Richard E. Turley Jr. and Brittany A. Chapman - Seek by Deseret Book

Diantha Morley Billings (1795–1879) 3
Diantha and her family had returned to Missouri and were living
in Far West when the Saints were driven from the state. They
settled near Quincy, Illinois, and established a home as part of the
Morley Settlement. By 1842 they were living in Nauvoo, Illinois,
where Diantha became a member of the Female Relief Society and
Titus worked on the Nauvoo Temple. 8 Their youngest child died in
Nauvoo at the age of ten. 9 In January 1846, Diantha helped with
the administering of ordinances in the Nauvoo Temple. Later that
spring, she and her family joined the exodus across Iowa to Winter
Quarters. Then, in the spring of 1848, they began their trek farther
west, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in September of that year. 10
At the October 1849 general conference of the Church, Diantha
was surprised to hear the names of her brother and husband read
over the pulpit to lead a group south to settle what would become
known as the Sanpete Valley. 11 It took them three weeks to make
the journey, and they arrived in what became Manti, Utah, in
November, just as winter was setting in.
For the next fourteen years, Diantha and Titus lived in Manti,
where Diantha continued to practice midwifery and participated
in the first Relief Society in that area. 12 Around 1864 they moved
to Provo to be near their son Alfred and his wife, Deborah Patten.
8. Nauvoo Relief Society Minutes, March 24, 1842, p. 16, Church History
Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah,
hereafter cited as Church History Library.
9. Fred E. Woods, “The Cemetery Record of William D. Huntington,
Nauvoo Sexton,” Mormon Historical Studies 3 (Spring 2002): 145.
10. “Diantha Morley Billings,” Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel Database,
1847–68, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accessed November
9, 2011, http://mormontrail.lds.org; William Burton, Diaries, 1839–1851,
September 24, 1848, Church History Library.
11. Eunice Billings Snow, “A Sketch of the Life of Eunice Billings Snow,”
Woman’s Exponent 39 (September 1, 1910): 23.
12. Snow, “Sketch of the Life,” 23; “In Memoriam,” Woman’s Exponent 8
(June 1, 1879): 251.