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after the announcement by the church. The two children died in infancy. The two women and their husbands had lived very intimately for nearly ten years, through trials and tribulations of those days. They must have been very congenial to have done so. The separation of Persis and Harriet is difficult to explain. It just could he that in her maturity Harriet felt herself best able to dominate the family. She was three years older than Persis and four years older than Lorenzo.

Lorenzo’s diary starts with the date Feb. 1,1846 when the family was starting out for Winter Quarters from Nauvoo. It is in his handwriting. He lists his family at that time as W.C. (William) and Susan, Joseph, John, Perry Decker. No wife is mentioned at all, but on April 12 1846 the handwriting in the diary changes from Lorenzo to Harriet. Answering that question.

There is still a strange question involved. Polly Sessions, midwife, says on page 85 of Vol. 10 Historical Quarterly: “February 10, 1846 In the afternoon put Sister Harriet Young to bed with son.” This birth is not mentioned in the biography or the diary or the Lorenzo Dow Young family statistics. It is true that at the possible time of conception, Lorenzo and Harriet were living together in Nauvoo. At birth time, the family was moving out from Nauvoo. No wife being mentioned in the removal, it is possible Harriet was temporarily absent from the family and returned to it in April.

Brigham’s wagons arrived a( or near Council Bluffs June 14, 1846. Lorenzo was a couple of weeks or so later, due to the almost constant illness of Harriet. July 7 the diary says:, “Crossed the river in a buggy. Went to Bro. Kimball’s. My wife and I took dinner there then proceeded to camp on the hill. Visited Persis and the children”. (Probably Harriet, Lorenzo and Franklin). Lorenzo built a home in Winter Quarters and under date of Dec. 11, the diary says: “Sister Fanny and Persis took dinner with us.”

So it would seem that Persis left Lorenzo to Harriet sometime before the first of 1846 and taken refuge with Lorenzo’s sister Fanny, widow of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Under the kind responsibility of Brigham. That December 1846, Harriet became pregnant again at age 46. All the hustle and bustle around Winter Quarters the spring of 1847, preparing to start out an exploring company to find a place of refuge in the “Rocky Mountains”. There was to be a carefully selected group 		of 144 men with detailed responsibilities with full equipment and supplies.

It is told that on the eve of departure Lorenzo Dow came to his brother Brigham and told him that he would have to be (Lorenzo) replaced. Brigham wanted to know why!. “Harriet has put her foot down and told me that if I think the men of this church are going out yonder some place and pick a permanent abode for the women without even giving them the right of consultation, that I’ve got some more guesses coming. She says either she’s going or I am not. After thinking it over for a few minutes, Brigham is alleged to have said,“ Well Dow, you know Harriet as well as I do (She was Brigham’s mother-inlaw twice over) and if she says she is going -- she’s going. There’s not much we can do about it. But for heavens sake keep it quiet.”

Harriet insisted that she not be the “lone woman” in the company, so her daughter Clara, wife of Brigham Young and Ellen Sanders Kimball, wife of Heber C. Kimball were added to the roster.

The biographer says on page 79 of Vol 14 of the Utah Historical Quarterly “Thus were the family relations represented in this pioneering expedition. Well might the sisters plead for resection in this important move, on the score that had so far shared in all the dangers and hardships that bad fallen to the elders, and had never lacked in fortitude and endurance. Why should they not be represented in this supreme effort of their people to rind shelter from their enemies? The position had been fairly won.”

The two younger women had nothing to hold them back. Harriet was handicapped with my grandfather Isaac Perry, a kid of six, whose father was still in Nauvoo. Lorenzo left his five older children with their mother in Winter Quarters and took only Lorenzo Sobieski with him, probably to keep his stepson company. He was also six years old. Then on April 7 1847 they started off on their great adventure into the wild and wooly West.

Much has been written about the hardships of these three women in their pioneer trip into unknown territory, their deprivations, discomforts, hard work and all. I think it is an unimaginative bunch of literary junk. What could be more fun than a three month vacation, seeing new country every day of ten to twenty miles, riding in a fine carriage, not in a freight wagon, plenty
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