Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck ... then I went to my sewing ... concluded.

(Elizabeth's journal entries regarding her friendship with Harriette White, continued from here.)

March, 1877, Thursday 15^th don the work up stairs   then I had to tack another trip to the store for sheating bot 20 dolers worth [1]   met Sister Hook on the way to see me   she cum hom with me and helpt to make eaight sheets   Brother Groesbeck had gon to York  and would not be home til evening  I went to the Society for afew minets after that we went to see Sister [Harriet]White

That was Elizabeth’s last journal entry wherein she mentioned Sister White.  Elizabeth wasn’t writing in her journal at all leading up to Harriette’s October 14, 1877 [2] passing.

Early the following year Brother White went to talk with Elizabeth.

February 1878, Monday 11^th started to cut out sum shirts for Joseph just then Brother [John] White cum in and asked for me   I told him to cum in and so he did    he told me that his Daughter Maryann had seen her Mother agane   I felt rather seuryesus [serious] as she had seen me in the room with her Mother

Elizabeth wrote a week later that she went up to see Brother White and found both of his daughters at home with him. Elizabeth didn’t write anything further about that visit. Nor did she write about their mother Harriett. Nor did she again mention Maryann having seen Elizabeth with her mother.

On Thursday April 9, 1878, Elizabeth wrote that she took the cakes over to the school house and told the sisters she would help, if there was anything she could do. They told her there was plenty of help without hers.

I cum home went and got Mellie and then we attended Brother Whites weding  had areal nise time

John White (1808-1885) married Sarah Wheeler (1813-1895) on April 9, 1878.

Elizabeth wrote on Sunday, August 25, 1878

read sum in the morning  attended meating in the after noon  Mellie and Josephine ware both at home with  us   sister White[‘s] [Harriet Prosser White] Daughter Betsy [Elizabeth White, 1840-1908] cald to see me the first time sence hers [mother’s] deth

October 1878, Wedenesday 23^rd went to see Josephine  found her prity well  went over to Mellies and she was better then she had ben the day befour   got [back] at noon   went with my Husband down to see William and his family  found them all well  from thare I went to see Brother [John] White but he was not at home  had avery plesent talk with his wife  the wether had ben very blustry in the morning but cleared up fine in the after noon

Thurday 24^th had acall from Brother [John] White  I told him to cum and stop with us  I finished a scirt I had comenced sum time befour  attended the society in the after noon  the wether very fine

October 1878, Monday 28^th felt sick in the morning yet I helpt with the work  cut out acupel pair garmen[ts] for brother Groesbeck  Rosena [White] Barnet came to spen[d] a littel while with me  Sister Susana [Susannah] Hunter cald in to see us   after that Sister [Miranda] Hide came to git alittel help for a family that was in want

I presume Sister Miranda Hide continued as the Seventeenth Ward Relief Society President, the calling she received the evening Elizabeth was assigned to the 6th block.

—compiled by great great granddaughter Bessie Sanborn, October 7, 2015, from Elizabeth’s newly published (September 11, 2015)  journal transcription.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Notes:

[1] Elizabeth frequently sewed bedding and made rugs for her husband’s hotel.
[2] Obituary of Harriet Prosser from the Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star, No 46, Vol. XXXIX, Monday, November 12, 1877 (Volume 39, p. 752). Ancestry. Com.

[3] I recently took the picture of the marble bench facing East in the Salt Lake Cemetery where Harriette White and another White family member were buried. Nothing remains of any 1870 gravestones near that knoll. The bench was placed there following the April 6, 2014 passing of another White family member (perhaps a descendant).