Burkett Family in Nauvoo

 The 1840 census says George had two houses and lots in Nauvoo. His three older daughters lived in one and he and his family lived in the other. The tax lists also confirm this. George worked every working day helping build the Nauvoo Temple. All they had to eat was what they grew in their garden and the flour in a flour barrel. Every day Sarah went and got enough flour for the day. The barrel would be empty by the end of the day, but the next day there would be just enough flour in it for that day.

 While living in Nauvoo, they were baptized for their kindred dead in the Mississippi River in June 1841. Sarah received her Patriarchal Blessing under the hands of Hyrum Smith on November 7, 1841, and was one of the first women to be accepted into the Nauvoo Relief Society in June 1842. George and Sarah -4- received their endowments in the Nauvoo Temple on December 22, 1845, and in 1846 George was ordained a high priest by George A. Smith and George Miller. The deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith did not stop the persecution of the Saints from the anti-Mormon mobs. They again were forced to leave their homes and head west. The Saints began leaving Nauvoo in February 1846 to make their trek across Iowa. In August 1846 Sarah died in Augusta, Des Moines County, Iowa and was buried in the Augusta Cemetery. George wrote the following about Sarah in his history: “My first wife died in Augusta, Iowa, with whom I had lived happily and who had been a great comfort to me and help and a faithful member of the church.” Some of the poor Saints were not able to leave Nauvoo as quickly. Brigham Young asked two companies of Saints to return to Nauvoo to help the poor leave. The anti-Mormon mobs became impatient and fighting began in Nauvoo. George was in the Battle of Nauvoo from September 10-16, 1846. The next day in Iowa, across the river from Nauvoo, he married Elizabeth Powell Evans the widow of Thomas Evans. They traveled with the rest of the Saints going west.