Omaha daily bee., 1888-05-10
A NOBLE WOMAN'S SORROW.
Doomed to disappointment After
Waiting Twenty Years.
DISCIPLES OF JOSEPH SMITH.
A Romance OF Early Mormon Days
in Nebraska-A Blizzard Victim
Found Various County
Conventions,
A Husband DoubIy Lost.

NEBRASKA CITY, Neb., May Especial
Telegram to THE BEE. IA romance in real
life which deserves place beside the story
Of Enoch Arden and in which Nebraska
City man is one OF the principal actors, came
to light here yesterday.
A little over twenty years ago, when the
then young and vigorous church of Latter
Day Saints had begun reaching out for con
verts across the Atlantic ocean, a mission
ary of this faith was sent to England. He
was possessed of considerable ability as q
speaker and set forth the new evangel of
Gods latest prophet, Joseph Smith, with
such power that the common people hocked
TO hear him by the thousand and whole
platoons of them were converted and shipped
stragntway TO swell the colony of Mormons
in Utah
Among these converts were a well to-do
couple named Mr. and Mrs. John B. Grad
dock, who attended all the meetings and
zealously espoused the doctrines taught. Dis
posing OF their earthly possessions, they bade
farewell to their friends in the mother coun-
try and started together on the long voyage
toward the new lapd and the new religion in
which they had decided to pass the remainder
of their lives.
Although Omaha was then the general out
fitting station for the great overland journey
HCTOSb Une pHllUS, Uue NlUrUlOD converts were
directed to come by way of Nebraska City.
Accordingly Craddock and his wife, for
they had no children upon their arrival in
New YORK came directly to this place. Ow-
ing to some accident Mr. Craddock was de-
tanned here several days, and his wife was
placed in charge of a number of other con-
verts who were just starting. Upon arriving
in Salt Lake she was introduced to promi-
nent apostle who at once took great interest
in her and proposed that she should be added
to the list of wives in his already numerous
household. The missionaries carefully
avoided all reference to polygamy in setting
forth the beauties of the new religion and
Mrs. Craddock was Mortified at his propo-
sition. To add still greater force to her re
that she already had husband,
who, like herself, had become
o deluded convert to Mormonsm and whose
arrival she was expecting daily. Upon
learning that she was already married her
apostolic admirer, far from releasing his pur-
pose of marriage, hid her away and when her
husband arrived she was nowhere to be
found. No one in Salt Lake knew any
thing about her, and the apostle who held
her in captivity told of the dangers of the
journey across the trackless desert and of
the frequency of Indian massacres.
Overcome with grief at his loss and horri-
fed as his wife had been by the evidences of
polygamy all about him, the broken hearted
husband turned his back on Mormonism and
came again to Nebraska City where he en-
he still received no tldlngs of his missing
wife, he gave her up for dead and eventually
remarked.
Mrs. Craddock, after several months i'm
prsonment in Salt Lake, succeeded in es-
Gaping back to the states. Equally in the
dark as to her husbands whereabouts as he
had been ir regard to hers, she knew not
where to turn, and finally succeeded in
making her way 10 New York where she
again sailed for England. For twenty years
she heard nothing of her husband, and had
lost all hope of ever hearing from him again
when by the merest chance she met relative
Of his in England who had but recently re-
ceivcd q letter from him dated at Nebraska
City.
Not dreaming that he had remarked she at
once secured passage for America and ar
rived in Nebraska City about April l. Here
she found her former husband living with his
second wife and large family of children,
Neither could forget what they once were to
each other and it was month before the
unfortunate woman became reconciled to the
fact that she must give him up. Convinced
however, that he had acted in good faith and
for the sake of his innocent children and his
equally innocent wife she determined to
abandon all her claims. Accordingly she
bade him goodbye for the last time yester-
day and bearing the burden of her second
bereavement, once more set her face toward