Transcript

When we got to New York, we were put into box cars and traveled as far as the railroad went at that time. From there on across the plains we traveled with ox teams and wagons. I sat by my mother [Ane Sophia Jensen Breinholt] the day she died, but little did I realize what it meant. My mother died at 11 A.M on 4 Sept. 1868 near Benton, [Wyoming Territory]. The company stopped and the wagons were formed in a circle just as they always did at night when making camp. They searched through our trunks and found two white sheets in which they wrapped her after washing her. They sewed them about her tight and held a short service for her. One song they sang was, Come, Come Ye Saints. They took her back a ways, through the brush to bury her. After placing her in the grave they piled brush high on it and set fire to it so the wild animals could not detect she was buried there.

The John Holman Company with which they traveled left Benton about August 31 and arrived in Salt Lake 25 Sept. 1868. Some of the children were very sick, expecially Hans and George, but they traveled on and soon recovered after arriving at Ephraim.