Lydia Goldthwaite Knight

Brinkerhoff line. We're studying the D&C in Seminary this year, so I've recounted several stories from our family history to illustrate events in church history. So far the kids have enjoyed stories about Newell Knight, Polly Knight, Lorenzo Dow Young, Nathan Staker, Jane Richmond and others. And there are many more to go as the saints move from Missouri to Nauvoo and then west to Utah.

I used one of my favorite stories in a lesson about D&C 100. It's an account of Lydia Goldthwaite's conversion in a small town in Canada. Here's a synopsis from page 117 of 'Church History in the Fulness of Times Institute Student Manual':

"In Mount Pleasant, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon baptized twelve people, including the sons of Elder Nickerson and their families, who became the nucleus of the branch there.

Lydia Bailey was one of those in the Eleazer Freeman Nickerson household in Mount Pleasant who responded to the gospel with all of her heart. She was raised in Massachusetts and New York and at age sixteen married Calvin Bailey. Because he drank, her life with him was unhappy. After three years of marriage, he abandoned her, her daughter, and the child she was expecting. Her son died at birth, and less than a year later her daughter also died. At age twenty Lydia went to Canada with the Nickersons to recover her emotional health. There she met Joseph Smith, and he told her, “You shall yet be a savior to your father’s house.” Lydia later moved to Kirtland, where she met and married Newel Knight, a widower. Many years later, in Utah, Lydia did the ordinance work for seven hundred of her kindred dead in the St. George Utah Temple, thus fulfilling Joseph’s prophecy."

D&C 100 was received in October, 1833 in Perrysville, NY as Joseph and Sidney traveled from Kirtland around Lake Erie and into lower Canada. They went to Canada specifically to visit the Nickerson family at the urging of Elder Freeman Nickerson back in Kirtland. On the way, the Lord confirmed to Joseph that they were on the right track. "Behold, and lo, I have much people in this place, in the regions round about; and an effectual door shall be opened in the regions round about in this eastern land." (D&C 100:3)

Evidently, one of "his people" was Lydia and one of those "doors" was the series of events that led her from Massachusetts to the very house in Canada that the prophet was sent to visit. Good stuff!

p.s.--Yesterday I told the kids a Valentines Day story about Newell meeting and marrying Lydia after both of them had traveled to Kirtland.