Jane Caldwell

Today I resumed work on the narrative of the life of Simeon Adams Dunn. I've had all day to work on it. I made steady progress in the morning and was able to complete the story up through the death of Margaret Snyder. Now it was time to explain Simeon's relationship with Jane Caldwell.
Gee...what do you say. How do you explain it. So I have spent the rest of the day going over Waite and Caldwell records again, hoping this time it will make perfectly logical sense. Well... I'm still working on it and still waiting for that "this makes sense" moment.
In the back of my mind, I wanted to compare it to this woman who Harriett Atwood Silver mentions in a letter to her parents.
She writes: "You seem to think it is very strange that Mrs. Ann Brook should have left her husband in the way that she did and that Sister King you mention. But did you ever think what the Savior said concerning such matters? He said, he that would not leave Father and Mother and sister and brothers, wives and husbands and go for my name's sake was not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven and the same causes will produce the same affect in these days as they did in those days. In regard to the case of Sister King it was not as you stated. For she and myself, in connection with Sister Ann Brook, came in company together and there was no Mormon Elder that ran away with any of us. But with our own accord we left the land and home that gave us birth for the purpose of being numbered among His people and to have our names written in the Lambs Book of Life. And I as yet have no reason to be sorry, neither am I. I would not go back again to live for a world but the desire of my heart is to be on the march for my new home in the far distant west. And if you were only along with me, and my brother and sisters, I should feel happy."
I tried a bit to figure out what happened to Mrs. Ann Brook, but with no real success. I hope it was less confusing and messy than the story of Jane Caldwell. In her defence, I did read her patriarchal blessing. This phrase kept catching my attention: "and if there is sin there remaineth a scourge, nevertheless, there is no desire to do evil and for your heart of integrity there is a reward laid up for you." I'm glad we are not called to judge.
DNA testing is is the works for a descendant of Joseph Moroni Dunn. It will be fascinating to see how it all comes out.