Family Life and Friendship Network

1849-1888

Lydia was born April 16, 1849 at St. Joseph. Missouri. Married Charles E. Griffin September 22, 1866 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. This was Lydia's first expe- rience living in polygamy but not her last. One son, Allen Joseph Griffin, was born January 15, 1868. Charles proved to be an unworthy husband so she was divorced from him, Hosea Stout acting as her lawyer. Several years later, October 24, 1871, she married Norman I. Bliss, son of Jesse and Fanny Tuttle Bliss, born August 19, 1819, in New York. This couple moved to Toquervillc. where five children were born: Fanny Melvina, born June 15, 1872: married John R. Terry March 20, 1889. Norman Ingles, born January 24, 1875; married Mary E. Morris October 31, 1895. He died August 12. 1919. Lillie Cecelia, born August 26, 1877: married Ozro DeMilk, December 26. 1893. She died July 10. 1914. Sanford, born November 10, 1879; died May 29, 1882. Alfred Fisk, born December 15, 1882; married Mattie Cropper January 12, 1905. Thirteen children have been born to them.

Norman Ingles Bliss, who was Brigham Young's teamster crossing the plains and had been a member of the Nauvoo Legion, was killed in an accident at Toquerville December 12, 1882. This death was a crushing loss for Lydia, who, three days later, gave birth to a son. In 1884 she and family were moved to Rockville by her brother David. About this time (early in 1884) she married Cyrus M. Jennings, another polygamist. Her last child was born January 1, 1885 and was named David Stout Jennings, who later married Henrietta Webb, October 12, 1908 in Brigham City, Utah. There were six children born to them.

Lydia was a woman of great faith, an active church worker, unpretentious in the extreme. She lived a life of trials and sacrifices and proved true to all her covenants and obligations. At the age of 39 she passed on (September 14, 1888), leaving the world a better place for having lived in it.