touching story

photo picture of the marker

drawing of young mary and her father by the marker.

There is often recounted in the family as I remember it a story told of Mary Goble Pay's little sister. I love this story and dad has told it before in his sharing of testimony and talks. What he gains from the story is the impact that one little girl, very young, Her stay very short upon the earth, but oh the impact that she has had on generations of people.

while coming from England to Ut. The family of Mary Penfold and Richard Goble started out with many children, well and healthy. But as time moved on, and through circumstances of illness, the harsh elements, lack of food, many of the children as well as the mother died along the crossing from England to Ut. When one of these children passed on, a sweet daughter named Edith, they buried her in a shallow grave on plains. It was more than her sister mary could stand. Mary cried and lamanated over her baby sisters grave and not wanted to leave it, stayed behind. The father made a marker and tried to console mary, who was worried about the wolves digging up the grave. It was a difficult time for the Pay family. Years later a marker was found by a man--he researched the name goble and put the marker in the hands of Uncle Doug and aunt Evelyn, aunt Joanne and aunt doreen. Then later someone by the name of rogers painted a picture depicting their imagery of the scene of mary by the marker--I took a picture of that rendition as it is posted here. There was also a song made up in honor of this story. For years, and years. generations of the family have passed down the story of the crossing of the plains with the details of Mary Goble and her parents and sibblings and their plight in martins cove (as part of the hodge company) along with the Willie handcarts. For years we have revered not only those on the plains of wyoming but of little Edith back in Iowa too.

So though her life was short by comparisson that time here on earth made a great impact.

I just wanted to share this to remind us again of two things. We can learn so much from those who have gone before and two: that each of you where ever you are and what ever you are doing to work out your salvation and live the gospel, have a will make a great impact too. Like mary goble or Edith, you may not think you are anything out of the ordinary, but your lives impact many other lives.