Diantha Morley Billings
Birthdate: 23 Aug 1796
Montague, Massachusetts
Death: 14 May 1879
Manti, Sanpete Co., Utah
Parents: Thomas Morley
Editha Marsh
Pioneer: 1848
Spouse: Titus Billings
Married: 16 Feb 1817
Death Sp: 6 Feb 1860
Provo, Utah Co., Utah
Children:
Samuel Dwight, 1818
Thomas, 1819
Ebenezer, 1820
Emily, 1822
Martha, 1824
Alfred Nelson, 23 Aug 1825
George Pierce, 25 Jul 1827
Eunice (Warner), 3 Jan 1830
Titus, 1832
Diantha was born in Montague, Massachusetts, 1796. In 1815, the family migrated to Kirtland, Ohio. She married Titus Billings, 16 Feb 1817. They were among the first converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Kirtland, and sacrificed much to build the Temple there.
Joseph Smith gave Diantha the great honor of designing and embroidering the first temple apron, which has been used as a pattern throughout the history of temple endowments in the Church. She was also set apart by the Prophet as a midwife, and assisted in the nine births which occurred on 4 Feb 1845, when the Saints fled across the Mississippi River form Nauvoo. The family came across the Plains in 1848.
In November, 1849, the Billings family moved to Manti. Titus fixed a sagebrush bowery as shelter from the snow, and it snowed every day for six weeks. Diantha adopted an indian child, who she named Rose Billings. Diantha was President of the first Relief Society organized in Manti, and the only doctor and midwife in Manti for many years. She and Titus moved to Provo where he died 6 Feb 1860.
She died May 14, 1879, in Manti, Utah.
I am the great-great-great granddaughter of George Pierce Billings, son of Diantha…I believe those nine births happened in 1846, that’s when the saints left Nauvoo. George was with Brigham Young when he entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847 and then he returned to Winter Quarters and came with his parents and brother and sister in the Heber C. Kimball Company of 1848.