The winter of 1877 brought a great sorrow to Zemira, for he wrote: “December 16, 1877, Sunday, at 10 o’clock received a telegram from Orderville Stating my wife, Caroline, was very sick and a child just born was dead. Started for Orderville immediately on horseback, got as far as Rockville. Stayed overnight with Amy Draper, my aunt.
“17-Reached Orderville, found my wife dead. She had died the day before at 10 p.m. 18-Stormy day. At 4:30 pm I attended the funeral of my wife, her babe who lived only three hours and was buried on the 13th was exhumed and placed by her side.”
Of this occasion, Almeda Eve, 5 year old daughter of Caroline said, “I remember seeing Mother laid out for burial on some boards, and Father standing by her with his handkerchief in his hand and tears running down his face.”85
What a sad time for both the husband and the children. It may have brought back memories to Zemira of when he was only 2 ½ years of age his father had died, leaving his mother to care for her small children, and remembering the struggles which followed. And he most assuredly would have been considering how he was to care for his own motherless grief-stricken young children.
He remained at Orderville for 12 days, attended the funeral and took care of certain responsibilities, then loaded his wagon and returned to Leeds. He left Caroline’s youngest daughter, Laura Lovina, age 2, there in Orderville with a Sister Petersen, and took the other four youngest with him– Susan Louisa (14), George Edwin (11), Daniel Whitmore (9), and Almeda Eve (5). The oldest daughter, Arletta was 17 years old and was married. In her history she wrote about her mother’s death: “I was working at the cotton farm when she died. Circumstances did not permit my coming to her funeral, for which I felt very badly.”
Sally, being left at Leeds, being much concerned after several days of Zemira’s absence, had started to travel to Orderville with her children, and had gotten as far as Cottonwood Springs before she met him on the way home on the 30th. She turned around and came back to the farm with him. She was expecting her twelfth child within a month. What a devoted woman she was!
85- History of Our Pioneer Ancestors, History of Almeda Eve Palmer Cox, p. 37
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