Mrs. Wm. Walker
Care of Messrs. G. J. and Geo. Cooper
87 Church St.
Manchester, England
Great Salt Lake City April 30th, ‘49
My Dear Father & Mother
It is with great pleasure I sit down to address a few lines to my dear parents Charles and Mary, and hopeing it will find you in good health and spirits, and on your way to the valley. I received your very kind letter dated March the 20th which is the only communication I have received from you except the one by Bro. Hyde. I am glad to hear that you enjoy better health than when I left you.
There was a very large company came in last fall among whom I had the great pleasure of seeing Sister Margret Gratrix, Sister B. Rideing, and Sister Roper a friend of my father’s. She has had hard work to get here and support her family, but she was maried yesterday to a Bro. Jenson. I am not acquainted with him but report says he is a good man, and I hope she will have a good home for she is deserving. Her health is better than when she left England. Sister M. Gratrix is living with Bro. and Sister Furgusson late of Liverpool. She enjoys tolerable health and spirits. Sister Riding also is in good health and spirits. Sister Celina Dunn is married to Bro. Wm. Nixon of Sheffield, and is still in New York.
You say in your letter that you wrote the news by Bro. Yardley, but I have not seen him or heard of him.
Bro. Pratt has written a letter to Elder Orson Pratt containing a good deal of information concerning this place, which will be communicated through the Star. Bro. Pratt and his family are well, Bro. P. I think will write you a line in this letter. I am still living with them, and they the same kind friends they always were. I hope the time is not far distant we shall meet in peace, and enjoy one another’s society in quiet and without molestation or wicked spirits to mar our peace. I do long to see you. I dream [page break] of you at night, think of you all day, I imagine how my dear brother Charles and sister Mary look. I well remember their features, but I know they must be much altered. Mary must be allmost a woman, if she grows as I did, and Charles too must be grown very tall. I do not think I am much altered, I look older as a natural consequence. I enjoy good health and am happy and contented and satisfied with my condition in life.
Bro. & Sister Armstrong are both well and send their love to all inquiring friends.
Give my love to Bro. G. and Wm. Wann and thier wifes, Sister Holbrook, the Newton family, and all inquireing friends. Does my father know anything of Sister Emma Gladwin from Sheffield. She was in Manchester some time and then went to Ashton. I should like to hear from her.
I must now bring my letter to a close praing my heavenly Father to bless you with his choisest blessings and speedly gather you to the land of Zion Amen.
I am my dear Father & Mother
Your affectionate Daughter
A. A. Walker
Great Salt Lake City, May 3d, 1849
Dear Br. Walker.
I avail myself of your Daughters kind offer to write a few lines in her letter, expressive of kind remembrance to yourself and family. I am well and enjoy myself well in this retirement, but not as well as I should in the world, about my fathers business.
Your daughter has been with us every day since our retern from England; She is respected and beloved by all our family and numerous circle of friends, because of her noble, generous and amiable disposition and goodness of spirit. She will never be seperated from us, and therefore I know no other means [page break] for child and parents brothers and sisters to enjoy each others society in the case of her fathers house than for them all to unite in the same naborhood, and in the same ties of eternal friendship in the New and Everlasting Covenant.
Dear Bro. Walker, I long to see you and your family in our midst. I know the seperation from your child is painful, but I believe it will work for good and serve as an anchor to draw you unwaveringly to the right place in asmuch as you hearken to the right spirit—the still, small voice which whispereth to the inmost soul of man.
Agatha is doing well and longs to see you in our midst and you will be welcomed by us all, should we meet with you at any place.
Should the time come that we can command abundance of the rich products of the gold mine we will help our friends to come to us from Britain, unless the way opens for them to come sooner.
I am your affectionate Brother in the Gospel of peace,
Parley P. Pratt
[Transcribed by Cheryl Brawn, Mauri Pratt, and Suzanne Taysom, Jan. 2014]
A. A. Walker to her Father and Mother [Mrs. W. Walker], transcribed letter, 30 April 1849; MS 278, online images, Church History Catalog, Ann Agatha W. Pratt Reminiscences and Letters, 1847-1907 (https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE2090355&usedforsort=MS_278_f0001 : January 2014), p. 8; Church History Library, Salt Lake City.