March 18th - 24th

Working hard this week at the Mormon Trail Center and Tabernacle. More visitors and more assignments that need to be done.  We are working on getting the Trail Center more children friendly.  They are putting in children's room where young children can do things like make rag dolls and interactive activities. They are doing a "I Spy" hunt in the Trail Center with a reward when the child turns it back in
                  
A special project that Elder White has been working on is an easier way to find your ancestors at Winter Quarters.  He has added all the people who are in the graves at Winter Quarters Cemetery and Cutler Park Cemetery.  They have been added to a program called Relative Finder, a person can link with a Community group LDS-Pioneer Cemetery at Winter Quarters   and you can find who you are related of people who will be coming though the Mormon Trail Center.  

A couple of times this past couple of weeks Elder White had two experiences with the opportunity to show people how to find the ancestors

One man came in and didn't know why he was there to visit, then he  watched a movie Zion in the Wilderness. The the spirit touched him that he should find if he had a ancestor here. It was great that Elder White took him and using Relative Finder, he found a man buried in the Cemetery and using Family Search found a relative that he never knew about, followed back another generation and left the Center with three names for temple work.

Another gentleman came and said that he had no ancestors that lived in Winter Quarters and as we went to relative finder we found 7 people he was related too.  Said when he got back to Washington he was going to find stories on each .

Doing the research on the cemetery I have found some interesting stories about some of my ancestors. One such ancestor is 

Jonathan Harriman Hale

Jonathan Harriman Hale & Olive Boynton by Ann M Jones

By September 1845, conditions were so bad that Jonathan H. Hale and others were called to bring the people into Nauvoo from surrounding areas. When the saints were driven from Nauvoo, six years after its settlement, Jonathan was appointed one of the special committee to direct the movement of the saints from Nauvoo to Winter Quarters. He was especially assigned to assist the poor and was made captain of Company 21. Parley P. Pratt calculated that an outfit which every family of five persons would require should consist of the following: 1 good wagon, 3 sheep, 3 yoke of cattle, 1000 pounds of flour, 2 cows, 25 pounds of sugar, 2 beef cattle, 1 rifle and ammunition, 1 tent and tent poles. All would cost about two hundred and fifty dollars if the family had nothing to begin with except clothing, bedding and cooking utensils. The weight would be about 2700 pounds, including the family, but counting on the family to walk most of the way would reduce the load to about 1900 pounds. Bishop Hale headed up his Company 21, and began the westward trek early in June 1846. They arrived safely in Kanesville, later called Council Bluffs, on July 16, a distance of about 300 miles. Jonathan was one of twelve men called as a high council to preside in all matters spiritual and temporal at Council Bluffs. He was sent to Fort Leavenworth to receive the pay for the soldiers for their families. He helped take care of the families of the Mormon Battalion and established schools. He also took mail from Council Bluffs to the Saints at Spring Creek. When volunteers were called for to join the Mormon Battalion, Aroet stepped forward and volunteered, but Apostle Heber C. Kimball, a close family friend, gave him this prophetic counsel: “Aroet, you have been away from your Father and Mother five months now in the Camp of Israel as teamster. Your dear father is on crutches with a broken leg, and with no help but your mother and her little ones. You are needed here.” Solomon recounts what happened next. “It was terrible in the extreme -- so unexpected, so laden with grief. Father and Mother and two little sisters, all taken within two weeks. And there we stood -- alone and homeless, with the desolate plains and the wild Rocky Mountains ahead of us, and hostile enemies and burning homes back of us. “We were living then in a tent, while Father and Aroet were cutting logs and preparing to build us a house at Council Bluffs for the winter. In the rear end of the tent, Father had placed a wagon box and had made things as comfortable as he could for Mother, where she lay in sickness with her newly born baby girl, to whom the name of Clarissa Martha was given (born August 27, 1846). “It seemed at the time that there was sickness in practically every family, and there were many deaths. Father, who was then on crutches with a broken leg, was bishop and also a member of the high council appointed by President Young to care for the Saints on the east side of the river. He was going day and night in response to the many calls for help from those in distress and want. The weather was hot and the river water was bad, causing hundreds to come down with the chills and fever. “Finally, Father got it. He was so worn out that he had to take to his bed, and soon he was dead. Mother and all the children, except the two little girls, were at his bedside when he passed away. He bade us ‘good-bye,’ and gave us his blessing and said, ‘Stand by the Faith, and continue on with Brother Brigham and Brother Heber to the Rocky Mountains. It is God’s work and we must not fail. Do not be persuaded to turn back, even though our relatives insist upon it. Go with the church and God will bless and preserve you.’ He then stopped breathing, and Mother said, ‘Oh, my children, Father is gone.’ “Poor Mother was so weary and worn, that she too contracted the dreaded chills and fever, and four days later the blessed soul passed on to join Father, to whom she was always much devoted. Just before she died, she called us children to her side and showered upon us the affection and love that only such a mother could bestow. She realized that with her going, we would be left alone, and she admonished us to follow the counsel given to us by our dying father, and go with President Young and the brethren to the mountains, and to remain true and faithful. Then she turned to Aroet, who was the oldest in the family, and asked him to promise that he would see that this was done. When Aroet answered that he would do so, Mother smiled sweetly, and said she could now ‘go with Jonathan.’ And she peacefully passed over to him on the 8th of September. “Conscious of the approaching end, she called in Sisters Allred and Morley, the wives of Father’s counselors in the bishopric, and instructed them to take her baby Clarissa to her sister, Clarissa B. Harriman, who was across the river at Winter Quarters, as Uncle Henry and Aunt Clarissa had no children. “When Father died, these same two faithful women, under Mother’s direction, prepared his body for burial. Providentially, Mother had previously made temple robes for both him and her, which she had carefully packed away and brought with her, and in which they both were buried, these same two women ministering also in her case. “But baby Clarissa and our other tiny sister Olive Susan, seemed destined to go with Father and Mother, instead of following us across the plains to the Mountains; for Clarissa died on September 15th and Olive Susan on the 18th. All four were buried together. “And we four children were left alone.” Jonathan Harriman Hale died September 4, 1846, and his wife, Olive, died September 8, 1846. At this time Aroet was eighteen; Rachel, seventeen; Alma, ten; and Solomon, seven.