Edith Goble Grave Marker

This is the Grave marker of an infant who died in the Hunt Wagon Train traveling with the Martin and Willie companies. Joanne Baird, shown here, is a sister to Marge Hinckley. They are descentants of Mary Goble who gave birth to this baby just before arriving at Devils Gate. This is how the daughter Mary describes the scene: "We traveled on till we got to the Platte River. That was the last walk I ever had with my mother. We caught up with handcart companies that day. [Martin Company] We watched them cross the river. There were great lumps of ice floating down the river. It was bitter cold. The next morning there were fourteen dead in camp through the cold. We went back to camp and went to prayers. They sang, 'Come, Come, Ye Saints, No Toil Nor Labor Fear.' I wondered what made my mother cry. That night my mother took sick, and the next morning my little sister was born. It was the 23rd of September. We named her Edith, and she lived six weeks and died for want of nourishment...My mother had never got well; she lingered until the 11th of December, the day we arrived in Salt Lake City, 1856...She was forty-three years old...My sister was buried at the last crossing of the Sweetwater River." (Tell My Story Too, Jolene S. Allphin p. 350)

No one knew about the grave marker until recently. It had been in the garden of a family in Idaho for years when they discovered that this baby was related to Sister Hinckley and arranged for the family to get the marker. No one knows how it arrived in Idaho from the gravesite.