OCR Text |
Show In very early childhood, Ellis remembered "many dear ones" sharing a little cabin. This was probably in Iowa where her family was engaged in lumbering when they heard and accepted the Gospel. There were long and careful preparations for the trek to Utah which occurred when Ellis was five years old. Her father, a skilled wheel-right, made the wheels and the wagons they used along the way and was a captain of ten. Her grandfather captained the company. Ellis, in her later years, was fond of detailing the death of Rebecca Winters. We are not sure this famous first death along the trail could have been dated nearly five years after the first settlers reached Salt Lake Valley, when Ellis was enroute with her group. More accurate, perhaps, was her recollection of walking a great deal, of seeing her mother ride, keeping her hands busy with sewing while holding a baby, and a small brother or sister of Ellis clutching the mother's skirts to keep from falling from the wagon as it jolted along. Though she gives it no date, among the reflections which did not reach print was the loss of a baby brother to smallpox and her father's having survived it, his face scarred, but his soul "more chastened and we loved him the more for it." Thereafter, with the immunity brought by the disease, he volunteered to go in and assist in epidemics, caring for the sick, disposing of their accoutrements, dressing the dead for burial when others could not. Once in Salt Lake Valley, the family's hardships were not |