Sarah Ann Eaton was born in Mansfield-Woodhouse, a small community near Mansfield, in the midlands of England, on June 5th , 1845. She was the fourth and youngest child of William Eaton Jr. and Zilliah Wain. Her father was a barber by profession. She had a brother and two sisters. She grew up in rather humble circumstances in Mansfield-Woodhouse in the area where the Thomas Humpherys family lived. The families had known each other for years.

In the late 1840's, Mormon missionaries were teaching in the Mansfield area. Sarah's oldest sister, Arm, was converted and baptized June 5th , 1849. Sarah's mother, Zilliah Wain Eaton was baptized August 31st , 1849. Sarah's sister, Elizabeth, was baptized in 1854. Sarah Ann was baptized February 27, 1856, when she was ten years old. Because of misplaced records, they were all re-baptized in 1857. Her father and brother, William III, never did join the church. The Humpherys family had joined the church and left for America in 1853.

Ann Eaton, the oldest daughter, married Thomas Joynes Smedley March 2, 1857 in Mansfield. He had been baptized into the church May 18, 1851. Ann and Thomas immigrated to America in 1857 but they did not go to Utah. They lived in New Jersey and Delaware for the next 18 years and raised their family there. Thomas worked as a brick mason. Sarah's other sister, Elizabeth, also immigrated to America in 1857 with Ann and Thomas but she crossed the plains that same year and settled in Draper, Utah, then called Drapersville. Sarah Ann's mother had a strong testimony of the gospel and wanted to heed the call of President Brigham Young to "gather to Zion", but her husband, who never joined the church, did not want to leave his native England. 

After nine years of trying to convert him, she finally made die heart breaking decision to leave him and her son (who was probably married by that time) in England, and immigrate to Zion with Sarah Ann. They sailed from Liverpool in early 1863. Neither Zilliah nor Sarah Ann ever saw them again. Sarah Ann's father, William Eaton Jr., lived the remainder of his life alone and died 13 years later in 1876, at the age of 68. Sarah Ann and her mother sailed from Liverpool to New York and stayed with Sarah Ann's sister in New Jersey for about a year.

The next summer, late June 1864, they continued their journey across die plains by train to Omaha, Nebraska and then 40 miles south to Wyoming, Nebraska. They were met there by the "Down and Back" boys from Utah. Among them was 22 year old George Humpherys. The former neighbors were attracted to each other and their acquaintance turned into a wagon train romance. They arrived in Salt Lake City on the 20th of September 1864. There was undoubtedly a joyous reunion with Sarah's sister Elizabeth whom they hadn't seen for seven years. Elizabeth was now 27, unmarried and still living in Drapersville.

Less than three weeks after their arrival, Sarah Ann and George were married in the Endowment house in Salt Lake City on October 9, 1864.