Transcript

“People nowadays don’t know anything about traveling.”

Take it from someone who knows.  She is Mrs. Mary S. Sleater, Utah pioneer of 1856, who observed her 89^th birthday Friday.

Smiling and alert, Mrs. Sleater recalled events of the trip across the plains when she was 7 years old.

“We arrived here in December of 1856, after a really terrible trip,” she said.

“We Came through Parley’s canyon in the deep snow and, believe me, we were nearly frozen when we arrived.  Our Oxen had starved to death because they could find no food through the snow and we were stuck there in the canyon until teams were sent out to our aid from Salt Lake City.

“They did not send enough teams from the city to take all the wagons in, so some had to stay there in the canyon for several days until the animals could make a return trip.

“Those of us who stayed for the second trip were rationed a biscuit a day until the biscuits gave out, then we ceased to eat.  There were one or two of the oxen left, but they were so thin there was no meat on them.

“The men in the party killed them one night and we boiled the bones for soup the next day.

“It was very thin soup,” she recalled.