Woman Named Davis Healed from Five Years of Confinement to Bed (1830s-1840s)

In the early days of the Restoration, a woman named Davis suffered from a severe illness that confined her to her bed for five years. During this extended period of confinement, she was unable to do anything for herself and was scarcely able to sit up.

As Orson F. Whitney records in the Life of Heber C. Kimball: "A woman named Davis had been confined to her bed for five years, not able to do anything during that time, and scarcely able to sit up, who was given up to be healed [by the power of God]."

The woman's condition had progressed to a point where medical science offered no hope. She had been abandoned as beyond recovery—"given up" by those who knew her case.

But when the Saints came and the gospel was preached, promising renewed healing power through the Priesthood, this woman experienced the fulfillment of those promises. Through the administration of Heber C. Kimball and the priesthood elders, she was miraculously healed.

Whitney continues: "The promise was fulfilled for those who believed[;] spoke in tongues and the sick were healed."

The woman who had been bedridden for five years was completely restored. This miracle stands as testimony to the power of faith and priesthood blessings during the founding era of the Church. The testimony of Heber C. Kimball and eyewitnesses to this healing provided powerful evidence that God's healing power had been restored through Joseph Smith and the restoration of the priesthood in the last days.

This account was preserved and documented in the official records of the Church and in Heber C. Kimball's own journals and testimonies, standing as one of many miraculous healings that accompanied the preaching of the gospel during that era.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

A woman named Davis had been confined to her bed for five years, not able to do anything during that time, and scarcely able to sit up, who was given up to die by the doctors. I baptized and confirmed her a member of the Church, and at the same time prayed for her, and rebuked the disease, and commanded it to depart from her in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. She began to amend from that very hour, and in less than one week she was performing her usual household duties, walked into the streets and attended meetings, to the astonishment of the people.