Elisha Hildebrand Davis

Verland Edith Evan's Maternal Great Grandmother

To My Posterity:

During a life of nearly 82 years, 59 years of which time having been spent in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I can testify to the happiness of a life of moral honesty and religious devotion. Experience has taught me the high value of moral purity and religious sentiment, as reaching far above earthly pleasures and the gratification of appetite and passion, which cannot produce lasting joy.

My success in life has come through my not borrowing money and mortgaging my home, but through my always living within my means, and sustaining myself and family by the sweat of my face.

When I owned little, I lived on little and was satisfied. My married life of 46 years has been a happy one; my wife was always true, gentle, faithful, kind, and wise, a helpmate in very deed to me. During our entire married life of 46 years, we never had a hard feeling, or cross word, but lived in love together, always adopting the rule of speaking gently and kindly to and of each other; and now at the advanced age of 82 years, standing as it were on the verge of eternity, my great desire and advice to all of you is to be faithful and true to our holy religion, to never depart from the faith and turn against God.

Every day that I live, I rejoice more and more in the great work of the Lord, and in the hope of eternal life.

Your loving father and grandfather
Elisha Hildebrand Davis
1897