10/17/2026
The frozen crust of the Mississippi River was groaning under the weight of thousands of desperate souls, and right in the thick of it stood Simon Drake and his brave wife, Sophronia.
It was the bitter winter of 1838, and Governor Boggs’ infamous "Extermination Order" had turned their promised refuge in Caldwell County, Missouri, into a smoking battlefield. Armed militias had besieged Far West, forcing the Drakes and their terrified little children out into the howling winds.
They weren’t running because they’d broken the law; they were running because they dared to follow a living, breathing prophet of God who claimed the heavens were open once again.
Having already sacrificed their comfortable life in Palermo, New York, to answer the prophetic call to gather to Zion, they now faced a brutal choice: turn their backs on God’s chosen leaders or face all the mob's worst. They chose the frozen river.
By the spring of 1842, Simon thought they’d finally cheated death. They cleared the malaria-ridden swamps of a bend in the river called Nauvoo. Simon was a man of action—he officially registered his Elders License, paid his $7.50 tithing straight into Joseph Smith’s personal ledger, and bought a plot of land on Block 35 in the heart of the city flats. They were building a dream out of the mud, entirely sustained by the voice of prophecy in their midst.
But death doesn’t check a city registry. Just four months later, on October 29, 1842, a silent killer known as the "black canker" ripped through Simon's throat. At just 41 years old, the pioneer was laid six feet under the dirt of the Old Nauvoo Burial Grounds, leaving Sophronia entirely alone in a city on the brink of mob warfare.
When the mobs attacked Nauvoo on in 1846, firing cannon balls through roofs, Sophronia didn't look back. But the road west was a test of absolute endurance. She retreated with the Saints across Iowa, spending nearly six brutal years in the Kanesville and Winter Quarters camps just to scrape together the livestock, wagons, and supplies an independent widow needed to survive the deep wilderness.
When her time finally came in the summer of 1852, she packed her family's life into a covered wagon and joined the Howell Company—a vast, organized train of dozens of wagons rolling across the plains.
On that grueling trail, she protected her little ones fiercely. Though a trail of graves marked the path of the pioneers, Sophronia defied the odds—bringing every single one of her traveling children alive across a thousand miles of untamed, treacherous prairie under the guidance of her wagon masters. Following the counsel of Brigham Young and the Twelve Apostles, she conquered the wilderness, arriving safely in the valley that September and eventually settling her family in Centerville, Utah, where she lived to a ripe old age, leaving a legacy of thousands of living descendants.
Look around you. In an era where following the crowd is easy and the world's opinions shift with the wind, it begs a chilling question: What are you actually willing to sacrifice to stand by a living prophet?
Simon and Sophronia Drake watched their homes burn, crossed frozen rivers, and she and the children spent years enduring the mud of Kanesville—all because they believed God spoke to modern prophets and apostles. If you trace your roots back to New York, Kirtland, Missouri, or Nauvoo, you carry the DNA of survivors who chose prophetic guidance over safety and comfort.
Are we a dilution of the blood that crossed the plains, or do we still have the grit to listen to the whisperings of the Spirit and follow God's chosen leaders when the world sets itself against them?
Pictures: 1. Sophronia Cole Adams 2. Map of location of Cole home in Nauvoo 3. Winter Quarters Painting C.C.A Christensen 4. Grave of Sophronia Cole Adams
