Dear Brother Bowen:

Concerning the questions you ask concerning my mother and grandmother, I must admit that I don't really like to know as much as I should really like to know. But the following are the facts as known to me. . . .

My mother—Josephine—their 4th child was born in Nauvoo Feb. 8 1844, and the Prophet was marytred in June of that year, as you know. However, sometime previous to my mother's birth, Bro. Winsor P. Lyon (along with many others) became out of harmony with the Prophet and Church leaders, and he left Nauvoo and went <up> there to Iowa City, making his home there, but leaving his wife in Nauvoo (who apparently did not wish to leave the Church and go with him. Now, it must have been at this time that she was sealed to the Prophet (thinking, no doubt, that her husband had apostatised from the church for good.)