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Lessons I Learned from the Pioneers
By Rebecca | April 11, 2008
I came from a large family and always planned to have a large family of my own. When my husband and I became engaged we talked about our future family. Both of us loved children and we wanted to bring as many into our family as we could.
Soon after marriage, reality hit–hard. I became pregnant and was so sick that I had to be hospitalized. I had lost 12 pounds in 5 days. I left the hospital with strong medication and a permanent IV line in my right arm. One week later I miscarried the pregnancy.
My next pregnancy had a similar beginning but this time, at least, we were ready for it. My doctor ordered an IV line put in and a home health nurse to come out once a week. I was able to get fluids and medication through my IV line at home and my sister came out to look after me until the sickness passed. To avoid another miscarriage, I took less potent medication with greater side effects.
I spent my days sick and in bed. I had lots of time to dwell on my own misery. In addition to the physical discomfort of being sick and the depression of being confined was the anguish of knowing that my body would not endure both being pregnant and raising a family. All my dreams and plans for a large family crumbled around my sickbed.
As I brooded, I struggled to keep from being angry. Why would the Lord send this trial to us? We were faithful members of the church, sealed in the temple and anxious to raise up children to the Lord. Why would He make it so difficult when all we wanted was to follow His commandments?
At the time, my husband and I team taught the 12 year old Primary class. We were teaching from the “Doctrine and Covenants and Church History” manual. One week, when I was feeling well enough to prepare the lesson, I read the following account about the Martin and Willie Handcart companies:
Some years after the Martin company made their journey to Salt Lake City, a teacher in a Church class commented how foolish it was for the Martin company to come across the plains when it did. The teacher criticized the Church leaders for allowing a company to make such a journey without more supplies and protection.
An old man sitting in the classroom listened for a few moments and then spoke out, asking that the criticism be stopped. He said, “Mistake to send the Handcart Company out so late in the season? Yes. But I was in that company and my wife was in it. … We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? Not one of that company ever apostatized or left the Church, because everyone of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities [difficulties].
“I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it. … I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.
“Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company.” (quoted in David O. McKay, “Pioneer Women,” p. 8; emphasis in original).
All at once, I saw my trials from a new perspective. I thought about all the time that I had spent over the past weeks coming to know the Lord. I remembered the comfort I had felt in moments when I had lied in bed, or in the ER, too sick to do anything but pray, wordlessly, for help. I saw new meanings in scriptures I had read a hundred times and thought I understood thoroughly.
I used to wonder what my life would have been like as a pioneer. Now I know. I would have been the wife buried along the trail, dead from complications of her first pregnancy. But I was born later in the Latter-Days when there was medical knowledge and supplies to nurse me through the rough times. My challenges were different from those of the handcart companies but they were just as real and foreboding. And through my adversity I came to know God.
I have given birth to two children. It is unlikely that I will bear any more. The second pregnancy was even worse than the first one. It also brought me closer to my Savior and my Father in Heaven. I would not willingly go through those experiences again but, like the man of the handcart company, I am not sorry that I had the pregnancies I did. I would not trade the experience for anything in this world. The price I paid to know God was a privilege to pay.
Topics: Relief Society, Young Women |
April 13th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
This story is about Francis Webster. Some additional information:
He was quite wealthy, and in fact had sent $500 with a Church immigration agent to purchase a wagon, oxen, and camp equipment and have it ready for the Webster’s when they arrived in Iowa City, the point of departure for the trek west. Their plans soon changed.
More than 2000 saints were too poor to pay for their own expenses to travel, and the church’s resources to help them were limited. To help solve this problem, church leaders asked those with money to help pay for the expenses of the poor. So, Francis Webster cancelled
his order for a wagon and supplies, and decided to cross the plains in a much less expensive way: by handcart. Without elaborating on the cost of this sacrifice, he simply said, “I paid the fare for nine persons besides myself and wife to Salt Lake City.”
Francis and Betsy Webster sailed with the last large company to leave England in 1856, and joined the season’s 5th handcart company, led by Edward Martin. Traveling by handcart exposed them to the worst
extremities. Even before the winter storms hit, they suffered greatly: Betsy was weak from having a baby, and Francis from dysentery and frozen feet. So much for the comfortable lifestyle this family planned on…when they arrived in Salt Lake City they had nothing left but their tattered clothes….