The Moody family joined the church in Texas and consisted of John Monroe, Margaret Anglin McIntyre, Mary Ann Opelia, and Margaret’s sons from a prior marriage, Robert, Samuel Houston, and William Howell.  John’s mother, Mary Baldwin, and brother William Cresfield, with his family, decided to gather with the Saints in 1853.  John and Margaret decided that she and the children should travel with the family while he stayed behind to take care of business affairs.  From Texas, they traveled across the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi to Keokuk, Iowa, where they joined the Moses Daley Freight Train in 1853.