Mary Isabella Hales ^{1 2}

  General Notes:

taken from her Biography written by Augusta Joyce Crocheron.

I was born November 20th, 1818, in the town of Rainshaw, County of Kent, England. I am the daughter of Stephen and Mary Ann Hales. and the eldest daughter of a large family. My parents were honest, industrious people; I was taught to pray when very young, to be honest and truthful, to be kind to my associates, and to do good to all around us. My early years were spent in attending school and in assisting my mother in domestic duties"
Her father was a Methodist, and her mother a member of the church of england, as a child, she had very stong religious tendencies, and when requested by her Sabbath School teacher to commit to memory two or three verses from the Bible, she would learn a whole chapter or perhaps two, and recite without being prompted.
When only in her eleventh year, she became so fascinated with the bible that her leisure housrs after the labor of the day were over, were employed in reading and studying the history and incidents, the sublime parables and teachings contained in that sacred work; thus prepared to receive in due time the Gospel of the new and last dispensation. in 1832, her parents decided to emigrate, and concluded to go to Upper Canada. April 6th, they left England with family of five sons and two daughters.
One little boy died upon the way, On the 16th June, they arrived in York, strngers in a strange land, wher the Cholera was making fearful ravages, but the Lord preserved them all in health. The following spring, 1833, the family removed to the country, about eight miles from York. Her mother health was delcate and the care of the whole family devolved upton Mary Isabella, only fifteen years of age.
In the spring of 1834, she attended a Methodist camp meeting in the neighborhood, where she first met Mr Joseph Horne, and two years afterward, Joseph and Mary were united in marriage on the 9th may, 1836.
Only about one month of their wedded life had passed when they heard a rumor that a man professing to be sent from God, to preach to the people would hold a meeting about a mile distant.. They attended the meeting and this is were they first heard the Gospel, proclaimed by Elder Orson Pratt. Little did they know how the course of their leife would be changed by receiving the great light. Mary was baptised by Elder Orson Hyde in July 1836. In the latter part of the summer of 1837, she first saw the Propet Joseph, also Sidney Rigdon and Thomas B Marsh.
She said. "On shaking hands with the Prophet Joseph Smith, I received the holy spirit in such great abundance that I felt it thrill my whole system from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet; I had never beheld so lovely a countenance, nobility and goodness were in every feature. I said to myself ' o lord, I thank thee for granting the desire of my girlish heart in permitting me to associate with prophets and apostles'
In March 1838, while the weather was still wintry, they bade farewell to their home, and with a few saints started for the gathering-place of the people of God.

This gedcom entry was provided with another husband for mary isabella (Henry Humphrey b 1818 but as Mary would only have been 13 at the time and there were no specific sources attached, I have unlinked these two individuals pending further confimation.

Mary married Joseph Horne on 9 May 1836 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.¹ (Joseph Horne was born circa 1815 ^{1 2} and died after 1861 ¹.)