Catherine Whitmer Page — Daughter of the Whitmer Home Where the Book of Mormon Was Translated

Catherine Whitmer (1810–1900), who married Hiram Page — one of the Eight Witnesses — was a daughter of Peter and Mary Whitmer Sr. She grew up in the very home where the Book of Mormon translation was completed in 1829, and all five of her brothers became official witnesses of the gold plates that year.

The Whitmer home in Fayette, New York served as a sacred haven during some of the most spiritually charged months of the Restoration. Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and Emma Smith came to live with the Whitmers specifically so that the translation could be completed without interruption. Catherine's mother, Mary Whitmer, received a personal visitation from the angel Moroni during this time, who showed her the gold plates as a witness of her faith and diligence.

Catherine was surrounded by the work of the Restoration from its earliest days. Her husband Hiram Page physically handled the plates as one of the Eight Witnesses and signed his name to the testimony that appears in every edition of the Book of Mormon. Though Catherine and Hiram eventually left the main body of the Church, neither ever denied the foundational events they had witnessed or lived through.

Catherine Whitmer Page lived to be ninety years old, outliving her husband by nearly five decades, and was the last surviving child of Peter and Mary Whitmer Sr. She carried with her until her death the memory of a household transformed by heaven — a home that became, for a few months in 1829, the birthplace of scripture.