Elizabeth Horrocks Jackson: 'My Husband Was Dead. I Will Yet Reach Zion'

Elizabeth Horrocks Jackson was 30 years old when she joined the Martin Handcart Company in 1856 with her husband Aaron and their three children: Martha Ann (7), Mary Elizabeth (4), and infant son Aaron (just months old). They had sailed from Liverpool on the ship Horizon on May 25, 1856.

The Martin Company started late — dangerously late. After crossing the North Platte River on October 19, 1856 in freezing water, a severe winter storm struck. The company's clothing was frozen to their bodies when they made camp. The ground was frozen too hard to drive tent stakes. Elizabeth wrote: 'We stretched it open the best we could and got under it until morning.'

Her husband Aaron grew increasingly ill. He had entered the icy Platte River repeatedly to help others cross. As the company struggled forward with dwindling food and deepening snow, Aaron's condition worsened rapidly.

One night, Elizabeth awoke to find him dead beside her in the freezing darkness. She later recorded the moment in words that became among the most quoted in LDS pioneer history:

'My husband was dead. He was cold and stiff — rigid in the arms of death. It was a bitter freezing night, and the elements had sealed up his mortal frame.'

Elizabeth was now alone — three small children, the middle of Wyoming in November, starvation rations, no shelter, no husband. She wrote of what happened next:

'I will not, I dare not, attempt to describe my feelings on that occasion. Poet nor writer could depict it adequately. I had barely enough clothing to keep me from freezing. I had to decide what to do. I grasped my children in my arms and thought of home and friends far away. Then I remembered that I had joined the Church. I had covenanted to gather with the Saints. I resolved that I would not give way to grief; that I would seek help from the Almighty; that if God had promised to support me, I would hold Him to His word.'

She pressed on, pulling the handcart alone with her children.

After several more days of suffering, the rescue party reached them. When the company finally arrived in Salt Lake City on November 30, 1856, Elizabeth had survived. Her children had survived.

She later wrote: 'I have been asked if I do not feel bitter against those that led us into such suffering. I answer emphatically, no. If I felt so once, those feelings are all gone... The price we paid was small compared to what we obtained.'

Elizabeth later remarried a man named Joseph Kingsford. She died on October 17, 1908, in Ogden, Utah, at age 82.