Newel A. Brown's prophetic dream regarding Elder Karren's genealogies
Published October 15, 2026 at 12:08 PM
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Young Woman's Journal Research
Elder Newel A. Brown, serving in England, dreamed of a meadow with empty coffins and a group of women descending from the air to welcome him. He interpreted this dream to mean that his companion, Elder Thomas Karren, was neglecting the work for his dead ancestors. Through Brown's insistence and divine direction, Karren wrote to an old address, leading to the discovery of 65 relatives and a miraculous provision of money.
In Their Own Words
“That night Elder Brown dreamed that he was in a beautiful meadow, dotted with pleasant shade trees at a little distance apart. There were boxes made and scattered irregularly about, and they proved to be vaults or outer cases for coffins, in which the dead had been buried; but for some cause the bodies had been taken up, and these vaults lay in confusion as they had been left, partly torn to pieces, with the short boards standing on end, leaning against the box or flat upon the ground. He thought this was in the afternoon, and as he turned toward the west he saw a multitude of women and girls coming toward him through the air. They settled upon the green grass in a complete circle around him. As they were in the act of alighting he took off his hat and swung it three times in the air, shouting, ‘I welcome you.’ As soon as all were in place around him he turned to the right, and stood face to face with a daughter he buried about four years previous. This so shocked and overjoyed him that he awoke. — The Young Woman's Journal 5:7”
Sources & References
The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 5 no. 7 (April 1894). L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University digital collections. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/YWJ/id/27574 (account extracted verbatim from the collection's page-level OCR; research confidence: high)
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