Deaths
Musser—Of cerebral apoplexy, at her residence, 114 Canyon road, Salt Lake City, at 9 o’clock Sunday evening, December 10, 1893, Belinda Marden Pratt. Her illness was of short duration, she having been stricken down at 6 p.m. the evening previous to her death.
Mrs. Musser was born May 8, 1848, in the Old Fort Pioneer square, sixth ward, some ten months after the Pioneers reached this memorable place. Her funeral will be held in the Eighteenth ward chapel at 11 a.m. Wednesday, 13th. All friends are invited.
[Deseret News, Dec. 11, 1893, 5]
[transcribed and proofread by David Grow, Jan. 2006]
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Belinda Pratt Musser
Her Memory and Her Good Deeds Deserve Affectionate Remembrance
Sister Belinda Pratt Musser, whose sudden demise the News chronicled yesterday, was no ordinary woman. She possessed domestic, social and executive traits of no common character. Had she become a student of medicine and surgery, as nature and inclination had partially fitted her, without doubt she would have reached an enviable position in the profession, for she was both brainy and bright.
Her mother, who survives her, had five children whom she was forced to rear and educate almost alone because of the perpetual absence of Mrs. Musser’s distinguished father, whose public duties kept him from home in the missionary, pioneering and colonization fields almost constantly.
Mrs. Musser was an intellectual woman of stately build, noble mien, and of queenly bearing, accomplished, exemplary, full of faith, benevolent acts and good deeds, always a helpful evangel to the needy of all faiths, whom she would ever delight to encourage and succor. It was she who first suggested and successfully inaugurated the Pratt family reunions in memory and honor of her illustrious father, who in 1857 sealed his testimony with his blood. Her palsied mother, who has for years hungered for release from her sufferings, was her great solicitude. During all her weary waiting her daughter Belinda was the affectionate angel that hovered about her, ever ready to wait on her hand and foot.
Sister Musser was the mother of ten children, seven of whom survive her. Those old enough to fully sense their irreparable loss are prostrate with grief over her sudden and unexpected exit from this into a higher and holier sphere, to await the dawn of the glorious resurrection morn. As a devoted wife, mother and consistent Latter-day Saints she had few if any superiors, and in neighborly qualities she strove to excel in extending and reciprocating favors.
She was born in a cabin on the east side of the Old Fort, May 8th, 1848, making her a pioneer babe, one of the first white children born in Utah. At the time of her death she was 45 years, 7 months and 2 days old. Thousands upon thousands of dear relatives and friends, when they learn of her death, will join the exclaim, “Well done, good and faithful handmaiden, peace be to thy ashes.
[Deseret News, Dec. 12, 1893, 1]
[transcribed and proofread by David Grow, Jan. 2006]
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