Pioneer Handcart Trek
June 23 -25, 2016 ~ Wolf Creek State Park
Springfield Illinois Stake
Pioneer Stories
“Generations of Adventure... It’s In Our Nature”
Tragedy and Triumph
Your guide to the Rescue of the 1856
Willie and Martin Handcarts companies
By Howard K. Bangerter and Cory W. Bangerter
The Second Rescue
The story of the spiritual rescue of the Willie and Martin Handcart pioneers.
By Susan Arrington Madsen
The price we paid, the extraordinary story of the Willie and Martin Handcart Pioneers.
By Andrew D. Olsen
As Sisters in Zion, the story behind the song
By Debbie J. Christensen
Tell my story, too.
By Jolene S. Allphin
Follow me to Zion.
By Andrew D. Olsen and Jolene S. Allphin
Joseph A. Young, the Prophet's own son, was the first of the rescue party to reach the Willy company near Rocky Ridge on 23rd October 1956. A short biography of brother Young is given at: http://overlandtrails.lib.byu.edu/biographies.php?name=young-joseph-a
"What comes next for willing hands to do?"
Linda K. Burton, general Relief Society president, related the following story at the April 2016 General Conference of the Church:
"In the October 1856 general conference as President Brigham Young announced to the congregation that handcart pioneers were still on the trail and late in the season. He declared: “Your faith, religion, and profession of religion, will never save one soul of you in the celestial kingdom of our God, unless you carry out just such principles as I am now teaching you. Go and bring in those people now on the plains, and attend strictly to those things which we call temporal, … otherwise your faith will be in vain.”
We remember with grateful admiration the men who headed off to rescue those suffering Saints. But what did the sisters do?
“Sister [Lucy Meserve] Smith recorded … that after President Young’s exhortation, those in attendance took action. … Women ‘[removed] their petticoats [large underskirts that were part of the fashion of the day and that also provided warmth], stockings, and every thing they could spare, right there in the [old] Tabernacle, and piled [them] into the wagons to send to the Saints in the mountains.’”
Several weeks later, President Brigham Young gathered the Saints again in the old Tabernacle as the rescuers and the handcart companies got closer to Salt Lake City. With great urgency, he pleaded with the Saints—especially the sisters—to nurse the sufferers and feed them and receive them, saying: “Some you will find with their feet frozen to their ankles; some are frozen to their knees and some have their hands frosted. … We want you to receive them as your own children, and to have the same feeling for them.”
Lucy Meserve Smith also recorded:
“We did all we could, with the aid of the good brethren and sisters, to comfort the needy. … They got their hands and feet badly frosted. … We did not cease our exertions [un]til all were made comfortable. …
“I never took more satisfaction and, I might say, pleasure in any labor I ever performed in my life, such a unanimity of feeling prevailed. …
“What comes next for willing hands to do?”
Scriptures
Jeremiah 3:14 "... and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion."
Romans 8:35, 37 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."
Hebrews 12:12 " Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees."
Ezekiel 34:16 " I will seek that which was lost... and bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick."
Proverbs 16:9 A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.
Isaiah 30:21 " And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it..."
Proverbe 3:6 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart... he shall direct thy paths."
Psalms 126:3 " The Lord has done great things for us; whereof we are glad."
"Mary's Faith in Priesthood Authority"
"Mary Fielding Smith, widow of the martyred Hyrum, joined the Saints in their exodus from Nauvoo and was determined to go west. She was assigned to a company, but her provisions were so meager that C. Peter Lott, the captain of her company, pronounced her unprepared, claimed she would never make it with her oxen and scanty supplies, told her she would be a burden on the company, and advised her to return to Winter Quarters until she could get help. Mary responded by declaring that she would beat the captain to the Valley, and without any help from him. One day along the trail, true to the captain’s predictions, one of Mary’s best oxen lay down in its yoke, rolled over, and stiffened out his legs in dying fashion. Upon seeing the situation, the captain in essence muttered a “Told you so!” and rode off. Undaunted, Mary believed that faith and priesthood power could move not only mountains but worn-out oxen. She located the consecrated oil she had tucked carefully inside her wagon and asked her brother Joseph Fielding to administer to the ox. Joseph poured “a portion of oil on the top of his head . . . and all laid hands upon [the ox], and one prayed, administering the ordinance as they would have done to a human being that was sick. In a moment the ox gathered up his legs, and at the first word arose to his feet, and traveled right off as well as ever.” Mary’s faith in priesthood authority solved the problem. Though she encountered other setbacks along the way, Mary persistently met them head-on. On the last major mountain of the journey, her team moved ahead of the company and, as promised, arrived twenty hours ahead of the captain.
Mary lived only four more years. But in her relatively short life, she managed to get her young son, Joseph F. Smith, to the Salt Lake Valley. Years later, the importance of her faithful sacrifice and the reach of her influence would become obvious, as Mary’s son would be ordained the sixth President of the Church and her grandson, Joseph Fielding Smith, the tenth President of the Church.
Dew, Sheri. Women and the Priesthood: What One Mormon Woman Believes (Kindle Locations 3311-3327). Deseret Book Company. Kindle Edition.