Description

Ephraim K. Hanks

On December 1856, Ephraim K. Hanks helped deliver the Martin Handcart Company into Salt Lake City, Utah. Then, after receiving a blessing from the Presidency of the Church, he and a friend, Feramorz Little, started east with the mail, into one of the worst winters on record.

At Ash Hollow, Nebraska, they came upon a company of professional freighters who had been snow-bound for forty days, and were running short of food. Eph promised to help them on to the Missouri.

Nearby was a Sioux Village. Eph felt impressed to pay them a visit. The Chief asked who he was and where he had come from. Eph answered that he came from the mountains and that his chief was Brigham Young—the man who talked with the Great Spirit. The Chief then wanted to know if Eph could talk to the Great Spirit. When he said he could, the Chief said something to his warriors and some of them left the lodge.

A few minutes later, they returned carrying an Indian boy in a blanket. The boy had been on a buffalo hunt when he had been thrown from a horse. His back was so badly injured that he had been unable to move since. The Chief asked if Eph would talk to the Great Spirit for the boy. Eph said he would. He anointed the boy and blessed him in the name of Christ, “promising that he should be made whole from that very moment. The boy immediately arose from his bed and walked out of the lodge, to the astonishment of the Indians.”

Eph then asked if the Indians could spare any food for the starving freighters. The Chief answered that since the buffalo had moved on, his own people were starving. They had no food to spare. As Eph prepared to leave, he promised the tribe that “within three days buffalo would overrun the country and meat would be plentiful.”

Eph returned to the freighters and, as they broke camp and started east, to their surprise, Indians lined the road handing out packets of their precious stored meat.

Two months later, on his return trip he came back through Ash Hollow. A trader informed him that the Indians had been riding “up and down the territory looking for him.” It seems that three days after his departure “one of the largest buffalo herds ever seen in that country passed through the neighborhood.”

The life of Ephraim Hanks is noted not only for his gifts of healing and prophecy, but also for his extraordinary kindness, especially to the Indians. He was their friend and benefactor throughout his life. Hence this closing scene: June 9, 1896, in the arms of his son, seventy year-old stake patriarch, Ephraim K. Hanks passed away. Weeks before he had been breaking a horse when he was thrown and injured. He never recovered. As they laid him to rest on his southern Utah ranch 1000 Indians lined the rimrock above the ranch in tribute to the friend.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Hanks

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/LZ27-Y5B