Item Detail
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Keeler, Eliza Shelton
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1840-1909
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MSS 436
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Autobiography
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Eliza Shelton Keeler was born on August 7, 1840 in New Brunswick, Canada to David Booth Shelton and Bethia Slayson. During that same year, her parents converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In May of 1854, her family started to Utah, and on June 8, 1854, Eliza was baptized into the Church. They arrived in Salt Lake City on September 24, 1854. On March 3, 1856 at the age of fifteen, Eliza married James Keeler. They soon moved to Spanish Fork where they earned a living by farming. After just over a year of marriage, Eliza entered into plural marriage when her husband married her younger sister, Emily Shelton, on April 22, 1857. In 1859 they moved south to Santaquin upon hearing that mobs were coming to the Salt Lake Valley to massacre the Mormons. In 1861 they moved to Goshen Valley, and in 1866, they moved back to Santaquin. They later moved to Richfield in 1873. In 1875 they joined the United Order, giving everything that they owned to the LDS Church. Eliza bore eleven children in total and died on November 4, 1909.
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This collection includes an autobiography of Eliza that was copied by Eliza's daughter, Laura Ann Keeler Thurber, into her own diary. The autobiography details Eliza and her sister Emily's children's births and some deaths. Eliza describes financial hardships that she and her family endured when her husband was injured in an accident and lost an eye. Eliza also bears her testimony of polygamy as a principle from God by claiming that she and James knew by divine inspiration that they should enter into plural marriage.
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