Patience Loader: A Stranger Appeared in the Snow and Said 'Travel On — There Is Help For You'

Patience Loader was 29 years old and English-born when she joined the Martin Handcart Company in 1856. Her family — the Loaders — were gardeners who had served a wealthy English gentleman for 35 years. When James Loader embraced the gospel, he was fired from his position. Patience was fired from her own job in London for the same reason.

The family sailed to America in 1855 on the ship John J. Boyd. On the dock in England, Patience had nearly been left behind: the last plank was being removed when she arrived. Sailors took her hands on either side and walked her across. Her parents stood on deck watching with 'great anxiety,' and 'there was great rejoicing when I was safe on the vessel.'

Patience's father James died fairly early on the handcart trek, leaving Amy Loader and her daughters to push and pull the handcart the rest of the way to Zion. Patience wrote a tender account of leaving her father's grave: 'It did seem a great trial to have to leave our dear father behind that morning, knowing we had looked upon that sweet smiling face for the last time on earth, but not without hope of meeting him again on the morning of the resurrection, for he had been a faithful servant of God.'

The company reached the icy North Platte River crossing on October 19, 1856. Patience wrote: 'We had to travel in our wet clothes until we got to camp, and our clothing was frozen on us. It was too late to go for wood and water. The wood was too far away. That night the ground was frozen too hard — we were unable to drive any tent pins in.'

During the worst of the journey through deep snow, with only 4 ounces of flour per day — divided into three tiny portions — Patience had a remarkable encounter:

'One day as I was pulling the handcart through the deep snow, a strange man appeared to me. He came and looked in my face. He said, "Are you Patience?" I said, "Yes." He said, "I thought it was you. Travel on, there is help for you. You will come to a good place. There is plenty." With this he was gone. He disappeared. I looked but never saw where he went. This seemed very strange to me. I took this as someone sent to encourage us and give us strength.'

Patience also wrote: 'I can testify that our Heavenly Father heard and answered our prayers and we was blessed with health and strength day by day to endure the severe trials we had to pass through... We know that if God had not been with us that our strength would have failed us.'

Her sister Tamar had a dream on the plains in which a stranger appeared alongside her unfaithful sweetheart, who faded away while the stranger remained. When the rescue party arrived, Tamar pointed to a rescuer named Thomas E. Ricks and told her mother: 'Mother, that's the man.' She married Thomas Ricks. Ricks College — now BYU-Idaho — was named after him.

Patience later married a U.S. Army convert, traveled back across the plains during the Civil War, and remained an active, generous, and faithful woman her entire life. She learned to play the organ near age 90. She kept a picture of Queen Victoria on her wall until the end.