Transcript

. . . I fit up three wagons, two with three yoke of oxen and one horse wagon with provisions and clothing.  On the first day of May we started for the Valley.

In a short time after we started my Father [Ezekiel Lee] was stricken with Measles, soon afterward my Brother [Orrin Strong Lee] (a chunk of a boy only large enough to drive a team after it was hitched up) came down with them.  I had to drive and care for the whole outfit and do all the work plus my share of the Camp duty.  I did this until we got to the Green River, then my Father, with a few other horse teams, left the train and came on ahead to Salt Lake City.  I and my wife [Harriet Amelia Carter Lee] drove the two oxen teams in from Green River.  The Cholera broke out in our camp and we lost 15 that died from it.  I helped to lay out and bury them, as most of the folks were afraid to go near one that was sick, for fear of getting it.  We rolled them up in a quilt, as robes were out of the question.  I don’t think anyone that ever crossed the plains worked harder than I did, but I was blessed with health most of the way.

The day that we got to Ash Hollow, were we were going to cross the flat over on the north side, I was sick all day, and was sick through the night.  I did not know what was the matter.  Early in the morning the Captain came to my wagon and called for me to get up and help them hunt for a place to ford the river.  I told him that I was sick and could not get up.  He went away, and soon a man that had depended upon me all the way to help him in all the bad places, was a doctor, (and he did not know anything about handling teams), he came by and I told him that I was sick, so he said he would give me some medicine.  He gave me a large drink of brandy.  I got up and went into the river, staying in the water all that day till dark, getting the wagon train across.  I was coming down with the measles, so from then on I was out of my head with the fever for a week.  Apostle Hyde came up with our train, and finding the condition I was in, had the train stopped.  They took me out of the wagon, and he called the Brethren around and administered to me.  I was healed so that the next day I was able to drive my team and do my work.  In my younger days I was sick a great deal, but through the blessings of the Lord, after I joined the Church, and through the administrations of the Elders, I was healed, became strong and healthy, and have been so most of the time since, until the last three years.

We arrived in the Valley about the middle of October, having been on the Plains from the first of May till the middle of October.