The family embarked on a sailing vessel bound for New Orleans in September, 1842, and the mother died and was buried at sea six weeks later, after suffering from sea sickness almost if not quite every day of the voyage up to that time. The forlorn condition of the family can more easily be imagined than described. The promises held out by the Gospel seemed to be their only comfort and support. For Mary Alice, mere child that she was, there was too much to do in caring for the younger brothers and sisters to admit of her yielding to grief. The new responsibility suddenly thrust upon her had the effect of merging her childhood into womanhood without any interim for youth.
The sea voyage ended at New Orleans, eight weeks after it commenced, the intention being to proceed immediately by river steamboat to Nauvoo; but obstacles were soon encountered, the first being the grounding of the boat on a sandbar, resulting in such a tedious delay that severe frost set in and the boat was unable to proceed farther north than St. Louis because of the river being frozen over. The Cannon family accordingly spent the winter in St. Louis, the father providing homes and support for two other families, whom he had charitably immigrated from England, besides his own.
Nauvoo was finally reached in April, 1843, seven months after the departure from England. A cordial greeting by the Prophet Joseph Smith and a hearty welcome from Aunt Leonora Taylor and family helped to reconcile them, and the peaceful home obtained in Nauvoo was all the more appreciated because of the difficulties experienced on the way.
In February, 1844, the father married a second time, the motherless condition of his children and a desire on his part for their welfare doubtless hastening the event.
This was a crucial period in the Church's history. Disaffection was rife, and the allegiance of many who had formerly been considered stalwarts in the faith had become very uncertain. Apostates, secret and outspoken, were conspiring with former enemies of the church to overthrow the work of the Lord and encompass the death of the Prophet. The martyrdom of the Prophet and Patriarch and the very serious wounding of Apostle John Taylor occurred, as a result of these diabolical plots, in June.
During all these trying times the Church had no more loyal supporters than the Cannon family. The father was among those who cared for the bodies of the martyrs when returned to Nauvoo, and he it was who (with the assistance of his friend, Ariar Brower,) made the plaster casts of the faces and heads of the Prophet and Patriarch when the bodies were washed and prepared for burial.
In the August following, having gone to St. Louis to obtain employment, George Cannon suddenly died there. If the children's condition was forlorn when their mother died, it was doubly so now. The one fact, that they were located with the body of the Church, rendered their condition more tolerable. What might have been the result, so far as the children were concerned, of their being thus early left orphans if they had remained in England, can only be conjectured. The one supreme desire of the mother, to hasten the departure from England that the children might be with the body of the Church before being left without their natural protectors, was now justified.
George Q. and Ann found a home with their Aunt Leonora, the former, being already in the employ of Elder Taylor as a printer, and Mary Alice, though lacking two weeks of being sixteen years old at the time, married in November following, and provided a home for Angus, David and Leonora. Charles Lambert, the husband, was a thoroughly congenial companion, though twelve years the senior of his wife, and was willing as well as qualified to provide for the three orphans of whom he became the lawful guardian. He was an expert mechanic who, for the Gospel's sake, had given up a lucrative position and sacrificed worldly advantages in England to migrate to Nauvoo, where he landed in the early part of 1844. He had offered his services to help build the Temple without hope of payment therefor, and remained so employed up to the time the Temple was dedicated and he and his wife received their blessings therein, though his devotion thereto involved many hardships and severe privations, and almost superhuman self denial.
In all these trials Mother Lambert, as we now call her, and as she then was too, though not so called, (for her first child, Charles J., was born in Nauvoo in November, 1845, when she lacked one month of being 17 years old) was a true partner, patient, cheerful, industrious and self-sacrificing, and as loyal to the cause of God as the needle to the pole.