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Show HISTORY OF ALVIRA SMITH HENDRICKS ( In her own words) I am now eighty-nine years of age. I am the daughter of Warren Smith and Airanda Barnes and was born in Kirtland Lorain Co . , Ohio, Dec. 16, 1831, and lived there until I was six years old. We were driven out of Kirtland and on our way out, my father and brother Sardis were shot and killed in a blacksmith shop in the Hauns Mill Ma.ssacre, Oct. 30, 1838, and my twin brother Alma was wounded. My brother Alma had to be wrapped in a sheet for a long tirrE and when he was able to be rroved, we went to Quincy, Illinois. In the Hauns Mill .Massacre, all the rren were killed but three -- sixteen 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 not.her prayed to the Lord that she might know what to do to heal my brother's wound. It was told to her to wash the wound with white ashes and get soITE slippery elm bark and make a poultice and put on his hip and she did that and it got well in a short tine and in a short tirrE he walked without limping after his hip bone had been shot away . After the people who had killed our ITEn in the massacre stole all they could out of our wagons and took our horses and oxen , they kept telling the worren and children to rrove on. One day when the leader told my fut.her to go away, my rrother said, "How can I get away when you took my horses?" and he said "Madam, describe them and if they are in my corral you can have them." :r-bther described them and he said, "If you will corre for them yourself you can have them. " So fut.her 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 is here," but the man said, "No, I won' t do that." He let fut.her take her horses. We rroved from Quincy to Nauvoo, Illinois. There I had the privilege of seeing the Prophet Joseph Smith and hear him preach. There my oldest brother helped to build the Nauvoo Temple. When we lived in Nauvoo we saved everything we possibly could to help build the terrple, and lots of t iITEs v.ie 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 terrple. We were driven out of Nauvoo and went to a little town naITEd Keosauqua, Iowa, on the Des fuines River. When I was a girl after my father was killed, I always had to work out and I worked hard. I worked at one place all winter and I got $1.25 a week, and I clothed myself pretty good, but I was very saving, as we were trying to get rroney to corre to Utah, and we all had t o be saving. 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 nost 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. My father's narre was Warren Smith. After his death, futher married another man by the name of Warren Smith, and they were both blacksrnths . My Father was an Ohio man but my step father was a southern man, he caITE from Tennessee. |
