Transcript

The Prophet Joseph Smith said, before his death, that we would go to the Rocky Mountains. My brother, Edward Stevenson, went with a company in 1847. My husband and I and babe in June 1848. But before starting my sister’s [Elizabeth Bailey] husband, Job Bailey, was not ready to go with us. But he said he would come in two years. His father had joined the Strangites (an apostate group) and so there was no sign of my sister’s coming as her husband was preparing to go with his father. My brother, Edward, when with my husband in Illinois working for breadstuff would kneel upon the ground and pray Our Father in heaven to deliver our sister from apostasy and open the way for her. All of a sudden, her husband was taken violently ill and passed away the day her baby was born. The Doctor sent a note to my husband who went back and settled her business and brought her and her two little girls in time to start with us. We got along nicely. I will mention what looked like a sad accident: My husband was driving three yoke of oxen. I tried to jump out of the moving wagon but did not jump far enough and fell back in front of a hind wheel. My husband, as quick as thought, grabbed that wheel and held it from turning. My mother, [Elizabeth Stevenson] who was in the wagon, jumped out and ran to the leads and stopped them. He raised the wheel and said: “Get up if you can.” He was as white as a sheet. I got up and got the camphur for I thought I was fainting.

We lived two winters at Winter Quarters where my second child was born. From here we started in June 1848 and saw many herds of buffalo and many Indians. We were not frightened. I had all I could do caring for our children and cooking. We used buffalo chips for fuel. We would stop a day, once in a while and cook up all we could and do our washing. Evenings we would milk the cow and put dried bread in the milk and had this for supper. We were happy. We would get around our camp fires. We felt that we were going to a place of safety where we would not be mobbed and driven from one state to another as we had been. We were poor and had not time to get clothing and food for our needs before starting, that we really needed.

We arrived at our destination, Salt Lake City, October 12, 1840.