Pioneer Stories - The McBride Family

Janetta Ann McBride

The McBride Family

Robert and Margaret McBride had joined the church in 1837, among some of the first converts in England. The McBrides moved to Scotland in 1844 and then moved back to the Preston area seven years later.  Wherever the family lived, they welcomed the missionaries. Missionaries had been encouraging the McBrides to emigrate since 1840. When the opportunity finally came in 1856, Robert and Margaret had five children, ages 3 through 16. 

During the long pull across Nebraska and into Wyoming, both Robert and Margaret McBride became so weak that they had to rely heavily on their two oldest children, Jenetta (16) and Heber (13). The three younger children also looked to their older brother and sister for help. Heber felt overwhelmed as he and Jenetta were suddenly thrust into the role of the family's caretakers:

"Mother being sick and nothing for her comfort, she failed very fast. She would start out in the morning and walk as far as she could. Then she would give out and lie down and wait until we came along. . . . Father [also] began to fail very rapidly and got so reduced that he could not pull any more at the handcart. . . . No tongue or pen could tell what my sister and I passed through, our parents both sick and us so young. . . .Sometimes we would find Mother lying by the side of the road first. Then we would get her on the cart and haul her along until we would find Father lying as if he was dead. Then Mother would be rested a little and she would try and walk and Father would get on and ride."  The weight of this responsibility often brought Heber and Jenetta to tears."We used to cry and feel so bad,"Heber recalled. "We did not know what to do. We would never get into camp until way after dark, and then we would have to hunt something to make a fire."

The Martin and Hodgetts companies faced the last crossing of the Platte on October 19th. What would have been difficult in good weather became deadly as the first winter storm arrived partway through the day.

Josiah Rogerson later wrote, "The crossing of the North Platte was fraught with more fatalities than any other incident of the entire journey." Fourteen people died that night and the next day.

Some of the people who died had used the last of their strength carrying others across the river. Many in the company were too old, too weak, or too small to cross on their own. Some of them were taken across in wagons, but most had to be carried. Although Robert McBride was one of the people needing help, his son Peter recalled that he "worked all day pulling, pushing, wading through the icy river, and he made about twenty-five trips across the river helping to get all the carts across." Robert collapsed soon afterward.

His son Heber wrote the following account: "There were about 6 inches of snow on the ground, and then what we had to suffer can never be told. Father was very bad [the] morning [after the last crossing] and could hardly sit up in the tent, but we had to travel that day through the snow. I managed to get Father into one of the wagons that morning, and that was the last we saw of him alive. We only made one drive, as it began snowing very hard. When we camped, the snow was getting very deep. My sister and I had to pitch our tent and get some wood. . . .

"After we had made Mother as comfortable as we could, we went to try and find Father. The wind was blowing the snow so bad that we could not see anything, and the wagons had not [yet come] into camp. It was then after dark, so we did not find him that night.

"The next morning the snow was about 18 inches deep and awfully cold. While my sister was preparing our little bite of breakfast, I went to look for Father. At last I found him under a wagon with snow all over him. He was stiff and dead. I felt as though my heart would burst. I sat down beside him on the snow and took hold of one of his hands and cried, 'Oh, Father, Father!' There we were, away out on the plains, with hardly anything to eat, Father dead, and Mother sick and a widow with five small children, and not hardly able to live from one day to another."

After finding his father's body, Heber, the 13-year-old boy who was suddenly the man of the family, had to break the news to his mother and siblings:

"After I had my cry out, I went back to the tent and told Mother. To try to write the feelings of Mother and the other children is out of the question. Now, we were not [the only] family that was called upon to mourn the loss of a Father this morning, for there were 13 men dead in camp."

Because Margaret McBride continued to suffer poor health after her husband died, her children Jenetta and Heber continued to be the family's main caretakers. The sacrifices of 16-year-old Jenetta were burned into the memory of her 6-year-old brother, Peter, who later wrote:

"My mother was sick all the way over, and my sister Jenetta had the worry of us children. She carried water from the river to do the cooking. Her shoes gave out, and she walked through the snow barefoot, actually leaving bloody tracks in the snow."

When Peter McBride died in 1934, he was 84 years old—the last survivor of Robert and Margaret McBride's children. The two oldest children, Jenetta and Heber, who had tried so lovingly to keep their three younger siblings from freezing on the handcart trek, died within a few months of each other in 1924 and 1925. The three youngest children, Ether, Peter, and Maggie, died within a year of each other in 1933 and 1934. All of the children lived into their 80s. They continued in the heritage of faith established by their parents, following the call of Church leaders to leave comfort and convenience to help build Zion in its ever-expanding reaches, scattering themselves over 1,500 miles from Canada to Arizona.

Heber, two years before his death, wrote the following testimony in a letter to a granddaughter:

"I know the gospel is true. It is worth all the suffering we went through for it. Be faithful, dear granddaughter, and the Lord will guide you and bless you throughout your life."

Jenetta died in 1924 at age 86, and despite having lived a life of adversity, Jenetta testified that the blessings she received more than compensated for all her sorrows:

"I do not regret any moment of following the call of the prophet. Despite all the hard times, we made it to Zion. We had the gospel, and we were with the Saints. Jacob and I were married for eternity. It was what we had left England for, to obtain the blessings of the gospel. No matter what it cost, it was worth it. All my life I bore testimony of my thankfulness that I made that journey, no matter how hard it was."