This is the story of 18 year old Emma Girdlestone as she and her family trek across the United States to Zion, the land of milk and honey, otherwise known as Salt Lake City, Utah in 1856. The Willie Handcart Company was reluctantly leading 500 people from Iowa City to Salt Lake, the people voted to go even though the Willie Handcart Company had no carts available and they were all out of supplies because it was too late in the year to leave. Carts were quickly built, minimal supplies collected and quilts, mittens, scarves, etc. were quickly made to supply the group that wanted to head out anyway.
Lisa does a great job of detailing the problems of the people, the deaths, amputations performed on the trail, running out of food, the strong determination and faith these people had. I remember when I was in high school my step-dad, my brother and I took off in a blizzard, you have to know that my step-dad always seemed to like to do that, I think it's a man thing, and we got stuck about a mile outside of a small town, we lived 15 miles from town. We had to get out of the car and try to get to town, I can still remember how cold I got and can only imagine how these people survived, it had to be their faith.
I had never read any books about Mormon's so I thought I'd give it a try, it isn't the story I expected but I did get into it wondering what was going to happen to them as they struggled through the snow, winds, blizzards, climbing mountains and many other complications. An interesting book indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment