Lorenzo Snow Called Ella Jensen Back from the Dead — She Had Been Dead Over Three Hours

On the morning of March 3, 1891, nineteen-year-old Ella Jensen of Brigham City, Utah died of scarlet fever. She had lingered near death for weeks, and in the early morning hours she had a visitation from her deceased uncle, Hans Jensen, who told her messengers would come at ten o'clock to take her to the spirit world. She prepared, bid farewell to each family member by name, and died at exactly ten o'clock.

Her father, Jacob Jensen, went to inform President Lorenzo Snow, then President of the Box Elder Stake, and they returned together with Stake President Rudger Clawson. Ella had been dead for more than an hour by the time they arrived.

After standing at the bedside for a moment, President Snow asked for consecrated oil. He directed Rudger Clawson to anoint her, then confirmed the anointing himself. His words were commanding:

'Dear Ella, I command you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to come back and live. Your mission is not ended. Come back, Ella, come back! Your work upon the earth is not yet completed. Come back! You shall yet live to perform a great mission.'

Ella remained in her dead condition for more than an hour after the administration — more than three hours total since her death. Then her parents, watching by the bedside, saw her open her eyes. The first thing she asked was, 'Where is he? Where is Brother Snow? He called me back.'

She then described her experience in the spirit world in vivid detail: a great hall filled with people she recognized, being greeted by deceased relatives, entering a room of children presided over by Eliza R. Snow, and hearing President Snow's voice calling her back while she stood listening to the children sing.

'I obeyed the call,' Ella later said, 'although it was very much against my desire, as such perfect peace and happiness prevailed there — no suffering and no sorrow.'

She recovered fully, married, and had eight children. She lived until 1957.

This miracle had been prophesied decades earlier in Lorenzo Snow's patriarchal blessing given by Joseph Smith Sr. in the Kirtland Temple: 'The dead shall arise and come forth at thy bidding.'

Fuller account of this event (as retold in Francis M. Gibbons, Prophet of God: Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1982), pp. 193-194.):

In the early part of 1891, Elder Snow’s niece Ella Jensen came down with a fever accompanied by a sore throat and headache, symptoms of a late winter cold. However, she was told by Ella that her deceased Uncle Hans Jensen and certain “messengers” had appeared to her. “I am going to die,” she said, “and they are coming at ten o’clock to get me and take me away.” Assuming that this improbable story was merely the jumbled product of a fevered brain, the nurse tried to soothe her. After entering the room where the body lay, Ella now having been dead for about two hours, the apostle stood for a while in deep meditation and then asked for some consecrated oil. This “surprised” Jacob Jensen who, nevertheless, complied with the request. Elder Rudger Clawson left this account of the incident: “We then laid our hands upon her head, and the anointing was confirmed by President Snow, who blessed her and among other things, used this extraordinary expression, in a commanding tone of voice: ‘Come back, Ella, come back. Your mission is not ended. Come back, Ella, come back! Your work upon the earth is not yet completed. Come back! You shall yet live to perform a great mission.’ Ella remained in her dead condition for more than an hour after the administration—more than three hours total since her death. Then her parents, watching by the bedside, saw her open her eyes. The first thing she asked was, ‘Where is he? Where is Brother Snow? He called me back.’ She then described her experience in the spirit world in vivid detail: a great hall filled with people she recognized, being greeted by deceased relatives, entering a room of children presided over by Eliza R. Snow, and hearing President Snow's voice calling her back while she stood listening to the children sing. ‘I obeyed the call,’ Ella later said, ‘although it was very much against my desire, as such perfect peace and happiness prevailed there—no suffering and no sorrow.’