Friday, May 24, 2013

Winter Quarters Mormon Trail Center

My husband was recently working in Omaha, Nebraska.  So we went out to visit him for two weeks.  While there we went to the Mormon Trail Center in Winter Quarters.  The early Latter-day Saints stayed in Winter Quarters after leaving Nauvoo, Illinois before heading west to the Salt Lake Valley.  

These are a few of the things I enjoyed seeing while I was there.  

While pregnant with my daughter I studied a lot about birth in order to prepare for a good birthing experience.  On display they had Patty Sessions midwife guide.  Patty Sessions was a well known midwife, at that time in the Church serving as a midwife was a calling.


The Saints were not prepared to spend the winter in Winter Quarters.  They lacked many provisions necessary, including vegetables and fruits.  As a result many of the settlers died of scurvy and were buried in a cemetery there.  This is the only surviving gravestone, most were made from wood.  This was for a women named Sarah Porter.  She prayed that all her children would survive the journey to the Salt Lake Valley.  They all did and many of her posterity have come to the Mormon Trail Center. 


A few years ago I read William Clayton's journal of his trip to the Salt Lake Valley.  He went with the first company that included Brigham Young.  In his journal I read that he wrote the hymn "Come, Come Ye Saints" after hearing the news of the birth of his wife Diantha's first child.  Here are the pictures of William Clayton and Diantha. 

On his trek, he also invented an odometer to calculate how many miles they traveled.  He faithfully kept track and made a map to help others on their trek.  Here is a picture of the replica. Having read about this and then seeing it made the displays much more interesting!

I also loved this photo of the original Nauvoo Temple.  I have always been impressed by the sacrifice the Saints made to build the temple.  The temple gave the Saints so much strength to to press forward on their journey, but I imagine it was difficult to leave the temple behind after sacrificing so much to build it.



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