A pioneer tells her story

I am the daughter of Warren Smith and Amanda Barnes and was born in Kirtland, Lorain County, Ohio, Dec. 16, 1831, and lived there until I was 6 years old. We were driven out of Kirtland, and my father and brother Sardis were shot and killed in a blacksmith shop in the Haun's Mill Massacre Oct. 30, 1838. My twin brother, Alma, was wounded. He had to be wrapped in a sheet for a long time, and when he was able to be moved, we went to Quincy, Ill.

In the Haun's Mill Massacre, all the men were killed but three, 16 in all. That was when my father and brother were killed and my twin brother shot in the hip. We didn't dare to be seen, and we had to throw the dead in an old dry well.

Of course, we didn't have any doctors in those days, and my mother prayed to the Lord that she might know what to do to heal my brother's wound. She was told to wash the wound with white ashes and get some slippery elm bark to make a poultice to put on his hip; and she did that, and it got well in a short time. In a short time he walked without limping, even after his hip bone had been shot away.

After the people who had killed our men in the massacre stole all they could out of our wagons and took our horses and oxen, they kept telling the women and children to move on. One day, when the leader told my mother to go away, my mother said, "How can I get away when you took my horses?"

He said, "If you will come for them yourself, you can have them."

So Mother and I went to his house after our horses, and when we went to the door, the man's wife was there. She said, "I would kill her, too, now that she's here."

But the man said, "No, I won't do that." He let Mother take her horses, and we moved to Quincy, Ill.

We moved from Quincy to Nauvoo, Ill. There I had the privilege of seeing the Prophet Joseph Smith and hearing him preach. When we lived in Nauvoo, we saved everything we possibly could to help build the Nauvoo Temple, and lots of times we children didn't have all we wanted to eat, as we saved all the nourishing food for my brother, who was working and helping to build the temple.

We were driven out of Nauvoo and went to a little town named Keosauqua, Iowa, on the Des Moines River. When I was a girl, after my father was killed, I always had to work. I worked at one place all winter and got $1.25 a week. I clothed myself pretty good; but I was very saving, as we were trying to get money to come to Utah. I got plenty of shoes, so I wouldn't have to go in my bare feet. When we left Nauvoo, we left in the dead hours of the night and had to leave most of our things right in the house.

We lived in Keosauqua four years and while there, we saved all we could so we could get to Utah.