Edith Goble

Edith Goble is the daughter of William and Mary Goble. Together with their children and Edith’s parents, the family immigrated from England to America in 1856. The family joined the Hunt Wagon Company along with other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to trek west to the Great Salt Lake Valley.

Exhaustive travel conditions, disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, prematurity, and extreme weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. As the pioneers journeyed west, the weather got increasingly colder and food became scarce. Edith’s mother, Mary, became ill, yet she delivered a baby girl on September 23, whom they named her Edith.

The weather became so cold that ice floated down the rivers as the pioneers crossed them. Edith died on November 3, 1856, and was buried by the crossing of the Sweetwater River.

Her sister, Mary, wrote: “My mother had never got well, she lingered until the 11th of December, the day we arrived in Salt Lake City, 1856. She and her baby lost their lives gathering to Zion in such a late season of the year. My sister was buried at the last crossing of the Sweet Water.”