Family Converts up to 1876

Philippe Cardon and Marthe Marie Tourn (1854)
John Paul Cardon and Susanne Goudin

Lorenzo Snow had been serving as a missionary in Italy, but had met with little success until he found the Waldensians in northern Italy.  One family story says that before the missionaries arrived, Philippe had a dream where he saw two men who brought a book to him. His daughter, Madeline also had a dream of the coming missionaries, and when they arrived the Cardons accepted the gospel. They were baptized in 1952, and immigrated to Utah in 1854. They settled in the Logan area where they stayed for 24 years.  Philippe was a stone mason and a builder.  He built many of the fire places and chimneys in the new homes in the growing community.

Marthe Marie Tourn

Along with Philippe and Marie, several of their family and children also joined the church.  We are descended from John Paul Cardon who married Susanne Goudin. She was away to school when her family to join the church, but when it came time for the saints to emigrate to Utah, she was the only one of her family that decided to go. When their group arrived in St Louis, the church had just decided to bring converts to Utah by handcart. Susanne, now 23, was in the first handcart company. Being unmarried, Susanne pulled her own handcart most of the way. She often had a little passenger, Madeline Beus, who was 2 the daughter of another Italian convert family, and was years old at the time. Ironically, Madeline later became a sister wife to Susanne. Once in Utah, other converts from Italy who had emigrated earlier, took in the new arrivals and helped them get settled. John Paul Cardon met Susanne at this time and they were married. They started a silk making industry in Cache Valley. 

Sarah Ann Littlewood, Joseph Wilson and Mary Anne McCornick

Sarah Ann Littlewood was born in 1815 in the Isle of Man but was raised in Cheshire England.  In 1835 she married Thomas Wilson in 1835. In 1840 they heard about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Parley P. Pratt, and Sarah joined the church, even though Thomas did not. Joseph Wilson was their 4th child, born in 1844. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Andalucía in Spain, where Thomas managed a cotton mill. The family moved back to England 4 years later. Joseph was baptized at the age of 16.  He moved to Leeds to work in a cotton mill, and there met Mary Ann McCornick. 

Joseph Wilson and his daughter Florence

Mary Ann McCornick was born in 1846. By the time she was 14 she was already working in the mills. There she met Thomas, in 1865, and in 1866 joined the church. They decided to immigrate to Utah 1868 with the help of the Perpetual Immigration fund. Once in Utah, they settled in Cache Valley in a humble log cabin in Clarkston.  The weather there was severe, so in 1874 they decided to move to Logan.  Joseph was a machinist, and worked for the foundry the casted the statues of oxen that supported the original Logan Temple baptismal font.

Mary Anne McCornick

William McDonald (1875)--Christina Wallace (1876) and Mary McDonald (1866)

William McDonald was born in 1822 in Angus Scotland. He worked as a tenant farmer and sheepherder.  In 1844 he married Christina Wallace. They had 5 children in Scotland.  In 1855 Mormon missionaries came to Scotland, and Christina decided to join their church.  She was afraid William would disapprove, so she sneaked away to a different town to be baptized.  When she returned she told her husband what she had done. The next year, their 10 year old daughter, Mary,  was also baptized without her father’s knowledge. When Mary was 16 she married James Mowberry.  They had a child in 1862 but shortly thereafter James went to sea and never returned. In 1866 Mary left her son, James Jr, with her parents and migrated to Utah. Mary urged her brothers, and finally her parents to come to Utah with her son in 1874. In 1875 William, Christina, and Mary’s son, James, were all baptized. William set up a farm and an orchard in Holladay, Utah. Christina died just a year later, but William worked the farm and orchard with the help of his sons and son-in-laws until he died in 1910. 

Christina Wallace

William McDonald

Mary McDonald