| Show PIONEER recollections it is comforting to the surviving pioneers and to the descendants of the others to see that their labors are receiving just not to say generous recognition for weary years they toiled on their pressing necessities admitting of little or no rests rest and no prospect in sight of their efforts and the sufferings and privations they endured ever being recognized and appreciated by the world generally there was little of a nature to encourage those struggling in the solitude of desolation true a few endowed with prophetic vision above their fellows occasionally peered into the future and spoke encouraging words of the final result ot the labors then being performed but such words could not always satisfy craving stomachs or impart rest to weary limbs the date of the pleasant outcome was always more or less uncertain and not a few supposed it to be beyond mortal life when earthly appreciation might not be specia specially 1 ly valuable success usually commands respect but had failure ani and consequent disaster attended the efforts of those settling great salt lake valley what a fearful responsibility would have rested upon pon the leaders in the movement and TO how w easily all would have fully comprehended the folly ot of such an undertaking thousands lully fully believe that hea deaveny veny inspiration guided the settlement of this intermountain region and it if so 1 how much the leaders in it are to be re vered revered but it it is is th thought ou that pluck worldly wisdom and goo good luck accomplished i it t all what a sublime combination in inception and result especially considering the condit on ot the mormon people at the time it is no easy matter when hungry to enthuse over a ted ous job yet during the fi st two years of siahs settlement but little murmuring was indulged in not a tithe in proportion to population as after food became plentiful possibly many feared to murmur lest the lord might leave them to natural consequences quen ces and they all perish whatever the me cause it is doubtful doubt tul whether in the history of the world so little murmuring in proportion to numbers was at any other time indulged indulge cl in the writer yet has vivid recollections of the journey from eastern illinois to the missouri river in 1846 and to great salt lake valley in 1847 his fathers family cro crossed sed the missouri river a few miles above nauvoo soon after the battle that resulted in driving the remaining i na mormons cormons out of that pace how we weh it is remembered seeing the groups 0 digressed human beings scattered along the roads in iowa who had bad been driven out ot of nauvoo though but a boy my sympathies were much aroused by what I 1 saw and heard of the destitution and sufferings rings of these poor exiles the thought ot of which at this late day even produces an aching ot the heart and a moistening of the eye how they pulled through the winter goodness only knows and I 1 have olten often thought I 1 aou d like to see some of them and an dearn bearn how they fared possibly kindhearted kind hearted people gave them employment and sustenance te in journeying to the rocky mountains the follo folio wing summer there were numbers ot of women with wih families depending them fai management some ot of whose husbands were in the mormon battalion batalion in the military service of their country others were with the vanguard of the pioneers and some had gone over the dark river nobler specimens of womanhood would be hard to find leading a family bamily day by bv day week after week and through many weary months in a dragging in g with no nothing hing but womanly fortitude and faith in god upon which to rely for sustaining strength requires womanly character of the highest order blessings upon the heads beads of all those noble mothers in israel about once a week especially in the fore part of the journey a halt was made blacksmith lambson and aids set the loose wagon tires the women did the accumulated wash religious reli gous ser vices were held more or less visiting of acquaintances in different companies or camps was indulged in and a general time of recuperation was had notwithstanding the poverty 0 of f the people no companies crossing the plains have ever presented a neater appearance pe arance this may seem to be a positive assertion but my knowledge of such m bitters generally and of those companies particularly warrants me I 1 think in mahig making it the r clothing was of serviceable material adapted to the requirements of working people but was kept unusually clean under the cir cum unavoidable dust of travel etc and no ridiculous patching is remembered anything attempting to represent those cum companies otherwise than stated above would be a gross caricature though most of those people were in poverty they were always respectable spec table in appearance and conduct an oath would not be beard from one months month s end to that of another it seemed strange how well animals worked the first atme hi ched in A boy yoked joked up a large heifer one morning put her on the lead of 0 the team and the creature worked as if she had been accustomed cus tomed to it I 1 dont remember in an instance of trouble with an unbroken anim animal al during the entire journey and many ot of them were pressed into service families especially the children became much attached to their working animals but the sad part of it was that at the journeys end the more thrifty pets and generally the favorites getting into better condition than the rest had to be butchered first to furnish food for their friends I 1 remember sorrowful scenes on such occasions and one man even said it seemed almost like murder when he be was compelled to so kill an ox some oxen would allow boys to ride on their backs which often was a great convenience in crossing creeks sloughs etc and at times in saving the boys bare feet in my minds eye I 1 yet see the big barefooted boy with two or more yoke going to work perched upon the back of a hindmost ox cracking his whip and gee hawing old buck as occasion required in those days boy exper s in in handling and caring for oxen thought newly arrived englishmen very cruel cruet ion on account of the manner they in their lack of knowledge of such matters treated oxen when an englishman learned how bow and did handle and care for oxen properly the boys said he was civilized and almost as good as an american how very hungry the growing boy and no doubt the growing girl also became years after the writers father reproach uly ret referred erred to a time when in plowing for their first crop raised in utah a sk eleon was disturbed it so affected father that he unhitched the team and suspended farming operations for the remainder of the day A vision crossed his mind during which he got the impression that the skeleton was of an individual of distinction in speak S after of how he was affected he be said and you seem to care 55 0 o it had bad been or anything else about ita no doubt I 1 d did id exhibit unseemly impatience Mpa impatience tience on slacking up in anything likely to produce something to eat aerially c ally bread I 1 am fully prepared to me believe i that at that particular time I 1 would not haye hesitated to plow up acres res of the remains of old worthies to obtain batain a single pan of flour or a meal efficiently square to fill up all the in recesses of my craving stomach W P |
