Pioneer Stories - Susannah Stone

Most people in the Willie company traveled with at least one other family member, and some traveled as large extended families. In contrast, Susannah Stone was the only member of her family to make the journey. Like Emily Hill, she studied the scriptures in her youth and yearned for more than her parents' church could provide. As she studied, she wished she could have lived in the days of apostles and prophets, not yet knowing that apostles and prophets were once again on the earth. When she was about 18, she learned of the Restoration and was baptized. "When I heard it preached, I hailed it with joy," she wrote.
After joining the Church in 1848, Susannah wanted to gather to Zion. "My parents, relatives, and friends did all in their power to keep me from coming to America," she wrote, "but I had the spirit of gathering and the Lord opened the way and I came to Utah in 1856 with a handcart company." Susannah was 25 when she left for Zion with the Willie Company.
During the trek she had felt miraculously sustained by the power of God. She later wrote:
"We traveled on, feeling that the Lord would protect his Saints, and so he did. Although we passed through many trying scenes, his protecting care was over us. . . ."I often think of the songs we sang to encourage us on our toilsome journey. It was hard to endure, but the Lord gave us strength and courage. . . ."We waded through the cold streams many times, but we murmured not, for our faith in God and our testimony of His work were supreme. And in the blizzards and falling snow we sat under our handcarts and sang, 'Come, come, ye Saints.'"
Throughout the journey, Susannah was also sustained by the fellowship of the Saints. She wrote:
"Only once did my courage fail. One cold, dreary afternoon, my feet having been frosted, I felt I could go no further, and withdrew from the company and sat down to await the end, being somewhat in a stupor. After a time I was aroused by a voice, which seemed as audible as anything could be, and which spoke to my very soul of the promises and blessings I had received, and which should surely be fulfilled and that I had a mission to perform in Zion. I received strength, and was filled with the Spirit of the Lord and arose and traveled on with a light heart. As I reached camp, I found a search party ready to go back to find me, dead or alive. I had no relatives, but many dear and devoted friends, and we did all we could to aid and encourage each other."
Susannah said that as the Willie company got close to the Salt Lake Valley, "we tried to make ourselves as presentable as we could to meet our friends. I had sold my little looking glass to the Indians for buffalo meat, so I borrowed one and I shall never forget how I looked." Susanna said that the journey had taken such a toll that some of her old friends did not recognize her.
Susannah met her future husband the day she arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. Recalling this encounter, she wrote:
"Among others who came to meet their friends was a handsome young man, Thomas Lloyd, who had emigrated the previous year, 1855. . . . He had proved his integrity to his newly found faith by renouncing everything offered by a wealthy aunt who had raised him; his parents had died when he was but two years old, and he would have fallen heir to her fortune, but was cut off because he did not renounce Mormonism."
Thomas Lloyd and Susannah Stone were soon married. They settled in Farmington for several years and then moved to Wellsville. They had 10 sons and 4 daughters. "All of them [are] healthy and all members of the faith," Susannah wrote late in her life, "and this is a joy to me in my declining years."Reflecting on the handcart experience, Susannah Stone Lloyd felt that she had received more than adequate compensation for the difficulties she had to endure:
"I am thankful that I was counted worthy to be a pioneer and a handcart girl. It prepared me to endure hard times in my future life. I often think of the songs we sang to encourage us on our toilsome journey. It was hard to endure, but the Lord gave us strength and courage. . . ."My frosted feet gave me considerable trouble for many years, but this was forgotten in the contemplation of the great blessings the gospel had brought to me and mine."Susannah died in Logan in 1920 at 89 years of age.
Mary Ellen Smoot, a former Relief Society general president, said:
"Having sold her own mirror to an Indian for a piece of buffalo meat, [Susannah] had not spent much time looking at herself. [When she did,] she did not recognize her own image. She was a different person, both inside and out. Over the course of rocky ridges and extreme hardship came a deep conviction. Her faith had been tried, and her conversion was concrete. She had been refined in ways that the very best mirror could not reflect. Susannah had prayed for strength and found it—deep within her soul. This is the kind of inner strength I would like to talk about. How do you and I become so converted to the truth, so full of faith, so dependent on God that we are able to meet trials and even be strengthened by them? It does not take much living to find out that life almost never turns out the way you planned it. Adversity and affliction come to everyone. Do you know anyone who would not like to change something about themselves or their circumstances? And yet I am sure you know many who go forward with faith. You are drawn to those people, inspired by them, and even strengthened by their examples."

Have a great week!
Sister McHood