Transcript

I was at Mount Pisgah when the Mormon Battalion was called. This separated many families and there was great sorrow among the Saints.

My mother and family, including my oldest sister, who had been married, had come on as far as Garden Grove. My sister Charilla Abbott Browning came with me expecting to have a home with our married sister Emily Abbott Bunker. My brother-in-law, Edward Bunker, had joined the Battalion and had to go to meet them. My sister was heartbroken.

I soon went to live with a Sister Baldwin. Sister Charilla went with a friend to Missouri. Mother and the rest of the children came in the fall and then our joy was full. I had to work out of doors in the snow. I came down with the pleurisy and was sick for three months. Mother taught school and it was necessary for her to cut wood to keep us warm. I came near dying and was just able to walk when my sister, Mrs. Bunker was confined. We had hard work to save them. Sister Charilla came in the spring. We cleared off three acres of land; planted it; and raised a good crop.

In the fall, we moved to Winter Quarters. In January Brother Bunker came in hungry and ragged. We soon got him some clothes and fed him. I worked out all winter. Went to Kimball's farm and while there, the family moved to Willow Creek, thinking I would get a chance to follow. One of Captain James Brown's boys and I started and had to walk all the way, twenty-five miles, carrying my bundle.

In the spring I helped Mr. Bunker on the farm. In the fall, I worked for Mr. McCenny, an Indian agent, and cooked for forty people three months. I then went home and started to work for a Mrs. Hammers. The Indians were having an epidemic of cholera. Father came to me in a dream and said, "Phebe, go home quickly." I told Mr. Hammers, but could not tell him why. I got the Indians to take me over the river and then had four miles to walk in order to reach home. The Hammers family was taken with cholera. Mrs. Hammer and her babe, little girl, and hired man died that night, so you see how father and the Lord watched over me.

On the 7th of July we started across the Plains in Brother George A. Smith's company. We had a good time until we reached Sweetwater. Then we had snowstorms and lost many cattle. We had to throw away trunks and baggage to make the loads lighter. I took malarial fever. We had to burn buffalo chips for wood. We saw many buffaloes.

Helped to care for John Henry Smith while crossing the plains. Reached Brown's Fort or Ogden on the 17th of October, 1849.