Lydia Moon

They say behind every great man there is a great woman. Well in Henry's case he had three. Over the next few weeks I want to take some time to write about his three wives.

Lydia Moon was born October 9, 1811 in Eccleston, Lancashire, England. Yes, her maiden name was Moon because Henry and Lydia's fathers were second cousins. Henry and Lydia both joined the church in England and sailed on the same boat as they travel to the United States. They were married on January 30, 1841 in Pennsylvania just 6 months after arriving in the US.

They moved to Iowa, near Nauvoo, where their first child and only daughter was born. They named her Alice and she only lived two days. Two years later, they had a baby boy named John Thomas Moon. Although there was much persecution, they family stayed long enough so Henry and Lydia could partake of their own Washing, Anointing, and Endowment in the Nauvoo temple. A second son, Joseph Henry, was born three years later.

On May 28, 1850, the family started the trek out west to the Great Salt Lake. They arrived four months later. The family settled in the first ward where Henry became Bishop in 1856. He remained as Bishop for 14 years.

Lydia died on July 9, 1868 in Salt Lake City from breast cancer. Templerane, Henry's second wife, help nurse her during the last months of her life. Family members said the the three wives got along well and helped each other out. Temperance once told her daughter Olive that Lydia always treated her with "love and kindness and was like a mother to her in teaching and helping her
in many ways."

Source: Moon, Leland. "The Old Ship Zion: Henry Moon." Imoongenealogy. lmoongenealogy.com/Moon%20Henry%201819/History%203.pdf (accessed February 9, 2013).