Person:Ellen Pucell (2)

Ellen "Nellie" Pucell Unthank - Martin Handcart Company Here is the story of a woman who, in spite of crushing handicaps, carried on the highest mission of womanhood. Her name was Ellen Pucell Unthank, but she was called "Nellie" by her friends and kinsfolk. Nellie, when nine years of age, left her home in England to come with her parents to Utah where they could worship with others of their faith and assist in building a new Zion. Nellie's parents were among those who died and were laid to rest in snow banks. But those who died and were laid to rest in the snow perhaps were most fortunate of all. They were through with their suffering and had gone to their reward. The rescue wagons gathered them up and took the sufferers to Salt Lake City where the Church saw to it that they were cared for.

Poor little Nellie, nothing could be done to save her feet. When they took off her shoes and stockings, the skin, with pieces of flesh came off too. The doctor said her feet must be taken off to save her life. They strapped her to a board and without an anesthetic the surgery was performed. With a butcher knife and a carpenter's saw they cut the blackened limbs off. It was poor surgery, too, for the flesh was not brought over to cushion the ends. The bones stuck out through the ends of the stumps and in pain she waddled through the rest of her life on her knees. In poverty and pain she reared a family of six children but never asked for favors of pity or charity because of her tragic handicap. William was a poor man and unable to provide fully for his family; so Nellie did all she could for herself. She took in washings. Kneeling by a tub on the floor she scrubbed the clothes to whiteness on the washboard. She knit stockings to sell, carded wool and crocheted table pieces.

She seldom accepted gifts or charity from friends or neighbors unless she could do a bundle of darning or mending to repay the kindness. The bishop and the Relief Society sometimes gave a little assistance which Nellie gratefully accepted, but once a year, to even the score, she took her children and cleaned the meeting house. The boy carried water, the girls washed the windows and Nellie, on her knees, scrubbed the floor. This heroic woman gave to William Unthank, a posterity to perpetuate his name in the earth and he gave her a home and a family to give comfort and care in her old age.

In memory I recall her wrinkled forehead, her soft dark eyes that told of toil and pain and suffering, and the deep grooves that encircled the corners of her strong mouth. But in that face there was no trace of bitterness or railings at her fate. There was patience and serenity for in spite of her handicap she had earned her keep and justified her existence. She had given to family, friends and to the world then she had received. - She Stood Tall On Her Knees by William Palmer.

A Nine-Year-Old Girl Triumphed over the Handcart Tragedy

The heavy morning frost on the Wyoming Plains west of Fort Laramie made walking unpleasant for those who were barefoot or in tattered shoes among the ill-fated 1856 Mormon handcart companies destined for Salt Lake City. Both the Willie and Martin companies replete with Mormon faithful eager to join fellow Saints in the Great Basin, had been plagued with difficulties along their overland journeys. Carts broke down, provisions ran out, cattle stampeded, and worst of all, a month before usual snowfall, the most violent winter to hit the region in many years pinned the two companies, cold and near starvation, several miles apart and hundreds of miles from their destination. Even before the onset of severe weather the Martin company, traveling eight days behind the Willie group, had been put on rations of two cups of flour per adult per day. To compensate, many stopped at Fort Laramie where they traded jewelry, utensils, and heirlooms for cornmeal, beans, and bacon; but even these staples proved insufficient once winter weather hit.

Samuel and Margaret Pucell were among the 135 to 150 members of the Martin company that died along the trail. They were converted to the Mormon faith in England and with their two daughters, Maggie, age 14, and Nellie, 9, sailed from Liverpool on May 2, 1856. They joined a handcart company in Iowa City led by Edward Martin and after some delays left late in the season for Salt Lake City. Along the difficult trek Margaret became sick; Samuel compassionately placed his feeble wife in the family cart and continued the journey. At one of several river crossings, however, Samuel stumbled and fell, immersing himself in the cold water. His clothing froze, and within a few days he died from starvation and exposure. Tragically, Margaret died five days later, leaving Nellie and Maggie orphans on the trail.

Fortunately, missionaries returning from England brought news of the destitute companies to Salt Lake City, and on October 5, 1856, Brigham Young dispatched a rescue team. Those immigrants who were still alive when help arrived were desperately cold or numb from the early winter freeze. Ephraim Hanks, one of the rescue party, recalled reaching several travelers "whose extremities were frozen." "Many such I washed with water and castile soap, until the frozen parts would fall off," he wrote, "after which I would sever the shreds of flesh from the remaining portions of the limbs with my scissors." Both Pucell girls were found in similar circumstances with badly frozen feet and legs. Upon removal of the girls' shoes and socks, frozen flesh came off; Nellie's legs were particularly bad and had to be amputated. Rescuers performed the operation without anesthetic, using the only available instruments, a butcher knife and carpenter's saw. Due to the primitive surgical conditions the wound healed poorly, and bones protruded from the end of Nellie's stumps. She spent the rest of her life waddling on her knees in constant pain.

At age 24 Nellie moved to Cedar City and not long thereafter became the plural wife of William Unthank. She bore six children and lived in poverty. She was, however, accustomed to facing challenges and did all in her power to make the most of her situation. Even while living in a log cabin she kept her home immaculately clean. She regularly dampened and scraped the dirt floor, making it smooth as pavement. To help meet her family's needs she took in laundry, knitted stockings to sell, carded wool, and crocheted table pieces. At times, however, she could not provide all the essentials for her children and received assistance from her Mormon bishop. As repayment for this aid and out of deeply felt gratitude, she and her children yearly scrubbed and washed the church where they worshiped each Sunday. Nellie spent most of her life in similar quiet acts of service, not only for her church but also for her family and neighbors. According to one friend, "her wrinkled forehead" and "her soft dark eyes" bore witness to the "pain and suffering" she had endured in her life, yet her face bore "no trace of bitterness" at her fate. In "patience and serenity" Nellie touched the lives of all with whom she associated. She died at age 69 in Cedar City.

As a fitting tribute to Nellie's memory a life-size bronze likeness by noted Utah sculptor Jerry Anderson was dedicated August 13, 1991, on the campus of Southern Utah University. The Utah Legislature officially set the day aside as a "day of praise" for Nellie Unthank, and a host of dignitaries paid tribute to her tenacity, sacrifice, and noble pioneering spirit. Perhaps Norman Bangerter, then governor of Utah, said it best when he praised Nellie as "one of the true heroines of Utah history."

See: Deseret News, August 4, 10, October 12, 1991; Rebecca Cornwall and Leonard J. Arrington, Rescue of the 1856 Handcart Companies (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1981); Leroy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, Handcarts to Zion (Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark, 1960); Kate B. Carter, comp., Treasures of Pioneer History, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1952-57), 5:266-67.

Heroes and Heroines: Ellen Pucell Unthank By Sharon Bigelow

Sharon Bigelow, Ellen Pucell Unthank, Friend, Jan. 1986, 40 Ten-year-old Ellen Pucell refused to move another step. For endless days and miles shed been dragging herself over snowy, frigid ground. Now, with the merciless cold biting through her ragged clothes, the pain in her feet had grown unbearable, and Ellen, or Nellie as everyone called her, sat down shivering and couldnt go on. Her older sister, Maggie, coaxed her to get up. But while her weary friends trudged on ahead, struggling to pull handcarts through the snow, Nellie still sat, unable to move her stiffened legs.

Maggie again pleaded with her younger sister to walk with her before the company left them behind. As their hope of catching up faded, a horse-drawn carriage approached them. The driver, one of the leaders lucky enough to have a wagon, stopped to ask about the young girls. When Maggie explained the situation, Nellie was lifted into the back of the wagon, where her feet dangled over the edge as they hurried to catch up with the others.

Nellies family had sailed from Liverpool, England, in May of 1856 with a large group of Latter-day Saints. After a safe voyage on the ship Horizon, they docked in Boston, then traveled by train to Iowa. From there Nellie had set out with her parents, her sister, Maggie, and over five hundred other pioneers. They were bound for peace and new homes in the Salt Lake Valley. Too poor to afford wagons or the animals to pull them, the great majority chose to build smaller, two-wheeled wagons called handcarts, which they would pull themselves. Only the most vital provisions could be carried. Extra bedding, clothing, household supplies, and even extra food had to remain behind.

For the first few weeks the company enjoyed good weather, but in October disaster fell from the gray skies. Early snowstorms and bitter cold pursued the pioneers.

Nellies family suffered along with the rest. Her mother became ill and had to be pulled for some distance in their cart. Nellies father slipped into the waters of one of the rivers they crossed, and because there was no dry clothing or warm shelter, he was chilled to the bone. The familys food supply grew scarce, and the snow hid any fuel that they might have gathered for a fire.

Nellies father died on October 22, 1956, from hunger and exposure to the cold. Five days later her mother died too. Graves could only be dug in the snow because the early winter had frozen the ground. Nellie and Maggie trudged on alone. They watched as more of the company died and the weathers cold fierceness strengthened.

One day as Nellie and her sister made their way at the head of the group, two men dressed in buckskin appeared and motioned for them to come closer. At first the girls refused but soon decided that the men meant no harm. The men gave Nellie some money and instructed her to buy moccasins at the trappers trading post they were nearing. Nellie gratefully accepted the money and the chance to cover her bare feet, which had long since grown numb with cold.

In Salt Lake, Brigham Young had called for volunteers to meet the handcart company on the plains. When the volunteers finally reached it, near Laramie, Wyoming, they found the pitiful group nearly buried by the snow. Nellies feet were badly frozen. The rescue party gathered her and the remaining members of the company into their wagons and returned to Salt Lake, arriving on November 30.

Nearly everyone in the handcart company had endured painfully frozen feet, hands, and ears and had witnessed the deaths of family members and friends. The doctor had to amputate Nellies feet. There was no skin to cushion the bone, so she was left with throbbing sores that never healed.

Nellie and her sister eventually moved south from the Salt Lake Valley to Cedar City. Here Nellie married William Unthank and reared their six children. With a leather apron under her damaged legs, Nellie crawled about their small home on her knees, keeping it spotless.

Nellie willingly worked at whatever she could to help provide for her family. Along with other jobs, she took in laundry and crocheted articles to sell to add to the family income. If anyone offered food or assistance, she insisted on repaying the favor. As a way of showing gratitude, she gathered her children once a year to clean the meetinghouse. While the boys carried water, the girls washed windows, and Nellie scrubbed the floors.

William carved wooden cup feet for Nellie, but they only irritated her never-healing stumps. Later, through donations, wooden legs were given to Nellie, but these she only wore on special occasions, because they added to her constant pain.

Despite poverty and pain, Nellie rarely complained. She had come to know her Heavenly Father in her sufferings. From the moccasins provided for her bare feet, the carriage sent when she couldnt go on, help given to her through a lifetime of affliction, Nellie Pucell Unthank knew that she could count on the Lord.

Gospel topics: Church history, heroes

[illustrations] Illustrated by Paul Mann

A few weeks ago, it was my privilege to dedicate a monument to the memory of Ellen Pucell Unthank. It stands on the campus of Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. It is a bronze figure, beautiful and engaging. It is of a little nine-year-old girl, standing with one foot tiptoe, her hair blowing back in the wind, a smile on her face, eagerly looking forward.

Ellen Pucell, as she was named, was born in a beautiful area of England where the hills are soft and rolling and the grass is forever green. Her parents, Margaret and William Pucell, were converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From the time of their baptism in 1837 until the spring of 1856, they had scrimped and saved to go to the Zion of their people in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains of America. Now that was possible, if they were willing to pull a handcart one thousand miles across a wilderness. They accepted that challenge, as did hundreds of their fellow converts.

Margaret and William took with them their two daughters, Maggie, fourteen, and Ellen, nine. They said good-bye to loved ones they would never again see in mortality. Near the end of May they set sail from Liverpool with 852 of their convert associates. My wifes grandmother, thirteen-year-old Mary Goble, was a part of that company, and, I like to think, played with those little girls aboard ship.

After six weeks at sea, they landed at Boston and took the steam train to Iowa City. They had expected their handcarts and wagons would be ready. They were not. There was a serious and disastrous delay. It was not until late in July that they began the long march, first to Winter Quarters on the Missouri, and from there to the Rocky Mountains.

The Pucells were assigned to the Martin Handcart Company. The Goble family, my wifes forebears, became a part of the Cluff Wagon Company, which followed the handcarts to give help if needed.

With high expectation they began their journey. Through sunlight and storm, through dust and mud, they trudged beside the Platte River through all of the month of September and most of October. On October 19, they reached the last crossing of the Platte, a little west of the present city of Casper, Wyoming. The river was wide, the current strong, and chunks of ice were floating in the water. They were now traveling without sufficient food. Bravely they waded through the icy stream. A terrible storm arose with fierce winds bringing drifting sand, hail, and snow. When they climbed the far bank of the river, their wet clothing froze to their bodies. Exhausted, freezing, and without strength to go on, some quietly sat down, and while they sat, they died.

Ellens mother, Margaret, became sick. Her husband lifted her onto the cart. They were now climbing in elevation toward the Continental Divide, and it was uphill all the way. Can you see this family in your imagination?the mother too sick and weak to walk, the father thin and emaciated, struggling to pull the cart, as the two little girls push from behind with swirling, cold winds about them, and around them are hundreds of others similarly struggling.

They came to a stream of freezing water. The father, while crossing, slipped on a rock and fell. Struggling to his feet, he reached the shore, wet and chilled. Sometime later he sat down to rest. He quietly died, his senses numbed by the cold. His wife died five days later. I do not know how or where their frozen bodies were buried in that desolate, white wilderness. I do know that the ground was frozen and that the snow was piled in drifts and that the two little girls were now orphans.

Between 135 and 150 of the Martin company alone perished along that trail of suffering and death. It was in these desperate and terrible circumstanceshungry, exhausted, their clothes thin and raggedthat they were found by the rescue party. As the rescuers appeared on the western horizon breaking a trail through the snow, they seemed as angels of mercy. And indeed they were. The beleaguered emigrants shouted for joy, some of them. Others, too weak to shout, simply wept, and wept, and wept.

There was now food to eat and some warmer clothing. But the suffering was not over, nor would it ever end in mortality. Limbs had been frozen and the gangrenous flesh sloughed off from the bones.

The carts were abandoned, and the survivors were crowded into the wagons of the rescuers. The long rough journey of three hundred, four hundred, even five hundred miles between them and this valley was especially slow and tedious because of the storms. On November 30, 104 wagons, loaded with suffering human cargo, came into the Salt Lake Valley. Word of their expected arrival had preceded them. It was Sunday, and again the Saints were gathered in the Tabernacle. Brigham Young stood before the congregation and said:

As soon as this meeting is dismissed I want the brethren and sisters to repair to their homes.

The afternoon meeting will be omitted, for I wish the sisters to prepare to give those who have just arrived a mouthful of something to eat, and to wash them and nurse them.

Some you will find with their feet frozen to their ankles; some are frozen to their knees and some have their hands frosted we want you to receive them as your own children, and to have the same feeling for them. (Handcarts to Zion, p. 139.)

The two orphan girls, Maggie and Ellen, were among those with frozen limbs. Ellens were the most serious. The doctor in the valley, doing the best he could, amputated her legs just below the knees. The surgical tools were crude. There was no anesthesia. The stumps never healed. She grew to womanhood, married William Unthank, and bore and reared an honorable family of six children. Moving about on those stumps, she served her family, her neighbors, and the Church with faith and good cheer, and without complaint, though she was never without pain. Her posterity are numerous, and among them are educated and capable men and women who love the Lord whom she loved and who love the cause for which she suffered.

Years later, a group in Cedar City were talking about her and others who were in those ill-fated companies. Members of the group spoke critically of the Church and its leaders because the company of converts had been permitted to start so late in the season. I now quote from a manuscript which I have:

One old man in the corner sat silent and listened as long as he could stand it. Then he arose and said things that no person who heard will ever forget. His face was white with emotion, yet he spoke calmly, deliberately, but with great earnestness and sincerity.

He said in substance, I ask you to stop this criticism. You are discussing a matter you know nothing about. Cold historic facts mean nothing here for they give no proper interpretation of the questions involved. A mistake to send the handcart company out so late in the season? Yes. But I was in that company and my wife was in it and Sister Nellie Unthank whom you have cited was there too. We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? Not one of that company ever apostatized or left the Church because every one of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities. (Manuscript in my possession.)

That speaker was Francis Webster, who was twenty-six years of age when with his wife and infant child he went through that experience. He became a leader in the Church and a leader in the communities of southern Utah.

Now, my brothers and sisters, I have spent a long time telling that story, perhaps too long. This is October of 1991, and that episode of 135 years ago is behind us. But I have told it because it is true and because the spirit of that saga is as contemporary as is this morning.

I wish to remind everyone within my hearing that the comforts we have, the peace we have, and, most important, the faith and knowledge of the things of God that we have, were bought with a terrible price by those who have gone before us. Sacrifice has always been a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The crowning element of our faith is our conviction of our living God, the Father of us all, and of His Beloved Son, the Redeemer of the world. It is because of our Redeemers life and sacrifice that we are here. It is because of His sacrificial atonement that we and all of the sons and daughters of God will partake of the salvation of the Lord. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Cor. 15:22.) It is because of the sacrificial redemption wrought by the Savior of the world that the great plan of the eternal gospel is made available to us under which those who die in the Lord shall not taste of death but shall have the opportunity of going on to a celestial and eternal glory.

In our own helplessness, He becomes our rescuer, saving us from damnation and bringing us to eternal life.

In times of despair, in seasons of loneliness and fear, He is there on the horizon to bring succor and comfort and assurance and faith. He is our King, our Savior, our Deliverer, our Lord and our God.

Those on the high, cold plains of Wyoming came to know Him in their extremity as perhaps few come to know Him. But to every troubled soul, every man or woman in need, to those everywhere who are pulling heavy burdens through the bitter storms of life, He has said:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matt. 11:2830.)

Now, I am grateful that today none of our people are stranded on the Wyoming highlands. But I know that all about us there are many who are in need of help and who are deserving of rescue. Our mission in life, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, must be a mission of saving. There are the homeless, the hungry, the destitute. Their condition is obvious. We have done much. We can do more to help those who live on the edge of survival.

We can reach out to strengthen those who wallow in the mire of pornography, gross immorality, and drugs. Many have become so addicted that they have lost power to control their own destinies. They are miserable and broken. They can be salvaged and saved.

There are wives who are abandoned and children who weep in homes where there is abuse. There are fathers who can be rescued from evil and corrosive practices that destroy and bring only heartbreak.

It is not with those on the high plains of Wyoming that we need be concerned today. It is with many immediately around us, in our families, in our wards and stakes, in our neighborhoods and communities.

And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them. (Moses 7:18.)

If we are to build that Zion of which the prophets have spoken and of which the Lord has given mighty promise, we must set aside our consuming selfishness. We must rise above our love for comfort and ease, and in the very process of effort and struggle, even in our extremity, we shall become better acquainted with our God.

Let us never forget that we have a marvelous heritage received from great and courageous people who endured unimaginable suffering and demonstrated unbelievable courage for the cause they loved. You and I know what we should do. God help us to do it when it needs to be done, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Gospel topics: love, pioneers

b 2006 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.SAMUEL PUCELL'S FAMILY GROUP SHEET SHOWS ELLEN BEING BORN AT VALE HOUSE, TINTWHISTLE, CHESAMUEL PUCELL'S FAMILY GROUP SHEET SHOWS ELLEN BEING BORN AT VALE HOUSE, TINTWHISTLE, CHE

In memory I recall her wrinkled forehead, her soft dark eyes that told of toil and pain and suffering, and the deep grooves that encircled the corners of her strong mouth. But in that face there was no trace of bitterness or railings at her fate. There was patience and serenity for in spite of her handicap she had earned her keep and justified her existence. She had given to family, friends and to the world then she had received. - She Stood Tall On Her Knees by William Palmer.

A Nine-Year-Old Girl Triumphed over the Handcart Tragedy

The heavy morning frost on the Wyoming Plains west of Fort Laramie made walking unpleasant for those who were barefoot or in tattered shoes among the ill-fated 1856 Mormon handcart companies destined for Salt Lake City. Both the Willie and Martin companies replete with Mormon faithful eager to join fellow Saints in the Great Basin, had been plagued with difficulties along their overland journeys. Carts broke down, provisions ran out, cattle stampeded, and worst of all, a month before usual snowfall, the most violent winter to hit the region in many years pinned the two companies, cold and near starvation, several miles apart and hundreds of miles from their destination. Even before the onset of severe weather the Martin company, traveling eight days behind the Willie group, had been put on rations of two cups of flour per adult per day. To compensate, many stopped at Fort Laramie where they traded jewelry, utensils, and heirlooms for cornmeal, beans, and bacon; but even these staples proved insufficient once winter weather hit.

Samuel and Margaret Pucell were among the 135 to 150 members of the Martin company that died along the trail. They were converted to the Mormon faith in England and with their two daughters, Maggie, age 14, and Nellie, 9, sailed from Liverpool on May 2, 1856. They joined a handcart company in Iowa City led by Edward Martin and after some delays left late in the season for Salt Lake City. Along the difficult trek Margaret became sick; Samuel compassionately placed his feeble wife in the family cart and continued the journey. At one of several river crossings, however, Samuel stumbled and fell, immersing himself in the cold water. His clothing froze, and within a few days he died from starvation and exposure. Tragically, Margaret died five days later, leaving Nellie and Maggie orphans on the trail.

Fortunately, missionaries returning from England brought news of the destitute companies to Salt Lake City, and on October 5, 1856, Brigham Young dispatched a rescue team. Those immigrants who were still alive when help arrived were desperately cold or numb from the early winter freeze. Ephraim Hanks, one of the rescue party, recalled reaching several travelers "whose extremities were frozen." "Many such I washed with water and castile soap, until the frozen parts would fall off," he wrote, "after which I would sever the shreds of flesh from the remaining portions of the limbs with my scissors." Both Pucell girls were found in similar circumstances with badly frozen feet and legs. Upon removal of the girls' shoes and socks, frozen flesh came off; Nellie's legs were particularly bad and had to be amputated. Rescuers performed the operation without anesthetic, using the only available instruments, a butcher knife and carpenter's saw. Due to the primitive surgical conditions the wound healed poorly, and bones protruded from the end of Nellie's stumps. She spent the rest of her life waddling on her knees in constant pain.

At age 24 Nellie moved to Cedar City and not long thereafter became the plural wife of William Unthank. She bore six children and lived in poverty. She was, however, accustomed to facing challenges and did all in her power to make the most of her situation. Even while living in a log cabin she kept her home immaculately clean. She regularly dampened and scraped the dirt floor, making it smooth as pavement. To help meet her family's needs she took in laundry, knitted stockings to sell, carded wool, and crocheted table pieces. At times, however, she could not provide all the essentials for her children and received assistance from her Mormon bishop. As repayment for this aid and out of deeply felt gratitude, she and her children yearly scrubbed and washed the church where they worshiped each Sunday. Nellie spent most of her life in similar quiet acts of service, not only for her church but also for her family and neighbors. According to one friend, "her wrinkled forehead" and "her soft dark eyes" bore witness to the "pain and suffering" she had endured in her life, yet her face bore "no trace of bitterness" at her fate. In "patience and serenity" Nellie touched the lives of all with whom she associated. She died at age 69 in Cedar City.

As a fitting tribute to Nellie's memory a life-size bronze likeness by noted Utah sculptor Jerry Anderson was dedicated August 13, 1991, on the campus of Southern Utah University. The Utah Legislature officially set the day aside as a "day of praise" for Nellie Unthank, and a host of dignitaries paid tribute to her tenacity, sacrifice, and noble pioneering spirit. Perhaps Norman Bangerter, then governor of Utah, said it best when he praised Nellie as "one of the true heroines of Utah history."

See: Deseret News, August 4, 10, October 12, 1991; Rebecca Cornwall and Leonard J. Arrington, Rescue of the 1856 Handcart Companies (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1981); Leroy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, Handcarts to Zion (Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark, 1960); Kate B. Carter, comp., Treasures of Pioneer History, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1952-57), 5:266-67.

Heroes and Heroines: Ellen Pucell Unthank By Sharon Bigelow

Sharon Bigelow, Ellen Pucell Unthank, Friend, Jan. 1986, 40 Ten-year-old Ellen Pucell refused to move another step. For endless days and miles shed been dragging herself over snowy, frigid ground. Now, with the merciless cold biting through her ragged clothes, the pain in her feet had grown unbearable, and Ellen, or Nellie as everyone called her, sat down shivering and couldnt go on. Her older sister, Maggie, coaxed her to get up. But while her weary friends trudged on ahead, struggling to pull handcarts through the snow, Nellie still sat, unable to move her stiffened legs.

Maggie again pleaded with her younger sister to walk with her before the company left them behind. As their hope of catching up faded, a horse-drawn carriage approached them. The driver, one of the leaders lucky enough to have a wagon, stopped to ask about the young girls. When Maggie explained the situation, Nellie was lifted into the back of the wagon, where her feet dangled over the edge as they hurried to catch up with the others.

Nellies family had sailed from Liverpool, England, in May of 1856 with a large group of Latter-day Saints. After a safe voyage on the ship Horizon, they docked in Boston, then traveled by train to Iowa. From there Nellie had set out with her parents, her sister, Maggie, and over five hundred other pioneers. They were bound for peace and new homes in the Salt Lake Valley. Too poor to afford wagons or the animals to pull them, the great majority chose to build smaller, two-wheeled wagons called handcarts, which they would pull themselves. Only the most vital provisions could be carried. Extra bedding, clothing, household supplies, and even extra food had to remain behind.

For the first few weeks the company enjoyed good weather, but in October disaster fell from the gray skies. Early snowstorms and bitter cold pursued the pioneers.

Nellies family suffered along with the rest. Her mother became ill and had to be pulled for some distance in their cart. Nellies father slipped into the waters of one of the rivers they crossed, and because there was no dry clothing or warm shelter, he was chilled to the bone. The familys food supply grew scarce, and the snow hid any fuel that they might have gathered for a fire.

Nellies father died on October 22, 1956, from hunger and exposure to the cold. Five days later her mother died too. Graves could only be dug in the snow because the early winter had frozen the ground. Nellie and Maggie trudged on alone. They watched as more of the company died and the weathers cold fierceness strengthened.

One day as Nellie and her sister made their way at the head of the group, two men dressed in buckskin appeared and motioned for them to come closer. At first the girls refused but soon decided that the men meant no harm. The men gave Nellie some money and instructed her to buy moccasins at the trappers trading post they were nearing. Nellie gratefully accepted the money and the chance to cover her bare feet, which had long since grown numb with cold.

In Salt Lake, Brigham Young had called for volunteers to meet the handcart company on the plains. When the volunteers finally reached it, near Laramie, Wyoming, they found the pitiful group nearly buried by the snow. Nellies feet were badly frozen. The rescue party gathered her and the remaining members of the company into their wagons and returned to Salt Lake, arriving on November 30.

Nearly everyone in the handcart company had endured painfully frozen feet, hands, and ears and had witnessed the deaths of family members and friends. The doctor had to amputate Nellies feet. There was no skin to cushion the bone, so she was left with throbbing sores that never healed.

Nellie and her sister eventually moved south from the Salt Lake Valley to Cedar City. Here Nellie married William Unthank and reared their six children. With a leather apron under her damaged legs, Nellie crawled about their small home on her knees, keeping it spotless.

Nellie willingly worked at whatever she could to help provide for her family. Along with other jobs, she took in laundry and crocheted articles to sell to add to the family income. If anyone offered food or assistance, she insisted on repaying the favor. As a way of showing gratitude, she gathered her children once a year to clean the meetinghouse. While the boys carried water, the girls washed windows, and Nellie scrubbed the floors.

William carved wooden cup feet for Nellie, but they only irritated her never-healing stumps. Later, through donations, wooden legs were given to Nellie, but these she only wore on special occasions, because they added to her constant pain.

Despite poverty and pain, Nellie rarely complained. She had come to know her Heavenly Father in her sufferings. From the moccasins provided for her bare feet, the carriage sent when she couldnt go on, help given to her through a lifetime of affliction, Nellie Pucell Unthank knew that she could count on the Lord.

Gospel topics: Church history, heroes

[illustrations] Illustrated by Paul Mann