Orson and Catherine Spencer met in Massachusetts and
married, moved to Nauvoo in 1840. There they reared their family of 6 children
and received Temple ordinances from Joseph Smith, before the eventual
persecution caused them to flee the city during the winter of 1846. NOTE - a
previous Church History Story in this series, number 5, also described the
events of Catherine Spencer's death and told about her posterity, which
included Aurelia Spencer Rogers, founder of the Primary.
Orson Spencer was a graduate from an eastern college, who
having studied for the ministry, became a popular preacher in the Baptist
Church. Meeting with a Mormon elder, he became acquainted with the teachings of
Joseph Smith and accepted them. Before doing so, however, he and his highly
educated young wife counted the cost, laid their hearts on the altar and made
the sacrifice! How few realize what it involved to become a Mormon in those
early days! Home, friends, occupation, popularity, all that makes life
pleasant, were gone. Almost overnight they were strangers to their own kindred.
After leaving Nauvoo, his wife, ever delicate and frail,
sank rapidly under the ever accumulating hardships. The sorrowing husband wrote
imploringly to the wife's parents, asking them to receive her into their home
until the Saints should find an abiding place. The answer came, "Let her
renounce her degrading faith and she can come back, but never until she
does."
When the letter was read to her, she asked her husband to
get his Bible and to turn to the book of Ruth and read the first chapter,
sixteenth and seventeenth verses: "Entreat me not to leave thee or to
return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where
thou lodgest I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people and thy God my
God."
Not a murmur escaped her lips. The storm was severe and the
wagon covers leaked. Friends held milk pans over her bed to keep her dry. In
those conditions, in peace and without apparent suffering, the spirit took its
flight and her body was consigned to a grave by the wayside.
(Compiled and written by David Kenison)
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