Isabella Jan Bradshaw Astle: A Child of the Handcart Pioneers Featured in 'Ephraim's Rescue' (1856)

Isabella Jan Bradshaw (later Astle) was a member of the Bradshaw family of handcart pioneers whose story is portrayed in the film 'Ephraim's Rescue.' Her mother, Elizabeth Simpson Haigh Bradshaw, and the Bradshaw children were among the Willie and Martin handcart Saints of 1856 who suffered and were rescued on the Wyoming plains. Isabella survived the handcart tragedy, reached the Salt Lake Valley, and married into the Astle family. She carried, all her life, the witness of a family that walked through cold and hunger trusting that the God of Israel would deliver them—and that He did, through the rescuers who came at last.