This is a new kind of blog written especially for my children so they can become acquainted with their pioneer ancestors. Others are welcome to read this but just so you know. This was written for an assignment I had to give a 7 minute report on a pioneer ancestor in Relief Society. I have pages of information copied off about her that I will gladly send to the first person who asks for it.
Mary Isabella Hales Horne
Mary Isabella Hales was born in England in 1818. The Hales and their family of five sons and two daughters emigrated to Toronto Canada where Isabella met Joseph Horne at a Methodist camp meeting in 1834. They were married two years later. Mary Isabella was 17 and Joseph was 24. Within two months after their marriage Parley P. Pratt came to preach the gospel in their neighborhood. They listened with eagerness to Elder Pratt’s sermon. The spirit of the Lord bore witness to them that what he taught was true. They were baptized by Elder Orson Hyde in July, 1836.
She writes about meeting the Prophet Joseph Smith for the first time. “When I shook hands with him I was thrilled through and through and I knew that he was a Prophet of God, and that testimony has never left me, but is still strong within me.” John Taylor and his wife Leonora were close friends and they and the Hornes were able to travel with the prophet to visit the branches of the church in Canada.
Isabella met the Prophet again in Quincy; this time he was only a few steps ahead of the mobsters. She writes, “Brother Joseph Smith and several of the brethren and sisters came to Quincy. They came to my house, partook of refreshments and scattered. Brother Joseph was in the best of spirits. He said laughingly, “Sister Horne, if I had a wife as small as you, when trouble came I would put her in my pocket and run.”
On another occasion the Prophet Joseph, in company with a number of the brethren, came to Quincy to talk to the Governor about the affairs of the Saints. On his return to his home in Nauvoo he was arrested and brought back to Quincy. Isabella recorded that about noon the next day the Prophet came to her house and said, ‘Sister Horne, the Spirit always draws me to your home.’ He needed clean clothes to continue his journey and Mary Isabella was happy to help him with this.
The Hornes lived in Nauvoo for four years and then prepared to go west with the saints. They left Winter Quarters in June 1847 Isabella tells of an incident that occurred on their journey west. “In the month of July, we saw a large band of Indians located on the other side of the Platte river about half mile ahead. In the morning Apostle John Taylor invited my husband to drive on before the company to meet the Indians who were swimming over the river to trade. One Indian brought a pony to my wagon and wanted to trade for my baby girl fourteen months old. I said, ‘No trade.’ He brought a second and a third pony and indicated that he was very determined to have my baby. Just at that time the rest of the company came up and I had no more trouble with him.
While the brethren were trading with the Indian men, the squaws and children were going among our wagons stealing cooking utensils or anything else they could get hold of, so that when we camped for the night we found that many useful articles were missing.
Once they reached the Salt Lake Valley one of the greatest sources of trouble and inconvenience were the mice. The ground was full of them. They ran over them in their beds, dropped from the ceiling, ate into their boxes and destroyed much valuable clothing. Various kinds of mousetraps were devised but relief was obtained only after securing a kitten for 50 cents from the only family of cats in the camp.
Early in the spring a man came into the valley from California with some pack animals and brought some potatoes. Her husband paid him fifty cents for four potatoes about as large as a hen’s egg, from which he raised over a bushel of fine potatoes. But they couldn’t eat them. They saved them for seed Their sugar was all gone but a man from California came with some. She waited for an hour and a half and then she could only buy one pound of brown sugar for which she paid one dollar.
In 1858, Johnston’s army threatened invasion and devastation to Salt Lake City. Her husband Joseph was away on a mission in Southern Utah so Isabella drove one of their teams to Parowan with her six month old baby on her lap and had three other children under 5 years of age with her. Her older children were also with her. Grandpa Spencer's father's mother was 9 years old at this time. Her name is Leonora Taylor Horne.
Isabella was the first president of the Salt Lake Stake Relief Society when it covered all of Salt Lake County. There were 24 wards in all. This position Isabella continued to occupy for 31 years until she was 85 years old and the stake was divided into 6 stakes. Simultaneously she served as the treasurer of the General Relief Society under President Eliza R. Snow and then Zina Young. She was also one of the main women's suffrage leaders in Salt Lake City.
In the fall of 1869, Isabella was issued another challenge. President Young, touring southern Utah with other Church leaders, was troubled by the fact that wherever they went, great preparations were made for their entertainment. The sisters even stayed at home instead of going to meeting. When he arrived in Gunnison, where Isabella was visiting her son, he spoke with her about the matter. “ Sister Horne, he said, “I am going to give you a mission to begin when you return to your home—the mission of teaching retrenchment among the wives and daughters of Israel. It is not right that they should spend so much time in the preparation of their food and adornment of their bodies, and neglect their spiritual education.
Isabella took the president’s concern seriously. the Senior Retrenchment Association was organized. To help them understand the theory of the organization she served bread and butter, preserves, stewed dried apples, one kind of cake and cold water.
When Isabella was 74 years of age, she made a trip to England to do genealogy research. Her nephew happened to write about this encounter she had with some leading lady suffragists there.
One of the ladies was very curious to know how polygamous families get along and pointedly asked Sister Horne if her husband was a man of many wives. “My husband has other wives,” was her reply. With eyes wide open, expressive of the greatest astonishment, the lady asked, “How did you feel?” “Just as you would feel,” replied my aunt. “I am a woman like yourself, and, but for my religious convictions, would no more have consented for my husband to take another wife than you would; but I know that the principle of plural or celestial marriage is true and from God. God has spoken from the heavens and raised up the boy prophet, Joseph Smith, to establish his kingdom on earth in these last days, and I have a testimony of the truth of these things. I have had the honor of entertaining the prophet in my own home and know that he was a man of God.”
“Well, but you don’t expect to convert US to these things?”
“Oh no madam. If we wished to convert you to our religion we would begin with the first principles, not with the highest and most exalted ones.”
Emmeline B. Wells, a long-time friend and associate said of this remarkable woman, “She was a born leader, a sort of General among women and indeed in this respect might surpass most men. Sister Horne can appropriately be called a stalwart, a champion for the rights of her own sex, and indeed for all mankind. She was undoubtedly a woman of destiny. This woman of destiny who had borne fifteen children, including three sets of twins was a much-loved mother and grandmother. I am grateful for her example.
