
Date Unknown
- Birth Date
- 5 August 1832
- Death Date
- 18 January 1909
- Gender
- Female
Phoebe Lodema Stillman
Alternate Names
-
Phoebe Lodema Merrill
Phoebe traveled with the Mormon Battalion as a nurse in the company in which her brother, Philemon C. Merrill, served as adjutant. From Santa Fe she traveled with the sick detachment and the women and children to Pueblo, where they spent the winter of 1846-1847. She was divorced from Clark Stillman in early August 1847 and was rebaptized at Salt Lake City on 8 August 1847. The Salt Lake Stake Record of Members shows her name as "Lodema Merrill." Because she was baptized under the surname "Merrill," it is believed that the divorce took place during the first week of August. The marriage and divorce of Clark Stillman and Pheobe Lodema Merrill is verified using the record "Meeting Minutes, Salt Lake Valley."
The 1850 Utah census shows her name as "Phoebe Merrill." She married Parmenio A. Jackman in 1851, who was killed by the Indians in 1860. She later married a man by the name of William Thompson. She died January 18, 1909 in Parker, Idaho.
Her birth and death dates are confirmed by the inscription on her gravestone in Idaho, where her name is shown as "Lodema Merrill Thompson."
Mormon Battalion Sick Detachments (1847)
- Age at Departure: 14
Traveled with
Sources
- 1850 Utah Census.
- Book of the Pioneers, p. 277.
- Find a Grave (Website)
- Meeting minutes, Salt Lake Valley.
- "Mormon Battalion Veteran Buried," Deseret News , 23 Jan. 1909, 28.
- Salt Lake Stake, Record of members collection, 1836-1970.
- "Survivor of Old Battalion Dies," Salt Lake Telegram , 20 Jan. 1909, 3.
- "Two Brave Women Who Shared Hardships with Mormon Battalion," Deseret Evening News, 24 July 1907.