The Riser Boot Shop

Workin' on a shoe!

Sorry, don't know how to delete a picture!!!!

This was our last Sunday to have a site assignment until early fall. We served in the Riser Boot Shop. What a fun place to serve. We got to demonstrate how to make shoes! We had five groups tour the shop today. Not bad for a spring Sunday.

The George and Christiana Risers were immigrants from Germany. They were living in Ohio when they heard about the church from an employee in their shoe shop. They sold their successful business and traveled 500 miles in a wagon to Nauvoo to find out more about the new religion. Shortly after they arrived their baby son became very sick. Joseph Smith and Orson Hyde gave him a blessing and he was healed immediately.

This experience convinced the Risers to join the church. They were baptized in December 1841 in the Mississippi River. They had to cut a hole in the ice in order to be baptized in the river. What faith they had to want to be baptized right then and not wait until warmer weather. Not too many months after their baptism their baby got sick again and inspite of blessings he died at fourteen months of age. The Risers felt like their son had accomplished his purpose in this life by bringing them to the church.

The Risers had a successful shoe business. The shop was on the main floor and they lived upstairs. The building was 16' x 16'. Can you imagine living in that small of a place?

The Risers left Nauvoo when the Saints went West. At that time they had a two year old girl. Two months after leaving Nauvoo a baby son was born and named Joseph Hyrum. (Bet you can guess who they were named after!) The Risers reached the SL valley in Sept. 1847. George opened a shoe shop in an Army tent and had the first shoe shop in the valley. They were great pioneers in the west and remained faithful throughout their lives.

A special Pageant story as a result of the Risers story......

We had a single missionary sister in our mission last summer named Ora Mae May. Her inactive son and non member wife and daughters came to Nauvoo last summer. They went to the pageant the night it rained so hard. The husband told his wife that they could come back another night if she didn't want to sit in the rain. They had been to the Riser Boot Shop earlier that day. She had been so impressed with their story. She told him, "If the Risers can be baptized in the freezing Mississippi, we can sit in the rain to watch the pageant." They were able to see the Pageant three nights and were touched by what they saw and heard at the pageant and also in the sites. When they went home, Sis. May's son overcome his Word of Wisdom problem, his wife and daughters had the missionary lessons. He was able to baptize them and they are now a very happy active family in the church.

I love learning about those early Saints that lived here in Nauvoo. Their courage and strong faith are such a wonderful example to me.