The Busy Bee 🐝

youtu.be/BlSlcmr8VCo?is=GHYA… This is a video of my Aunt Ariel Bybee (who I’m named after) who sang with the Metropolitan Opera house with my dad and their brother and sister. Singing Joseph Smith’s First Prayer (Oh How Lovely was the Morning). My dad is the shorter man. My dad and my Aunt Ariel have since passed away.

One of my Mormon Pioneer ggg grandmothers was Nancy Boss. Her father had died and her mother was left a widow with 9 children. The mother moved the family from North Carolina to Illinois where the family joined the church and then moved to Nauvoo. She was one of the older children, so she had to find employment to help support her family. At age 15, she was employed as a servant girl in the home of Colonel Williams. At the time, she did not know that he was the leader of the mob that had sworn to kill the Prophet Joseph Smith. At first, the Colonel had not known that he had employed a Mormon girl. The night before the mob killed the Prophet and his brother Hyrum, they painted their faces black and drank whiskey and acted as if they had gone mad. They carried on like demons. Nancy had to cook and serve dinner to the mob members before they started for Carthage Jail. When the Colonel discovered that she was a Mormon girl, he refused to let her leave. He threatened her life if she tried to escape. The next night, after the mob had committed their dastardly deed of murdering the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum, they returned to Colonel William’s home and they seemed very much frightened. They knew they had committed a terrible and wicked crime. Nancy said they acted like crazy men. The next night she managed to escape the house by saying she was going out to fetch water. She had somehow gotten word to a cousin (Captain James Brown). She ran out to the woods and found him on his horse. She mounted the horse and they escaped to safety.