Horace Alexander Enlists in the Battalion — His Wife Nancy Dies at Winter Quarters While He Marches, Her Last Act Clutching His Boots (1847)

Horace Martin Alexander was born February 15, 1812, in Orange County, Virginia. Before his conversion, he was among the local toughs in Indiana who delighted in harassing the Mormons as they held their meetings. Then he met a 16-year-old girl named Nancy Reeder. He was taken with her — and with her religion. He was baptized, and they married.

They were among those who lost everything when the Saints were driven from Far West, Missouri. They moved to Alton, Illinois, where Horace worked as a carpenter. On April 6, 1841, he was called to work on the Nauvoo Temple — a fitting assignment for a man who had once mocked those who built it.

The Alexanders were among the first to leave Nauvoo in the Great Exodus. At the Missouri River, Horace heard the call for the Mormon Battalion. He volunteered — leaving behind his pregnant wife and three young daughters.

On January 1, 1847, Nancy gave birth to a baby boy. Their shelter and bedding were insufficient to keep mother and child warm. Nancy contracted pneumonia. A young woman named Catherine Houston was asked by family members to help care for her.

As Nancy grew weaker, she asked Catherine to make her a promise: care for my girls and get them safely to the Salt Lake Valley to meet their father.

Catherine made the promise.

Nancy died. She and her infant son were buried in the cemetery at Winter Quarters. Family members wrote a letter to Horace. That letter reached him high in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the summer of 1847.

By the spring of 1848, Horace was in Salt Lake City and learned that his girls were on the trail coming west. He rode out to meet them — finding them near the Sweetwater in Wyoming. It was the first time he met Catherine Houston, who had done far more than she promised.

On February 15, 1849, Horace Alexander and Catherine Houston were married. She became as a second mother to the daughters of Nancy Alexander.