Jane’s second great-granddaughter said, “I ask myself often, since I have learned about this Great-Great-Grandmother of mine, “What have I sacrificed for my testimony of this great and true church?”  She knew without any doubt! 

 Sarah Jane loved to sing the songs of Zion and there was a poem that she was fond of quoting. It reads,

“God has not promised sky ever blue,

Flower strewn pathway ever for you.

God has not promised sun without rain,

Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

But he hath promised strength from above,

Unending sympathy, Undying love.”

Sources:

Pioneer Women of Faith and Fortitude, vol. III, p. 2346,2347; International Society 

Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Publishers Press, 1998.  

LDS Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Story contributed by Roberta Ward

Copyright Glenn Rawson 2021