Santa Clara Stake - Trail of Dreams Musical

Santa Clara Stake - Trail of Dreams Musical This is no typical crossing-the-plains story, though. Perhaps one does not expect much from a locally written and produced musical.

A full-length musical play with a cast of 90+ to be performed July 31, August 1,2,3,4 at 7pm with a matinee at 2pm on August 4 at 3132 River Road, Eugene, Oregon Written by James Arrington, Marvin Payne and Steven Kapp Perry, "Trail of Dreams" tells the story of John Brown, who helped a total of 70,000 pioneers cross the plains between 1846 and 1869. Instead, the play takes the form of John Brown'

s dream, in which he and the people he crossed with all exist simultaneously -- despite the fact that in real life, most of them crossed in different years and never met each other. Brown flits back and forth, from winter of one year, to summer of another year, dealing with all the problems at once. Good musicals are written by big-time Broadway guys like Sondheim and Lloyd Webber, right? "Trail of Dreams," while obviously of Mormon historical interest and subject matter, is on a par with some of the better Broadway-style shows. It examines the universal themes of life and death that touch everyone and Steven Kapp Perry's musical score is not Christian pop; it's good, technically superior music, sometimes reminiscent of "Les Miserables" in its more powerful moments. And the play's script is well-written and plotted.

08/04/2012

I am not entirely looking forward to closing today. We are finally getting into the groove! These will be the best performances yet. If you know someone who hasn't seen it I am sure that there will be some seats available. I will miss seeing all of the wonderful, faithful cast members each week. Break a leg everybody.

08/01/2012

Hey everybody, spread the word! Although we had a good crowd there last night there were still good seats available so no one should be afraid to come to get seats at the door.

08/01/2012

We had a great opening night. Great reactions to our show. Looking forward to a great run.

This is John Bailey the brother of Langley, who is in the previous story. Tanner Barth plays him in our show. He helped ...
07/28/2012

This is John Bailey the brother of Langley, who is in the previous story. Tanner Barth plays him in our show. He helped pull his brother when he was sick.

Pioneer Story 13, Langley Allgood Bailey (Martin Company)We were delayed in camp for two weeks, most of the carts had to...
07/28/2012

Pioneer Story 13, Langley Allgood Bailey (Martin Company)
We were delayed in camp for two weeks, most of the carts had to be made. At this place John and I learned to swim in the river.

We stayed on this camp ground for two weeks. It was a sight to see 600 people pulling their carts through the cities and villagers of Iowa. People came out of their houses and jeered us. On we went, all happy and cheerful.

I was taken down with hemorrhage of the bowles. I was unable to walk, had to be hauled on Bro. Isaac J. Wardle and my brother’s John’s cart.

After reaching Florence a Doctor was consulted said I must not go another step or I would die and be buried on the road side. A captain named Tune [John Toone] would not administer to me, said he did not have faith enough to raise the dead.

Mother on hearing that Apostle F.D. Richards and C.H .Wheelock had arrived in camp got them to administered to me, they promised me I would live to reach the valleys.

All this time I was unconscious of what was going on.

The Doctor called again to see me, told father he would take care of the family and fit us out next year to pursue our journey. Father thanked him kindly, he plead with father to stop[,] said it was to late to make the trip, said when we reached the mountains we would be snowed in. We found his words to be too true.

The emigrants were called together to know their minds in regards to stop until the next year or go on. Voted to go on. On August 25th 1856 the company made a start. I not being able to walk, Isaac J. Wardle and Bro. John, only 15 years old, hauled me on their carts. We got along fairly well until we reached the mountains, then bad weather set in, snow storms came impeded our traveling. no one can describe the suffering we endured. Our rations consisted of 4 oz flour and nothing else did we have to eat.

One morning believing I could walk a little a head of the company. I got this privilege from my parents, my plan was to get away lay down under a sage brush and die. I saw my father and mother and my cart pass by, I streched out to die, just then a voice said, “Your mother is hunting you, jump up.” I saw mother in haste coming towards me, wanted to know what had gone wrong with me. I told her I had planned to lay down and die. I felt it was to much to pull me on the cart, at same time had as much luggage they could manage, scolded me a little. She reminded what I was promised by apostle F.D. Richard. I rode on a cart until the teams from the Valleys met us.

We camped at place after was called Martins Hole. We could not go any further for Snow

I saw a young lady age about 16 walking in the snow. She left the blood prints of her heels and toes on the snow. I am told her legs were amputated when she arrived in Salt Lake City

I refrain from writing about the suffering of these people. It never can or will be told.

On leaving this morning my bro. John saw the wolves devouring the bodies he had helped to bury the day before. He tried to drive them a way. He had to run for his life.

That morning in starting I was placed in a wagon on top of frozen tents. A very few oxen was left to haul or pull the few wagons. Made that about 4 miles when the Company stop that evening. Mother came around the wagons calling Langley. I could hear her calling. She could not hear me answer when she found me, lifted me out of the wagon my legs and arms was stiff like a frozen shirt. An ox was about to die. He was killed. Mother got some of the meat, boiled it, gave me some of the broth. it run through me like going through a funnel.

We met the rescuers near Devil's Gate. Log houses were pulled down, good fires was made of the logs. Provision were rather short on account of the teams being so long on the road; deep snows made traveling very slow.

We arrived in Salt Lake City Sunday noon coming out of Immigration Canyon. I was lifted up in the wagon could see houses in the distance. It was like the Israelites of old in beholding the promised land.

Mary Ann Stucki (Hafen)1860: Oscar O. Stoddard Handcart CompanyAge at time of journey: 6 ….The waves came up like ...
07/16/2012

Mary Ann Stucki (Hafen)
1860: Oscar O. Stoddard Handcart Company
Age at time of journey: 6
….The waves came up like mountains and broke over the deck. We were all ordered under deck, and the water splashed on us as we went down the steps. All night the storm raged. Our ship tossed about like a barrel on a wild sea. Two large beams or masts broke off, and we were driven many miles back.
We were so frightened that we did not go to bed but stayed in a group with the elders praying for safety. Though the captain cried out, "We are lost!" we did not give up hope. We had been promised a safe voyage. The next morning the sun came up bright and clear. We all gave thanks to God for our deliverance. The ship was repaired, and we had pleasant sailing the rest of the way.
At last we saw the lights of New York City. How the people did shout and toss their hats in the air for joy! I remember best my first meal on shore, because we were served with good light bread and sweet milk. After long weeks of zwieback, or hard tack, and dried pea soup, this was a happy change.
On our trip to the Missouri River by train, I remember that Brother Wittwer had an accordion and harmonica to help pass the time.
When we reached Florence, Nebraska, near present-day Omaha, we were forced to stop for a while because there were not teams enough to take us across the plains to Salt Lake City. The men set to work making handcarts, and my father, being a carpenter, helped to make thirty-three of them. Ours was a small two-wheeled vehicle with two shafts and a cover on top
When we came to load up our belongings, we found that we had more than we could take. Mother was forced to leave behind her feather bed, the bolt of linen, two large trunks full of clothes, and some other valuable things which we needed so badly later. Father could take only his most necessary tool There were six to our cart. Father and Mother pulled it; Rosie (two years old) and Christian (six months old) rode; John (nine) and I (six) walked. Sometimes, when it was downhill, they let me ride too.
The first night out the mosquitoes gave us a hearty welcome. Father had bought a cow to take along, so we could have milk on the way. At first he tied her to the back of the cart, but she would sometimes hang back, so he thought he would make a harness and have her pull the cart while he led her. By this time Mother's feet were so swollen that she could not wear shoes, but had to wrap her feet with cloth. Father thought that by having the cow pull the cart, Mother might ride. This worked well for some time.
One day a group of Indians came riding up on horses. Their jingling trinkets, dragging poles, and strange appearance frightened the cow and sent her chasing off with the cart and the small children. We were afraid that the children might be killed, but the cow fell into a deep gully, and the cart turned upside down. Although the children were under the trunk and bedding, they were unhurt. But after that, Father did not hitch the cow to the cart again. He let three Danish boys take her to hitch to their cart. Then the Danish boys, each in turn, would help Father pull our cart.
After about three weeks my mother's feet became better so she could wear her shoes again. She would get so discouraged and down-hearted; but father never lost courage. He would always cheer her up by telling her that we were going to Zion, that the Lord would take care of us, and that better times were coming.
Even when it rained, the company did not stop traveling. A cover on the handcart shielded the two younger children. The rest of us found it more comfortable moving than standing still in the drizzle. In fording streams the men often carried the children and weaker women across on their backs. The company stopped over on Sundays for rest, and meetings were held for spiritual comfort and guidance. At night, when the handcarts were drawn up in a circle and the fires were lighted, the camp looked quite happy.Singing, music, and speeches by the leaders cheered everyone. I remember that we stopped one night at an old Indian campground. There were many bright-colored beads in the ant hills.
At times we met or were passed by the overland stagecoach with its passengers and mailbags and drawn by four fine horses. When the Pony Express dashed past, it seemed almost like the wind racing over the prairie.
At last, when we reached the top of Emigration Canyon, overlooking Salt Lake, on that September day, 1860, the whole company stopped to look down through the valley. Some yelled and tossed their hats in the air. A shout of joy arose at the thought that our long trip was over, that we had at last reached Zion, the place of rest. We all gave thanks to God for helping us safely over the plains and mountains to our destination.
In 1861, Mary Ann Stucki settled with her parents and other Swiss Saints in Santa Clara, in Southern Utah. She married Johannes Reber, who died shortly after their marriage. In 1873, she married John George Hafen, the bishop of the Santa Clara Ward, 1884-1912.

Journeys of the Handcart Pioneers Source: Mary Ann Hafen. Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer of 1860: With Some Account of Frontier Life in Utah and Nevada, 18-26. Denver: privately printed, 1938.

Daniel Webster Jones (August 26, 1830 - April 20, 1915) was an American and Mormon pioneer. He was the leader of the gro...
07/16/2012

Daniel Webster Jones (August 26, 1830 - April 20, 1915) was an American and Mormon pioneer. He was the leader of the group that colonized what eventually became Mesa, Arizona, made the first translation of selections of The Book of Mormon into Spanish, led the first Mormon missionary expedition into Mexico, dealt frequently with the American Indians, and was the leader of the group that heroically wintered at Devil's Gate during the rescue of the stranded handcart companies in 1856.
Jones was born 26 August 1830 in Booneslick, Howard County, Missouri. Orphaned at the age of 12, he joined a group of volunteers to fight in the Mexican-American War in 1847. Following the war, he remained in Mexico for a number of years, learning Spanish, and while taking "part in many ways in the wild, reckless life that was common in that land," still he longed for something. When a sheepherding expedition bound for California departed in 1850, he left with them.
While camped along the Green River in 1850, his pistol went off in his holster, piercing through fourteen inches of his groin and thigh. His companions left him, lame, but alive, with a Mormon settlement in Provo. There, he studied Mormon doctrine and was baptized by Isaac Morley in 1851. The next year, he married Harriet Emily Colton, daughter of Philander and Polly Colton.
In the October 1856 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church President Brigham Young informed those gathered that a group of Latter-day Saint immigrants were then stranded on the plains of Wyoming. These were the Martin and Willie handcart companies, as well as the Hunt and Hodgett wagon companies. The next day, about 25 men departed from the Salt Lake Valley to find the immigrants.
The company found the Willie Handcart Company near South Pass. After reaching Devil's Gate, they still hadn't found the other groups, and Jones, Joseph A. Young, and Abe Garr were sent ahead to find the missing parties and help them in to the Devil's Gate area. After assisting them to a spot now known as Martin's Cove, it was determined that Jones, Thomas Alexander, and Ben Hampton would remain behind with the goods cached at Fort Seminoe, together with 17 teamsters detailed from the Hunt and Hodgett wagon companies. During that winter, they endured terrific privations which Jones later detailed in his autobiography.
In 1874, Jones was commissioned by Brigham Young to translate selections from The Book of Mormon into Spanish, in preparation for a missionary expedition into Mexico. This he did, with the assistance of Henry Brizzee and Mileton Trejo, a recent Spanish convert from the Philippines. Following the translation, the company, including James Z. Stewart, Helaman Pratt (son of Parley P. Pratt and father of Rey L. Pratt), Wiley C. Jones (Jones's son), R. H. Smith, Ammon M. Tenney and Anthony W. Ivins (who would later become an Apostle and First Counselor in the First Presidency, departed for Mexico. The mission lasted from 1875 to 1876.
Upon returning, he was commissioned by Brigham Young to start a settlement in the Salt River Valley of Arizona. Originally called Jonesville, the settlement was later renamed Lehi, and was eventually incorporated into Mesa, Arizona.
After some conflict with the other settlers, Jones moved to the Tonto Basin area, where his wife and 14th and youngest child were killed when a shed fell on them during a storm in 1882. In 1890, he published his autobiography, Forty Years Among the Indians. He died on 20 April 1915, of gangrene after an accident. He was 84 years old.
Jones was the grandfather of Fay Wray (King Kong (1933)), his last surviving grandchild. He is the great-great grandfather of Jeffrey Jones, the first Mormon senator in Mexico.

Cyrus Wheelock –Age 40Captain, Cyrus Wheelock Company 1853Cyrus Hubbard Wheelock was an early leader in The Church of Je...
07/16/2012

Cyrus Wheelock –
Age 40
Captain, Cyrus Wheelock Company 1853

Cyrus Hubbard Wheelock was an early leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also wrote the words to the Latter-day Saint hymn "Ye Elders of Israel."
Wheelock was born at Henderson, Jefferson County, New York. Wheelock was baptized a member of the Latter Day Saint church in 1839. Shortly afterward, he served as a missionary in Vermont.
In 1844, Wheelock tried to convince Governor Thomas Ford of Illinois to release Joseph Smith, Jr. from Carthage Jail Wheelock had given Smith the gun which he had when the mob attacked the jail at Carthage.
In the early 1850s, Wheelock served a mission in England and presided over the Manchester, Liverpool and Preston Conferences. In 1853, Wheelock was a counselor to Isaac Haight, president of the camp of Latter-day Saints waiting to set out from Keokuk, Iowa. Wheelock then was the captain of one of the pioneer companies that crossed the plains to Utah Territory. In 1856, Wheelock was part of a rescue party Brigham Young sent to assist the stranded Martin Handcart Company near the Sweetwater River.
From his history he tells of the Martin rescue:
I attended the October conference of 1856. When conference was opened President Young arose and said: "There are a number of our people on the plains who have started to come with handcarts; they will need help and I want twenty teams to be ready by morning with two men to each team to go out and meet them”. . . .Brother Young called upon everyone present to lend a hand in fitting up these teams. As I was going out with the crowd, Brother Wells spoke to me, saying, "You are a good hand for the trip; get ready..."

I had a saddle horse. We were instructed to get everything we could ready and rendezvous between the Big and Little Mountains, a short day's drive out from Salt Lake. … A better outfit and one more adapted to the work before us I do not think could have possibly been selected if a week had been spent in fitting up. Besides the wagons and teams, several men went horseback. We had good teams and provisions in great abundance. But best of all, those going were alive to the work and were of the best material possible for the occasion. . . .

The weather soon became cold and stormy. We traveled hard, never taking time to stop for dinner. On getting into camp all were hungry and willing to help. ..There was some expectation of meeting the first train, Brother Willie's, on or about Green River. We began to feel anxiety about the emigrants, as the weather was now cold and stormy, and we, strong men with good outfits, found the nights severe. What must be the condition of those we were to meet! Many old men and women, little children, mothers with nursing babes, crossing the plains pulling handcarts. Our hearts began to ache when we reached Green River and yet no word of them. Here an express was sent on ahead with a light wagon to meet and cheer the people up.
At the South Pass, we encountered a severe snowstorm. After crossing the divide we turned down into a sheltered place on the Sweetwater. While in camp and during the snowstorm two men were seen on horseback going west. They were hailed. On reaching us they proved to be Brothers Willie and J. B. Elder. They reported their company in a starving condition at their camp then east of Rocky Ridge…
We started immediately through the storm to reach Brother Willie's camp. On arriving we found them in a condition that would stir the feelings of the hardest heart. They were in a poor place, the storm having caught them where fuel was scarce. They were out of provisions and really freezing and starving to death. The morning after our arrival nine were buried in one grave. We did all we could to relieve them. The boys struck out on horseback and dragged up a lot of wood; provisions were distributed and all went to work to cheer the sufferers. . . .

The handcart company was moved over to a cove in the mountains for shelter and fuel, a distance of two miles from the fort. The wagons were banked near the fort. It became impossible to travel further without reconstruction or help. . . .

"It was a trying time that day in leaving the ravine. One perplexing difficulty was to determine who should ride, for many must still walk, though . . . for most of the company the cart operation was gone. There was considerable crying of [those] whom the wagons could not accommodate with a ride. One of the relief party remarked that in all the mobbings and drivings of the 'Mormons,' he had seen nothing like it. Cyrus H. Wheelock could scarcely refrain from shedding tears, and he declared that he would willingly give his own life if that would save the lives of the emigrants."

The character Bodil Mortensen's father, who is called Peter Mortensen was really Niels Mortensen in real life. Here is h...
07/16/2012

The character Bodil Mortensen's father, who is called Peter Mortensen was really Niels Mortensen in real life. Here is his picture and both Bodil's and her father's story. To my knowledge, no picture of her exists but this is his picture. Note: In the play the Nielsen's son is called "Little Jens." In reality, his name was Niels Jensen, because of patronymic naming customs--called Niels Nielsen in this country.

BODIL MALENE MORTENSEN
Age: 10
Willie Handcart Company 1856
NIELS MORTENSEN
Age: 39
Unknown company 1857

Bodil's parents lovingly combined her first and middle names into the nickname "Balena." She was the fourth of their five children. Bodil's father, Niels, was a weaver by trade. He also dug wells. When the LDS missionaries first came to Denmark, Bodil's oldest sister, Anne Margrette, was the first in the family to become interested. At first her parents did not approve, but they later investigated the Church and were baptized along with Anne and their son, Hans Peter, in November of 1852. When Niels heard Elder Erastus Snow preach about the gathering of Israel, he told his children he always believed that he was one of the children of Israel being gathered to the mountains.
In 1856, Bodil emigrated in the care of her parents' friends, Jens and Else Nielsen. Bodil's older sister, Anne Margrette, had crossed the plains and mountains to Utah the previous year. Bodil's parents, Niels and Maren Mortensen, and other siblings, were still in Denmark, planning to make the journey the following season.
Peter Madsen, one of the Danish Saints in the Willie Company, kept a daily diary for most of the trip. He wrote, "The saints were joyous and bid the saints of Copenhagen a hearty farewell... The company was happy and thankful; a good spirit and order prevailed." One of Bodil's responsibilities was to care for Niels Nielson, the 5-year-old son of Jens and Else. This must have been quite an adventure for Bodil and Niels. Bodil and Niels had happy experiences, as well as the tragic. Imagine their delight as they watched "many seahorses" [dolphins] appear on the water during the month of June. After arriving in America, they traveled by train to Iowa City, where the Saints built more handcarts, sewed their tents and prepared for the trek to their promised Valley. Bodil turned 11 years old while crossing the State of Iowa, during the first 300 miles of their 1,300 mile handcart trek.
Winter storms began early that year and slowed the travel of the Company. By October 20th the company was stopped near the sixth crossing of the Sweetwater River and the base of Rocky Ridge. The cold was intense. The only remaining provisions were a few hard sea biscuits left over from the ocean voyage. The pioneers were in a very weakened condition. Captain Willie and Joseph Elder left to go and find the rescue wagons to get some help. The rescue party had also stopped to wait out the storm. Captain Willie returned with some help and the company resumed their march on the 22nd of Oct. What lay immediately ahead on the following day was the treacherous ascent of Rocky Ridge to the summit, and then on to the camp at Rock Creek Hollow. The distance was about 15 miles, including a two-mile stretch in which the trail rose more than 700 feet in elevation. A howling October snowstorm blinded nine-year-old Bodil Mortensen as she climbed.
Bodil made that fifteen-mile journey with the rest of the Willie Company on October 23, 1856. The forced march (they could not stop or they would freeze to death) took some of the pioneers twenty-seven hours. While adults wrestled handcarts up the steep trail, Bodil and others fought their way through the snow, wind, and freezing temperatures to get to Rock Creek. Sister Nielson was struggling to pull her husband, who had become unable to walk, in the handcart. Many families became separated that day as some lagged behind or went ahead. Exhausted and weak, Bodil and Niels struggled on their way, Bodil hoping to reach Salt Lake City to be with her sister.
In an account written by Christina Madsen, daughter of Ole Madsen who also died at the Rock Creek camp, we learn that Bodil "sat down by the side of the road... she was so hungry, she also died that same night. They who died that night were laid in a small ditch with their boots or shoes on and covered."
From the accounts written by various Peder and Helena Mortensen family members (unrelated family in the Willie Handcart Company), Helena Mortensen lovingly washed the bodies of those who died at Rock Creek that night, and then covered them with her hand-woven flax linens sheets that she had brought from Denmark. 10-year-old Mette Mortensen wrote that Bodil and Niels died by their family's fire. Little Niels Nielson was just five days short of his sixth birthday. What surely began as a grand adventure for these two children, came to a sad but finally blessed end. Before the thirteen bodies were covered, James Hurren held up his eight-year-old daughter, Mary, to let her see one of her playmates, possibly Bodil, lying among the dead.
Bodil's father, Niels (39), mother, Maren (45), brother, Hans Peter (12), and sister, Maren (7), emigrated to Utah the following year, leaving Denmark before they could be notified of Bodil's death. From the outfitting point in Iowa, Niels was a teamster for a prairie schooner and four oxen owned by a friend, John Lund. The Lund family occupied the back of the wagon and the Mortensen's the front. It was late in the fall when they arrived, expecting to find their daughters together. Bodil's mother never had vigorous health, and she became despondent upon learning the sad news. She never recovered from the loss of her child, and is said to have suffered a nervous breakdown before her death in 1862. The family had settled in Parowan, Utah, at this time.
Niels became a farmer, but continued also as a weaver. He helped to set up the first looms for weaving in the western part of the United States. He made beautiful tablecloths and suit material for clothing. His charity for others was well known in his community. The farm house opened to the main road. When Niels saw a vehicle approaching in the evening, he would go to the road, wave one of the two canes he had as he got older, and as the vehicle stopped, his standard greeting was, "Vell, vell. Vhere are you going? Vhen will you be back? Is your mother alive? Is your father dead? Vill you come in to have something to eat?" Passing hobos also felt welcome there. They marked the front fence to tell others coming later that they could get a good meal in this house. Niels also housed and fed several Indian boys for several years. Hopefully the years of service he gave helped to soften his heartache at the loss of his little ‘Balena.'

Biographical sketch written by Jolene Allphin using the following sources:
Diary of Peter Madsen, translated by Don H. Smith in 1972, LDS Church Archives
DUP Museum records, Parowan, Utah
Ole and Ane Madsen family records in possession of author
Peder and Helena Mortenson family records records in possession of author
History of Iron County Mission, Parowan, Utah by Mrs. Luella Adams Dalton,
(I Walked to Zion; Susan Arrington Madsen)

Ellen Pucell UnthankAge at time of crossing: 9Martin Handcart Company 1856Ellen (Nellie) Pucell Unthank was born in Pres...
07/15/2012

Ellen Pucell Unthank
Age at time of crossing: 9
Martin Handcart Company 1856

Ellen (Nellie) Pucell Unthank was born in Preston, Lancashire, England, where her parents were among the first people in that nation to accept the teachings of the restored gospel as taught by Wilford Woodruff and his associates.
According to an account by William R. Palmer in the April 1994 Instructor, Ellen's mother, Margaret Perren Pucell, attended the first meeting of the Church in England. She was baptized in the River Ribble, and in August 1837, was probably the second woman in England to be confirmed a member of the Church. A month later, Margaret Pucell's husband, Samuel, was baptized.
Desiring to join the saints in their Rocky Mountain Zion, the couple qualified for help under the Perpetual Emigration Fund. With their two daughters, Maggie, 14, and Nellie, 9, they sailed from Liverpool May 2, 1856, in the company of 856 other Latter-day Saints. Of the five children they brought to America, the three oldest stayed in Boston. Only their two youngest daughters, ages 14 and 9, made the trek with them.
They joined the Martin Handcart Company which got a late start and was caught in an early winter with too few provisions along with the Willie handcart company and the Hodgetts and Hunt Wagon companies.
The Martin handcart company and the Willie company just ahead of it had been passed by missionaries returning from England. When the missionaries arrived in Salt Lake Valley, their leader, Franklin D. Richards, alerted President Brigham Young to the plight of the emigrants.
President Gordon B. Hinckley described what happened as this family approached and then crossed the Platte for the last time:
“Margaret became sick. Her husband lifted her onto the cart. They were now climbing in elevation toward the Continental Divide, and it was uphill all the way. Can you see this family in your imagination?—the mother too sick and weak to walk, the father thin and emaciated, struggling to pull the cart, as the two little girls push from behind with swirling, cold winds about them, and around them are hundreds of others similarly struggling.
"They came to a stream of freezing water. The father, while crossing, slipped on a rock and fell. Struggling to his feet, he reached the shore, wet and chilled. Sometime later he sat down to rest. He quietly died, his senses numbed by the cold. His wife died five days later. I do not know how or where their frozen bodies were buried in that desolate, white wilderness. I do know that the ground was frozen and that the snow was piled in drifts and that the two little girls were now orphans."
The Martin company was found almost buried in snow 16 miles above the Platte River Bridge in Wyoming. The handcart pioneers were rescued and carried by wagon to Salt Lake City, where they were cared for.
The two orphaned Pucell girls suffered badly from frostbite. It was necessary to amputate the feet and lower legs of Nellie. Poor surgical conditions necessitated the use of a butcher knife and carpenter's saw, without the aid of anesthetic.
The bones stuck out through the ends of the stumps and in pain she waddled through the rest of her life on her knees. In poverty and pain she reared a family of six children but never asked for favors of pity or charity because of her tragic handicap. William was a poor man and unable to provide fully for his family; so Nellie did all she could for herself. She took in washings. Kneeling by a tub on the floor she scrubbed the clothes to whiteness on the washboard. She knit stockings to sell, carded wool and crocheted table pieces.
Nellie and Maggie came with handcart friends to Cedar City, Utah, where they married. Nellie became the wife of William Unthank and bore him six children. In poverty, she did all she could to make ends meet: taking in washing, knitting stockings to sell, carding wool and crocheting table pieces. Her bishop and Relief Society sometimes assisted her. She repaid the kindness once a year when she and her children washed the meetinghouse.
She kept her home immaculately clean. While a more permanent house was being built, she lived with her children in a log cabin, and she kept the dirt floor as smooth as pavement by continually dampening and scraping it.
She seldom accepted gifts or charity from friends or neighbors unless she could do a bundle of darning or mending to repay the kindness. The bishop and the Relief Society sometimes gave a little assistance which Nellie gratefully accepted, but once a year, to even the score, she took her children and cleaned the meeting house. The boy carried water, the girls washed the windows and Nellie, on her knees, scrubbed the floor. This heroic woman gave to William Unthank, a posterity to perpetuate his name in the earth and he gave her a home and a family to give comfort and care in her old age.
In an Instructor article, William R. Palmer wrote his personal recollection as follows:
"In memory I recall her wrinkled forehead, her soft dark eyes that told of toil and pain and suffering, and the deep grooves that encircled the corners of her strong mouth. But in that face there was no trace of bitterness or railings on her fate. There was patience and serenity, for in spite of her handicap she had earned her keep and justified her existence. She had given more to family, friends and to the world than she had received."
She died in Cedar City at the age of 69.

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