Abstract

When Margaret Robinson converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1886, her decision reshaped the lives of her husband and nine children. This article reconstructs the Robinsons’ conversion, their staggered three-year emigration from Lancashire to Utah, and the challenges they encountered upon arrival, drawing on a previously unpublished family account by Robinson’s granddaughter. Particular attention is given to the family’s reliance on missionaries and the fraught relationship with Isaac J. Riddle, whose simultaneous reputation as a devoted missionary and exploiter of immigrant children highlights the moral complexity of late-nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint settlement. The article further situates the Robinsons’ account within broader patterns of Latter-day Saint migration by comparing it to the much earlier emigration of the Moon family in 1840. This comparison underscores shifting doctrines of “the gathering” and illuminates the strengths and limitations of how family memory frames narratives of sacrifice, betrayal, and faith across generations.