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Show 31 beaded watch case for him with thoughts of love and gratitude to a man who had given her a determination to achieve, as well as ...to be his loyal companion, his intellectual equal, ever one with him in all his noble aims and purposes. And when he held me close and whispered solemnly the words, "I have accepted the mandates of the celestial law of Marriage and will soon bring to our home a sister and companion for you!" as I sincerely believed in the first principles of our Gospel, Faith, Repentance and Baptism, I also firmly believed that of Plural Marriage to be a divine command of the Eternal Creator! 'Twas only this solemn assurance that enabled me to feel the holiness of peace that came to my surprised soul! Yes, surprised, for I had not dreamed this test of faith was so near, although I knew it would in time be mine.2' One disconcerting aspect to Milford's revelation, not disclosed by Ellis but present in the family records, is that at the time he prepared her for this new wife, the marriage was two months old.2 2 His business trips to Salt Lake had no doubt provided the opportunity. He married, on January 1, 1868, 19-year-old Maggie Curtis who, it may be remembered, sat with Ellis at the theater when she was still single as they looked down and noticed Milford at one side while his wife and her father were seated on the other side of the hall. 23 On April 11, 1868 Ellis bore another son, William Austin. For this event and the subsequent protracted recovery period, Grandmother Ellis Smith Hawley traveled "all those long hundreds of miles" (for so they must have seemed when it took more than a day to cover the 40 miles between Salt Lake City and Pleasant Grove, near Provo). Oh how I bless her memory. She nursed me and cheered me. Not with pitying comments, showing her regret for my |
