There the women and children were put in a courthouse while the men with their guns went to fight them, but the Lord drove them away and we were saved. We had to stay in the courthouse all day without food–so many people they had to stand up and children crying for bread. I was one of them.

      We were driven from Kirtland to Far West, Missouri, and again to Caldwell and from there to Montrose, Illinois and later to Nauvoo.

      Now, I will tell you where I was baptized, in Nauvoo, Illinois, in the Mississippi River, just below Joseph Smith’s house when I was 8 years old. Elder Chauncey West baptized me. Elder Lorin Farr confirmed me on the banks of the Mississippi River.

      I was eight years old when I first saw the Prophet Joseph Smith. I have been in his store and bought things for my parents. We lived not far from his house on Mulholland Street. I have heard him preach, also his brother Hyrum. I have shaken hands with him in Sunday School. His wife, Eliza Snow Smith, his plural wife, was my teacher. In a grove by the Prophet Joseph Smith’s house I have seen his first wife, Emma Hale Smith, and his mother, Lucy Mack Smith. The Prophet’s father’s name was Joseph. He was the first patriarch in the Church of the Latter-day Saints.

      I went to a braiding school to learn to braid straw hats. I learned this trade in Nauvoo and made and sold hats on steamboats that were on the Mississippi River.

      I have seen Joseph in his regiment suit on his black horse named Charley, drilling his soldiers, sword in hand, as they marched with drums and fifes. I, with many people, sat on the green grass watching him, his big feather flying on his hat. He looked grand.

      My husband, D. M. Burbank, used to guard his house, and took him out in the country and hid him away from the mob. He dressed himself in his mother’s old dress and bonnet and took her cane and basket, bent over, and walked past the mob and got away.

      When Emma, the Prophet’s wife, was given up to die by the doctor, he called D. M. Burbank to come and see her. Brother Burbank said, “I think I can cure her.” She said he went in the store, got medicine, and stayed two nights and two days and cured her. Then the Prophet told Brother Burbank to gather all his books and tend the ladies in confinement. The knowledge that Brother Burbank had was received in a hospital in St. Louis. The Prophet said that was his mission on earth and his blessing said the same. I went along with my husband and learned how to take care of women from him.

      My husband guarded the Prophet just before he was taken to Carthage where he was put in jail. The mob took the Prophet and his brother Hyrum and killed them in Carthage Jail. They said if the Prophet was killed, that would put an end to Mormonism.

      Hyrum was holding the door when the mob fired the bullet through it, striking him. He fell to the floor exclaiming, “I am a dead man.” Joseph was shot as he was about to leap from the window. They took him and sat him up by a well.

      John Taylor was shot in his hip and hand. A bullet struck his watch that hung over his heart, and that saved his life. The doctors took the bullet out of his wounds. Willard Richards crawled under the bed and saved his life.

      When Joseph and Hyrum were brought in from Carthage dead, my parents went and saw them lying in their bloody clothes in Joseph’s house. People went there to see by thousands. My parents went to their funeral. It was a mock funeral to fool the mob. Boxes were filled with sand because of threats that their bodies would be dug up. The city was in great mourning, and many cried “What will we do for our great prophet? He is gone.” He was an innocent prophet that the Lord brought forth to lead His people in this last dispensation.

      After the Prophet’s death the Lord made known to Brigham Young that he was to be our leader. When Brigham was speaking to the Saints, his voice sounded like Joseph, and he looked like him, then the Saints knew he was our prophet, seer, and revelator. I bear my testimony that he was a prophet of God raised up to lead the people in these last days.

      I have been in the Nauvoo Temple when it had some of the rooms finished. My parents had their endowments there. So did my husband, D. M. Burbank. I used to go past the temple and watch the men work on it. Men worked on the temple with nothing to eat but cornbread and bacon.

      Many people were baptized for their dead relatives in the Mississippi River. My parents did it for their relatives. That was the order from the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Lord told him to have it done this way until they could build a temple. Many did it over again in the Nauvoo Temple when a few rooms were finished. After the temple was finished, the Saints held meetings in it for a short time.

      They had to hurry and get all the Saints through the temple, for the mob said they would burn it down. One night they got shavings and matches and were going to set fire to it when our guard came onto them with guns and saved it that time, but not long after they burned it to the ground. To see it burn to the ground, after working so long, was a great trial.

      [The mob] went in people’s homes, dragged out men, women, and children, and burned their houses and left them in the street. A young man went to fight with them with his gun to save his widow mother. While he was gone they went in and killed his sick mother. He had to hide until they got away, then he secured help and buried his mother. While doing this they stole his clothes and bedding and burned his house. That was the way they did to scores of people. They drove them across the river in the night in leaking boats. This happened in the beautiful city of Nauvoo.

      In this flight we had to cross the Mississippi River in the night on a flat boat to save our lives. The people were camped by the river, some of which were without tents and many sick and some dying. We did not know where we were going but got word from Brigham Young that we were going west.

      We then went on to Mt. Pisgah and stayed there all winter. Father made shoes to get flour, bacon, and groceries so we could go on again to Council Bluffs where the Saints were settling for the winter.

      Later we moved into a town called Kanesville. As we were going there, my sister died and was buried by a lone tree by the roadside. We went on and never saw her grave again. She was eight years of age when see died. When we were moving up to Missouri, my little brother died from an attack of croup and was buried by the roadside. We were driven on by the mob and never saw his grave again. This was one of the trials my parents had to endure.

      While at Council Bluffs, father built a cabin of logs, built the chimney of sods cut in big square pieces of mud with grass on one side, layed up like adobes. That was the chimney. The ground was the floor. The door was made of slabs. The window of cloth. We lived there two years. While there we raised a little corn, a few potatoes, and a small garden. Father made shoes and boots from a little leather he had on hand and sold them to strangers for flour. We were working to go west. I worked for 50¢ a week, bought me a gingham dress for 5¢ a yard. There was a little store there–goods were cheap but we had to work for 50¢ a week. I was spinning rolls on a big wheel to make yarn for cloth for weeks. I spun 20 pounds of rolls into yarn for a lady. I was not 15 years old then. Later I worked in a boarding house for a dollar a week and obtained clothes to start on the journey west.

      From that place we crossed the Missouri River on a flat boat, one wagon at a time. The oxen were chained to the wheels. This was the manner in which they all crossed the river.

      In June we camped in a place called Winter Quarters where the company was organized in companies of fifty with a captain over each. D. M. Burbank was our captain. Then we went on our journey among the Indians. At night we had to guard the oxen so they would not steal them. We chained the cattle to the wheels of the wagons. The bugle was sounded in the morning, and all the camp called together for prayers. The cows were yoked with the oxen and we traveled many miles before getting water and wood. On the first part of the journey when we came to streams of water, we found willows to make bridges so that they could take the wagons over.

      When we came to a stream, we would wash our clothes and dry them on the grass, for we might not get a place again for fifty or one hundred miles. We gathered dried dung and buffalo chips to make a fire to cook our food, dug a hole in the ground, put the skillet in the hole with a tight lid on it, put the buffalo chip on the lid, and set it afire. It baked the bread fine. That was the way we did our baking until we got where there was wood again.

      Then we went along the Platte River where we had cholera. Five died with it in our company. My youngest sister was born on the plains. My oldest sister gave birth to a baby on the plains, and many other women gave birth to babies, but the company was not hindered in their march, as they would move on the next morning, making quite a hardship for the women. My husband’s wife Abby died with cholera and was buried without a coffin by the Platte River along with others. We had to go on in the morning, never to see their graves again. The night that Abby was buried the wolves were howling. It was awful to hear the dirt thrown on their bodies. A young lady and I were the only ones to wash and dress her with what we could find–her underclothes and nightgown. We sewed her up in a sheet and quilt. That was all that could be done for her burial. All the women in the camp were afraid to prepare the body for burial for fear they would catch the cholera from her. This young girl and I were not afraid to take care of the body. We were only sixteen years old but brave in that case.

      Three months after Abby died, I married D. M. Burbank on the plains. Captain Walker of another company that camped by us married us one evening. The bugle called the camp together to witness our marriage. We had cedar torch lights instead of candles. It was by Green River in September. There I mothered four children that were sick with scarlet fever. My husband and I had great trouble with sickness the rest of the way. We also had a number of oxen die and had to stop for the camp to get cows instead of oxen. A hundred Indians took D. M. Burbank prisoner. We thought he would be killed, but the chief gave him up to us if we would give them flour, sugar, and coffee. We rejoiced when we saw the Captain alive. He had gone to hunt buffalo that he spied through a spy glass. He had killed buffalos before when hunting for a camping place. The poor cows furnished us with milk or we would have suffered for a drink as the water was so bad for hundreds of miles. We had to grind parched corn in a coffee mill to eat in milk to save our flour. We would eat it at night in milk. We parched a sackful before we left home. I stood over a fireplace and helped mother do it. The oxen stampeded and ran away with the wagons toward the river. One woman was killed. I jumped out of the wagon with mother’s babe and came nearly being killed. It rained so hard that night that everything was wet through. The wind blew so hard that we had to sit up and hold the covers on all night.

      When fording streams we could just see the oxen’s backs and horns and thought our wagons would go under, but we got out alive by the help of the Lord. We started in June and were four months on our journey before we arrived at the Salt Lake Valley.

      …then when we got into the valley of Springville, all of the camp had to be baptized. That was the order from President Young. He said this was done that all of our sins might be washed away after our long, tired journey to Salt Lake.

      My blessing said I came on this earth to attend to the sick. I have delivered over 900 women. I have had many great testimonies in this church in caring for the sick, and when my children have been sick, I have prayed for them, and they have been healed. I have prayed for my parents when they were very sick, and they have recovered. When I have been alone in confinement, the Lord has blessed me in delivering women when they were in a very serious condition.

      I want to write these things that I have seen and heard for my children and grandchildren to read in years to come. It will be interesting to them when I have passed away.