Jean Rio Griffiths Baker

I love the following passage. Jean Rio Griffiths Baker, newly widowed, was caught up in the promise of the Mormon Church, and so she left her home in England to travel to America and the new Mormon settlement in Salt Lake City. Her journey began in Liverpool, where bad weather on the Irish Sea kept her party below decks for the first few weeks. Once out on the open ocean and under calmer conditions, she reflected on the two extremes and found them both equally awe-inspiring.

[February] 14 [1851]

I can hardly describe the beauty of this night, the Moon nearly at full with a deep blue Sky, studded with stars the reflection of which makes the sea appear like an immense sheet of diamonds, and here are we walking the deck at 9 o’clock in the evening without bonnet or shawl; what a contrast to this day three weeks, when we were shivering between decks, and not able to keep our feet, without holding fast to something or other, and if we managed to get on the upper deck, the first salute was a great lump of water in the face; Well I have seen the mighty deep in its anger with our ship nearly on her beam-ends, and I have seen it, (as now) under a cloudless sky, and scarcely a ripple on its surface, and I know not which to admire most.

Baker, Jean Rio Griffiths, 1810-1883, Diary of Jean Rio Baker, February, 1851, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 3: 1851. Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. & comp. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

I have often wondered what motivated women, like Jean, who left their homes for the great unknowable. I also wonder how they found things at the end of the journey. Was it all as they’d envisioned? Surely there were many who were ultimately disappointed in their strange new homeland. Did they make peace with their disillusionment, or did they regret the decision to set out on that great adventure? In Jean’s case, it would appear that she was not wholly happy with the way her life ended up. After nearly twenty years, she added the following passage to her diary.

[Addendum to Diary of Jean Rio Griffiths Baker]

September 29th, 1869 — I have been 18 years this day, an inhabitant of Utah Territory, and I may say 18 years of hard toil, and almost continual disappointment. My 20 acre farm tuned out to be a mere salaratus patch, killing the seed which was sown, instead of producing a crop; and I am now in Ogden City, living in a small log house, and working at my trade, as a dressmaker . . . I came here in obedience to what I believed to be a revelation of the most High God; trusting in the assurance of the Missionaries, whom I believe to have been the spirit of truth, I left my home, sacrificed my property, broke up every dear association, and what was, and is yet, dearer than all, left my beloved native land, and for what? A Bubble that has burst in my grasp. . . In 1864 I married Mr. Edward Pearce, I had been a widow 15 years, my children all married, and I felt I had the right to decide for myself, in a matter that only concerned myself. I hoped that my old age would be cheered by his companionsip that I should no longer be alone. But it was not to be; he only lived six months. . .

Baker, Jean Rio Griffiths, 1810-1883, Diary of Jean Rio Baker, September 29, 1869, quoted in By Windjammer and Prairie Schooner, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 3: 1851. Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. & comp. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.