My aunt Donise posted the conversion story of our great-great grandparents on my mother's side to the LDS church. It really touched me. I am so grateful that he had the courage to make such a change in his life that has affected our family for generations.
It was in the year of 1887 in the state of Mississippi that the Mormon missionaries first found my parents. My father was teaching school. One morning the children of Dan Bateman came to school and told my father about two strange men who had spent the night at their home the night before. They said that they were preachers.
Father told the boys that if these two men were still at their home when they returned from school, to tell them to come to see him. The missionaries came and after talking to them a few minutes, Father knew they had the true gospel as taught by our Savior and his apostles. Father was then thirty-nine years of age. He had never affiliated himself with any church. He was well versed in the scriptures, and knew that the churches he has studied about were teaching man-made doctrine.
He ask the Elders whose names were John S. Bramwell and William A. Cowan, to hold a meeting in the school house which they were glad to do as soon as permission could be obtained from one of the trustees, a Mr. Gooden. (My brother, Cowan Bramwell Haggard, was later named for these two elders.) The meeting was not very successful as a mob gathered and caused some disturbance. This did not stop my father as he continued to investigate the gospel, and to arrange for more meetings.
After school was out, we moved back on our farm. Shortly after we moved back home, father had a dream or a vision. He had a grocery store on the public road which was about 200 feet or more in front of our dwelling house. In this vision an angel appeared to him and pointed toward the store to a certain place on the fence which joined on to the store. Father looked in the direction the angel pointed, and though he was in bed and the lights were out, he saw as clearly as if it were day, the devil sitting on the fence. Shortly after this vision, Elders Bramwell and Cowan came to visit us. They were then laboring in Alabama. My father notified our relatives that the missionaries would be there on a certain date so they could be there too, as they were interested in the Gospel. The appointed time came on a Sunday afternoon. As it was summertime, we were all seated on the front porch which ran the whole length of the house. We all enjoyed so much hearing the Elders sing the songs of Zion which were all new to us. We were enjoying those songs and listening to the missionaries talk, when we look down the road toward the store, and saw a crowd of sixteen men coming toward us on horseback. Each man was carrying a gun.
When Father saw them, he of course, knew what it all meant, so he asked the Elders if they didn't think it would be a good idea for them to go out the back way and hide in the corn field which was near the house. Elder Bramwell spoke up and said that if they tried to get away, they would surly be caught. Then Father stepped into his bedroom and put his six shooter on his hip pocket and walked down the road to where the mob was. He asked them what they wanted, and they replied that they wanted the Mormon preachers. Father explained to them that they were sent to preach the Gospel just as Christ and his apostles did without purse and without script. Then he quoted the scripture to substantiate over them. Nevertheless, all the men wanted was to take the lives of those two innocent missionaries who were trying to convert the people to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
When he saw his words were useless, Father stepped back a few feet, put his hand on his gun and said, "Gentlemen, if you come in, you do so at your own risk. You may get me, but I will get some of you first and you don't know which ones it will be. So I advise you to go home and get a wagon for you will have to haul some one home." One man got up on the fence and put one leg over, right where the angel had pointed to the devil sitting on the fence. They knew Father, for some of the men in that mob were his cousins. They knew he meant what he said, and they knew that he was a dead shot with is gun. The mob rode away, but said they would have the missionaries if they had to burn the woods and sift the ashes.
The Elders were unharmed and they stayed with us till Tuesday night. After retiring, Father could not sleep because he was so worried. About three o'clock in the morning, he got up and dressed. He awakened the Elders and told them how he felt, and that he thought he should take them to the home of his sister and her husband, Frank Ingram, a distance of about ten miles. They got up, dressed, and were soon on their way. Father, being a cripple, had to ride horseback while the Elders walked through the woods just far enough from the road to keep their direction. They were afraid to go in a wagon since someone might see them.
This left Mother and her sister alone with Mother's five children. About 10 o'clock that morning Mother saw a crowd of men coming toward our house on horseback carrying their guns. She told all of us children to get outside and she locked the door. She told us children not to tell where the Elders were. She said, "They can't do any more than kill you." When they reached the house, they asked for the Mormon preachers. Mother and her sister (Cassandra America - - known as Aunt Beck) told them that they were not there. The mob didn't believe them, so they insisted on searching the house. Mother told them that if they would give her the names of all who were in the mob, she would let them in. They promised, but said she would have to get them a pencil and tablet. They said they would not let any of the men into the house until all their names were written. Just as soon as they door was opened, they began pushing and shoving one another and piling into the house. They gave her only a few names, but there were seventy-five men in the mob. My angel mother and aunt were so brave and true through and through, and neither of they nor any of us five children would tell where the missionaries had gone.
We have had many trials, but it seemed that the more we were tried, the stronger our testimonies grew. It was not long till our parents and some of our relatives were ready for baptism. The missionaries did not dare stay in Mississippi, so they were in Alabama at that time. My father wrote and asked for baptism, and made arrangements for my Uncle to meet them, as they had to come through in the night because they were afraid to be seen in our county (Winston), so we had to baptized at night. The Elders were to travel a certain road got lost. Uncle Sion also got off the road and was lost. Nevertheless, they were able to met at a place not planned on at all. We always felt that if they had gone the road as planned, something would have befallen them.
When they got there, we all went down to the creek at midnight and thirteen of my family was led into the waters of baptism. They were my parents - William Adley Haggard and Permilia Louisiana Fain Haggard, Sion Monroe Erastus Fain and his wife Margaret Lenora Paralee Haggard Fain, Harriet Ann Edwards Fain, Cassandra America Fain, Charlotte Ira Jestiena Fain, Maude Haggard, Vida Haggard Dye, and my brother, David Erastus Haggard, Samuel Isaiah Arrington and his wife, Alma Hendy Haggard Arrington.
It was a joyful occasion. After we were all baptized, and confirmed, we all sat down to a lovely lunch the women had prepared. Then we all visited and the Elders instructed us till just time for them to get out of the county before day light. Every soul that was baptized that night remained faithful and true to the cause of truth. Even though many of them never lived where they could attend church, still their testimonies never faltered.
