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Horace and Nancy Alexander

Horace Alexander was among the local toughs who delighted in harassing the Mormons in this small Indiana community as they held their meetings. Then one day he met one of their young women—16 year-old Nancy Reeder. Evidently he was taken not only with her, but also with her religion and soon he was taught the gospel and baptized. They were among those who lost everything when the saints were driven out of Far West, Missouri. They moved to Alton, Illinois where Horace practiced carpentry. On April 6, 1841 Horace was called to be a carpenter on the Nauvoo Temple. They moved to Nauvoo and remained there until the temple was completed.

The Alexanders were among the first to leave Nauvoo in the Great Exodus. At the Missouri, Horace heard the call for volunteers to join the army in the war again Mexico and he volunteered leaving behind his pregnant wife and three daughters. On January 1, 1847 Nancy gave birth to a baby boy but their shelter and bedding was not sufficient to keep the mother and child warm and dry. Nancy contracted pneumonia and became gravely ill. A young woman named Catherine Houston was asked by concerned family members to help Nancy. As Nancy grew weaker she asked Catherine to promise her that she would care for her girls and get them to the Salt Lake Valley to meet their father. Catherine made the promise and Nancy, sick, lonely, and dying asked for her husband’s riding boots. When Catherine fetched them, Nancy clutched them to her and wept. A short time later she passed away and her and her infant son were buried in the cemetery at Winter Quarters, Nebraska. Family members immediately wrote a letter to Horace informing him of his beloved wife’s death. That letter would reach him high atop the Sierra Nevada mountains in the summer of 1847.

By the spring of 1848, Horace, now in Salt Lake City learned that his girls were on the trail westward bound for the Salt Lake Valley. Horace rode out and met them somewhere near the Sweetwater in Wyoming. Their reunion was joyous, and for the first time Horace met Catherine who had more than honored her promise to care for these girls who by now she loved as her own. February 15, 1849, Horace Alexander and Catherine Houston were married. True to her promise and beyond, Catherine became as a second mother to the daughters of Nancy Alexander.