Deseret News, May 7, 1898 – Obituary

EMMA PARKER CORDON

On Saturday last, Mrs. Emma Parker Cordon, wife of Bishop Alfred Cordon, deceased, passed quietly away. She has been an invalid for twenty-one years having suffered from a stroke of paralysis. But though she was so feeble, her death was not altogether expected; her last illness was of so short duration.
Mrs. Cordon was born May 24, 1819 at Burslum, Staffordshire, England her birthday being the same date as that of Queen Victoria. In 1836 she married to Alfred Cordon and two years later they joined the Mormon Church. September, 1842 found them in Nauvoo, whither they had come to be with those of their faith. Here they remained for three years, when they moved again, to Burlington, Iowa, and from there to Pigeon Creek in the same state.
The desire to be with their people again urged them on and in the spring of 1851 they started to Salt Lake Valley, where they arrived in October of the same year. They made their home at Salt Lake City until 1855, when they moved to Brigham City. In the fall of ’56 they settled at Willard, and there they remained until death.
The story of Mrs. Cordon’s life closely follows the history of the Church and is one of privation and struggles. She saw the early persecution of the Church and suffered from it. Her husband went on mission to foreign lands, leaving her in the most abject poverty. Once he stole away in the night because he could not bear to bid his family goodbye and then go away leaving neither food nor clothing and scarcely any shelter. But this little wife was brave and while he preached the Gospel she prepared the ground and raised food for her family. With great exertions she managed to keep them from actual starvation, but not from want. She lived a heroine, and even in her long years of illness she stood true to her colors. She was a noble woman.
She leaves a host of friends to reverence her memory, and on the other side she greets another host.
She was the mother of fourteen children, grandmother of sixty-four and great-grandmother of forty-nine. Of these there are still living seven children, fifty-three grandchildren and forty-three great-grandchildren.