DUP in January

I am a 3great grand Daughter of Utah Pioneers.

 I am the person who shares a museum moment each month. Today I showed a photo of a moccasin that was worn by Mary Fielding Smith (Hyrum Smith's wife) in the Kirtland Temple. Hyrum Smith was the brother to the Prophet Joseph Smith. 

It just so happens that one of the moccasins is in a museum in Kirtland, Ohio and the other one is in a museum DUP museum at Provo, Utah. Why was one left behind and the other one taken?

It looks like there is cotton stuffed on the inside. So if you live close to Kirtland, you can go see the other moccasin.

When you apprenticed to become a doctor that also meant that you became a dentist and a vet in pioneer times. 

Mr. Steele had an extremely unhappy childhood. His father died when he was 6 years old and while the will was being read to the first wife's children, he and his mother were waiting in a hotel that happened to catch fire in which his mother and sister died. He was adopted out to a couple who treated him like a slave making him do work that was beyond his capabilities and making him sleep in a loft in the barn.  

The wife was alone often and she was addicted

to laudanum.

She often sent the boy to buy her laudanum and when he was

12, he took the dollar and a tiny little bundle of clothes

and ran away.  He came across a group of men who

were looking for someone that was good with

horses and the boy said he was.

He was

hired to help them move a large herd

to St. Louis.

When he was in St. Louis, he became apprenticed

to a doctor and learned this trade. He

married and had two children. His wife died.

He asked

people in a wagon train heading for Utah

to care for his two children while he

went ahead with livestock and was to

meet them in Salt Lake City.

The wagon train arrived there ahead of him

and no one knew what to do with the

children.  A kind widow took them in

who lived in Granstville (about 25 miles west

of Salt Lake).

When he arrived, no one knew where his

children were. There was no one to keep

track of people back then.  It took him

more than a year to find them.

The children by then wanted to stay

with the lady who took them in.

Eventually, he ended up in a loving

relationship with the widow.

They married and they had more

children so for the first time

in his life, he had someone

in his life who showed him true love.