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Show Lars had been a strong and healthy man when he left Denmark but through sustained privation and exposure he had grown increasingly weak. He made an honest effort to adjust to weather extremes and to depleted rations as he made his exhausting trudge in drifted, icy snow and mud. He was buried-as were others, in shallow snow graves at Devil's Gate, near the Sweetwater River and Martin's Ravine. All of the four snowbound companies suffered heavy losses during those days. The writer of this account has spent time in the Devil's Gate area finding and interviewing residents there, hoping to locate graves or a cemetery of some kind. There are no known graves, and people living there at this time say that no one in the vicinity ever found a grave of any kind as a result of the tragedies in that November of 1856. They say it has always been understood that due to the frozen condition of the snow and ground, only snow graves could have been possible. What became of the bodies after the snow and ice melted is left to the imagination, and it isn't pretty to contemplate, for wolves were plentiful there. The fact that Wilhelmina was able to survive such trying experiences when so many of her company, and of the other companies, died through similar experiences, sparked new determination in her to press ahead. She was with Lars when he died--and Bodil relied on her for comfort, because they were forced to leave his body so poorly cared for. 19 |