Rosetta Leonora Pettibone Snow

 I decided in January that I would discover the dates of when my and my husband's ancestors first joined the church. Both of us have ancestors who joined the church during the time period covered in the Doctrine and Covenants.  I wanted to tie in the baptisms of our ancestors with what was happening in the church and in the Doctrine and Covenants.  In the sections we read in Come Follow Me this week there is a passage that I think leads directly to the first person in our genealogy to join the church, Rosetta Leonora Pettibone Snow, wife of Oliver III and mother of Lorenzo and Eliza Snow. The passage is 37:1-2 "Behold, I say unto you (Joseph Smith and Sydney Rigdon) that it is not expedient in me that you should translate any more until you shall go to the Ohio, and this because of the enemy and for your sakes. And again, I say unto you that ye shall not go until you preached the gospel in those parts."  I believe Joseph and Sydney were following this directive when they visited and baptized Rosetta.

There is a lot of information about Rosetta on Family Search.  I can't include it all here but here is a mini-biographical sketch:

When Rosetta Leonora Pettibone was born on 22 October 1778, in Simsbury, Connecticut, her father, Captain Jacob Pettibone Jr, was 25 and her mother, Rosetta Amanda Barber, was 20. Captain Pettibone and his wife, Rosetta, both claimed to be descendants of the original pilgrim settlers of 1620. Captain Pettibone served in the Revolutionary war. 

Rosetta was raised to be a wife and mother and was accomplished in the homely arts.  Her daughter Eliza said in her biography, that Rosetta “considered a practical knowledge of housekeeping the best, most efficient foundation on which to build a magnificent structure of womanly accomplishments-that useful knowledge was the most reliable basis of independence”. 

Rosetta L married Oliver Snow III on 6 May 1800, in Becket, Berkshire, Massachusetts, United States. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 4 daughters. 

Eliza said her parents were “free of bigotry and intolerance” and made their home a “welcome resort for the honorable of all denominations.”

In the early months of 1831 the Snow family was living in Mantua, Ohio when a family friend, Sidney Rigdon, introduced them to the prophet, Joseph Smith. Rosetta responded immediately to the message of the restored gospel and was baptized by Joseph Smith himself” (Eliza, the life and faith of Eliza R. Snow, by Karen Lynn Davidson and Jill Mulvay Derr)

She later moved with the saints to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1839. She died on 12 October 1846, in Walnut Grove,  Illinois, at the age of 67, before the saints migrated to Utah.

One of the things that impressed me about Rosetta is that she joined the church long before anyone else in her family. Eliza R. Snow joined in 1835 and Rosetta's husband, Oliver, and son Lorenzo didn't join until 1836.  I have to ask myself, if Rosetta had not joined in 1831, would any of her family ever joined? If she had not joined it would have been easy for other members to forget about Joseph Smith and his church.  Her brave and faithful decision to be baptized ensured that the rest of the family would be in contact with other members over and over again. Unfortunately, I could not find a picture of Rosetta, but here is memorial marker at the site of her home in Mantua, Ohio.