Leonard Gurley’s parents, Ira and Sarah Ann Harrington Rice, were living in Northville, Wayne County, Michigan, when he was born September 3, 1829. Missionaries came to their home in Michigan while Leonard was a young child, and the family became members of the newly restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and soon joined the body of the Church at Nauvoo, Illinois. He remembered well, watching his father and other men helping on the building of the Temple there. He remembered, too, those sorrowful days surrounding the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum Smith. He stood with the thousands of Saints in that hot summer sun when their bodies were returned to Nauvoo in an open wagon.

The Rice home was burned by mobs the year the Mormons crossed the Mississippi River in 1846. Leonard’s father and two of his older half-brothers had preceded him to Utah to prepare ahead for the rest of the family. By this time his mother, Sarah Ann, had given birth to twelve children, ten of whom were living. Leonard, who was then 19, and the oldest son of the remaining children, carried the responsibility of bringing part of the family, Oscar North, 15; Adelbert, 9; Hyrum Smith, 4; Adeline, 11; and Caroline, about 7; across the plains to Utah. It was a great disappointment to Ira that not all of his family came with Leonard. Sarah Ann, the wife and mother, had, no doubt, died, for no mention is made of her. The motherless children were often placed in the custody of someone in the family until they were old enough to sustain themselves.