A BRIEF SKETCH OF MY MOTHER’S LIFE AND HOW SHE GAINED HER TESTIMONY OF THE GOSPEL

By Isabelle Price Kunkel

My mother was born in a small village called Bronsgrove, the daughter of John and Lettitia Langston Lawrence. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was the daughter of a farmer. Her mother died when she was two years old and her father, who was practicing law in a distant city, left her in the care of her grandmother, Mrs. Hannah Langston. She seldom saw her father until at the age of fifteen when her grandmother died. Then her father proposed sending her to a boarding school which she refused to do. Being proud and feeling that her father had neglected her for so long she was determined to take care of herself and so became apprentice to a dressmaker, an art in which she became very proficient. At the age of eighteen she met and married my father Edward Price. Her married life was tranquil and happy, although she had many sorrows, the deepest being the loss of seven of her fifteen children. Her first three sons all died.

In 1842 she heard the Gospel and joined the Church of Latter Day Saints. When I was seven years old we were preparing to come to Zion, but father at that time lost most of his property through standing bondsmen for friends who proved unworthy of his trust. Shortly after this mother was called upon to bury her first girl. Mother had a sweet gentle disposition and in spite of losses kept her courage. She opened a store and took care of it while father worked. Four years later there came an epidemic of smallpox, and during this time she lost three children in two weeks and three days. One child was a little over five years old, one not quite four, and one just a year and a half.

There was a salesman who brought confections daily to mother’s store. Being interested in Mormonism, he often inquired of mother concerning its principles and just what we believed in. I had been tending the store and helping mother when he came in. I heard him say, “Mrs. Price, I have often heard you say that you know your Gospel is true; would you mind telling me how you know?” And this is what I heard. I will tell it in mother’s own words. She said:

All my life time I have been interested in finding out which church was true and have attended many of them or nearly all of them many times I had felt that I had found the true one, but after going a few times it seemed to become empty and not satisfy; so I never joined any of them. In the summer of 1842 I had a strange dream. I dreamed I heard a man preaching a strange doctrine that I had never heard before, and I woke up thrilled with happiness and contentment. At first I was going to wake my husband to tell him but he was sleeping so sound that I lay there thinking of my dream till morning----then in the hurry of the morning I put off telling my dream again, several times during the day I thought of my dream again, but at night I forgot again and gradually it faded from my mind. One day in the late summer my aunt came to me and said, Matilda, ther’s a new preacher in town preaching a new doctrine; they claim to have the revelations and communications with angels. He is going to preach Sunday. Would you like to go and hear him?” and I answered, “Maybe he is one of the false prophets the Bible tells will come in the last days.” My aunt said, “Perhaps so, but I am going to hear him.” I made up my mind to go with her. The meeting was held in a part of the town that I had never been in before. As I came into the street everything seemed familiar, although I knew I had never been there before. When I reached the meeting house it all seemed so natural and I sat there pondering on the strange feeling that seemed to have taken possession of me. As soon as the preacher came into the pulpit, my dream all came back to me, and I knew why I felt that way---it was the same place, the same voice and every word was the same, as I had heard in my dram.. And I sat there enraptured, listening, wondering at the strange coincident. I went many times to hear this new doctrine after that; every time I felt more convinced that it was the true church. Then I would make up my mind to join, every time I did so I felt perfectly contented and happy. At that time I was in a delicate condition and thought I would wait a little while before baptism. Every time I would put it off doubts would creep into my mind and I would be unhappy. Whenever the doubt would come a voice seemed to ring in my ears saying, “Repent and be baptized.” That was nearly twenty years ago, and from that day to this I have never felt a doubt as to the truthfulness of the gospel. Two months later the Lord gave me a lovely baby girl. That ends my testimony to you that I know the Gospel is true.”

The salesman thanked her for her story and said, “I don’t wonder, Mrs. Price, that you think you know it.” We never learned if he joined the church because shortly after that we left for Utah.

My father and mother always kept a room ready for the Elders, so that whenever they were in Birmingham there was a home for them. The Chapel was about a block form our house. One Sunday night Mother and I had been to church. There was a missionary preaching that night and when we came home, outside there was mob of about a hundred and fifty gathered there. We hurried home not realizing what the trouble was. They were after a missionary who had gone on ahead with a neighbor to our house. Mother and I came in and locked the door. The neighbor who had come in with the missionary was nightman in a factory just around the corner, so mother got him to take the Elder in through the factory and let him out on the other street. By that time the mob was all around the house, beginning to throw stones at our windows, so mother opened the door and asked what the trouble was. “What are you after, gentlemen?” They answered that they wanted that Mormon Elder that was in the house. She told them that they were mistaken, that there was no Mormon Elder in the house”. Some of them yelled, “We know better, we saw him go in the house.” Mother said “Gentlemen, I am alone, but two or three of you may search the house through, then they went out and told the crowd that he was not in there, and so they gradually dispersed.

The next year after this, seven years later than we had first planned, we finally got started on our long journey. We embarked from Liverpool on a sailing vessel and were six weeks and three days in the ocean. The journey across the plains was very hard on mother. She walked eight hundred miles, giving up her place in the wagon to someone she felt needed it more than she did. She was always cheerful and courageous and ready to meet the train at night and help make camp. One night when the wagon pulled in she was not there to meet us as usual. No one seemed to know what had become of her until tow or three others went back to look for her and found her about tow miles from camp. She was so exhausted from dust and thirst that she could not speak, and it was hours before we could reduce the swelling in her tongue.

We arrived in Utah October 19^th, 1862. There are two or three incidents in my mother’s life that I feel I should relate.

First, at the time of her confirmation she was told that she was of the seed of Joseph and that she would sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and promised that she should be blessed in her children for many generations to come. I have lived to see many of those blessings fulfilled, to see members of the fifth generation blessed and baptized in the Church and one of them ordained to the lesser priesthood.

These blessings were given to her by a missionary from Nauvoo----his name is not signed so I cannot tell who he was.

The other incident---we always held our testimony meetings then on Wednesday evening, instead of on fast Sunday. Although mother had such a strong testimony she seldom rose to her feet to bear it. Being very reserved and rather bashful. On the night I speak of she was impelled to get up; when she rose to her feet she began to speak in a strange tongue. When she finished an Elder got up and interpreted what she had said. He said it was a beautiful and thrilling testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel. I was not at the meeting that night, but my older sister, Matilda, was and she always remembered it as one of the most wonderful incidents in her life.

Other that this, Mother’s life in Utah was uneventful; sometimes she did sewing and fine embroidery work to help out with the large family. She died January 21^st, 1864, three days after the birth of her fifteenth child.

PATRIARCHAL BLESSING__by an Elder from Nauvoo

Beloved Sister,

I lay my hands upon they head in the name of Jesus Christ and by the authority of the holy priesthood pronounce the blessings of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In as much as thou hast chosen the Lord for thy portion, and honored Him by obeying His command in the ordinance of baptism, thou art a new creature in Christ Jesus---in the covenant and adopted into the family of God and made a joint heiress with Jesus Christ and all the blessings of the covenant and all the precious promises of the Gospel are thine by faith in him---having put on Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walking in him thou shalt be perfected in his kingdom and sit down on his throne. The Union which has taken place between thee and Him shall never be dissolved unto all eternity. Thou hast chosen the good part which shall not be taken from thee. Thous shalt walk before the Lord and be perfect---Bearing fruit unto holiness. The loving kindness and tender mercy of the Lord shall surround thee. Thou shalt be blessed in thy generation and be adourned with gifts, knowledge and understanding light and love, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Thy seed and thy seed seed shall be blessed, thou shalt have heavenly visions and angels shall have charge concerning thee to keep thee an heir to salvation. Thou shalt be gathered with the excellent of the earth and inherit the blessings--- Land and corn and wine and oil and flocks and herds and sit under thy own vine and fig tree and see the King in His beauty and worship in the Temple and join the assemblies of the ancient patriarchs and prophets and apostles and witness the coming of the Son of Man arrayed in glory and power attended by the hosts of heaven and the ten thousands of his saints and reign in righteousness 1000 years. Thou art the seed of Abraham. I seal these blessings upon thy head in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Birmingham, Dec. 03, 1843

Matilda Price, born at Wittey, Worcestershire

Feb. 13^th, ad 1821

(From history held by Sydney Moulton Taylor)