Nauvoo

Mom and I outside of Joseph Smith's "Mansion" House

Two of these pictures were taken inside the print making shop. It made me appreciate just how easy it is to get information out these days! We are so spoiled! The close-up of marianne shows her holding one of the metal letters used for the newspapers. You can't see the letter well, but you can see how gorgeous she is!

These pictures were taken on the "trail of tears" which was the road the Saints took before getting to the launch that would take them across the Mississippi (see river in background). We went around 9am and it was BEYOND FREEZING. Yes, it was May. Yes, it was sunny. Yes, we were babies. The wind was unbelievably cold and strong ( you can tell this because it looks like I'm wearing 80's stirrup pants. I'm not) . By the end of that little stretch we ran back to the cars with our ears numb and our hands like ice. One can only imagine how hard it must have been to leave mid-winter with no refuge in sight. Unthinkable.

Surreal to see Joseph Smith's actual gravestone. He is buried on a rise overlooking the Mississippi.

These two pics were taken inside Josh Taylor's home. The horse was donated to the church from the Taylor family. It is the original toy horse of John Taylor's son. The family forgot it in their haste to leave Nauvoo, and the son was inconsolable. John Taylor went back across the Mississippi and got the horse at night, so the mobs would not arrest him. They strapped the horse to the outside of the wagon and it went all the way across the plains with them!

The second picture is obviously a potty training chair. I post it to remind all potty training mothers how easy our lives are....

This was taken inside John Browning's house (browning guns). This was a fascinating stop in Nauvoo. This man was known for improving guns drastically, but he was an inventor in all aspects of his life. He put his cellar and well through a door which opened up inside his kitchen, not outside the house, as was typical back then. He even made a special butter churning device for his wife that she could rock with her foot while she knitted and had an attachment which would enable her to churn butter, rock a baby to sleep and knit all at the same time. Genius.

This picture was taken inside the "dungeon" of the Carthage jail. It got scorching hot in this room in the summer, so the family living in the jail who had become friends with Joseph let the prisoners take their actual bedroom. This was a great relief, but also had normal windows which the mob shot joseph from.

The last pictures were taken in front of the window Joseph fell from, then outside the building where the mob gathered and watched Joseph fall.