Transcript

While their party was crossing the plains to Utah, Mrs. Garner, then a girl of 16, was wooed by an Indian chief. They were camped on the banks of the Platte river in a covered wagon when the Sioux chief and his band rode into camp. Seeing the redheaded maiden and taking a great fancy to her, the chief offered to give one of his ponies for the girl. He had never before seen red hair and was fascinated.

Refused, the Sioux returned the next day and proposed to deliver two and then three horses for the girl. He also assured them that she would not be required to work as were the squaws who owed allegiance to the chief. Thoroughly alarmed, Mrs. Garner's mother hid her daughter under blankets in the wagon and left the camp as soon as possible.

Within sight of Salt Lake City, Mrs. Garner's party was snowed in at the mouth of Emigration canyon. "We didn't worry," Mrs. Garner once remarked, "for we know we were home." The company was rescued by a group of the established pioneers of Salt Lake valley.

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Mrs. Garner's father died in Nauvoo, Ill. and Mrs. Garner moved with her mother and five brothers and sisters to Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1850, two years later coming to Utah.