Happy Pie 'N Beer Day!

If your religion teaches you not to question the religion then your religion is undoubtedly hiding something from you! ~ Author Unknown

Faith in every foot step, following the Mormon prophet, going where no one had gone before, they were devoted Mormon pioneers. On July 24th, Mormons celebrate and honor these early pioneers, particularly the ones that pulled handcarts 1300 miles across the plains. I grew up with their stories. They are a part of my inheritance. For 42 years I never suspected that I didn’t know the whole story behind why the Mormon pioneers came west predominantly by handcarts. 

     More people died in the Mormon handcart tragedy of 1856 than in the Donner Party disaster, yet it is not as well known. The average member especially has no idea about what was really behind this tragedy. (Money and greed on the part of the leaders of the church, especially Brigham Young, are the reasons hundreds of pioneers gave up their lives in my opinion.) I had no idea about this either in June of 2007 as I was preparing to go on a pioneer trek. I believed these men, women, and children died heroes, which is still true; however, they were ignorant heroes. They didn't have the whole picture, and the truth is they didn’t need to die. That is the part of the story that is left out when the church celebrates these pioneers. It absolutely wasn’t necessary for them to lay down their lives in that tragic, dreadful, and heartbreaking way.

The Martin and the Willie handcart Companies were trapped in Wyoming at the end of October by snow. They had left too late in the season, and were paying the ultimate price for following Brigham Young’s decree to come west. Over 200 immigrants lost their lives in Wyoming that October and November in 1856 before they were finally rescued. They were coming to Utah to help build up ‘the Kingdom of God’, coming to ‘Zion’, that’s what they believed. No doubt, they sacrificed their lives for their faith. The handcart disaster is a distressing, devastating, dark piece in the history of the Mormon Church.

      They don’t present it that way to the youth, of course. Especially those that go on a pioneer trek, which is a re-enactment of the early pioneers coming west who pushed and pulled handcarts. The youth push handcarts too. They have a five gallon bucket for their belongings, must dress in authentic pioneer clothing, and sometimes are given very little to eat to show what the pioneers had to endure. If the pioneers were willing to sacrifice everything, their homes, their money, their time, and their very lives for this religion then it must be true, right?   

In December of 2006, when our stake announced the youth pioneer trek during the holidays, I knew we had to be a part of it. They wanted a few couples from each ward to be a ‘ma and pa’ to the youth who would be going on trek the following year. It was a big commitment. We were living in Colorado Springs, CO at the time. Trek would be in June of 2007. Two of our sons would be attending trek that year. Alex who was a senior, and Mike who was a freshman. They both were eligible to go on trek that summer, and I really wanted to be there with them. So, I signed us up, and we were chosen to be a ma and pa. We had to be, and stay, temple worthy. (I explain what it means to be ‘temple worthy’ in the post titled The Plan of Happiness.) We also had to commit to come to all the training meetings from January thru June. This was a big deal. We were going to Martin’s Cove in Wyoming, the place where so many people lost their lives. We would follow and walk in the pioneer’s actual footsteps. We would tell dreadful stories of their trials and inspiring tales of their faith along the way. Martin’s Cove is sacred, hallowed ground to Mormons. I was very excited to do this with my husband and our two oldest sons.

          There were four Companies trekking with ten families making up a Company. We requested that Mike be in our family, and that Alex be in our same company which they were. We had a total of seven youth in our family, three daughters and four sons. When the time for trek finally arrived, my mother in law came to watch our four younger kids at our home in Colorado.

          Wyoming was incredibly hot that year. It was in the high 90’s every day. We spent three days in the Wyoming heat pushing and pulling handcarts. We pressed the youth hard walking twenty six miles over those three days. The first day we walked six miles pushing our handcarts, in hats and bonnets, long pants, long sleeves, and long skirts in the horrible, unrelenting heat. We made camp, fixed dinner, and held a devotional that first night. The next day, we got up very early and fixed breakfast. Then, we headed out of camp with our handcarts by 8am.

We traveled in a straight line, one handcart family after another on a long dirt road. We were the second Company to move out of camp. Alex was in the first family of our Company. We were the next to last family of our Company. We wouldn’t see much of each other during the day. The other two companies followed along behind us. We walked fourteen miles pushing and pulling our handcart that second day. We crossed one river pushing our handcart in silence through the ice cold stream out of respect for those who died there, and we spent several hours in the unforgiving heat at Martin’s cove.

Martin’s cove is a sacred spot where the pioneers took shelter behind a narrow pass of land between two large hills. Once we were there, we parked our handcarts to walk silently in single file around that cove. We listened to a lecture from our stake president and shook his hand one by one. Then, we spent some quiet time alone spread out on top of the bluff that created the cove of shelter to write our spiritual experiences from trekking around that day in our journals. It was a beautiful sight on the top of that cove overlooking the vast valley. It was an incredibly peaceful and super spiritual experience for me being there in that sacred spot with the trusting, innocent youth of the church and two of my own children. 

On the way back to camp, we did the ‘women’s pull’. This is an activity where the men climb up a large, steep hill and wait at the top. The women alone push and pull their handcarts one family at a time to the top. Also, each family chose one male youth to sit in their handcart. The boy represents many things like our sins we carry needlessly, our burdens, our worries, or the past we can’t let go. The boy can only sit while the women struggle up the hill with their extra weight in the handcart. We only had four women in our family. It would have been a real challenge getting that handcart up that hill even without the boys extra weight. The cart was still fully loaded with all of our family’s belongings. It was a very harsh experience pushing and pulling that handcart to the top, physically and mentally, in the heat with everyone watching us struggle. This experience is meant to break us all down, the men on the top watching, especially the boy riding in the cart, chosen for that reason, and the women doing the labor. It was all very effective.

We had a testimony meeting that night in our family, and then later on as a whole stake. Testimony meetings are where you stand up and tell each other how you know this church is true, and that it is absolutely God’s only true church on the face of the Earth. Everyone is encouraged to say something; even if you aren’t really sure you have a testimony about it. The ‘fake it until you make it’ approach is highly encouraged in this church. It is peer pressure at its finest. After such a long, hard, trying day emotions are running high. It all worked well at impressing the youth that this is God’s only correct path. Why else would those pioneer men, women, and children put themselves through all of that if it wasn’t God’s true church? According to Mormonism, there is no other possibility; it must be true.

I have since learned many reasons why they did it, and many of the reasons are not faith promoting, which is why you never hear about them in church. Devil’s Gate by David Roberts is an excellent book on this subject. I highly recommend reading it if you want to know more about the handcart companies, and the real reasons why they came by handcarts rather than wagons. At that moment in my life, I was a ‘Molly Mormon’ through and through. I could see no other explanation for it either; other than, the church undeniably had to be true.

I admit this was a very special, sacred, spiritual experience for our family. We had a really good time together. Alex had a lot of hilarious stories about his ‘ma and pa’ and family experiences. Even today, we laugh and tell tales of our adventures while on trek when we all get together. I am very glad we did it back then, because I could never do again. First, I am not a Mormon any more so I wouldn’t even be allowed to go on trek; and second, I know the disturbing truth behind the handcarts. It is far more tragic than I formerly understood. I could never walk those hallowed grounds again with the same feelings of reverence and respect that I once had. I would see a far different kind of tragedy and heartbreak than I previously knew.

       Nowadays, there are no more pioneer day celebrations for me. Instead, I have adopted the tradition of other fellow ex-Mormons who choose to celebrate July 24th on a much lighter note; 'cheers' to you and yours on Pie 'N Beer day!