Search results
Pioneer Stories. The Convert Immigrants ... about the Journey of the Mormon Battalion. Winter Quarters. Brigham Young. An American Moses. Historical Information about ...
- Miracles Helped Pioneers Overcome Obstacles, Move Forward ...
Many Mormon pioneers recorded miracles that blessed them...
- Tales from the Trail - Church History Museum
Tales from the Trail. Christine T. Cox, Manager, Visitor and...
- Church History Tells Stories of Extraordinary Pioneer Youth
A demographic analysis of the Church History website’s...
- Miracles Helped Pioneers Overcome Obstacles, Move Forward ...
- Having Strength Through Trials
- “Loyalty to Her Faith”: Enduring The Journey to The End
- Trail of Sacrifice
- Blessings of The Priesthood
- Laughter Amid Trials
- Their Faith in God Guided Their Footsteps
- Prayers That Were Answered
- Miracles: Nothing Is Impossible
- Other Amazing, Strong, and Faithful Pioneer Women
- Pioneer Women: “Where Are These Women Now?”
How the Lord Helped One Pioneer Woman Overcome Depression
Pioneer women faced much loss, but they continued on their journey in faith towards Zion. Elizabeth Jackson is one such example. Her husband passed away after the Martin Handcart company crossed the Platte River, leaving her to travel alone while caring for her children. Elizabeth became very depressed as she dealt with this hardship. Then one evening, she dreamed of her husband. He said, “cheer up, Elizabeth, deliverance is at hand,” and the next day, rescue wagons from Salt Lake found the M...
Giving When She Had Little To Give
Sometimes strength can be seen in compassion, especially when one has little to give like Emily Hill. She was converted to the Church when she was only 12 years old and was soon followed by her 15 year old sister, Julia. Their parents refused to let them be baptized or attend church, but the sisters would sneak out to sacrament meeting whenever they could. When they were older, the Hill sisters worked hard and saved enough money to travel to America. They joined the Willie Handcart company an...
Suffering For The Gospel Rather Than Living Without It
Many people tried to persuade pioneer women to give up their journey to Zion. Elizabeth Cheney experienced this pressure at Winter Quarters. She received a letter from her parents in which they offered her any sum of money if she would denounce the Church and come home. This was her response: Eliza is truly an example of a virtuous women by her strong faith in the gospel despite the trials she would face (General Conference Talk “Pioneer Shoes Through the Ages”).
Choosing Between Faith and Marriage
Agnes Caldwell remembers Christena McNeil, a young woman who traveled with her family. Agnes’s mother, older brother, and Christena stopped at a fort in Laramie, Wyoming, in hopes of trading some trinkets for food. The officer there told Sister Caldwell that he had no use for the trinkets, but guided her to other booths where she may find someone who did. While Sister Caldwell was gone, the officer asked Christena to stay with him. He proposed to her, showing her how rich he was and saying th...
Faith in a Prophet’s Promise
Mary Goble was only 13 years old when she left England for America. While trekking west, three of her siblings and her mother passed away. At the end of the journey, Mary and her remaining two siblings all had frozen feet. She recalls seeing tears in Brigham Young’s eyes at the sight of them. Mary’s feet were badly damaged from frostbite. The doctor wanted to cut them off at the ankle, but Brigham Young told him to cut only her toes off, promising Mary that no more would have to be removed. H...
Mothers of Zion: Giving Birth on the Trail
Perhaps those who sacrificed the most were the mothers who trekked west. Many had to bear and bury children along the trail. Eliza R. Snow says that on the first evening of the journey, nine children were born. She also recalls a later birth that happened during a rainstorm in a crude tent. Several sisters held dishes to catch raindrops with in order to keep the mother and her infant dry. Zina D.H. Young, a wife of Brigham Young, gave birth in the back of a covered wagon. She halted the march...
Leaving Her Family, Losing Her Husband, But Never Her Faith
Her mother offered her clothes and her brother offered her money if she would not leave them and her country for the gospel. It was a difficult choice to make, to leave one’s family, but Ann Coope Harvey did. She says: She sailed to New Orleans and took a steamboat to St. Louis. While there, she boarded with an old woman and became ill because of the change in food. A minister also boarded there and refused to come to eat because he thought Ann had cholera. Ann told the woman that she felt th...
Faith in the Power of the Priesthood
Mary Bathgate and Isabella Park were both over 60 years old when they traveled to Utah. They were good friends and neither had ridden in a wagon the whole trip. While traveling near Fort Bridger, a rattlesnake bit Mary’s leg and they sent a girl ahead to camp for help. One of the priesthood brethren said that “when we got to her she was quite sick, but said that there was power in the Priesthood, and she knew it.” They treated the wound and gave her a blessing. They placed Mary in a wagon to...
How Priesthood Blessings Helped Her Oxen Journey On
Mary Fielding Smith was a stalwart example of a faithful pioneer. She was the widow of Hyrum Smith and traveled west with her brother Joseph Fielding and her son Joseph F. Smith. One morning, they awoke to find several of their oxen missing. Joseph and his nephew searched for them, but had no success. When they returned to camp, they found Mary kneeling in prayer. Afterwards, she went to look for the oxen herself. She walked along, even when a herdsmen stopped to tell her where he had last se...
A Mother Who Made Others Laugh
Though the pioneers suffered through many hardships on their trek west, they did manage to have some good times and laughter along the way. Sarah Loader Holman remembers a time between when her handcart company had run out of food and the rescue wagons from Salt Lake had not yet arrived. It was so cold that when the family tried to drive the tent pegs, the ground was frozen too hard to do so. However, the tent had gotten wet earlier and froze into shape while they were holding it up. The next...
A Girl and Her “Many Little Romances”
Margaret Judd enjoyed her journey to Zion as she had “many little romances.” Before she left Nauvoo, her “true lover” met her under their trysting tree. They promised each other “eternal constancy, for four years at least,” when he would come of age. Forty years later, Margaret met with him again after both were married and had children. Margaret says that “there were several very nice young men in our company.” On the fourth of July, when she and her sister were washing laundry at a stream,...
Spinning Round and Round
Rachel Lee walked near a covered wagon when a gust of wind blew her skirts about and wrapped them around one of the wagon wheels. She tried to pull them out, but soon they were wound so tightly that “she could only grasp two spokes in her hands, her feet between two others, and make a complete revolution with the wheel.” Her yelling soon stopped the wagon and brought help from the other pioneers. They did not want to cut her clothing since they had little to spare, so instead they had Rachel...
The Voice of The Holy Ghost Gave Her Strength
Susannah Stone was the only member of her family to join the Church. At the age of 25, despite the protests of family and friends, she left to go to America and joined the Willie Handcart company. She says that “only once did my courage fail.” Her feet had become frosted over and she stopped and “sat down to await the end.” When she reached camp, Susannah found a search party ready to go look for her. She continued on the trek, and the day she reached the valley was also the day she met her f...
Having Faith in a Healing Poultice
One day, Teresa Hasting Judd’s family cow, Bossy, went lame and could hardly walk. The family had already lost one of their cows and couldn’t afford to lose another. That evening, Teresa made a poultice and put it on Bossy’s hip. The next morning, when her husband checked on the cow, he informed Teresa that she had put the poultice on the wrong hip. Teresa’s daughter writes that “Mother said, ‘Never mind; it’s all right, it has gone clean through;’ and sure enough, Bossy limped a very little...
Faithful to The End
Mary Murray Murdoch, also known as Wee Granny, is a pioneer ancestor of my own. Mary joined the church in Scotland, and even though she was 73 years old, weighed 90 pounds, and was only 4 foot 7 inches tall (hence the nickname “Wee Granny”), she was strong in spirit and joined the Martin Handcart company to travel to Utah where her son, John, already lived. But Wee Granny never made it to Utah. She became ill and died near Chimney Rock in Nebraska. Though Wee Granny didn’t make it to the vall...
Prayer and Faith Making a Miracle of Two Sea Biscuits
Ann Jewell Rowley and her family joined the Church in England. But before they could leave for America, her husband died, leaving her with their seven children, all under the age of twelve. It isn’t easy to feed eight people along the trail, and at one point they had no food. Ann hated to see her children pull the rawhide strips off the wagon to chew on, so she prayed to God for help. Ann remembered that she had saved two, small, hard sea biscuits from the passage over the Atlantic. She says:...
Prayers of Black Pioneer Women
Jane Manning James was one of the first African-American Saints. She wasn’t born a slave, but a servant of a household in Connecticut. She and several other members of her family joined the Church and Jane led nine of them on an 800 mile journey to Nauvoo. These early black saints showed amazing faith in prayer. Along the journey, their shoes became worn to nothing and soon their feet bled. Jane writes that “we stopped and united in prayer to the Lord, we asked God the Eternal Father to heal...
The Support of Others Helped Her to Zion
Mary Ann Stearns Frost was a widow when she married Parley P. Pratt. At the time when many of the Saints left to go west, Parley P. Pratt was serving a mission in South America and Mary did not have the means to travel to Utah. A.W. Babbitt visited the family before leaving for Zion and informed Mary that he had put a hundred dollars in the emigration fund for her. John A. Kelting also visited before returning to his home in Philadelphia and told Mary that he too had put a hundred dollars in...
Returning From the Dead
Fanny Fry was only 16 when she and her siblings left England. When passing by the Elk Horn river, her feet became so swollen she could not wear shoes. The swelling would eventually go away, but her feet were so sore from alkali that she did not wear shoes for the rest of the journey. One day, Captain Rowley assigned her and two others to pull a handcart laden with six people’s luggage. It was very difficult to pull, and Captain Rowley kept calling them lazy. Suddenly, Fanny fell under the car...
God’s Hand in Her Journey
Margaret McNeil traveled from Scotland when she was 12 years old. When the journey first began, the McNeil’s oxen ran away, and her four year old brother, James, became ill with measles. But Margaret’s mother wanted her children to go with the rest of the company. She strapped James to Margaret’s back with a shawl, promising to catch up with them later. Margaret would carry her brother most of the way to Utah. Margaret also had the responsibility of taking care of the family cow. One evening,...
The Love to Bear Another’s Burdens
Jens and Elsie Nielson were a prosperous Danish family when they joined the Church. They gave up much of their money to travel to Utah and to help others along the way. The Nielsons suffered many trials on the trail, including the deaths of their only child, Niels, and Bodil Mortensen, a young girl who had been placed in their care. At one point on the journey, Jens’ feet were frozen by the bitter cold and he could not walk. He told Elsie to “leave me by the trail in the snow to die, and you...
Walking Alone in The Gospel
Before the trek to Utah, 28 year old Phoebe Carter had to be a pioneer in her own right. She lived in Scarboro, Maine and wanted to join the saints in Kirtland, Ohio. Her family and friends all pressured her to not go. Her own mother said that “she would rather see me buried than going thus alone into the heartless world” and begged her to return if she found that the Church was untrue. When Phoebe left her family, her only goodbyes were written ones because she didn’t trust herself to leave...
Having the Strength of Ten Men
In 1880, Arabella “Belle” Smith became a member of a group of pioneers traveled to settle the San Juan Mission in the southeastern part of Utah. However, their situation looked grim with a fast approaching winter and a large group of people who did not have the supplies to wait through it. The company decided to take a risky short cut instead. The short cut was the Hole-In-The-Rock, a narrow crevice in the wall of Glen Canyon. It was a very precarious route to take, with a 2,000 foot drop at...
The stories of these incredible pioneer women show us how amazing, strong, and faithful women can be. These women displayed great courage and faith in the face of adversity, and they were made stronger for it. Joseph F. Smith is quoted in the General Conference talk “Developing Inner Strength”speaking of pioneer women saying: We are all pioneers of...
- Abby Thorne
On April 14, 1910, Hannah, then 75 years old, brought together a group of 50 women at her Salt Lake home at 381 4th Avenue and formed them into a group determined never to forget our pioneer heritage. That organization is known today as the Daughters of Utah Pioneers. This story happened near Fort Laramie, Wyoming.
Jul 22, 2018 · There are many well-known pioneer stories about women, but the Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel database lists over 28,000 women as crossing the plains to reach Utah. In an act of great faith, many of these women left their homes and families and lost loved ones along the way.
People also ask
How did Mormon pioneers experience life?
What percentage of Mormon pioneers were younger than 21?
Who sacrificed the most on the Mormon Trail?
How many Mormon pioneers did Brigham Young rescue?
Related searches
