Twenty years later, Susanna married a well-to-do Scotsman, John Walters Griffiths. John, a descendant from Scottish aristocracy, gave his only daughter, Jean Rio Griffiths, every opportunity for learning: private lessons for harp and piano, education in the English classics, and a life amid shelves of good quality books written by respected and well-known authors. At age twenty-two, Jean married Henry Baker of London and presided over a house near St. Paul’s Cathedral. She gave Henry nine children. As was the custom at the time, child-rearing was left to governesses and the children were taught by private tutors.

Jean was left a substantial amount of cash and property by her paternal great-uncle, along with an annuity for life. While Jean lived in comfort, England was experiencing the most severe depression of the century. The poverty and degradation brought about by the Industrial Revolution was staggering. The Church of England was in a crisis as well. Reformers increasingly sought a separation between church and state. Neither the church nor the government were adequately addressing the appalling social conditions.

When looking at the England of her day, Jean saw a clear sign of the approaching end of time. When an Englishman, John Taylor, approached the family, he never mentioned he was the husband of twelve wives living in America. What he told of the religion he preached was inviting: the glory of America, as well as the message of restoration and a new religion. Jean, along with her husband, was seduced by the promises of a return to a pure, honest, original, Christianity. Three months later, Jean lost her husband and a young daughter to cholera. In her heartbroken condition, she turned her full attention to immigration to America.

It would be a long journey from England to Salt Lake City and she planned to take her piano. First, there would be the train ride to the thriving port of Liverpool where the party would have their first glimpse of the ship that would carry them across the Atlantic. It was an impressive specimen seasoned with spruce and pine, fashioned into a sleek and elegant craft. The ship had been christened George W. Bourne by her builder two years earlier. The voyage from London to New Orleans was expected to take four to nine weeks. Then, there would be a one thousand mile riverboat excursion up the Mississippi to St. Louis, followed by a twelve hundred mile crossing of the great plains of North America. While many Englanders would book their passage thanks to the vessels and funds supplied by the Latter-Day Saints’ Perpetual Immigration Fund, Jean Rio paid for her family’s passage, as well as several of her relatives, and a few new converts.

It was proving to be a difficult journey. Jean Rio lost her four-year old son, Josiah, somewhere over the Atlantic. He had been sick when he boarded the ship. Jean had had hopes of his recovery, but felt that God intervened to end her child’s suffering. He was ceremoniously committed to the deep the following morning, one thousand miles from land.

At times, the sea was tumultuous. When meat was scarce, the men killed one of the porpoises swimming alongside the ship. There were storms, hot weather, and flying fish. A baby was born, couples were married, small groups played music and sang. Jean did not suffer from sea-sickness as most of her companions did, but she noticed an aching in her bones that she attributed to incessant motion. Somewhere around the Bahamas, the harsh winds shifted to cool breezes and the cerulean hues of the Caribbean had a tranquilizing effect on the travelers. Then came prickly heat. Children were often covered from head to toe with an irritating rash. Adults suffered as well.

In March, the passengers saw their first glimpse of a stationary revolving light when passing within three miles of Little Turtle Island along the coast of Cuba. Then came the day when a steamship came out to meet the boat and pull it to anchor at the island of Belize. The next morning the steamer took the George W. Bourne in tow, pulling the vessel one hundred ten miles up the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

Jean was in love with scenery and wildlife, be it on the waters of the Atlantic or traveling up the river. She wrote long letters where she described the plantations, slave quarters, fruit trees, and animal life. Jean would spend two days at an opulent resident in one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Interestingly, while most of the inhabitants were Frenchmen, they were nearly all married to English women.

Jean enjoyed a five day ride of one thousand two hundred fifty miles up the Mississippi to St. Louis. She rented a house with the intention of staying for several weeks, a welcome respite for her family after months on the water. Her children were allowed some freedom to play with others their age, while she scouted the markets, stocked her kitchen, and prepared the family meals. When walking the streets, she found magnificent buildings, all sporting steeples, representing churches of every denomination. She attended several services, primarily to hear the music.

She bought passage on yet another steamboat, the Financier, which would take her and her recent purchases of wagons, livestock, and supplies, further up the Mississippi to Alexandria. From there, it was an overland trek across Iowa to meet a company of Saints at Council Bluffs. The two groups would travel together on the trek to Salt Lake City.

They were to follow the Mormon Trail, one thousand thirty-two rugged miles to their final destination. Their first day took them through country inhabited by Omaha Indians. Going forward, the party made its way to the Platte River where they halted for a day so the men could repair damage to the axles of several wagons. The women found this to be an ideal time to wash dirty linen.

They crossed deep chasms and swamps and climbed steep riverbanks to camp on high ground. They could hear the sound of a raging river. Several of the wagons were damaged in the crossing, forcing the party to halt for two days for repair. One woman, who traveled with Jean from London and appeared to be healthy, died suddenly. After the burial, the party continued their wearisome prairie lumbering.

They passed Ft. Kearny and came upon their first herd of legendary buffalo. The magnificent animals carried the threat of stampede. The group’s Captain Brown had crossed the plains five times, which gave a sense of comfort to Jean and her fellow travelers. As they continued, flat land gave way to sand hills crawling with thousands of lizards, snakes, and grasshoppers. The wagons forged the Platte River valley through gentle rolling hills of sand. The trail became comparatively easy. The children found plenty of playmates and invented games along the way.

As they continued, dramatic bluffs and rock formations rose out of the ground on both sides of the river. When Jean found time to write, she poured out her awe and love in lush, lavish descriptions of fiery sunsets and streams that were swollen. Gentle bluffs melded first into foothills and then into mountain passes. At Fort Laramie, Jean Rio paid sixty-five dollars for a new yoke of oxen and four fine hams.

After bridging the North Platte River in Wyoming, the group found themselves surrounded by ridges covered with cedar and pine. They found loads of cherries and currants on the hillsides. Occasionally, Jean would employ her developing medical skills by acting as midwife to welcome a new life into the world. In August, this budding midwife lost her first mother. She found solace in the belief in a divine plan.

Once the trail entered the Rocky Mountains, Jean, ever the lover of nature, walked under overhanging rocks, between narrow cliffs, and up rocky ridges. They passed Hell’s Reach and Devil’s Backbone, and proceeded south along the Sweetwater River. The party continued along the Big Sandy River to its conjunction with the cottonwood-lined Green River. Soon, they reached Ft. Bridger where Jean purchased forty pounds of fresh beef at ten cents a pound. Two days later, they ascended the Great Basin.

Jean wrote: “beyond description for wilderness and beauty. We are indeed among the everlasting hills.” Weaving their way through a ninety mile chain of cliffs that cut into the Wasatch Range of the Rockies, the party reached the summit of the Bear Divide where they received their first glimpse of the Great Salt Lake Valley. Jean found herself enveloped by mountains of solid rock with huge evergreens growing in the crevices, sporting building-size boulders that had tumbled down in landslides. At one spot, the opening was so narrow that they had to pass one wagon at a time. The trail turned and passed under massive overhanging rocks. At about sunset, they emerged from the canyon and Jean caught her first view of their future home. They camped in a hollow at the entrance of the Great Salt Lake Valley.

On October 6, Jean wrote: “I have purchased a small house with an acre of garden attached to it.” The garden had a patch of Indian corn growing, as well as potatoes, cabbage, carrots, parsnips and other vegetables. She bought a heifer for milk. Her elaborately carved and exquisitely inlaid Collar & Collard piano was the centerpiece of her parlor. She took on the responsibility of educating her young children.

Then, one day, Brigham gave the order that she must relocate from the relatively urban and sophisticated Salt Lake City to a remote and uncivilized area. She was permitted to purchase 20 acres of land in Ogden. She planned to build a small house on the land and move there with her children come spring.

By this time, Jean was aware plural marriage was being practiced by many of the Saints and virtually all of the hierarchy. Actually, polygamy was no longer a secret, neither in Salt Lake City or in the United States at large. Federal officials, appointed by President Filmore, visited the city the summer of 1851 and returned to the President with tales of plural marriage. Then, in preparation for the coming of the transcontinental railroad, government surveyors came to survey the land. One particularly bright young man, Lieutenant Gunnison, wrote a tell-all book, a study of the people and their religion. The book sold very well. In the months that followed, Lieutenant Gunnison was found murdered, presumably by renegade Indians.

Jean’s family became farmers. Three of her sons were required to join Brigham Young’s military force. When news came that the United States was sending military troops to Salt Lake, Brigham laughed at the idea. Later, he threatened the troops would never be allowed to enter his city. Even later, he publicly swore he would burn the city if troops should enter. He eventually acquiesced to being replaced as governor and allowed federal troops to build their fort and move in.

Two of Jean Rio’s sons fled to California. Jean went through changes as well. Her Ogden patch of ground proved eager to kill every seed she put into the ground. She moved into a small log house in Ogden City and became a dressmaker as well as a practicing midwife. She learned to be extremely cautious in expressing any opposition to Mormon practices.

The U.S. army began posting advertisements directed at dissidents throughout Salt Lake City. They would accompany and protect any who cared to leave Salt Lake for California. Soon, California newspapers reported that thousands of fugitive Saints were making their way west. Jean was eager to leave her mountain prison but found herself reluctant to journey by horse and wagon to San Francisco. She held it in the back of her mind that the transcontinental railroad was to become a reality. One day, the final tie, uniting the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific tracks, was pounded into place and freedom became a new possibility for thousands of Saints.

Chauncey West was a longtime intimate of Brigham Young and had become a relative and close friend with Jean when his brother married her daughter. During the summer of 1869, Chauncey was having a crisis of health. He also had a need to travel to San Francisco to pick up some money needed to pay the men who laid the railroad tracks. Because of the nursing skills Jean had honed over the years, Chauncey asked Jean to accompany him on his journey. Jean jumped at the opportunity, eager to see her two sons that had left Utah years before. She packed her remaining belongings and boarded the train with her companion.

In San Francisco, Chauncy leased a suite of rooms on Powell Street. When the doctor examined his new patient, he described the infirmity “too deeply seated to respond to treatment.” A week later, Chauncey was dead and Jean Rio was free to begin her life anew. She settled in with her son, John, and his wife, for a while, then relocated to Sherman Island, a booming settlement about fifty miles northwest of San Francisco. Eventually, her son, Walter, along with his wife and their eight children, left Utah and joined the family in California.

Jean Rio lived as a woman of means during her Antioch years. In 1875, she decided to return to Utah to visit another son. She was excited to see her family and know her grandchildren. William had settled into a picturesque farming community in Richfield. She remained with her Utah family for twenty-one months before returning to California with mixed feelings. Seven years later, at the age of seventy-three, Jean Rio died a peaceful death.