Description

Heber McBride

Heber McBride was a lad who loved adventure. Because of the stories of his grandfather, he dreamed of going to sea and no matter how much his parents tried to change his mind, Heber would not give up the dream. Finally, in hopes of giving him a real taste of the sea, Heber’s parents put him on a boat for a two-week voyage to Ireland. “We had a very rough trip,” Heber said, “but it made me want to be a sailor more than ever.”

When the McBride family boarded the Ship Horizon bound for America in May 1856, for young Heber, it was the adventure of a lifetime. “I was delighted at the thought of being on the water in such a big ship. It was all fun and pleasure for me. I was in and out of everything and kept my parents in hot water.” He may have been the only person on board who was sorry to sight New York harbor.

The McBride’s made their way by train to Iowa City where they became part of the Martin Handcart company. As they crossed Nebraska and much of Wyoming Heber’s parents both became ill—too ill to pull the handcart. Hence the burden of caring for the three younger
children fell to Heber and his older sister Jenetta.

It became a daily routine that both parents would leave ahead of the company and walk as far they could and when their strength gave out they would lie down and wait for the rest of the company. When Heber and Jenetta came upon them lying alongside the trail they would load them up and pull them, the ailing parents taking turns riding in the handcart. “No tongue or pen could tell what my sister and I passed through, our parents both sick and us so young.” Heber would later write.

Six-year-old Peter McBride remembered the sacrifices of his older sister. “She carried water from the river to do the cooking. Her shoes gave out, and she walked through the snow barefoot, actually leaving bloody tracks in the snow.”

It was October 19 when they reached the last crossing of the Platte River. In spite of his weakness, Robert McBride labored to help others cross the river. Some 25 times he crossed that icy torrent. That service would cost Robert McBride his life.

The next morning the company made it only a short distance when the snow came down so heavy it forced them to make camp. Heber had put his ailing father in a wagon, picked up his handcart and went on. As darkness fell, Heber searched for his father but could not find him. The next morning the snow lay 18 inches deep on the ground when Heber went out to search again.

He found him under a wagon buried in the snow “stiff and dead. I felt as though my heart would burst,” he said. “I sat down beside him on the snow and took hold of one of his hands and cried, Oh, Father, Father!”

Heber describes that “after I had my cry out. I went back to the tent and told mother. To try to write the feelings of Mother and the other children is out of the question.”

Heber watched as they buried his father in a common grave with 12 others.

The boy who craved adventure became a man before his time. He would deliver his family safely into Salt Lake City November 30, 1856.

Sources:

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWCJ-W21

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