James Kirkwood — age 11
A Scottish boy traveling with his widowed mother and three brothers in the Willie Company.
During the Rocky Ridge crossing — a brutal stretch that rose 700 feet over two miles in
a blizzard and took the company twenty-seven hours to clear — James was assigned to care
for his four-year-old brother Joseph while his mother and disabled older brother pulled the
family handcart.
When Joseph became too exhausted to walk, James carried him on his back through the snow.
When the two boys finally reached the camp at Rock Creek Hollow and James handed his
little brother to safety by the fire, James collapsed and died of exposure and exhaustion.
Joseph survived to grow up, become a farmer, and raise his own family in Utah.
Bodil Mortensen — age 10
A Danish girl traveling alone with the Willie Company to reunite with her older sister in Salt
Lake City. At the Rock Creek Hollow camp, she had been assigned to care for smaller children
during the ridge crossing.
When she finally reached the camp in the early hours of the morning — cold, hungry, and
completely spent — she was sent out into the snow to gather firewood. She was found the
next morning, frozen, leaning against a handcart wheel with the sagebrush twigs she had gathered
still clutched in her hands.
Peter McBride — age 6
A small child in the Martin Company. He later remembered his family's tent collapsing under
snow in the night, the frozen canvas freezing to his hair. With food gone, the family chewed
on tree bark and tried to boil ox hide for nutrients.
After his father died of exposure in Wyoming, Peter was dragged the rest of the way to the
Salt Lake Valley by his older brother and sister. He survived to live a long life and become a
father of his own large family.
Emily & Julia Hill — ages 20 & 23
The Hill sisters joined the Church in England against their parents' wishes and saved their own
money to make the journey across. Sailing on the Thornton and traveling with the Willie
Company, the sisters helped a widow with five children for much of the trek.
During the climb of Rocky Ridge, Julia collapsed in the snow. Emily — barely better off
herself — pulled her older sister up and got her over the summit. Both sisters survived.
Emily later wrote the words to the hymn "As Sisters in Zion."
