An Immigrating Mormon Hand Cart Mother Goes Back For Her Daughter Because God Keeps His Promises! 

     God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit of God do not always do what people wish.  And there are cases aplenty where people blamed God for not doing what they felt sure He should have done, or what they prayed to Him to do.  But...if God decides to give His commitment to a thing coming to pass then there is nothing more certainly assured in all the Universe.  And sometimes people are certain that God gave them a yes when they prayed to God that some certain thing could be relied upon.  Sometimes people feel in their soul that God definitely gave them His assurance. 

     Here is a partial recounting of an old American westerly migration that certain Mormons, some originally from Scotland in Europe, took, pushing their belongings along in handcarts westward along the Oregon trail in America because they had decided to move out to near Salt Lake Utah to settle down and worship Jesus in the Mormon (Latter Day Saints) way.  It is excerpted from around page 10 of "the James and Elizabeth Cunningham story" at https://www.familysearch.org/patron/v2/TH-303-42189-153-16/dist.pdf?ctx=ArtCtxPublic if you wish to pursue it more deeply.  To put it briefly, a mother named Elizabeth Cunningham, when their whole company of immigrants was struggling mightily with many near dying, left her apparently dead daughter Elizabeth along the frozen trail wrapped only in a blanket so that some other family member who might actually survive could occupy the hand cart they had pushed since Iowa City, Iowa until Wyoming where they were.  They had to keep moving.   The ground was too frozen to dig a grave, by report.  Quite a few in their company had already died during their difficult travels, but no one in Elizabeth's family had died until this.  

     But Elizabeth had received a promise and a blessing back in Europe before leaving that her whole family would survive the perilous journey.  So perhaps a dozen miles later, when the group camped, she went back for the frozen body of her daughter, also named Elizabeth (but called Betsy), because...God keeps his promises!:  

     The story of the travails and rescue of the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies has been eloquently recounted by a number of authors (Bartholomew & Arington, Hafen & Hafen, Jones, Olsen. Stegner, Swinton & Groberg, and Turner). They tell the full story much better than can I. Suffice it to say that the Cunninghams participated in all of the challenges faced by the Willie Handcart Company after it left Iowa City on July 15. They most certainly found new muscles as they walked and pulled-pushed their handcart across Iowa to Florence, Nebraska, where they were re-supplied for the journey west. There they agonized over whether to remain in Florence because of the lateness of the season. Having few alternatives and relying on faith to see them through, the Cunninghams, and all of the other approximately 100 Scotts in their group decided to forge ahead. The trekkers encountered heat, dust, rain storms, buffalo, Indians, and the challenges of broken handcarts, setting up and tearing down tents, scrounging for fire wood, seeking drinking water, and increasing fatigue while they crossed Nebraska. Nonetheless, twenty years later son George recalled the pleasure he derived from hearing his sisters sing as they pushed and pulled their handcart (p. 5). Although members of the company didn’t recognize it at the time, the clock on their very survival began ticking down mid-way through Nebraska, where many of their cattle and some of their oxen, used by accompanying wagons, were swept away in a stampede of buffalo, never to be recovered. This occurred during a severe thunderstorm on the night of September 3. The Company suffered in two ways from the stampede: it lost a substantial part of their food supply in the form of missing cattle, and the draft animal loss also slowed its travel. By the time the group reached Ft. Laramie on October 1 Company leaders recognized they lacked sufficient rations to reach 11 Salt Lake Valley. They had used 70 percent of their food supply but were only half way to the valley from Florence. Attempts to re-stock at the fort yielded little additional food. Reduced rations followed and the trekkers were forced to transfer more of their food supplies from wagons to handcarts because of failing draft animals. To make room for the precious sacks of flour on their carts, members in the company threw away clothing and bedding that later may have saved a number of their lives in the blizzard on the upper reaches of the Sweetwater River. The Oregon Trail from Ft. Laramie to South Pass is arduous. In some places it is sandy; in most places it moves uphill; travelers were forced to cross rivers a number of times; in all places there were shortages of firewood and fodder for the animals. A further problem was that the weather was growing colder and no one had winter clothing. By the time the company was within a couple days of South Pass they were essentially running on fumes and eating their last morsels. Between the fifth and sixth crossing of the Sweetwater a severe early blizzard engulfed the company. The storm, fatigue, hunger, and hypothermia ground them to a halt at about the sixth crossing, only a couple of days short of making it through South Pass, finding rescuers, warmer weather, and relative safety. Saving Betsy It was during this bitter weather that Elizabeth again displayed her strength and faith. In two brief paragraphs Kate Carter relates how Elizabeth left her 12-year-old, comatose daughter, Betsy, for dead along the trail during a ferocious snow storm. The ground was too frozen to dig a grave so Betsy was simply wrapped in a blanket and left by the side of the trail. The rest of the family struggled on in the blizzard to save their own lives. After getting her family settled at the campsite, Elizabeth felt inspired to walk back in the dark and bring Betsy’s body to camp. Some of the members of the company likely tried to discourage her from making the seemingly foolhardy trip to retrieve a corpse.

     Family tradition has it that Elizabeth’s family received a priesthood blessing in Scotland that all of the family would make it to Utah. That blessing and her strong faith that God would provide a way likely sustained her as she staggered down the trail.

     Miraculously, Elizabeth found Betsy undisturbed and lugged her body 12 {miles? :Deeds of God author} back to camp. There she put some warm water on the girl and saw her twitch. Heroic efforts eventually revived the girl.

     One wishes the author of this story had provided more details, such as where and when this event occurred. Since the Willie Company encounter its first snow storm and extremely cold weather on October 19 after leaving the fifth crossing of the Sweetwater, Betsy’s brush with death may have occurred someplace between the fifth and sixth crossings as the Company struggled to travel 16 miles before reaching another acceptable campsite. (Or, it may have occurred after rescuers arrived and the Company struggled over Rocky Ridge.) A family tradition is that James was so depleted that Elizabeth, Catherine, and George pulled him on the handcart during some of the most difficult days, such as the nineteenth. What did Elizabeth face during that awful day and night? She and her family likely had little to eat that morning when they awoke with a cold front moving in from the northwest. If Betsy didn’t die during the night, Elizabeth most certainly put the ailing Betsy on the cart until they later thought she was dead. Faltering James may then have taken Betsy’s place on the cart. About noon it began to snow, with a stiff wind blowing into their faces while they trudged steadily uphill. While the day drew on, the company began to string out with stragglers and the weakest falling to the rear. Elizabeth and her family struggled to cover the 16 miles and likely staggered into camp long after dark. She probably helped her children erect a tent and start a fire before she turned around and trudged down the trail several miles to recover Betsy’s body. One wonders how she mustered the strength and fortitude to accomplish what she did; it was likely due to a mixture of faith and grit.

End Quote

    Here is another mention of the same event from https://www.tellmystorytoo.com/member_pdfs/elizabeth-(betsy)-cunningham_1615_374.pdf:

     "Elizabeth was saved from death in a miraculous way. Several biographies of various members of the Cunningham family tell of this miracle. They contain minor variations, but all recount essentially the same story. It appears that the first published account of this miracle was in 1947 {this may be a typo.  It may have first been published in 1857 instead of 1847, as the Willie Cart Company traveled in 1856 : Deeds of God author} in Heart Throbs of the West, by Kate B. Carter: At one time Elizabeth ... was left for dead on the plains, as she was thought to be frozen to death. The ground was frozen so hard that they could not dig a grave so they just wrapped her in a blanket and laid the body on the ground and hurried on to make camp for the night, as darkness was fast overtaking them. After they had reached camp, the mother of Elizabeth felt impressed to go back to the child. Her friends ridiculed the idea, but the mother was determined, for she maintained that the child was not dead. She had been promised in Scotland that if she was faithful, that she and all her family would reach Zion in safety. She went back to the child and found her undisturbed by the wolves. She carried the child back to camp and worked over her. Some hot water was spilt on her foot and it caused a quiver to go through the limb. Convinced that she was still alive, they kept up their efforts until they brought her back to life.  This is the Elizabeth who lived to be the mother of 13 children, and the foster mother of 3 others."   

     End quote.

     So, if this Elizabeth/Betsy went on to have 13 children about a century and a half ago, how many people are alive today because of this remarkable Deed of God, and the faith that allowed it on the part of Betsy's mother, Elizabeth Cunningham?  This mother must have been frozen and exhausted as she traveled back all of those rough frozen miles to the body of the daughter that she had left for dead.  But somehow she made it and even brought her daughter back to the camp.  That in itself is a remarkable story.  It is a remarkable lesson for all of us concerning holding to your faith whenever our Maker truly has made a promise to us.   He is a keeper of promises.