Lydia Knight’s sons James and Hyrum both experience miraculous healings

Lydia Knight is a woman of tremendous faith and steadiness. I have written some of her history in another post, giving her background prior to meeting up with the Saints, as well as her experience of the loss of her first two husbands.^[1]Lydia’s first husband was abusive to her and abandoned her. In the midst of this trial, Lydia also witnessed the death of the two children born to her from her first marriage. This was a woman … Continue reading After the death of Newel Knight, her second husband,^[2]Newel and Lydia were together in mortality as husband and wife for just over 11 years, from November 1835 to January 1847, when Newel dies. Lydia was in the difficult position of having to travel across the plains with six children, ages 2 -13, without her husband. Newel died on January 11, 1847, as he and Lydia were taking their family west after the Saints had been forced to leave Nauvoo.

Earlier in her life Lydia had been given a patriarchal blessing by Joseph Smith Sr. In the words on one historian, “this moment would have a profound effect on her Lydia’s life. For a woman who had been the victim of an abusive husband and had watched both her children die, the words spoken by the patriarch became a source of much solace. ^[3]Nicholas J. Frederick, as found in Turley and Chapman, Women of Faith, p. 148.

Regarding her relationship with her new husband Newel, she was promised, “Thou shalt be comforted… The Lord loves thee and has given thee a kind and loving companion for thy comfort and your souls shall be knit together and nothing shall be able to dissolve them; neither distress nor death shall separate you.”

Lydia also received promises regarding her children: “For thou shalt be a mother of many children, and thou shalt teach them righteousness and have power to keep them from the power of the destroyer; and they heart shall not be pained because of the loss of they children; for the Lord shall watch over them and keep them and they shall be raised up for glory, to be an ornament in the church.”^[4]Patriarchal Blessing of Lydia Knight,” in Early Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. H. Michael Marquardt, Salt Lake City, Smith-Pettit Foundation, … Continue reading This blessing carried Lydia through many of the storms that she would face in later years, as she left Nauvoo and experienced the pain of the loss of her husband Newel Knight.

From the account given in the historical records we can see what happened in Lydia’s life that fulfilled much of this blessing:

On December 1, 1836, Lydia gave birth to a daughter, named Sally after Lydia’s mother. Sally was followed a year and a half later by a son, James Philander. In 1839 Newel and Lydia were forced out of their home in Far West, and Lydia nearly died of malaria shortly after reaching Nauvoo. But Lydia’s biggest challenge arrived when young James became seriously ill in the fall of 1839. Fever “reduced him to a skeleton.” and Lydia’s neighbors urged her to let the boy die and find an end to his sufferings. She responded, “Oh I cannot think of such a thing! Father Smith said in my blessing that my heart should not be pained because of the loss of my children. And I cannot let him go because I feel that it is not the Lord’s will that I should part with him.”

For a woman who had already lost two children,^[5]From her previous marriage to Calvin Bailey. the possibility of losing a third must have been heartwrenching. Hadn’t she been promised that she would have “many children” and the “power to keep them from the power of the destroyer”? The words of her patriarchal blessing fortified Lydia’s faith during this trying time. Even Newel lost hope for his son, encouraging Lydia to “give him up and ask God to soften this great blow to us both.” Lydia’s response to her husband was even more resolute: “Give up my boy to the arms of the destroyer! It is impossible. I cannot give him up.”

Lydia’s faith was rewarded when, the next day, she saw the Prophet Joseph Smith walking past her door and she hurriedly pleaded with him to visit the child. Joseph, surprised at how sick young James appeared, instructed Lydia to wash the boy from head to foot with warm water and then ask George Harris to anoint him with consecrated oil, also from head to toe. Lydia followed the instructions to the letter, and within two days James’s condition was much improved. Lydia, writing hears later about his recover, recalled seeing a light “like a brilliant sunbeam from a cloudy sky,” shining down upon James right before he was healed.

Subsequent years brought both blessings and grief to the Knights. Sons Joseph and Newel were born in 1840 and 1842, respectively, and a daughter, Lydia, was born two years later on June 6, 1844. Although the mother could find peace and comfort in six healthy and growing children, circumstances for the body the Saints were not faring as well. Joseph and Hyrum were killed three weeks after young Lydia was born, and mother Lydia, weakened from giving birth, was unable to attend the funeral, although she and Newel did visit the Carthage jail the following summer, seeing for themselves the ball holes and bloodstains upon the floor of the jail.

On April 17, 1846, the Knights and their seven children (Lydia had given birth to son Jesse in the summer of 1845) left Nauvoo to travel west with the Saints. But Newel died during the winter of 1847, probably from pneumonia. When his body was carried past Lydia for burial, she whispered, “God rules!”

After her husband’s death, Lydia struggled under the burden of supporting her young family and preparing to cross the plains to the Rocky Mountains…. It was in the course of this experience where she witnessed hearing the voice of her husband from the world of spirits and received a comforting message from him.^[6]You can read about this here. It took Lydia some time to cross the plains to get to Salt Lake. From 1847 to 1849 she lived first at the Ponca Indian camp outside Winter Quarters and then in Kanesville, Iowa. On October 3, 1850, more than four years after she left Nauvoo, Lydia Knight reached Salt Lake City.

It was while living in Kanesville in 1849 that Lydia, while walking from her house to fetch water, saw her young son Hyrum floating down the stream. Though he appeared lifeless when she pulled him from the water, Lydia knew she had been promised by God that none of her children would perish, and she had witnessed the fruits of her faith when she refused to let James die in Nauvoo. Drawing on her faith once more, she called upon the Lord to save her child:

When I held his lifeless body in my arms and pressed him to my breast, I thought upon the words of the Prophet Joseph. I told the Lord that his servant told me even before I was a mother that I should be the mother of many children and my heart should not be pained because of the loss of my children. I remembered the commission given to the servants of the Lord. As soon as possible I sent for Bros Stone and Mendenhall. They came. The child showed no sign of life but my faith was strong in the promise made to me by the Prophet. I could not be denied. They finally laid their hands on the lifeless child and prayed for him. Life returned and he began to breathe and lived to grow to be a man.^[7]See: Nicholas J. Frederick, as found in Richard E. Turley and Brittany A. Chapman, editors. Women of Faith in the Latter Days, volume one, 1775-1820, pages 148-152. See also: Knight and Gates, Lydia … Continue reading