Transcript
Transcript for Simons, Fanny Fry, [Journal], in Susan Arrington Madsen, I Walked to Zion [1994], 77-80
There were fifty-eight handcarts, with an average of three to a cart. Our rations when we started was a pint of flour a day, and we had some bacon and soap. These items soon gave out. We had to take a cold water wash for the want of a vessel to warm the water in. And not having soap, we were worse than ever.
At the Elk Horn River, my feet were so swollen I could not wear my shoes. Then when the swelling went out, my feet were so sore from the alkali that I never had on a pair of shoes after that for the entire journey.
After a while we recovered our usual spirits and enjoyed ourselves evenings around camp visiting each other, with singing and other amusements. There was one song we would sing which would make the shivers creep over me:
Do they miss me at home? Do they miss me?
It would be an assurance most dear
To know at this moment some loved one
Were saying, “I wish he was here,”
To know that the group near the fireside
Were thinking of me as I roam.
Oh, it would be joy beyond measure
To know that they missed me at home.
I recollect one day the captain put me to a cart with six people’s luggage on and only three to pull it–a woman, a lad of sixteen, and I, seventeen–and there was nine days’ bread. All grown people were allowed twenty pounds of luggage apiece and their cooking utensils besides. That made quite a load for us. I know it was the hardest day’s work I ever remember doing in all my life before or since. We had to pull up quite a long hill, and part of it was steep. In climbing we got behind one of the teams for the oxen to help us, for it was all we could do to keep it moving. Captain Rowley came up and called us lazy, and that I did not consider we were at all.
While pulling this heavy load, I looked and acted strange. The first thing my friend Emmie knew I had fallen under the cart, and before they could stop it, the cart had passed over me, and I lay at the back of it on the ground.
When my companions got to me, I seemed perfectly dead. Emmie could not find any pulse at all, and there was not a soul around. They were, she thought, all ahead, so she stood thinking what to do when Captain Rowley came up to us. “What have you got there, Emmie?” he said. “Oh my, Fanny is dead,” she said. It frightened him, so he got off his horse and examined me closely but could not find any life at all. He asked Emmie to stay with me and he would go and stop the company and send a cart back for me, which he did.
When I came to myself, my grave was dug two feet deep, and I was in a tent. The sisters had sewed me up to the waist in my blanket, ready for burial. I opened my eyes and looked at them.
I was weak for some time after. I did not fully recover during the rest of the journey. Through it all I found I had a great many friends in the company.
Soon, the handcart company betgan [began] running out of food. They made some soup that made everyone ill, and the entire company was in a very desperate condition. They decided to stop and camp until they could obtain more food.
On the morning of the fourth day after camping, one of the brethren related a dream he had that night. He told us that the Church teams would come that day, and just before we could see them we would hear a gun fired and they would come in sight. I think it was in the afternoon that we heard a gun shot, and in a minute the teams came in sight, six in number.
Oh, I will never forget that time, especially the next few minutes; they seem so plain to me even now. I think that some of the faces of the men are stamped on my memory forever. The teams came trotting down the hill. The wagon master decided he would have some fun with us, so he told the boys to shout “Hurrah for Pikes Peak” and then drive on past us. They did so. Oh, how our hearts failed us! We had all got out to the road to meet them and had made an opening in the circle of carts for them to drive in. Men and women threw themselves on the ground, begging for a crust for their last meal. It was a sight that none who witnessed it will ever forget. The wagon master, poor fellow, was melted to tears.
“Boys![”] he said, “I can’t stand this; drive in.” They drove in, and then we began to scramble into the wagons. “Stand back, brethren and sisters, until we can get the horses away, and then we will give you all you can eat.” The teamster told us when that was gone to come and get more and to eat plenty–that if they had not brought enough they could send to Salt Lake City and get more. We were to have all we could eat, and we did from that time to the end of the journey.
The day we were going over Big Mountain, I was learning to ride horseback, and a nice picture I looked, I can assure you: an old sunbonnet on my head all torn, an old jacket, and my petticoat tattered, and my feet dressed in rags. That was my costume. I was riding in advance of the entire company. I saw a wagon coming towards me; I rode on, and the wagon was passing all right. When about past, I saw some well-dressed ladies sitting in the wagon, and one of them cried, “There goes my sister.” The next thing I knew I was in the wagon in my darling sister’s arms. Oh the rapture of that moment! It was blessed to me, I will say. Sarah had arrived in Salt Lake City sometime since and got rested, and now Brother and Sister Eddington were coming with her to meet me and the handcart company. They had heard that the company would camp in the canyon that night, and they had come prepared to stay all night with us and fetch some of us. They brought with them a quarter of young beef, half a lamb, pies and cakes that I was to divide among my friends.