NARRATIVE: Emigration from Europe to the western territories of the United States occurred in a variety of ways. For the poorest of immigrants, it was to place their meager possessions into a handcart and to push and pull everything, including their sick and maimed children and even adults, in handcarts. This western movement by religious converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who had been persecuted and exiled from their homes, became known as the journey to a “promised land” or “Zion," where they hoped to live and worship in peace.

Many of these poor “Saints” were caught in an early winter in Wyoming, hundreds of miles from their promised land. In this hopeless state with extremely low food supplies and no protection from the elements, they chose to “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men” (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 31:20).