Transcript

. . . a train then took us some distance & then, I think it was that we laid over for 8 days out in the open. it was awfully hot[.] thier father built a hut with brush to shade us.

I remember I got so sunburnt I peald the skin off my arms. I think we were waiting for the ox teams to arive & take us across the plains.

My Brother [Peter Pedersen] was sick most all the way, father & Sister Bina [Bine] walked most all the time. one day the teamster told us all to get out of the wagon & walk. some bad road. My Brother being to sick & weak to walk & to[o] big to carry. so we left him in the wagon. just as we were going into camp we glanced back & saw a man carrying something heavy[,] it was my Brother[.] the man found him laying by a bush side of the road. the driver had put him out[.] one morning when I awoke father & mother were sitting by the bed crying. my Brother lay by me dead.

sometime after that when father & Bina were walking, there was some watter to cross; they were told to jump into one of the wagons. Bina jumped into a wagon where they had scarlet fever. she took sick & little Sister <took> it from her; so both were sick laying in bed in wagon. I sat by them & slept with them but I did not take it.

one afternoon father steped up to the wagon & asked how is little Ida, Mother said she had just been snoreing & sleeping so good, father said well look at her & she was dead. Sister Bina died just 8 days before we reached Salt Lake.

oh just think, three children buried [buried] in little shallow graves with just a peice of a sheet wraped around them by the way side. when we arived in S.L. Mother was so worn out with sorrow[,] <waiting on the sick children> & sitting in the wagon that she was all bent. could not straighten. People said she looked like 60 years <old>.