{"id":3636,"date":"2006-12-15T03:05:09","date_gmt":"2006-12-15T07:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=3636"},"modified":"2006-12-15T08:07:08","modified_gmt":"2006-12-15T12:07:08","slug":"malinda-carroll-hudson-conder-mother-of-martyrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2006\/12\/malinda-carroll-hudson-conder-mother-of-martyrs\/","title":{"rendered":"Malinda Carroll Hudson Conder: Mother of Martyrs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Near the end of her life, Malinda Conder was described as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153steadfast and happy in the faith.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That faith had been tried by one of the most horrendous events in late 19th century church history.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Malinda Carroll was born in Lewis County, Tennessee, in 1833.  Wife in 1855, widow and mother in 1856, she named her son for his late father: John Riley Hudson.  Marriage to William James Conder came a few years later, followed in 1863 by the birth of a second son, William Martin Conder.  Other children came: two daughters who grew to adulthood, and three children who are known only because late in life Malinda told a census taker she had been the mother of seven.<\/p>\n<p>1884 was a challenging year for Latter-day Saints in Tennessee: Several elders were beaten; one was covered in hot tar and had to walk for miles before finding help; bullets fired by unseen assailants whistled past the heads of at least two elders.  Anonymous notices threatening violence unless Mormons left the area were nailed to trees throughout the state.  Nevertheless, missionary work went forward \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the family of James and Malinda Conder were among many who accepted the Gospel. <\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, August 10, 1884, Malinda woke with a heavy heart.  She had dreamed that something terrible would happen that day.  Because the branch met at the Conder house (a mob had burned the branch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s log meeting house the previous May), she asked her two sons to keep their guns loaded in case it became necessary to protect the elders who would visit that day.<\/p>\n<p>One of the elders, late for services, was hurrying through the woods near the Conder house when he was stopped by an armed man wearing a hood over his face. The elder could hear branch members singing hymns in the Conder home \u00e2\u20ac\u201c then the singing ended in a burst of gunfire and the screams of women and children.  The elder fled for his life.<\/p>\n<p>The next night, another missionary evaded roaming mobbers and crept cautiously to the Conder home.  He tapped softly at the door; after a long, whispered conversation, he convinced those inside that he was a friend, and he was admitted to the Conder home.  There he learned that two missionaries \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including the elder who had baptized Malinda only four months earlier \u00e2\u20ac\u201c had been murdered.  Both of Malinda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sons had been killed while attempting to protect the missionaries, and Malinda herself lay in bed with a gunshot wound that would cripple her for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Condor\" align=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/i138.photobucket.com\/albums\/q258\/ParshallAE\/MrandMrsCondor.jpg\"\n\nAugust heat required that the martyrs be buried immediately.  Courageous branch members built rough pine coffins, but, too terrified to carry the bodies to the cemetery, they buried the four young men next to the Conder house.  The bodies of the two elders were later returned to their families in Utah.  Malinda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sons were removed to the family burial ground, where they lie today under a joint stone reading: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In Memory of Noble Defenders of the Truth. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\n\nAs soon as Malinda could be moved, James and Malinda and their two surviving children left their Cane Creek farm and moved to Perry County \u00e2\u20ac\u201c although they remained in Tennessee, and although the anger of neighbors who misunderstood Mormonism continued to make life difficult for Latter-day Saints, at least Malinda was spared the grief of living in the house where so much tragedy had occurred.  For a time Malinda struggled to understand what had happened, but James remained strong. Malinda leaned on his faith until she regained her own.\n\nThe Conder family eventually moved back to Lewis County, but not to their old home on Cane Creek.  James died  in 1911; Malinda lived until 1916, cared for by her daughter.  Their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153faith in the gospel remained unshaken to the last, and [they] never murmured because of the great sacrifice [they were] called upon to make in obeying the gospel of Christ and defending the Master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s servants.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\n\nphotograph: James and Malinda Conder, with daughters Rachel Ann and Lavicia Jane, circa 1890. Note the head of Malinda's cane near her hand.\n\n(Originally published March 2006)\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Near the end of her life, Malinda Conder was described as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153steadfast and happy in the faith.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That faith had been tried by one of the most horrendous events in late 19th century church history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}