Mariah Pulsipher's Baby Healed and Restored from Critical Illness

While the Pulsipher family was at Winter Quarters during their exodus from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley, Mariah's baby daughter became dangerously ill. As Mariah recorded: 'He had not been gone long until my baby took very sick. No one thought she could live. I prayed to the Lord to spare her life and she commenced to get better. I did not write to my husband to tell him how low she was. I did not worry him.' Mariah's prayer was heard and answered, and her daughter's miraculous recovery stood out dramatically against the backdrop of widespread death at Winter Quarters: 'There was only about one in six of the children who lived from these illnesses. Hundreds died.' This divine intervention preserved her daughter's life during a period when the death rate was catastrophic. Later, when her daughter contracted whooping cough, 'We called President Young to administer to him [another son]. He looked at him and said, "He is a noble spirit." He blessed him and said, "He shall have the priesthood whether he lives or dies."' Though this son passed away, her faith in God's mercy and the promised resurrection sustained her. She recorded: 'I was sitting alone a few days after my baby's death, reflecting on his death, the Spirit returned and said to me, "You shall have a son and he shall live." In about nine or ten months I had another son, Wilmer. He did live and is over thirty years old and is a good man.' These miracles of healing and restoration demonstrated God's tender care for faithful mothers facing unbearable losses.