Before leaving England, John Bailey hired an auctioneer to sell the family's furniture. To spread word of the auction, the town crier walked through the streets ringing a bell and exclaiming, "Oh yes, oh yes, Brother and Sister Bailey are leaving for Zion. Come one, come all, and buy their goods." This public display embarrassed the Baileys' oldest son, Langley, who asked his father to stop the man. His father declined, his mother explaining that they "were not ashamed to let people know that we . . . are Latter-day Saints." These words of Jane Bailey foreshadow her unfaltering faith and conviction that would pull her family through many trials, not only during the handcart trek but also after arriving in Zion. When two members of this family would so deeply despair that they wanted to give up and die, Jane Bailey would keep them going.
Eighteen-year-old Langley Bailey was the oldest of four sons of John and Jane Bailey. While crossing Iowa, he had become too ill to walk. He later wrote. "I was unable to walk [and] had to be hauled on Brother Isaac J. Wardle and my brother John's cart." When the Baileys got to Florence, they consulted a doctor about Langley's illness. "[He] said I must not go another step or I would die and be buried on the roadside," Langley recalled. An elder in the company was asked to give him a blessing, but according to Langley he "said he did not have faith enough to raise the dead."Langley's mother then asked Franklin D. Richards and Cyrus Wheelock to administer to him. Although Langley was unconscious at the time, they promised that he would live to see the Salt Lake Valley.
Miraculously, Langley was able to resume the journey, but he still had great difficulties. When he got discouraged, his mother would remind him of the promise given in his blessing and tell him, in effect, that he had to do his part for it to be fulfilled. One morning when Langley was particularly discouraged, he started out early so he could "get away, lay down under a sagebrush, and die."While stretched out to die, he saw his parents pass by with their cart. He later recalled: "Just then, a voice said, 'Your mother is hunting you, jump up.' I saw mother in haste coming towards me, wanting to know what had gone wrong with me. I told her I had planned to lay down and die. I felt it was too much to pull me on the cart [when they] had as much luggage as they could manage. [She] scolded me a little. She reminded [me] what I was promised by Apostle F. D. Richards. I rode on the cart until the teams from the Valley met us."
At Martin's Cove, Jane also had to persuade her husband to keep going when he felt that death would be a welcome relief. Langley recalled: "My father went to gather some brush, willows, etc., there being no wood, to keep me warm. His hands became very benumbed. He laid down by my side [and] told mother he was going to die (it was not any trouble to die). Mother took hold of him and gave him a shaking up, and told him she was going on to the Valley. He then gave up dying."
Langley Bailey said that when he first saw the Salt Lake Valley, "it was like the Israelites of old in beholding the promised land." Impressions soon changed, however. After a week in Salt Lake City, the Baileys were taken to Nephi. Langley describes the living conditions there: "We [were] taken to an empty one-room house, no furniture. Some sagebrush had been placed by the door. A fire was made, [and I] watched the smoke go up the chimney. I said to my parents, 'Is this [the] Zion we have been praying and singing about?' The surrounding was very uninviting. We made our beds on the hard floor. . . . [I] was pleased to find a resting place, though very humble indeed. I looked around and saw little adobe houses, roofs made of willows covered with dirt."
Indeed Zion was no gleaming city. But what about the people? Langley's first impressions of some of the young men also fell far short of his expectations of Zion: "Opposite our window nearby [was] a corral. [It was] Sunday morning. Some young men were roping some wild steers. The language [they] used fairly shocked me. I said to my mother, 'Is this Zion?'"
These negative first impressions were reinforced the following week. What some boys thought was harmless fun instead felt like hypocrisy to Langley, who expected to join a community of the pure in heart: "Sunday I asked the privilege to go outside the house and see what kind of people
attended meeting. As some boys passed by me, they knocked me down with snowballs. I crawled back to the house. Mother helped me in. She saw how I had been treated. She got the snow out of my neck and back. I said to mother, 'Is this Zion where the pure in heart lives?'"
The Baileys lived on charity that first winter. "Sometimes we had food, sometimes we were short. . . . I was always hungry," Langley wrote. Having been so ill and weak that he had ridden in a handcart most of the way, Langley was fortunate to survive a winter of scant food. The next spring, when he was nearly 19 years old, he weighed only 60 pounds. As a result, he became something of a curiosity. "I was so thin people came to see me," he wrote. "Mother took off my shirt. There was nothing but skin and bones."
Zion sometimes failed to meet people's expectations, and some people never got over the disappointment. Others, like the Baileys, soon realized that Zion was not a static utopia but rather a work in progress—and went to work.
In 1859, John, Jane, and their two youngest sons moved about 20 miles away to Moroni, Sanpete County. They were some of the first settlers in that area and remained there throughout their lives. Jane was the first schoolteacher in Moroni and also the first Relief Society president, serving for 25 years. With the exception of 14-year-old Thomas, the Baileys all had long lives. John lived to be 83, Jane 85, Langley 91, John Jr. 88, and David 87.
"Jane Allgood Bailey wasn't about to give up the light of her new religion. She would not be defeated by the cold, starvation, and sickness on the plains of Wyoming...On the trek, her 18-year-old son, Langley, became ill and was so weak that he had to be pushed on the handcart much of the way. One morning he rose from his bed on the cart [and] went ahead of the company and lay down under a sagebrush to die, feeling that he was too much of a burden. When his faithful mother found him, she scolded him and told him: 'Get on the cart. I'll help you, but you're not giving up!' Then the family moved on with what was left of he Martin...Handcart Company. Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Langley was still alive! He was 18 years old and he weighed only 60 pounds. That 18-year-old boy was my great-grandfather. I'm grateful for the preservation of his young life and for the fortitude and stamina of his noble, courageous mother, who was a light to her family and kept her son going in spite of deathly odds."
Margaret Nadauld saw in her great-grandfather's experience a modern-day application for young women: "You probably will not have to push a handcart in a blizzard over the plains, sisters, or run away from a mob, but you may have to walk away from friends and fashions and invitations which would compromise your standards of goodness. And that takes courage. Soon you will be Relief Society sisters and one day mothers who must lend strength and testimony to future generations. Now in your preparing years, you can't afford to say: 'I'm going to give up. The Church standards are too high. It's too hard to live the standards of personal purity with exactness. I'm too weak.' You can do it! For the sake of your future, you must do it! You can live in the world and not be of the world. The Lord invites us to come out of the cold danger of worldliness and into the warmth of His light. This requires integrity, strength of character, and faith - faith in the truths taught by the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life"
As I read Jane's story I was struck by what Sister Naudald called her "strength of character". She is an amazing example of how strength of character, coupled with faith, can have a life altering impact on our daily choices and therefore our lives. She could easily have given up and allowed her children and husband to do so too, but she did not. In fact her strength of character blessed the lives of her children and husband as well. She was able to give them the courage to continue at several turns along the trek and indeed later in their lives, after they reached Zion.
Langley Bailey said that when he first saw the Salt Lake Valley, "it was like the Israelites of old in beholding the promised land." Impressions soon changed, however. After a week in Salt Lake City, the Baileys were taken to Nephi. Langley describes the living conditions there: "We [were] taken to an empty one-room house, no furniture. Some sagebrush had been placed by the door. A fire was made, [and I] watched the smoke go up the chimney. I said to my parents, 'Is this [the] Zion we have been praying and singing about?' The surrounding was very uninviting. We made our beds on the hard floor. . . . [I] was pleased to find a resting place, though very humble indeed. I looked around and saw little adobe houses, roofs made of willows covered with dirt."
Indeed Zion was no gleaming city. But what about the people? Langley's first impressions of some of the young men also fell far short of his expectations of Zion: "Opposite our window nearby [was] a corral. [It was] Sunday morning. Some young men were roping some wild steers. The language [they] used fairly shocked me. I said to my mother, 'Is this Zion?'"
These negative first impressions were reinforced the following week. What some boys thought was harmless fun instead felt like hypocrisy to Langley, who expected to join a community of the pure in heart: "Sunday I asked the privilege to go outside the house and see what kind of people
attended meeting. As some boys passed by me, they knocked me down with snowballs. I crawled back to the house. Mother helped me in. She saw how I had been treated. She got the snow out of my neck and back. I said to mother, 'Is this Zion where the pure in heart lives?'"
The Baileys lived on charity that first winter. "Sometimes we had food, sometimes we were short. . . . I was always hungry," Langley wrote. Having been so ill and weak that he had ridden in a handcart most of the way, Langley was fortunate to survive a winter of scant food. The next spring, when he was nearly 19 years old, he weighed only 60 pounds. As a result, he became something of a curiosity. "I was so thin people came to see me," he wrote. "Mother took off my shirt. There was nothing but skin and bones."
Less than two years after arriving in Nephi, the Baileys' 14-year-old son, Thomas, froze to death when his mule team was caught in a snowstorm. According to Jane's life history, "Tom's body was returned to the sorrowing parents in Nephi and laid on the dirt floor." This time it was John Bailey who asked his wife, "'Jane, is this Zion? Is this all worthwhile?' And once again this strong woman nodded and spoke a firm 'yes.'"
Zion sometimes failed to meet people's expectations, and some people never got over the disappointment. Others, like the Baileys, soon realized that Zion was not a static utopia but rather a work in progress—and went to work.
In 1859, John, Jane, and their two youngest sons moved about 20 miles away to Moroni, Sanpete County. They were some of the first settlers in that area and remained there throughout their lives. Jane was the first schoolteacher in Moroni and also the first Relief Society president, serving for 25 years. With the exception of 14-year-old Thomas, the Baileys all had long lives. John lived to be 83, Jane 85, Langley 91, John Jr. 88, and David 87.
Margaret Nadauld, who served as Young Women general president and is a descendant of the Baileys, feels gratitude for the perseverance of both Langley and his mother:
"Jane Allgood Bailey wasn't about to give up the light of her new religion. She would not be defeated by the cold, starvation, and sickness on the plains of Wyoming...On the trek, her 18-year-old son, Langley, became ill and was so weak that he had to be pushed on the handcart much of the way. One morning he rose from his bed on the cart [and] went ahead of the company and lay down under a sagebrush to die, feeling that he was too much of a burden. When his faithful mother found him, she scolded him and told him: 'Get on the cart. I'll help you, but you're not giving up!' Then the family moved on with what was left of he Martin...Handcart Company. Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Langley was still alive! He was 18 years old and he weighed only 60 pounds. That 18-year-old boy was my great-grandfather. I'm grateful for the preservation of his young life and for the fortitude and stamina of his noble, courageous mother, who was a light to her family and kept her son going in spite of deathly odds."
Margaret Nadauld saw in her great-grandfather's experience a modern-day application for young women: "You probably will not have to push a handcart in a blizzard over the plains, sisters, or run away from a mob, but you may have to walk away from friends and fashions and invitations which would compromise your standards of goodness. And that takes courage. Soon you will be Relief Society sisters and one day mothers who must lend strength and testimony to future generations. Now in your preparing years, you can't afford to say: 'I'm going to give up. The Church standards are too high. It's too hard to live the standards of personal purity with exactness. I'm too weak.' You can do it! For the sake of your future, you must do it! You can live in the world and not be of the world. The Lord invites us to come out of the cold danger of worldliness and into the warmth of His light. This requires integrity, strength of character, and faith - faith in the truths taught by the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life"
As I read Jane's story I was struck by what Sister Naudald called her "strength of character". She is an amazing example of how strength of character, coupled with faith, can have a life altering impact on our daily choices and therefore our lives. She could easily have given up and allowed her children and husband to do so too, but she did not. In fact her strength of character blessed the lives of her children and husband as well. She was able to give them the courage to continue at several turns along the trek and indeed later in their lives, after they reached Zion.
Have a great week!
Sister McHood
(most of this story came from "The Price We Paid")
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