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

Diantha Morley Billings (1795–1879) 9
Eight births were recorded in the official record of the company. 23
Though there were other midwives in the group, Diantha attended
some of these births. Her daughter Eunice recorded, “In several in-
stances, my mother acting as midwife, delivered women in confine-
ment, and there was no interruption to our journey, since mothers
and babes continued the trip right along with us.” 24
The trail record kept by Thomas Bullock records an incident
that occurred on June 1, 1848: “At 11 a.m. Huldah Maria Ballantyne
Wife of Richard Ballantyne was safely delivered of a boy, named
Richard Orlando [Alando] by Diantha Billings.” 25 The child was
sickly, and because he had been born in such difficult circumstances,
it was feared he would not survive. Miraculously, however, he and
his mother did pull through.
That was not the case, however, with all of Diantha’s patients.
Just a year after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Billings and
Morley families were called to establish a colony in what is now the
Sanpete Valley of central Utah. After they arrived in the fledgling
settlement in November, Diantha’s first patient was her own daugh-
ter Eunice, who was expecting her first child—Diantha’s first grand-
child. Eunice recounted the event:
When we had lived there two weeks my first child was
born, but due to hardship and suffering the little thing
was still-born, and I came very nearly losing my own life.
I was sick for quite a while, and my mother, who was a
midwife, nursed and attended me. She was the only doctor,
23. Heber C. Kimball journal, July 14 and 15, 1848, Heber C. Kimball Papers
1847–1866, Church History Library.
24. Snow, “Sketches,” 48.
25. Thomas Bullock, June 1, 1848, Journals 1843–1849, Church History
Library.