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| Lydia Partridge |
She saw her kind and loving father dragged from his own home and family to be abused and falsely accused, finally to be tarred and feathered and cruelly treated at the hands of bitter enemies of all the leaders of the church.
Her father died as the result of persecution when Lydia was 10 years old, leaving the family bereft, homeless and destitute. She learned in her very early years a lesson that was to stay with her all of her life, that the Gospel was indeed a "Pearl of Great Price."
After the death of her father, Lydia's mother went into the home of Brother William Law, who took care of the family until the home which Edward Partridge had started for his family could be finished. Brother Law and his family were very kind to the Partridge family. They helped to take care of Lydia and her sister Eliza who were both very sick. In about three weeks they were about to move into their own house.
Lydia moved as a very young child as the family was driven with the Saints from place to place, leaving dear familiar places and things.
Lydia left the city of Nauvoo on the 9th of February, 1846. All the family was together except Emily and Mr. Huntington. "While in the midstream the ice came down in large pieces and threatened to sink our boat, but at this time, as at many other times, we were perserved by the Power of God." (Eliza's journal.) Lydia was sixteen years of age. She and her younger brother Edward, stayed with their mother and her husband. They started across the plains with others who were moving west but stopped at Mt. Pisgah where Mr. Huntington died. The family stayed the better part of a year at Mt. Pisgah before they were able to go on to join the others of the family at Council Bluffs. They stayed at Council Bluffs for more than a year before they started to the mountains. They left for the Salt Lake Valley in the summer of 1848, traveling in company with Amasa M. Lyman and his wives, Eliza and Caroline and quite a number of the Saints. They had provisions enough to last a few months after they arrived in the valley but not enough to last until another harvest. Lydia Clisbee Partridge's wagon traveled next to Amasa Lyman's. They reached the valley October 17, 1848.
Lydia lived in Salt Lake City with her mother until she married Amasa M. Lyman as his 8th wife February 7, 1854. She was twenty-four and he was forty years old.
Lydia continued to live with her mother in Salt Lake. Her first child, Edward Leo was born January 4, 1857, at Salt Lake while his father was trying to keep the Mormon colony going in San Bernardino. It was a year of extreme poverty and trouble for the church as well as for Amasa's wives.
Lydia and her family were moved to Fillmore, Millard County, Utah, about 1864 where Amasa was endeavoring to establish his families so that he could better care for them, be with them, and give them an education.
Lydia and Amasa had four children, Edward Leo, born January 4, 1857 in Salt Lake City; Ida Evelyn, born March 28, 1859; Frank Arthur, born September 7, 1863, and died 26 April 1864; and Lydia Mae, born 1 May 1865 at Fillmore, Utah.
While Lydia lived in Fillmore she provided for herself and family any way she honorably could. She was a good seamstress and did much sewing. She was an expert in working with buckskin, making moccasins and gloves which she sold. Her son, Edward, used to go out on the cedar mountains north of Fillmore and set cedar stumps on fire which burning to the ground left charcoal which he would go back and get later to see to the blacksmith for a meager sum.
The Partridge women stayed close together and helped each other.
Lydia had been in poor health nearly all her life. AS early as 1851 she had a siege of rheumatism, which bothered her much of her life.
When Amasa left the Church the Partridge women left him. They had married him because of a principle of the Church which they believed in and when he no longer was a member of the Church they could not live with him.
When Lydia was only 44 she took sick, unable to help herself, unable to raise her hand to her head and in such pain that she could not be touched and had to be moved on a sheet. She was tenderly cared for by her son Edward, who was then 18, and by her daughter Ida Evelyn who was 16. They would take their turns sitting up with their mother during the long nights. After sixteen weeks of painful illness, Lydia passed away, January 16, 1875 and was taken to Fillmore, Millard County, Utah to be buried. She was the only one of Amasa's wives to be buried by his side.
SOURCE:
The Edward Leo Lyman & Mary Maranda Callister Lyman Family 1984, compiled by Mary Lyman Henrie, p. 1c-1d.
Descendancy
Lydia Partridge
Edward Leo Lyman
Lydia Lyman
Richard Lyman Finlinson
Diane Finlinson
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