William and Alice Walsh left England with three small children
ages 6 months to 5 years. Living near Preston, Alice had joined the Church
in 1845, when she was 16. She married William Walsh sometime between 1847
and 1850. Alice was the only member of her parents' family to join the
Church. Telling of her conversion and emigration—and the associated
sacrifices—she wrote: "We find in the New Testament that
Jesus said [that] unless we forsake fathers and mothers, brothers and
sisters, houses and lands, for His and the Gospel's sake, we cannot be worthy
of Him or to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. This I have done for Him,
because I am the only one of my Father's or Mother's family that ever have
joined the Church, and I in doing so left my houses and lands in England."
For the Walsh family, the handcart trek would require even greater
sacrifices than leaving loved ones, houses, and lands. Their losses would
be so terrible that after the trek, Alice's mother would offer her
daughter money if she would return home.
The first great sorrow of the family was the death of Robert, the
oldest son. He had not been well at all after they started across the plains.
When he became so ill that he could not eat the food provided, his father took
one of their blankets and went a long distance to a settlement and sold the
blanket to buy something that the boy could eat. The child did not get well and
somewhere between Winter Quarters and Devil’s Gate was laid away.
As the journey went on, the number of widows in the camp was
growing each day. Alice Walsh had already lost her oldest child,
5-year-old Robert, in September. Now her husband was failing. She recalled the
arrival, and personal tragedy, at Devil's Gate: "On account
of the nightly fatalities of the male members of our company for two or
three weeks previously, there were many widows in our company, and the
women had to pitch and put up the tents, shoveling the snow away with tin
plates, etc. . . . One night I dropped to the ground in a dead faint
with my baby in my arms. I had some pepper pods with me, and recovering
from my stupor I took some of them . . . to recover my strength. During these
times we had only a little thin flour gruel two or three times a day, and
this was meager nourishment for a mother with a nursing baby. My
husband died and was buried at or near Devil's Gate, and the ground was frozen
so hard that the men had a difficult task in digging the grave deep enough
in which to inter him and nine others that morning, and it is more than
probable that several were only covered with snow. Here I was left a widow with
two young children."
Once the rescuers arrived, Alice Walsh faced uncertainty about
whether she would ride or walk until almost every wagon was
gone. Most of the wagons were full—and no one seemed to be taking notice
of her. The first part of her recollection paints a picture of quiet
desperation: "When the relief help reached us and nearly all of us
had been assigned to some wagon, I was sitting in the snow with my
children on my lap, and it seemed that there was no chance for me to ride,
but before the last teams had left the camp I was assigned to ride in the
commissary wagon, and did so until our arrival in Salt Lake City."
William and Alice Walsh left England with three young children.
Only Alice and her two youngest children survived. Alice's account of the
journey's end aches with loneliness: "Arriving in Salt Lake Nov.
30th 1856, with two children and the clothes I stood up in, were all of my
earthly possessions in a strange land, without kin or relatives."
The people in Salt Lake City took in many of those who did not
have relatives or friends to stay with. Alice and her children were sent to the
10th Ward, where the bishop placed them in the home of Jacob Strong. Soon
afterward, Alice and Jacob were married, and eventually they had three
children.
When Alice's mother in England learned what Alice had suffered,
she offered to send money for Alice to return home—if she would renounce her
beliefs. This offer was made with the mistaken belief that the handcart ordeal
had weakened Alice's faith. Alice declined the offer, saying she had joined the
Church and had gone through all the adversity of emigrating because she knew it
was true. Fifty-five years after the handcart trek, this testimony burned
even more brightly. Alice wrote: "I have always been proud
to know that I had the individual courage to accept and embrace the faith and
join the Church, to which I have ever been steadfast from that day to
this. Though the sufferings were terrible I passed [through] in the handcart
journey across the plains, [I] am still thankful that the Lord preserved my
life and made it possible for me to reach Zion, in the Valley of the West. . .
.After all that I have endured and passed through for over 55 years, my
testimony is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is
true."
Alice Walsh Strong was 83 years old when she wrote this testimony.
She lived to be 95, dying in 1924. At the time of her death, 14 of her children
and grandchildren had served missions, further sowing the seeds of their
mother's faith. Her son John, who was four years old during the handcart
journey, later served two missions, one of them to Great Britain when he
was 70 years old. He also served as a patriarch and was one of the first
mayors of Farmington. When he died in 1927 at age 75, he was in Mesa,
Arizona, having been sent there by the Church to work in the new temple.
My favorite thing about Alice's story is that she explained, in
her own words WHY she was willing to give up so much for the gospel. She
endured unimaginable suffering (as did all these pioneers) but, as she
explained, she endured because of her testimony of Jesus Christ. I think it is
important to not only appreciate the sorrows and sufferings these faithful
saints endured, but to learn and appreciate why they were willing to give so
much. We can take their example and apply it in our own lives and when
hard times come (which they will...) we can take heart in knowing that He has promised
"I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on
your left, . . . and mine angels [shall be] round about you,
to bear you up. [D&C 84:88]
And yes, “We’ll find the place which God for us prepared.”
And on the way “We’ll make the air with music ring, Shout praises to our God
and King; Above the rest these words we’ll tell—All is well! All is
well!”
Have a great week!
Sister McHood
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