under the forecastle, where the older males of her family kept vigil over it throughout the night.
Jean Rio arose at dawn the next morning, a bright and clear Sunday she described as “beautiful.” Her brother-in-law Jeremiah and the ship’s second mate sewed “the body of our dear little fellow ready for burial,” encasing the boy in a canvas shroud. Attached to his feet was a mass of coal sufficient to sink the shroud to the bottom of the ocean.
At eleven o’clock, Jean Rio heard the tolling of the ship’s bell announcing the time had come. With her pen, she noted in her diary that the ship was at “44⁄14 west longitude, 25 ⁄ 13 north latitude.” She then went on deck for the burial of her last-born son. “This is my first severe trial after leaving my native land,” she wrote. “But the Lord has answered my prayer in this one thing: that if it was not His will to spare my boy to reach his destined home with us, that He would take him while we were on the sea. For I would much rather leave his body in the ocean than bury him in a strange land and leave him there.”
As quickly as the calm had appeared, the sea turned tempestuous again. Jean Rio awakened the following morning to a dense fog enveloping the ship and a torrential rainstorm that dropped four inches of water in five minutes. The crew scrambled to bring in the sails and ordered all passengers below deck. For an hour the ship rolled against the waves.
By the next day Charles was able to open his eyes into tiny slits, and the bandages on his head were removed. Without meat for nearly a month, some of the Mormon men decided to kill one of the porpoises swimming alongside the ship. They struck a five-foot-long dolphin with a plank and hauled it on board. After it was skinned and cut into servings, one of them presented Jean Rio with a piece. But she was unable to eat it, finding its coarseness and dark color unappealing.
For days, storms and hot weather dogged the ship. The sea was covered with foam and gulfweed. Only the vision of flying fish and the ever-changing sky broke the monotony. “Our ship is the center of an immense circle, bounded only by the clouds,” Jean Rio wrote. “All is grand and beautiful and fully repays me for the inconvenience of a sea voyage.” Now, nearly six weeks at sea, the passengers had settled into a routine and life proceeded in its ordinariness: a baby was born, couples were married, disputes arose and were mediated. A bugle sounded at six o’clock every morning, and after breakfast, prayer, and the required chores were completed, the converts broke into small groups to play music or “gossip so the days pass along.” They had all acquired what the sailors called their sea legs, and Jean Rio prided herself in being able to “walk about the ship” regardless of the weather. She began to take pleasure in the mercurial swells she called “awful, yet grand.” In her diary she compared the waves to “the boiling of an immense kettle, covered with white foam, while the roaring of the winds and waves was like the bellowing of a thousand wild bulls.”
Though many on board were terrified, she remained dauntless. The only inconvenience, she noted, was the aching in her bones from the “incessant motion.” The fact that the headwinds had driven them back hundreds of miles broke the spirit of many, but she relished the entire adventure: “I could only look, wonder and admire, for through all our literal ups and downs I have felt no fear.”
The collective mood improved on March 9, as the ship passed the Bahamas and the expectation of their soon reaching America grew. The harsh winds shifted to cool breezes, and the cerulean hues of the Caribbean had a tranquilizing effect on the company, whose nerves had been especially frayed after the excommunication of one of their elders for “inconsistent conduct.” Elder William Booth, who had conducted the funeral service for little Josiah, had had sexual relations
Jean Rio arose at dawn the next morning, a bright and clear Sunday she described as “beautiful.” Her brother-in-law Jeremiah and the ship’s second mate sewed “the body of our dear little fellow ready for burial,” encasing the boy in a canvas shroud. Attached to his feet was a mass of coal sufficient to sink the shroud to the bottom of the ocean.
At eleven o’clock, Jean Rio heard the tolling of the ship’s bell announcing the time had come. With her pen, she noted in her diary that the ship was at “44⁄14 west longitude, 25 ⁄ 13 north latitude.” She then went on deck for the burial of her last-born son. “This is my first severe trial after leaving my native land,” she wrote. “But the Lord has answered my prayer in this one thing: that if it was not His will to spare my boy to reach his destined home with us, that He would take him while we were on the sea. For I would much rather leave his body in the ocean than bury him in a strange land and leave him there.”
As quickly as the calm had appeared, the sea turned tempestuous again. Jean Rio awakened the following morning to a dense fog enveloping the ship and a torrential rainstorm that dropped four inches of water in five minutes. The crew scrambled to bring in the sails and ordered all passengers below deck. For an hour the ship rolled against the waves.
By the next day Charles was able to open his eyes into tiny slits, and the bandages on his head were removed. Without meat for nearly a month, some of the Mormon men decided to kill one of the porpoises swimming alongside the ship. They struck a five-foot-long dolphin with a plank and hauled it on board. After it was skinned and cut into servings, one of them presented Jean Rio with a piece. But she was unable to eat it, finding its coarseness and dark color unappealing.
For days, storms and hot weather dogged the ship. The sea was covered with foam and gulfweed. Only the vision of flying fish and the ever-changing sky broke the monotony. “Our ship is the center of an immense circle, bounded only by the clouds,” Jean Rio wrote. “All is grand and beautiful and fully repays me for the inconvenience of a sea voyage.” Now, nearly six weeks at sea, the passengers had settled into a routine and life proceeded in its ordinariness: a baby was born, couples were married, disputes arose and were mediated. A bugle sounded at six o’clock every morning, and after breakfast, prayer, and the required chores were completed, the converts broke into small groups to play music or “gossip so the days pass along.” They had all acquired what the sailors called their sea legs, and Jean Rio prided herself in being able to “walk about the ship” regardless of the weather. She began to take pleasure in the mercurial swells she called “awful, yet grand.” In her diary she compared the waves to “the boiling of an immense kettle, covered with white foam, while the roaring of the winds and waves was like the bellowing of a thousand wild bulls.”
Though many on board were terrified, she remained dauntless. The only inconvenience, she noted, was the aching in her bones from the “incessant motion.” The fact that the headwinds had driven them back hundreds of miles broke the spirit of many, but she relished the entire adventure: “I could only look, wonder and admire, for through all our literal ups and downs I have felt no fear.”
The collective mood improved on March 9, as the ship passed the Bahamas and the expectation of their soon reaching America grew. The harsh winds shifted to cool breezes, and the cerulean hues of the Caribbean had a tranquilizing effect on the company, whose nerves had been especially frayed after the excommunication of one of their elders for “inconsistent conduct.” Elder William Booth, who had conducted the funeral service for little Josiah, had had sexual relations
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