Alfred Boaz (continued)

Marriage and the Trek to Winter Quarters

She attended singing school; I, too became interested in music, and begged the privilege of attending her to the music class.  I visited her very often at Sister Bathsheba’s home...It was not until the following year, 25 October 1845, that Melissa and I were married.  She had been very sick with the ague and arose from her bed to be married to me...

It was not until June, after the battle began, that my wife and I left Nauvoo.  After crossing the Mississippi, I set my tools up under an oak tree on the bluff and ironed three more wagons.  Then we took our course over the road used by the saints who preceded us.

When we reached Winter Quarters the first thing to do was to put up hay.  Most of the men went to work at that immediately.  I would not strike a lick at haying until I had built a shelter for Melissa, for she was in a delicate condition.  I dug a cave in the side of a hill and pegged down a large ox hide to answer on the floor as a carpet.  The hair on the hide was long and warm and soft to the foot.  A bedstead I made iron bass wood poles with cane brake slats; upon this was a hay bed, then a feather bed, poles over the top with sod to keep out the wet and cold; in one end a fire place and a door at the other, and I had the coziest place you ever saw.  In this nest of a home, on the 13th of November, our first child, Melissa Jane, was born, and she was but ten months old when we landed in Salt Lake Valley...but to go back to the haying at Winter Quarters: I attended to the tools, sharpening the scythes, and doing the blacksmith work.  I had a good set of blacksmith tools, garden tools and pitchfork, pick, ax, etc. 

There was a great deal of suffering in Winter’s Quarters, due largely to the lack of flour in our camp.  Many of the young men had been enlisted in the Mormon Battalion under the United States government, to march to Mexico.  They had been gathering volunteers all the way from the Missouri River to Winter Quarter’s, taking our teamsters, house builders, and hunters and leaving mostly old men and helpless, except in a few cases.  Through this many were forced to live in their wagon beds, and through the winter the exposure resulted disastrously.  There were many graves made in Winter Quarters.

My wife was ill, and I had to lift her as if she were a babe.  Her sister Bathsheba was distressingly sick and my wife’s mother, Susanna Ogden Bigler, who lived with us, and was afflicted with consumption, died.  Neither Melissa nor Bathsheba were able to attend the funeral.  I kept a hired girl and part of the time had two to help. I was well fixed, better than most of them at that time.  At one time I was able to give Parley P. Pratt’s family two barrels of biscuits to keep them from starving.

Next : Preparations and the Trek West

Alfred Boaz (continued) :

Alfred Stays in Nauvoo, Joins the Church, and Begins to Fall in Love

“I fell sick with the ague and did not recover in time to go with the fur company, but continued in Nauvoo with an increasing interest in Joseph Smith and what he had to say.  I heard him preach many times and I have not forgotten today (28 November 1904) the things he preached.  He went further in explaining matters and made them clearer to me than any other man.  He spoke with thrilling and marvelous power for good which I shall never forget to my dying day.

The Prophet was a large man, broad-shouldered and heavy-set.  There are no pictures that do justice to him.

I was slow to acknowledge my conversion to ‘Mormonism’ , but I finally felt to accept baptism, and received that ordinance in the Mississippi River, under the hands of  Elder Truman Gillett.

In May following I was sent on a mission to to Virginia.  We were only there a month when we got news of the Prophet’s martyrdom and were ordered home.

On my return I was with my old uncle, who lived diagonally across from old Father John Smith, George A., and Bathsheba.  I was looking toward the house of the latter couple when I saw a lovely young lady come out of the door and walk down the street.  I said, ‘There Goes my wife.’  My cousin said, ‘I guess not; some one else has his eye on her.’  I remarked that we would see about that very soon, and I sought an introduction on the spot and began thereupon a vigorous suit for Melissa Bigler’s hand.  I cut out her many admirers, and I lost no opportunity of showing my devotion.”

Next: Alfred marries, leaves Nauvoo, and travels west to Winter Quarters...

Alfred Boaz (Continued)...Alfred Meets The Prophet

Something kept drawing me west, farther and farther west.  With St. Louis as my objective point, I went to Nauvoo to visit my uncle.  I put up at the Mansion House, curious to see the Prophet and was sitting watching for him to enter.  Presently he came in and sat down.  Lorin Walker put a towel about the Prophet’s shoulders and dressed his hair for him, after which he got up and came over to me, lifting me bodily out of the chair, and asked : “Young man, where are you from, and where are you going?”  I told him where I hailed from, and that I was bound for St. Louis to join a fur company going to Oregon, to which he said : “When you join a fur company at St. Louis to go to Oregon, I will  take Nauvoo on my back and carry it across the Mississippi, and set it down in Iowa” adding, “I have use for you.”

The Prophet made a deep impression on me; I felt he was superior to any man I had ever seen.  In fact, if any other man had asked me those questions I should have very soon told him it was none of his business—-but what use the Prophet could have for me, I could not see.

Next Time: Alfred Boaz gets stuck in Nauvoo.