Susannah Goudin was born July 30, 1833, at Piedmont, Italy. Her grandmother's name was Annie Young, and her mother was Martha Cardon of Piedmont. She had no schooling as her father died when she was about five years old and she had to help earn a living. She helped pick up potatoes, glean the fields, and father sticks for the vineyard as that was one of their sources of livelihood.

When she was about nine years of age she had to go away from home to work. She picked mulberry leaves and cared for silkworms, earning ten cents a day. She continued this work until she came to Utah. She was the last of her mother's family to accept the gospel. She joined the Church in 1853 at the age of twenty and was baptized by Brother George Dennis Kettin and confirmed by Brother Jabez Woodward in Piedmont.

In 1855, she started for Utah, leaving her family under very trying circumstances. They wanted her mother to sell her home and give the means to the missionaries to use as they saw fit. She refused to do so because she wanted to come to Zion, and she did not have the money. The whole family had joined the Church and for this and because they could not attend all of their meetings, they were cut off from the Church.

Susannah had been away from her home and when some of the Elders came, she decided to leave her people and come to Zion. She started across the ocean December 12, 1855 in the ship, John J. Boyd, which sailed from Liverpool with 508 saints under the direction of Knud Peterson. They landed in New York, March 15, 1856^[1], having been on the water for ninety-three days.

From there they went to St. Louis by train. She stayed there some time and then went to Florence. She crossed the plains in the first handcart company under the direction of Edmund Ellsworth and arrived in Salt Lake City, September 26, 1856^[2]. She bought enough clothes to last her for awhile but the captain told her she could not bring them and said she would have to throw them away. She felt so badly that she and some of the others piled their clothes up and burned them. She pulled a handcart all the way. Her husband's second wife^[3], who was then two years of age, rode all the way across in Susannah's cart.

They endured many hardships. A large number of their company died on the way. They ran out of food and all they had to eat for days was one tablespoonful of flour per person per day which they stirred in a little water and drank in order to keep alive.

From Salt Lake she went to Ogden where she married Paul Cardon, March 16, 1857. She had six sons and five daughters. Her early trials and experiences were numerous. In 1858 when Johnson's Army came, she went south with a baby about two months old. She carried the baby in her arms, while she walked and drove cattle. Her husband stayed behind to guard the property. There were two families, but they only had one yoke of cattle. They came back in August.

In Ogden they farmed and raised flax and hemp which Susannah prepared and spun into thread. She sold it in Salt Lake for twenty-five cents a knot. The demand was so great that she could not supply all the requests. She and Sister Smith exchanged thread for hats for the children since Sister Smith was a hatmaker.

The Indians gave them considerable trouble. At one time an Indian came and wanted her to go away with him. She refused to do so and he took her oldest son, Philip, and threw him on his horse thinking that she would follow. She pulled him off twice but could not get him away. The men were all in the field some distance away so her mother-in-law got upon the house and whistled. The men heard her and came to see what the trouble was. When the Indian saw that his purpose was defeated, he left the child and went to a neighbor's where he threw her things out of doors.

In 1860 she came from Ogden to Logan where her husband had come a year before and built a home for her. She had two children at this time. The first spring they sowed forty bushels of wheat but harvested only seven because of the grasshoppers. They saved enough wheat for flour and with care they had bread enough to last through the time of famine. They lived on bread and greens and whatever else they could get.

She raised the first mulberry trees and had the first silk worms in Logan. She raised silk worms, reeled silk, and taught several girls how to do the same for Paul A. Shutler.

In 1880 they began to keep the Cache Valley House and continued to do so for ten years. She was a teacher in Relief Society being the second or third member to join in Logan.

She went to Benson in 1892 and remained there for twenty years serving as a Relief Society teacher for nine or ten years. Later she was made first counselor to Sister Roundy. She held that position for nine years and later moved back to Logan in January of 1913.

Her faith in the promises of the Lord were great. She was a splendid neighbor, a loving wife and mother. She took pleasure in doing good to others, always having in her mind the happiness and welfare of others. She was the mother of eleven children, six of whom survive her at the time of her death. She had sixty grandchildren and forty-five great-grandchildren, a total of one hundred sixteen in all. Few persons, if any, ever have been loved and revered more than she. Her faith in God and his glorious work was indeed sublime and radiated the spirit of life to such a wonderful degree as to impress all who ever associated with her.

She died at the home of her daughter, Sarah Turner, having reached eighty-seven years of age. Her funeral was held in the Logan Tabernacle, Saturday, December 11, 1920, at noon.

Notes

1:  The official New York ship's manifest for the John J. Boyd is dated February 18, 1856.  There are numerous histories that list March 15 as the arrival date, but it is hard to say where this incorrect date came from.

2:  Existing histories of the first handcard company don't list Susannah.  However, other biographies of Susannah say that she travelled with Pierre Stalle or Peter Stalley, who is listed in the handcard roster. The ship's manifest for the John J. Boyd shows Susanna Godin and just above her, Pietro Stalle with wife Maria and children Susanna, Bartholeme, Maria, and Margrita.  Also shown is the Beus family listed as Michell Bosis, wife Mariann, and children Anne, James[it's hard to read], Jean, Michell, Paul, Louis P., Maria, and Madelan.  At least some of these people must have travelled in the handcart company.

3:  This is Magdalena or Madelena Beus or Beux.  See note 2 above.

Revisions

December 2010:  Added notes 1-3.

April 1999: Converted to HTML by Matt Young from a WordPerfect file transcribed by Quinn Young.  The original source was probably collected by Reda Ricks and typewritten by Dorothy Miles.