Our family researcher, Mrs. Triptoe found that William Yardley was christened on 16 April 1821 in Lancashire, England. His parents were Thomas Yardley and Jane Heald Yardley. She is making further research, but she says it is possible that Williams’s grandparents could be William and Elizabeth Taylor Yardley.

Sarah Marsden was born 30 August 1821 in Oldham, Fowlich, Lancashire, England to Abraham and Hannah Thornton Marsden. She was the youngest of seven children. Her brothers and sisters were: Mary Ann, Sarah, William, William, Samuel, Abraham, and Sarah. They all died before Sarah’s birth, with the exception of William and Samuel, who were very dear brothers to her during her growing up years.

According to the research done by Edith Bushman, Mesa; we find that on the 21st of May 1842, William Yardley and Sarah Marsden were married in Oldham. Referring to the journal of her brother, William Marsden, we get the information that Sarah was already a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when she was married.

“I saw my wife Jane baptized on the nineteenth day of October, Eighteen Hundred and forty. She was baptized in the river lrnvel Salford near Manchester, England. My mother and sister Sarah I saw baptized at the same time, by James Mahoon, Priest. My father was baptized on the first of May, Eighteen Hundred and forty two by William Hardman”.

We don’t have the date of William Yardley’s baptism.

William and Sarah Yardley made their home in Lancashire, Manchester, where they experienced the joy of parenthood on 24 May 1848, when their son Thomas was born.

This couple had a great desire to immigrate to America and join Sarah’s family in Illinois. Her parents had left England in the fall of 1848 where they were welcomed by her brothers William and Samuel.

Research has not revealed what year the Yardleys came to America. It would be either1848, 1849, or 1850 because their son was born in England in 1848 and they died in Missouri and Illinois, respectively, in 1851. Her father and mother died in 1849 in Illinois, so we are not prepared to say whether she was in Illinois when they died or not.

William and Sarah Yardley found the going rough in Illinois. The main body of the Mormon Saints had been driven from their homes in Nauvoo across the Mississippi River during the bitter cold winter of 1846 and sought refuge in Iowa where they made temporary camps until the time when they could journey across the great plains to the Rocky Mountains.

Sarah’s brothers William and Samuel did all they could for the Yardleys to help them in their endeavors for survival in this new and strange country.

Sickness was prevalent in that area and the Yardley’s did not escape. In William Marsden’s journal entry of July 6, 1851, we get the following information.

“Died Br in law William Yardley of Cholera in the City of St. Louis State of Missouri. He has left a wife and one child an only son to mourn his loss. Sarah Yardley died of Congestive Chill in the town of Upper Alton, Illinois, on the Eleventh day of October, 1851”.

Thus ends the earthly sojourn of a faithful Latter-day Saint couple. They sacrificed everything, even their lives, for the gospel’s sake. We who are descended from their only son Thomas Yardley are deeply grateful for their sacrifices and shall always be proud of the Yardley–Marsden blood in our veins.

Note: There could possibly have been a baby girl born to William Yardley and Sarah Marsden Yardley. Mention has been made in some history, but no dates or name has been found.