Mary Barton's Story

"One day while we were camped an Indian came to me and asked me to give him my shawl 
which I had on my shoulders. I told him it was all I had to keep me from freezing to death. 
He turned and walked away."

Mary Barton's Story

Born: 13 Jan 1842 in Southport, Lancashire, England

Mary was the daughter of William and Jeannette Carr Barton, the youngest of seven children. Mary’s mother died shortly after her birth. William Barton was a plasterer and paperhanger by trade and made a fairly good living. Mary’s older sisters helped to raise her until her father remarried. Mary later wrote: “At the age of six I went to school but had to stop when I reached my tenth birthday. At twelve I went out to work for my living, and when fourteen years old I left England to come to Utah for the Gospel sake.”

Mary sailed from England in May of 1856 aboard the Horizon with her father, William (47), step-mother, Mary Ann (33), and step-sisters, Francis (3), and Elizabeth (1). Her older siblings apparently did not join the Church as they are reported to have persecuted the rest of the family for so doing. Even after coming to America, Mary was saddened many times by the unkind things said to her in letters from her relatives in England. Mary recorded many interesting things about her journey. She wrote, "One day while on the ship, I was up in the cooking room cooking dinner. It was so crowded there was hardly standing room. The people were all cooking their dinner, one man was boiling soup in a milk can. When he took the soup from the stove, he lifted it over my head in order to carry it through the crowd. While doing so somebody knocked him and it fell out of his hand on my back. My father stood outside waiting for me to come with the dinner. I ran out to him and he said, ‘Come downstairs and let’s get some oil.’ So we ran down the steps and got one of the Elders to administer to me. It was better in a few minutes, the pain had entirely gone and I never felt any more of it. Some of the soup went on the hands of the man who had spilled it on me. He ran and put his hands in a bucket of cold water and wasn’t administered to. He, not being a convert, wouldn’t hear to having the Elders pray for him. His hands were blistered and they didn’t get better until two weeks."

The Martin Company arrived by train in Cleveland, Ohio, amidst parades and fireworks. They stayed in a large warehouse overnight, during which time there was a great rainstorm. They were also pestered by a mob with stones and bats all night. Although Mary did not write about it, her baby sister, Elizabeth, died.... Mary wrote: "We had been five weeks on the sea when we landed in Boston. We were very glad to walk on land again. We left Boston for Iowa and were eight days on the train. When we arrived in Iowa, we had three miles to walk to the camp grounds. It rained all the way, and we were soaking wet when we reached camp that night...

We had to stay on the camp grounds five weeks waiting for the handcarts to be made. When everything was ready we started. Traveling through Ohio and Council Bluffs (Nebraska), we had to cross the Missouri River which was about a mile from Florence. … So many of our company took sick that we had to camp at Florence for two weeks. Then we started on a journey of [one thousand] miles across the plains. The people began to get sick and died from drinking muddy water. We had to drink pools of rain water most of the time. While traveling, one of the wagons split and let flour out. The Indians who were nearly starved to death came along behind picking it up and eating it, dirt and all. One day while we were camped an Indian came to me and asked me to give him my shawl which I had on my shoulders. I told him it was all I had to keep me from freezing to death. He turned and walked away.

While crossing Nebraska, both William and Francis became very ill, leaving only Mary Ann and Mary to pull the handcart. Francis rode in the cart, and William hung onto the back for support as he plodded forward. Mary's historical sketch relates her father's decline: "After dragging on the rear of the handcart for days and nights, one night came when he could only creep. A captain came along and gave him a push with his foot, telling him to get up, not to give up, and to be brave. That night, late in September... [father] died."

It was a pathetic scene in the Bartons' tent that night near Chimney Rock, Nebraska, 472 miles from Florence. Mary was doing her best to care for her father as he was dying. Nearby her stepmother was caring for little Francis, who also lay near death. How alone Mary must have felt on that vast prairie. Her mother had died when Mary was a baby, her father was dying beside her, her six older siblings had turned against her when she joined the Church, and she was far from home with so much unknown still ahead. Before the journey's end, the other three men in her tent would die. More trials were to come for this grieving young girl, her stepmother, and her only little sister.”

After reaching Devil’s Gate, the company was moved to a cove in the nearby mountain for five days. Mary wrote: "After pitching our tents we lay down on the ground to get some sleep and rest. In the night the tents all blew over. It was all ice and snow where I was laying, and when the tents blew off I didn’t wake up I was so tired. One man (Mary Barton – Page 2) came and looked at me. He called some more men over saying, “I wonder if she is dead?” He patted me on the head and just then I opened my eyes. He jumped back. I tried to raise my head but found that my hair was frozen to the ground. They chopped the ice all around my hair, and I got up and went over to the fire and melted the large pieces of ice that were clinging to my hair. The men laughed to think that I could lie there all night with my hair frozen in the ice, but were very glad that I wasn’t dead. This same night the handcarts all blew away, and some of us had to walk until we met some other wagons. Mrs. Unthanks [Ellen Pucell, then age 9, later married William Unthank] got her feet frozen and had to have them taken off, but when we met more wagons we could all ride. There were four men in our tent, and all of them died."

Mary reached the Valley on November 30, 1856. The family was taken first to the tithing yard to receive food and supplies. Mary first stayed with a King family and then with the Allen family in Spanish Fork. Mary married John Allen the next spring. She became the mother of twelve children, seven girls and five boys.

THOUGHT FROM THE STAKE:  Mary's story is like so many of the pioneers, in that she must have felt so alone. Many pioneers left family behind, never to see them again, and others, while they may have begun their journey with their family, lost their loved ones along the way.  But while they may have felt alone, they were surrounded by their brothers and sisters in the gospel, and they had the love of the Savior to comfort them.  They are such stalwart examples to us of how to find peace in troubling circumstances. 

Elder Jeffery R. Holland gave at a fireside at BYU in which he said, "As we think on these things, does it strike us that spiritual experience, revelatory experience, sacred experience can come to every one of us in all the many and varied stages and circumstances of our lives if we want it, if we hold on and pray on, and if we keep our faith strong through our difficulties? ...tonight’s message is that when you have to, you can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in any situation you are in. Indeed, let me say that even a little stronger: You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life—in the worst settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced...every experience can become a redemptive experience if we remain bonded to our Father in Heaven through that difficulty. These difficult lessons teach us that man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, and if we will be humble and faithful, if we will be believing and not curse God for our problems, He can turn the unfair and inhumane and debilitating prisons of our lives into temples—or at least into a circumstance that can bring comfort and revelation, divine companionship and peace."

The Margery Smith Family

One day, perhaps when they crossed Rocky Ridge, Margery carried six-year-old Alexander on her back for 15 miles because the snow was too deep for him to walk.

The Margery Smith Family

Margery Smith was a 51-year-old widow from Dundee, Scotland, who was emigrating with five children and a close friend of the family, Euphemia Mitchell. Margery’s first husband had been lost at sea, and her second husband had died in 1850. Neither of them had joined the Church.
Margery’s oldest son, Robert Bain, had emigrated in 1854, working as a cook on a ship for his passage and then driving an ox team across the plains. Soon after arriving in Salt Lake City, he went to Lehi, where he farmed as a sharecropper. In a letter to his mother, Robert encouraged the rest of the family to emigrate. “He says he is trying to raise as much [money] as he can for our comfort,” Margery told her other children. “He bids us exert ourselves to emigrate, next season, and says he will pray while we work.”
Betsey and the other girls laughed at that, saying Robert had the easier job. They would soon learn that in addition to praying for them, he would work on their behalf in ways they never imagined would be necessary.

Yearning to join the Saints in Zion, Margery and her daughters began working and saving to emigrate. “The spirit of gathering to Zion was strong upon us,” Betsey wrote, “and we worked at our looms by day, our fancy work by night, and saved the proceeds. By this means, we gathered enough in six months to pay our passage across the sea; and in many ways we realized that God helps those who help themselves.”
Betsey recalled that when the family told their Uncle Thomas good-bye, “he went white to the lips. He called mother a fanatic. He prophesied mother would die on the plains."

In Iowa City, 13-year-old Betsey Smith came down with scarlet fever. Unable to open her eyes as she lay sick in camp, she overheard a conversation that made her fear for her life. "I am sorry she is dying,” Betsey heard a woman say. Betsey knew that a baby had just died, and four other children had also passed away while the Willie company was in Iowa City preparing for the handcart journey. “Another death in camp soon,” the woman continued. Hearing this, Betsey thought her own death was inevitable and began to cry.
Betsey’s mother, Margery, soon brought her daughter some broth. Seeing Betsey’s tears, she asked, “Are you worse?”
“Mother, they think I am dying,” Betsey answered. “I want to live and go to the Valley.”  Betsey’s mother acted decisively and with faith. “My dear mother ... went and brought the elders,” Betsey later wrote. “[They] administered to me and rebuked the disease, commanding it to leave both me and the camp. My recovery was rapid. I was able to travel.”

Betsey had recovered sufficiently from her illness to help pull the cart and care for her six-year-old brother, Alexander. Some days they walked more than 20 miles, and when Alexander’s legs got weary, Betsey kept him going by “taking his hand to encourage him, and by telling him stories of the future and the good things in store for us.”
“While fair weather and full rations lasted, we were all right,” Betsey wrote. But twice in October the Willie company had to reduce their daily flour rations, trying to conserve their dwindling provisions until resupply wagons from Salt Lake City could reach them. On October 19 they ate the last of their flour, still nearly 300 miles short of their destination. Their only remaining food was a one-day supply of crackers. Seven people had died during the previous week, and many others were at the point of collapse. If help didn’t come soon, they would all perish.

When the Willie company broke camp on October 19, they didn’t know that their predicament would soon become even worse. Within an hour they were hit by the first snowstorm. Howling winds blew the snow in fitful gusts, forcing them to stop for a time. Then, with hope fading by the hour, they finally found reason to renew their courage. Four men rode up from the west, two on horseback and two in a light wagon. “Such a shout as was raised in camp I never before heard,” wrote Joseph Elder. Five days earlier, these men had hurried ahead as an express from the rescue company. Betsey recalled that one of them, Joseph Young, asked her, “Have you any provisions?”
“All gone but some crackers,” Betsey replied.
“Well, cheer up,” Joseph said. “Help is coming!”
Betsey turned to her sister Jane and asked, “What ailed that man? I saw him wiping his eyes.”
“It may be that he is sorry for us,” Jane said. “Let us hurry to camp and hear him speak.”
Joseph Young and Cyrus Wheelock delivered the cheering news that many wagons loaded with supplies were not far behind them. Despite the good news they bore, both men were overcome with emotion. Euphemia Mitchell recalled that Cyrus Wheelock “said how he never expected to see brethren and sisters in such a condition as we were. Tears ran down his cheeks as he spoke to us and encouraged us.”
The rescue wagons arrived two days later, and Betsey said the famished people rejoiced and “thanked the Lord in prayer.” Several men and six wagons stayed with the Willie company. The rest hurried east to search for the Martin company.
Margery Smith and her family had to pull their handcart another 10 days through the snow. One day, perhaps when they crossed Rocky Ridge, Margery carried six-year-old Alexander on her back for 15 miles because the snow was too deep for him to walk. Betsey recalled that through all these trials, “we never forgot to pray, and we sang ‘Come, Come, Ye Saints’ with great zeal and fervor. We realized that we needed the help of God to see us through.”

Margery became very sick, and Betsey was burdened with worry. “Many are dying; mother may die, and what a dark world it would be without our dear mother!” she thought. While gathering sagebrush for a fire, Betsey couldn’t keep from crying. Margery saw her tears and asked what was the matter. When Betsey explained, her mother said, “Do not feel like that; pray for me. I have been out yonder in the snow praying to the Lord to spare our lives, that we might get through to the Valley.”

On October 30 the Willie company reached the Green River crossing, still 169 miles from the Salt Lake Valley. As she had done from Iowa City, that day Betsey led young Alexander by the hand and encouraged him forward with stories about their future. With the innocence and impatience of a six-year-old, Alex said, “When we get to that creek, I wish we could see our brother Rob”—the brother who had encouraged them to emigrate and had promised to pray for them.
Betsey knew how unlikely that was. Nevertheless, she said, “Come along, maybe we will, when we get to the top of the bank.” At the top they looked down and saw a wagon with just one yoke of oxen. “We had never seen the like before,” Betsey said, since most wagons had two or three yokes of oxen. They waited at the summit, watching the wagon advance until it came beside them. The driver stared at them briefly and then yelled for his oxen to stop. “It was then we knew him,” Betsey wrote. “He jumped off the wagon and caught his sisters in his arms as they came up with the cart. How we all wept with joy! ... Little Alex climbed in to the wagon as happy as a prince, instead of a poor, tired child.”

This joyful, improbable reunion was not yet complete. Robert asked where his mother and sister Mary were. “They are behind somewhere, Robby,” Betsey answered. Margery was still sick, and during her stops to rest, she was so weak that she had to lie down. Having seen others go to sleep this way and never awaken, Mary stayed with her mother to help her keep going. When Mary saw the wagon coming, she told her mother to get up and look.
“Never mind, Mary; don’t bother me; I am so tired,” Margery said.
“Well, mother, the man is running this way,” Mary replied. “It surely is Robert.”
“Oh, no, Mary; that would be too good to be true!” Margery answered.
But it was indeed true. Describing the reunion with his mother, Robert wrote:
I ... drove on to find Mother laying in the sagebrush nearly gone. I gathered her up in my arms and got her in the wagon. My heart overflowed with love and gratitude to God. My mother said to me, “I couldn’t be more happy and thankful to see you than if I were to be in the highest kingdom in heaven.” [God] had preserved them ... in the midst of death, and I had been able to find them. The bread and butter [in my wagon] was a sweet morsel to them. Mother gained in health every day.

Robert Bain had prayed for his family, as promised. And he had worked for them, coming to their rescue. But the work was not easy or convenient. While his family was traveling across the plains, Robert was suffering from mountain fever in Lehi. For four weeks he had to be waited on. Brigham Young’s call for rescuers came when Robert was just beginning to recover. He borrowed a yoke of oxen and a wagon from Lorenzo Hatch, who filled the wagon with supplies, and set out to find his family. “I was so weak they had to lift me into the wagon [and] put the whip in my hand,” Robert recalled. He gradually got stronger as he made his way east. Perhaps in part due to Robert’s efforts, everyone in Margery Smith’s family survived, as did their friend Euphemia Mitchell, who soon married Robert.
Throughout the rest of her long life, Betsey chose not to focus on the tribulations of the handcart journey. She chose not to second-guess, murmur, or complain. Instead she wrote, “I will not dwell on the hardships we endured, nor the hunger and cold, but I like to tell of the goodness of God unto us.”

Betsey concluded her narrative by explaining why she wrote it. Her purpose went far beyond telling a good story. Rather, she wrote it “for the benefit of the youth of Zion who may read this.” In her final words, she reinforced what she hoped the youth of Zion would learn from her experience: “I bear testimony that I know God hears and answers prayers, and the Lord will help those who help themselves.”

THOUGHT FROM THE STAKE:  Some of the greatest rescues ever made will be within our own families.  In many cases the reach of one family member to another is a long arduous journey that may span years and years.  But, oh how sweet the reunion of souls when the rescuer and the rescued "see" each other for the very first time.  May we never give up in our efforts to reach and rescue those we love and have faith that God loves them, knows them and is working to preserve their spiritual lives as they struggle and wander, until the time when a rescue can be made.

Ephraim Hanks, Rescuer

"As he was about to lie down he thought about the hungry Saints and instinctively 
asked the Lord to send him a buffalo.  As he opened his eyes at the end of his prayer, 
he was startled at the sight of a buffalo standing barely 50 yards away."

Ephraim Hanks, Rescuer

President James E. Faust shared Ephraim's story as part of a talk he gave in the April 1999 General Conference entitled, "Obedience, The Path to Freedom".  In his talk, President Faust said: 

"Ephraim Hanks is a remarkable example of a young man’s obedience to spiritual promptings. In fall of 1856, after he had gone to bed, he heard a voice say to him, “The handcart people are in trouble and you are wanted; will you go and help them?” Without any hesitation he answered, “Yes, I will go if I am called.”

He rode quickly from Draper to Salt Lake City. As he arrived he heard the call for volunteers to help the last handcart companies come into the valley. Eph jumped up and said, “I am ready now!” He was as good as his word, leaving at once and alone.

A terrific storm broke as he took his wagon eastward over the mountains. It lasted three days, and the snow was so deep that it was impossible to move the wagons through it. So Eph decided he would go on horseback. He took two horses, one to ride and one to pack, and picked his way carefully through the snow to the mountains. Dusk came as he made his lonely camp at South Pass. As he was about to lie down he thought about the hungry Saints and instinctively asked the Lord to send him a buffalo. As he opened his eyes at the end of his prayer, he was startled at the sight of a buffalo standing barely 50 yards away. He took aim, and one shot sent the animal rolling down into the hollow where he was encamped.

Early next morning, he took the two horses and the buffalo meat and reached Ice Springs Bench. There he shot another buffalo, even though it was rare to find buffalo in this area this late in the season. After he had cut the meat into long strips, he loaded up his horses and resumed his journey. And now I quote from Eph’s own narrative:

“I think the sun was about an hour high in the west when I spied something in the distance that looked like a black streak in the snow. As I got near to it, I perceived it moved; then I was satisfied that this was the long looked for handcart company, led by Captain Edward Martin. … When they saw me coming, they hailed me with joy inexpressible, and when they further beheld the supply of fresh meat I brought into camp, their gratitude knew no bounds. Flocking around me, one would say, ‘Oh, please, give me a small piece of meat;’ another would exclaim, ‘My poor children are starving, do give me a little;’ and children with tears in their eyes would call out, ‘Give me some, give me some.’ … Five minutes later both my horses had been released of their extra burden--the meat was all gone, and the next few hours found the people in camp busily engaged in cooking and eating it, with thankful hearts.”

Certainly Ephraim Hanks’s obedience to spiritual promptings led him to become a vanguard hero as he forged ahead alone through that devastating winter weather to preserve many pioneer lives. Because he listened to the whisperings of the Spirit and obeyed the counsel of the Brethren, Eph became a notable liberating force in the lives of those desperate, struggling pioneers."

Ephraim's story is a pillar example of what real obedience means.  When he first left to rescue the stranded pioneers, he encountered terrible storms, and he could have easily justified giving up and heading back home; he did not. He remained true to the knowledge and assignment he had been given. And while he had no idea how exactly it was going to work out, he exercised absolute faith and chose to move forward in faith.

THOUGHT FROM THE STAKE:  Every person born into mortality has a story and, like Ephraim, we may not know exactly where it is going, but our Heavenly Father does.  Even when things are challenging and we have no idea how everything will work out, we can hang on to the knowledge that our Father in Heaven will lovingly guide us through each chapter.  The key to true discipleship is to follow our leaders and the whisperings of the Spirit, for you never know to whom He may send you to rescue, or how your own life may be rescued when you do so.  How grand is the life whose story is penned by God.

As Sisters in Zion

"Despite [the] disparity between hope and reality, Emily Hill remained true to the testimony
 she had first felt burn in her heart in a small home in England when she was 12 years old."

As Sisters in Zion:  Emily and Julia Hill (Willie Company)

Emily and Julia Hill, ages 20 and 23, were sisters who overcame great obstacles to join the Church and then gather to Zion. Emily tells how her preparation to hear the gospel began when she was young:

"When but a mere child I was much concerned about my eternal salvation and felt that I would make any sacrifice to obtain it. I asked all kinds of questions of my mother and sisters, seeking how to be saved, but could get no satisfaction from them nor from the religious body to which they belonged."
Similar to Joseph Smith, in her youth Emily searched the scriptures for answers to her questions, "waiting for something, I knew not what." 

Her wait ended at age 12 when a cousin came to visit. Emily welcomed the visit because she expected to have some fun, but her cousin was "too full of a 'new religion' to do anything but preach." The next Sunday her cousin invited the family to a meeting that was being held in a village five miles away. Emily's family all declined, her brothers because of the distance and her sisters because they felt too respectable to attend a meeting "of such a primitive sect." Laughing, Emily's sisters told her father, "Send Em, she will tell us all about it." Emily went, walking both ways. The meeting was held in a small house, and as the members bore their testimonies, Emily was touched by the Spirit and felt that she had found the truth. "It was indeed as though I had been brought 'out of darkness into marvelous light,'" she said.

Overjoyed at finding what she had so long desired, Emily could hardly wait to get home to tell her family and friends. As soon as she entered the house, she said, "I astounded them all by the emphatic declaration that I knew the Latter-Day Saints were the right people and I would join them as soon as I was big enough." This report displeased her parents, as they had been prejudiced against the Church. "I was never sent to 'take notes' of the Mormons again," Emily said, "but on the contrary was closely watched lest I should be led away."

Emily showed remarkable strength in staying true to her convictions even though her parents refused to consent to her baptism. Criticized by those who said she was too young to judge such matters, she studied the scriptures so she could defend her faith. Within her family, Emily felt alone in her beliefs for some time until a missionary came to her home and bore such a powerful testimony that her older sister, Julia, wanted to join the Church. From that time on, Emily said, "I had a friend in the family, and we were both determined that cost what it might we would be true to the light within us."

Emily and Julia were baptized in 1852, when Emily was 16 and Julia nearly 19. Soon after her baptism, Julia moved to Northampton, and a while later Emily went to visit her. Describing her time in Northampton, Emily wrote, "For the first time I enjoyed religious freedom, and there also I took my lessons of hard times, preparing me for greater hardships in store."

Both sisters earnestly desired to gather to Zion, and both worked until they had earned enough money to emigrate. Despite their parents' objections, in May 1856 they joined the Saints on the Thornton. Eight years after Emily Hill had first heard the gospel, she was finally going to Zion.
They sailed to America in 1856 aboard the Thornton and became members of the Willie Handcart Company in Iowa City, Iowa. These very pretty single girls were given inducements from residents to cut their journey short across the 300 miles of trail through Iowa. Weeks later in their journey, soldiers at Ft. Laramie also tried to persuade the young women to stay, but Emily and Julia persevered despite the shortened rations and coming winter storms.
Of the endless walking, Emily recalled:

"My sister broke down and was unable to walk, and I remember asking myself (footsore and weary with the first week of walking and working) if it was possible for me, faith or no faith, to walk twelve hundred miles further. The flesh certainly was weak but the spirit was willing."

The girls had volunteered to assist a young new widow, Martha Campkin, with her five small children. It was the only way Captain Willie would allow Martha to join the company. Martha and her little ones all arrived safely in the Valley of their hopes. When Julia’s health broke down on the trail, Emily and friends pulled her in the handcart. In a blizzard on October 23, 1856, Julia collapsed from hunger and exhaustion at the summit of Rocky Ridge. It was Emily who lifted her from the snow and got her going again. Both girls survived and raised large families.

Brother Halliday had given Emily a Priesthood blessing before she left England in which he prophesied "she should write in prose and in verse and thereby comfort the hearts of thousands." Emily’s life fulfilled this promise and she was hailed by Orson F. Whitney as the "possessor of a poetic as well as a practical mind . . . Her busy pen has brought forth many meritorious productions." Emily is best recognized today as the author of the words to "As Sisters in Zion." (Hymn 309) Originally 10 stanzas long and titled, "Song of the Sisters of the Female Relief Society."  (On a personal note: I love that the original verbage of the song reads, "As sisters in Zion we'll all PULL together")

Having left a situation of wealth, education and privilege in England for the sake of their newly embraced faith, one verse from Emily’s original hymn reflects the lifelong efforts of both of the Hill sisters:

"The Lord hath established the cities of Zion, 

The poor of His people are trusting in Him, 

He makes us a source for His poor to rely on; 

Oh! Shall we not brighten the eyes that are dim."

Emily and Julia both survived the journey. Three months after arriving in Utah, each married a man who had helped with the rescue. At least 15 other women in the Willie and Martin companies also married rescuers.

Julia became a plural wife of Israel Ivins. In 1861 they were called by Brigham Young to move south to help settle Utah's Dixie. Their wagon was one of the first to set camp in St. George. Many trials attended this assignment, but Julia endured them well. Of her eight children, four died in infancy.

Emily married William G. Mills, but her marriage was not happy. After three years, William went on a mission to England, leaving Emily and one small child. After he had been away four years, during which time Emily struggled to provide for herself and her child, he sent word that he was not returning home. Stung by this rejection, Emily wrote, "No one can realize what such an ordeal is, unless they have passed through it. All that I had hitherto suffered seemed like child's play compared to being deserted by one in whom I had chosen to place the utmost confidence."

In addition to the rejection, Emily was nearly destitute in the Zion she had sacrificed so much to come to: "Hard times stared me in the face, and I was almost overwhelmed. . . . I could not see how I should ever be able to keep 'the wolf from the door.' To add to my trouble, the house I occupied (and to which I had been led to believe I had some claim), was sold over my head, and thus I had the prospect of being homeless, at a time when rents were going up double and treble. One night when I was so weary with overwork and anxiety, pondering what to do, these words impressed me as if audibly spoken: "Trust in God and Thyself." Immediately Emily arose and composed four stanzas of poetry on that theme. With renewed faith, she soon found a way open up to resolve these problems.

Emily remarried in 1864 as a plural wife of Joseph Woodmansee, with whom she had eight children. Emily and Joseph suffered many setbacks and misfortunes, but both remained steadfast in the faith. Emily's most heartfelt desire was for her children to develop that same faith:

"I fervently hope that each and all of them may seek and obtain for themselves a knowledge of the truth (called Mormonism), for I know it can make them wise unto salvation, and may they be willing if needs be to endure reproach and privation for principle's sake. I doubt not that all my troubles have been for my good, and today I am more than thankful for my standing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."

Given what Emily had been told about Zion before leaving England, and given what she sacrificed to gather there, it would have been reasonable for her to hope to find a kind of utopia where everyone was of one heart, where there were no poor, where everyone lived their beliefs. It is doubtful that she expected such realities as a brutal pilgrimage, fledgling settlements with scarce supplies, a husband who would desert her, and neighbors and landlords who were, at best, insensitive to her needs for the essentials of life.

Despite this disparity between hope and reality, Emily Hill remained true to the testimony she had first felt burn in her heart in a small home in England when she was 12 years old. Rather than become disillusioned, she seemed to understand that building Zion was a process. Far from a utopia where a person could just walk in and live happily ever after, Zion was a place where people were working out their salvation. They had flaws and imperfections, but the Lord was using them anyway in building his kingdom—as he always does.

THOUGHT FROM THE STAKE:  Emily's life teaches the single most important possession a person can obtain in this life is a testimony firmly planted in Jesus Christ.  For, with it, a person can withstand any storm or unimaginable hardship and come out the other end, praising God with a heart full of gratitude....and without it, even the smallest upset may become pivotal in redirecting one's life away from God.  How wise it is to seek and obtain such a testimony as Emily's while in our youth.  

The Bodil Mortensen Story

The Gathering

The Bodil Mortensen Story

The young girl who sparked the rescue of over a thousand souls.

While her story is told in many places, the following version comes from the book, "Remember", which is a compiled history of the "Second Rescue" put together by the Riverton, Wyoming Stake.

When the stake held their special stake-wide meeting to introduce the members to the task of the second rescue, President Kitchen (counselor in the Riverton Stake Presidency) shared this in his address: 

"We have a special friend as a stake presidency. She is a young girl about nine or ten years of age. She was born in Denmark and was traveling with Jens and Elsie Nielson to be with her sister in Salt Lake City. They were members of the Willie Handcart Company. After the rescue party reached them at the base of Rocky Ridge, the Nielson family, along with the many others, were in pretty bad shape. Brother Nielson's feet were completely frozen but it was necessary for them to continue on their journey. Elsie put her husband in the handcart and pulled him...This young girl was given the task of helping - not only with their younger son but also the younger children of the Mortensen family to make sure they reached their next campsite...on Rock Creek. They began their journey that 15 miles up Rocky Ridge. It was cold. It was snowing. The wind was blowing. The snow was deep and the footing was treacherous. Our young friend did her job well and was successful in seeing that all the children reached camp safely. She then went to get sagebrush for the fires...Weary from her work of the day, and cold from the freezing temperatures, she sat down by the handcart wheel with her arms full of sagebrush. Her frozen body was found the next morning. She was buried along with the twelve others who died that night on Rock Creek. She isn't listed on the register of those who died along the way. Brothers and sisters, we have the opportunity to participate in the second rescue, or the spiritual rescue of these good people."

Later in the meeting, President McKinnon (another counselor in the Stake Presidency) told more of Bodil's story: 

"...when we shared with the Salt Lake Temple Recorder that her work needed to be done, he told us that the Mortensen family that traveled with the Willie Handcart Company were his ancestors and that he personally had done the work for them. We researched further and discovered that Bodil was a nine year old girl traveling with the Jens Nielson family to get to Salt Lake City where her older sister was. She was not a member of the Peter Mortensen family that Brother Wright had done the work for. She did not have any descendants to research her line. She is not even listed on the roster of the Willie Handcart Company. A forgotten little soul all alone in a foreign land...she had waited 135 years for all this to come together. 135 years to finally get to Salt Lake City, ...to finally receive the blessings of temple ordinances."

In the book, "Follow Me To Zion", a descendant of Bodil's brother, Hans, Dorothy Bottema, is quoted as saying this, 

"Many times in this earthly life we think of our mission coming to an end when death comes to claim our physical body. Our family’s experience with Bodil has proven that one’s mission, even the most valuable part, may continue long after one’s earthly passing. Bodil’s body lay in an unmarked grave for over 130 years, with her Mortensen family knowing little of her struggles, courage, and sacrifice. Then in 1991, the story of this 11-year-old girl touched the hearts of the Riverton Wyoming Stake presidency to ignite the Second Rescue, which caused thousands of temple ordinances to be performed for members of the Willie handcart company and their families. The fire of Bodil’s story continues to burn in the hearts of all who hear it. We as a family have felt of her strength and help. We view her as our rescuer, inspiring us during times of trial and turmoil and increasing our testimonies of the sacrifices that are required for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We acknowledge that her role as a rescuer has been extended to countless others who have had the opportunity to hear or read the account of her journey. Bodil’s mission to rescue others will continue as long as her story is told. We anxiously await meeting Bodil, her parents, and her brothers and sisters. This reunion will be one of gratitude, joy, and love."

THOUGHT FROM THE STAKE:  From the beginning of time, the youth have always played a central role in carrying out our Heavenly Father's Plan here on earth.   He trusts them and qualifies them, and they are numbered to Him.  The youth of the Billings East Stake are among His most valiant and most capable youth on the earth today.  What a privilege to trek along side them at Martin's Cove.