The Many Mishaps in Wilford Woodruff’s Young Life
Compiled by Truman Madsen in “The Presidents of the Church- Wilford Woodruff”
1. When he was only three years of age he fell into a cauldron of boiling water. Though he was pulled out immediately, he wasn’t out of danger for about nine months.
2. When he was five years old he fell on his face from a great beam in a barn.
3. Three months later he fell down the stairs and broke his arm.
4. Shortly after that he broke his other arm.
5. At six years of age he was chased by a mad bull but fell into a posthole, and the animal leapt over him.
6. The same year he broke two major bones of one of his legs while working in his father’s sawmill.
7. When he was eight a wagon of hay on which he was riding tipped over on him and he nearly suffocated.
8. When he was nine he fell from an elm tree after standing on a dry limb fifteen feet above the ground and was, for a time, thought to be dead.
9. When he was twelve he was nearly drowned in the Farmington River, in thirty feet of water, and finally was rescued by another young man.
10. When he was thirteen he almost froze to death, having actually fallen asleep in a cutout part of a tree trunk. Somebody shook him and finally brought him back to consciousness.
11. At the age of fourteen he split his instep open with an ax. It took nine months to heal.
12. At fifteen he was bitten on his left hand by a mad dog.
13. At seventeen he was thrown from an ill-tempered horse amid the rocks on a steep hill. The accident broke his left leg in two places and dislocated both his ankles. He spent eight weeks on crutches.
14. When he was twenty, trying to clear the ice out of a waterwheel, he slipped, fell in, and plunged headfirst into three feet of water, barely escaping death.
15. When he was twenty-four he was caught in a waterwheel again, that was twenty feet in diameter, but escaped with a few bruises.
16. Also at twenty-four he had lung fever.
17. At twenty-six only a few minutes after his baptism, a horse kicked the hat off his head, and if the blow had been two inches lower, he would not have survived.
18. Ten minutes later he was thrown from a sleigh without a box and, landing between the horses, was dragged about a half a mile.
19. Even as a young apostle, about the age of thirty, he was poisoned while skinning an animal that had been killed by poison. His system was almost overcome and it was feared he would die. President Brigham Young gave him the following blessing:
“Brother Woodruff, I say to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, that you shall not die, but you shall live to finish your work which was appointed you to do upon the earth. The adversary has sought many times to destroy your life but the Lord has preserved you, and will preserve you until your work is done.”
-- Cowley, “Wilford Woodruff, page 368
Wilford Woodruff died at the age of 91 of old age on a trip to San Francisco, California.
Thank you Wilford Woodruff, the first fly fisherman in Utah, a prize winning gardener, a lover of the out of doors...a daily record keeper. Thank you for living such a full and sometimes dangerous life... and remembering to tell us about it.
His poor mother!
ReplyDeleteHello Emily, Love getting up in the morning and discovering your comments. I wondered about the safety issures surrounding Wilford Woodruff. Who was taking care of him? Farm life was dangerous. Here are a few facts that might have contributed to his frequent accidents.
ReplyDelete1. There were nine children in his family- eight sons and one daughter.
2. His mother died when he was only fifteen months old of spotted fever. She was twenty six when she died.
3. His father ran a saw mill and was a very busy man trying to keep up with all those sons (and one daughter)
just some observations. love hearing from you ! Belva
I think Satan was trying his best to get rid of a righteous man and Heavenly Father must have assigned him a guardian angel (who had his hands full from the sound of it)
ReplyDelete