On Tuesday, the 9th of September 1851 the Garden Grove Company of Saints camped on the Little Sandy, a muddy, swiftly flowing river about twenty feet wide and two and a half feet deep. The entry in the camp journal reads, "Much feed."

This day is Elvira Egbert Carson’s 29th birthday. She is three months pregnant.

A family story has been preserved about Elvira which relates a touching incident that probably occurred at about this date. As the family neared Utah, John and Elvira Carson ran out of flour. Remember that they had anticipated being in the Valley by this time so it is natural that many of those in the company would be running very low on food and supplies.

The prayer of Elvira’s heart was that her children would not cry for something to eat. On the day in question when they camped for the night, she spread down a sheet and shook a cracker sack free of crumbs, and told her three youngest children that it was their supper. Minnie, age 5, John Jr., age 3, and Sarah Ann, fourteen months, crawled around on the sheet and gathered up every crumb, and then went to bed without a whimper. Billy, or William Franklin Carson, who was eight, was probably treated as an adult and like his parents went to bed that night without anything to eat. The next day, someone gave Elvira a pan of flour. Along with the milk they had, she was able to make this last until they arrived in the valley.

William Franklin Carson’s son, David H. Carson, wrote about a similar memory from his own childhood in Fairfield. "As for our family, we were very poor as this world’s goods go, but we never did go what you would say ‘hungry.’ I remember many, many times, though, when my Mother, Rachel Lloyd Carson, would put a pan of milk on the old cook stove and then stir a little flour into the milk to thicken it some. We had to eat it with a spoon. I think they used to call it thickened milk. The pan was set on the table. Mother would give each of us a dish full and that was our supper."

From my own childhood, I remember my parents making what they called "slim gravy" from flour, milk, and the meager drippings from a small piece of meat or hamburger.

On Wednesday, the 10th of September 1851 the company traveled 17 miles and then camped on the Big Sandy where they found plenty of feed and water. It was here that one of the most important meetings of the Garden Grove Company took place.

Crooks records in the camp journal that they "held a meeting this evening for the purpose of ascertaining if there was any surplus steers and help. It was agreed that Captain Walton should have control of them - big or little, old or young, and by so doing we might equalize our teams to a considerable extent and be the means of hastening the company faster to the place of destination." Evidently Captain Walton was given the authority to distribute the animals, regardless of ownership, in a way which best insured the ability of all of the families in the company to reach the Valley.

The next day the company traveled about 12 miles over a barren and sandy road until they reached the Green River, where they found "good water and plenty of feed."

On Thursday, the 14th of September, Crooks wrote in the camp journal that they "counted 25 head of dead oxen on the road today."

Traveling not far away with Brown’s company of pioneers is Jean Rio Griffiths Baker who kept a detailed journal of the trek. She records that at this time their company was joined by several men who had been working as teamsters in other companies. They left "on account of provisions growing short and teams giving out. They tell us that the companies were throwing away all they could possibly spare in order to lighten the loads." It appears that all of the companies that were nearing Utah at this time were experiencing the same difficulties - shortages of food, and livestock dying nor near death from exhaustion.

The company is now about one hundred and twenty miles from the Great Salt Lake Valley.

Part 13

Part 15