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  Reflecting on their suffering during this part of their journey to Zion, Emily wrote a poem about her experience. A portion of it follows:

  Hunger and Cold

  A reminiscence of life on the plains with a Handcart Company

  Oh! little we knew of our troubles in store,

  Of the wilderness vast, that we had to pass o’er.

  And sometimes I think the provisions most wise

  That troubles ahead are oft hid from our eyes

  Unless our foreknowledge the evil could cure

  ’Tis best not to know all we have to endure.

  Each day (save the Sabbath) we journeyed with care

  Looking out for the redmen who lurked in their lair.

  Folks not of our party, who with us had been

  The Indians had murdered, their graves we had seen. . . .

  At length came the climax—how well I remember

  That cold, dismal night in the month of November. Faint and fasting, we camped by a hard frozen stream

  Here nothing we had, but of plenty could dream.

  Our rations eked out with discretion and care,

  Had utterly vanished, “the cupboard was bare.”

  Not a morsel to eat could we anywhere see,

  Cold, weary and hungry and helpless were we.

  Our woes were pathetic and everywhere round

  Every inch of the prairie was snow covered ground,

  Shut off from the world as in ocean’s mid waves,

  The desolate plains offer nothing but graves.

  Death seemed but a question of limited time,

  Yet the faith of these faint ones was truly sublime!

  On the brink of the tomb few succumbed to despair,

  Our trust was in God, and our strength was in prayer.

  Oh, whence came those shouts in the still, starry night,

  That thrilled us and filled us with hope and delight?

  The cheers of new comers, a jubilant sound

  Of triumph and joy over precious ones found.

  Life, Life was the treasure held out to our view,

  By the “Boys from the Valley,” so brave and so true,

  The “Boys from the Valley,” sent out by their chief,

  Brought clothing and food and abundant relief.

  O’er mountainous steeps, over drearisome plains

  They sought us, and found us, thank God for their pains!

  Hurrah! and hurrah! from the feeble and strong.

  Hurrah! and hurrah! loud the echoes prolong.

  They were saviors, these men whom we hardly had seen,

  Yet it seemed that for ages, acquainted we’d been.

  When Fate introduces Compassion to Need,

  Friendships quickly are founded and ripen with speed.

  Weatherworn were our friends, but like kings in disguise

  Their souls’ native grandeur shone out of their eyes.

  Oh, soft were their hearts who with courage like steel,

  Left their homes in the Valley our sorrow to heal. . . .

  For helpful and kind, as a woman or Saint,

  These men cheered the feeble, the frozen and faint.

  God bless them for heroes, the tender and bold,

  Who rescued our remnant from hunger and cold. . . .

  Ups and downs are our fate; for the best ’tis I ween,

  Some woes we forget as though ne’er they had been,

  But while memory her hold of my being retains

  I’ll remember the lesson I learned on the plains.

  If fortune withholds what I deem would be good,

  I try to be thankful for shelter and food.

  If disposed e’er to murmur, the wish is controlled,

  When I think of that season of hunger and cold.8

  Notes Chapter Three: “The Blessings of God on Our Labors We’ll Seek”

  Epigraph: Woodmansee, “Hunger and Cold,” in Abegg, Poetry of Emily Woodmansee, 168.

  ^1. Chislett, “Narrative.”

  ^2. Willie, “Synopsis,” 11.

  ^3. “Latest News from the Plains.”

  ^4. Willie, “Synopsis,” 11.

  ^5. William Woodward in Smith, “Faithful Stewards.”

  ^6. Woodmansee in Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret, 86.

  ^7. Olsen, Price We Paid, 132–33.

  ^8. Woodmansee, “Hunger and Cold,” in Abegg, Poetry of Emily Woodmansee, 168–70.

  Chapter Four

  “With Earnest Endeavor”

  We buried our dead, got up our teams, and about 9 o’clock a.m. commenced ascending the Rocky Ridge. This was a severe day. The wind blew awful hard and cold. The ascent was some five miles long and some places steep and covered with deep snow. We became weary, sat down to rest, and some became chilled and commenced to freeze.

  —Levi Savage

  Snow continued to fall for the next few days, and it became evident that the relief wagons full of food, bedding, and clothing were waiting out the storm somewhere fairly close at hand. Captain Willie and Joseph Elder left the Saints at the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater to try and find the wagons and apprise the leaders of the destitute situation of the Saints by the Sweetwater.

  Three days after their departure, the two men returned. They were followed closely by several covered wagons, each pulled by four horses.

  As John Chislett recalled:

  The news ran through the camp like wildfire, and all who were able to leave their beds turned out en masse to see them. . . . Shouts of joy rent the air; strong men wept till tears ran freely down their furrowed and sun-burnt cheeks, and little children partook of the joy which some of them hardly understood, and fairly danced around with gladness. . . . The brethren were so overcome that they could not for some time utter a word.1

  Chislett was put in charge of the distribution of food and clothing and bedding, and reported:

  That evening, for the first time in quite a period, the songs of Zion were to be heard in the camp, and peals of laughter issued from the little knots of people as they chatted around the fires. The change seemed almost miraculous, so sudden was it from grave to gay, from sorrow to gladness, from mourning to rejoicing. With the cravings of hunger satisfied, and with hearts filled with gratitude to God and our good brethren, we all united in prayer, and then retired to rest.2

  It was October 23, 1856, and the ascent of Rocky Ridge—the Gethsemane of their sacrifice—was still ahead.

  Rocky Ridge is known as the place where many members of the Willie company met their Maker. Although sixteen relief wagons had reached them by now, ten of the wagons continued on their way to try and find the Martin handcart company, known to be at least a week behind the Willie company. Only six relief wagons stayed with the Willie company, not nearly enough to help all those who needed assistance getting up the ridge. The weakest of the Saints were placed in the wagons, but most members of the handcart company still needed to pull their own handcarts through the snow to the top of the ridge.

  John Chislett described how it was accomplished:

  By all hands getting to one cart we could travel; so we moved one of the carts a few rods, and then went back and brought up the other. After moving in this way for a while, we overtook other carts at different points of the hill, until we had six carts, not one of which could be moved by the parties owning it.

  I put our collective strength to three carts at a time, took them a short distance, and then brought up the other three. Then by travelling over the hill three times—twice forward and once back—I succeeded after hours of toil in bringing my little company to the summit.3

  Levi Savage wrote in his journal of the harrowing d
ay that the Willie company ascended Rocky Ridge:

  We buried our dead, got up our teams, and about 9 o’clock a.m. commenced ascending the Rocky Ridge. This was a severe day. The wind blew awful hard and cold. The ascent was some five miles long and some places steep and covered with deep snow. We became weary, sat down to rest, and some became chilled and commenced to freeze. Brothers Atwood, Woodward, and myself remained with the teams, they being perfectly loaded down with the sick and children, so thickly stacked I was fearful some would smother.4

  Julia was not as physically strong as her sister and, earlier in the journey when her health had given out, she had occasionally ridden in the handcart. By Rocky Ridge, Julia was in serious trouble. A family journal states that “Julia, worn out by the rigors of the journey, had all but succumbed to the onslaught of storm and exposure.”5 When Julia collapsed near the summit of Rocky Ridge, her face gray and her eyes lifeless, Emily stopped her handcart and came to her sister. She bent down and tenderly lifted Julia from the snow and helped her to the handcart. Together they moved forward to a camp at Rock Creek Hollow to survive yet another day. Martha and all of her children also made it to Rock Creek safely.

  By all accounts, it took Levi Savage, John Chislett, Millen Atwood, William Woodward, and several others until dawn the next day to get all of the Saints to the camp at Rock Creek Hollow. Fifteen pioneers were buried that day, thirteen of them in a common grave.

  Over the next ten days, the Saints pulled their handcarts to Fort Bridger, with more Saints perishing along the way. They continued to meet with rescue wagons, and although a few stayed with them, most of the relief wagons proceeded on to aid the Martin handcart company.

  Notes Chapter Four: “With Earnest Endeavor”

  Epigraph: Levi Savage in Olsen, Price We Paid, 152.

  ^1. Chislett, “Narrative.”

  ^2. Ibid.

  ^3. Chislett in Olsen, Price We Paid, 150.

  ^4. Savage in Olsen, Price We Paid, 152.

  ^5. Erdman, Israel Ivins, 12.

  Chapter Five

  “The Errand of Angels”

  We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but . . . every one of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives, for we became acquainted with him in our extremities.

  –Francis Webster

  Having survived the long crossing and the indescribable suffering caused by the early Wyoming winter, and with the help of those who had been sent, the Willie handcart company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on 9 November 1856, descending into the Valley through Emigration Canyon in four feet of snow. President Brigham Young directed that the exhausted people be taken into homes and nursed back to health over the winter.

  On Sunday, 16 November 1856, a week after the Willie company entered the Salt Lake Valley, President Brigham Young stood in the Tabernacle and spoke to the people. In his speech, he addressed the suffering of the Willie and Martin handcart companies:

  I rise to make a few remarks, to satisfy the feelings of the people and correct their minds and judgment. . . .

  When we have done all we can, then the Lord is under obligation, and will not disappoint the faithful; He will perform the rest. . . . But, under the circumstances, it was our duty to assist them [the companies]. . . . We had the power and ability to help them, therefore it became our duty to do so.

  The Lord was not brought under obligation in the matter, so He had put the means in our possession to render them the assistance they needed.1

  There ensued some heated discussion among the Saints regarding the tragedy encountered by members of the Willie handcart company. Some were critical of Church leaders for permitting the company to set out for the Salt Lake Valley so late in the season. Brigham Young refuted the criticism with the following reasoning: “If Saints do right and have performed all required of them in this probation, they are under no more obligation, and then it is no matter whether they live or die, for their work here is finished. This is a doctrine I believe.”2 He pointed out as well that the Saints who went out to rescue the survivors and who took them afterward into their homes to be nurtured demonstrated the depth of their own faith and devotion.

  Others argued that if the members of the handcart company had not gone out on the trail, they may have perished from want in the frontier communities where they had no shelter and had no reasonable hope of receiving help from the residents because of the anti-Mormon sentiment that was prevalent in those communities. They could not stay and so went on.

  But perhaps the most poignant defense of the decision to leave late in the season was made years later by a survivor of the journey, Francis Webster, who had traveled with the Martin handcart company. After listening to criticism and critique of the handcart expedition, he stood up in his Sunday School class and testified:

  I ask you to stop this criticism. You are discussing a matter you know nothing about. Cold historic facts mean nothing here, for they give no proper interpretation of the questions involved. Mistake to send the handcart company out so late in the season? Yes. But I was in that company and my wife was in it. . . . We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but . . . every one of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives, for we became acquainted with him in our extremities.

  I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it. I have gone to that sand, and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.

  Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin handcart company.3

  Notes Chapter Five: “The Errand of Angels”

  Epigraph: Francis Webster in Olsen, Price We Paid, 424.

  ^1. Young, in Journal of Discourses, 4:89, 91; emphasis added.

  ^2. Ibid., 91.

  ^3. Webster in Olsen, Price We Paid, 423–24.

  Chapter Six

  “Oh, Naught but the Spirit’s Divinest Tuition”

  Two, of a household band,

  Two, in the flush of youth,

  Came hither from their home afar,

  Led Zionward, by Faith’s bright star,

  And love of God and Truth.

  —Emily Hill Woodmansee

  Martha Webb Campkin Young

  After Martha Campkin arrived in the Valley, she married Thomas Young—sixteen years her junior—who had promised her dying husband that he would take care of her and make sure that she and the children got safely to Zion. A family story exists that not one of Martha’s children lost a finger or toe to frostbite, partly because Thomas Young would rub their hands and feet. In 1860, Martha, Thomas, and her five children settled in Three Mile Creek (now Perry, Utah), where many of their descendants live today. They had three children together.

  Martha was an industrious woman; she was known as a good cook and an excellent housekeeper, and she and her daughters braided straw hats as a small business. Family tradition holds that the family also raised produce that they took to the railroad town of Corinne and for which they were paid in gold dust. Known for their hospitality, she and her family permitted travelers to camp on their farmland. Martha was stalwart and faithful to the gospel all the days of her life. She died in Perry, at the age of seventy-eight.1

  Julia Hill Ivins

  One of the rescuers who answered Brigham Young’s call to rescue the Sain
ts out on the plains was Israel Ivins. He was one of the few who stayed with the Willie company, while others went in search of the Martin company. He escorted the Willie company all the way to the Valley. In February 1857, three months after her arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Julia Hill became Israel’s second wife, with the approval of his first wife, Anna Lowrie Ivins. Anna had two living children at the time: Caroline, who was twelve, and Anthony, a five-year-old.

  Shortly after Israel and Julia were wed, Israel moved his families to the Provo area. He did not want them in the Salt Lake Valley with the approach of Johnston’s Army. Returning to Salt Lake the next year proved a hardship to Julia and her newborn son, Israel Junior. Baby Israel died within a month of their return. Ultimately, Julia and Israel had eight children together, four of whom died before the age of two.

  Julia’s experiences on the Willie trek helped prepare her for these difficult times and also strengthened her for the work she did in helping to settle the Dixie Mission in St. George, Utah.

  The families of Julia and Anna lived harmoniously together. Julia took charge of the daily running of the households, while Anna worked in the St. George Temple.2 The town of Ivins, near St. George, is named after Israel and Anna’s son Anthony.

  Israel, Anna, Julia, and Julia’s son Frank (who died at eight months, but whom she named after her dear brother) are all buried in the old St. George cemetery.

  Julia was a virtuous and righteous woman all the days of her life. Her patriarchal blessing says this of her: “He was well pleased . . . when you received the gospel. His angels rejoiced over you at your baptism. . . . You came in with a pure heart and a contrite spirit. You have left your [earthly] Father’s home and your friends and have come unto Zion that you might fulfill all the promises of your [Heavenly] Father.”3

  When Julia died unexpectedly at age sixty-three, Emily penned tender lines, entitled “My Sister,” in memory of her beloved sister. An excerpt follows: