My pioneers made it home safely.
Their expected arrival was 3pm so I drove to the church to meet them. I had the van pointed so that I would see those buses when they came around the corner.
How do I describe the emotions I had at the sight of BUSES? It seems so silly but I got a little teary-eyed when they eventually rounded that corner. I was so excited to hear all about the past week and just to give Kiersten and Erik a great big bear hug.
I waited and watched as the unloading began. The first person I saw was Uncle Medardo who gave a big wave to the crowd gathered to bring their pioneers home. Then my neighbor exited, needing a ride home to get her car. As I kept scanning the growing crowd, I felt so much like Ellen Breakell Neibaur who also scanned a similar crowd. However, as I was looking at the faces, wanting to see the ones I recognized, she was looking at the feet, wanting to see whose feet her shoes had helped to make the journey a little easier.
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Ellen Breakell Neibaur was an English girl who married a German, Alexander Neibaur, who had come to England to study dentistry. They were in Preston, England, when Heber C. Kimball went on his first English mission and Ellen and Alexander were converted.
Eventually they came
to America and settled in Nauvoo. When it came time to leave on the westward
journey, the Neibaurs were extremely poor. It took all of their money to buy a
team and wagon and enough supplies to get them through. She didn’t even have
enough money to buy a pair of shoes, so she wrapped her feet in rags and came
all the way across the plains barefoot. After they reached Salt Lake, traveling
in the second company with Brigham Young in 1848, her husband became a teacher.
She took in laundry.
For the next eight years, any time she could save a penny
or two she put it aside. After eight long years, she finally had reached the
point where she could buy a pair of commercially made shoes from a mail order
house. She ordered a pair of high-top patent leather button shoes. They arrived
sometime in September 1856.
Just a few days later, on October 4, a company led by Franklin D. Richards of the Quorum of the Twelve rode into Salt Lake with some very disturbing news. They said, "President Young, we have two more handcart companies stranded out on the plains, with over a thousand people." Brigham Young was stunned; three companies had already come in safely and he assumed that was it for the season. He had no idea there were more, so he had called all the supply wagons back to Salt Lake. The news reached him on Saturday afternoon, October 4.
In
general conference on the next day, October 5, Brigham Young stood up and said, "I will now give this people the subject and the text for the Elders who may
speak to-day and during the conference. It is this. On the 5th day of October,
1856, many of our brethren and sisters are on the plains with handcarts, and
probably many are now seven hundred miles from this place, and they must be
brought here, we must send assistance to them. The text will be, 'to get them
here.'" President Young then called for teams, wagons, food, and clothing to
help those who were stranded.
And Ellen Neibaur, after eight years of waiting,
had not lost sight of what the covenant was and what mattered. She took that
brand-new pair of shoes down to the wagon team and gave them to the rescue
effort.
It was customary, when a new company came into the Valley for all the Saints to go out and line the streets and greet them. When this particular company came in, everyone went out to
greet them, because this was the first of the two besieged handcart companies
to be rescued.
Ellen Neibaur went out. Normally the Saints watched the faces of
the people coming in to see who they were. She wasn’t looking at faces. She was
looking at feet. She wanted to know who had gotten her shoes.
Now, here comes the beautiful end to this true story, a great example of faith and covenant, and an example of the power that follows. When Ellen Neibaur saw her shoes, she looked up and, to her absolute amazement, wearing them was an old friend from Preston, England, who
had joined the Church since Ellen had left England!
Ellen’s sacrifice had helped to save her friend’s life and had helped her come to the Valley safely.
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Kiersten and Erik were lucky enough to be in the same company with Uncle Medardo as captain even though they were in different families . . . at least in the beginning. By the end of trek their two families had basically blended together.
Kiersten during the women's pull. She told me she went down the hill 4 times to help pull handcarts up. I don't think she appreciated Erik taking a photo of her.
Thanks to Aunt Nancy who was the company mom, I got a few photos of my trekkers.
1 comment:
That is a cool story! Thanks for sharing!
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