I Will Not Go Back

Ellen was sad and very much alone in Zion. She had to make a great struggle to care for her children.
She also missed her family back in England. She was often homesick. Florence Cheney tried to capture her feelings in a poem:
“She'd sung the old songs, sometimes starting bravely,
But always ending, at last, in tears;
The home piano, had been their real comfort,
Where oft they'd sung, in by-gone years.”
Ellen wrote to her family in England sometimes when she could afford the 25 cents it took to send a letter. She would tell them some of her struggles, but not all. She knew that they would criticize her choice in joining the Church and immigrating and their criticism was hard to take.
Ellen's parents tried to help her by sending money, but the letters were always robbed. She got the letters, but not the money they sent. She wrote to her family telling them not to try sending money. They tried sending packages, but the packages didn't arrive either.
As time went on her folks wrote her begging her to return to England and to a comfortable home with them; if she would denounce the strange religion. They offered to let her brother, James, come to fetch her back.
But despite her struggles, Ellen loved Zion. Zion was the place she and William had dreamed of going for so long. The gospel burned bright in their hearts and leaving would make all the sacrifices meaningless. And the gospel continued to burn bright in Ellen's heart. She taught her children to treasure it greatly. She was very brave and full of faith as she refused their last offer to return.” No,” She said “We made a great sacrifice to come to Zion; now I'll not go back.” “William would not want me to either.”
The thought of her husband, William, helped give her strength. She kept his memory alive in her children. She spoke of him often and how he loved the gospel.