Daughter of Horace Sunderlin Eldredge and Betsy Ann Chase

Married Joseph Watson Young, 2 Feb 1855, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

Biography. Lurana Eldredge Young, the eldest child of Horace Sunderlin and Betsy Ann Eldredge, was among the first converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York State. was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on February 21, 1838. During her infancy, the family moved westward from one town to another and from one state to another until Kirtland, Ohio was reached. Here they made their home for a short time; then moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. While in Nauvoo, the prophet Joseph Smith and his wife, Emma, were frequent visitors at the home of Lurana's parents, and being a very pretty and intelligent child, she was quite a favorite with them both.

The next stopping place was at Winter Quarters, and although all preparations were made to come West in 1847, owing to the illness of Lurana's mother, the family had to wait until 1848. Although only a child of ten years, never a day passed but little Lurana drove a team in the emigrant train. Her childhood life was one continuous pioneer journey full of the privations and hardships shared by so many children in those first pioneer days, borne heroically by those whose parents had taught them fortitude and forbearance by their example. This band of pioneers reached their destination on Sept. 15, 1848.

On February 2, 1855, Lurana Eldredge married Joseph Watson Young, son of Lorenzo Dow Young, a brother of Brigham Young. A short time after her marriage, her husband was called on a mission the Denmark. During his absence, their first child, a son, was born and died. Several years after Brother Young's return from Denmark the family, then consisting of five children, moved from their home on First South to a more commodious house, which they had built at Twenty-first South and State Streets, on the site where the Hospital now stands. [1933] They did not have this home for long, as they were called to Southern Utah in 1867 to assist in the colonization of "The Muddy."

This period of Lurana's life was filled with hardships, which she and her husband bore courageously. The country was not an alluring one, being hot, dry, and unproductive. The lack of water for drinking and agriculture was most discouraging, while the Indians were also a source of considerable worry. Although in fear of the Indians, Lurana was kind and just in her treatment of them and was fully repaid by one instance in particular, which I have often heard her relate to. Being in labor, she had sent her two little girls with their younger brother to a neighbor's some distance away, fearing for them and still thinking it was the best thing to do. When the children had gone quite a distance, from seemingly nowhere two Indians appeared, picked them up, and started running with them. The children kicked and screamed, and although the Indians tried to talk to them, they were too small to comprehend what they were trying to tell them. In a short time, they were set down in their mother's house by the Indians with this warning, "Papoose no go--- Bad Injun get 'em--no-- bring 'em back." A few hours later, their infant son was born, with the desert heat at its worst and only a midwife and a neighbor to do what they could for her and her little ones. There were few of the necessities of life, no comforts, and many perils and hardships.

Later the family went to St. George where their seventh child was born. There were more comforts there. Their home was a story and a half adobe dwelling, which adjoined the tithing office. Her husband was an overseer and laborer at the building of the St. George Tabernacle. It was while he was laboring in St. George that he was stricken with his last illness. He desired to get back to Salt Lake and felt he could recover there. His brother, John, Lurana, and three of their children began the journey. En route only two days, he died and they returned to St. George. They moved back to Salt Lake City. Lurana was a capable needlewoman and did fine and exquisite work. She was able with the assistance of two of her children, to educate and care for her family. She lived in Salt Lake until her death, in 1920. - Written by George Josiah Marsh.