Brief Life Sketch

Caroline is Angie’s great-grandmother.

“I am Caroline Ely Partridge Lyman, the fifth child of Edward Partridge and Lydia Clisbee. I was four years old when my folks joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. My father became the first bishop of the church.

He was well off until he became a Mormon, then he was driven from place to place and persecuted. We lived in one poor house after another as we moved about. In July 1833 several armed men entered our home and took my father away. Later, when he returned home after being tarred and feathered by the mob, I thought he was an Indian and hid under the bed. That same summer the mob burned our home and drove us across the river. Here our home was an old log house with a dirt floor. Many times we found lizards and poisonous snakes behind trunks and boxes.

I was baptized in 1835 by Peter Whitmer.

We were living in a log house at Far West, when my father was taken to jail by the mob with other leading men of the church. We had to leave our home again, this time we went to Nauvoo. When our house was half built, Father died.”

She married Amasa Mason Lyman in Nauvoo and came to Winter Quarters, and on to Utah, eventually settling in Oak City. “I was instructed by the authorities of the church to bear my testimony about the Prophet Joseph Smith, so every fast meeting I would tell of some incident in my life connected with the Prophet and of my early experiences in the church.

I was at the meeting when Brigham Young was found to be the leader of our people. I heard the voice of Joseph, he seemed to be standing and talking to us but it was Brigham Young so we knew he was the successor to the Prophet.”