Description
Mary B. Crandal
June 11, 1856, the wind came up and the dust blew so fiercely that the travelers could scarcely see one another. Mary said, “It looked like the imps of darkness had come to stop us from going.” And, indeed, it must have worked because the family she was traveling with decided to turn back. They loaded the handcart and returned to Council Bluffs, Iowa, taking all of Mary’s belongings with them. Mary later recorded, “What to do I did not know. There I was, thousands of miles from home, not one person that knew me, a stranger in a strange land. I did not know anything to do but cry. I stood with my back against a tree…crying, when I noticed a man watching me, so I turned my back to him. In a few minutes he came to where I stood and asked me if I was going back with those people. I said, “I don’t know what I shall do.”
The audacious stranger walked off and Mary continued crying. Then she noticed the man still watching her and struck her as most inappropriate that he should have such an interest in her. Presently he walked back up to her, “Well, what are you going to do?” he said.
“Well, sir,” Mary replied, “I’m going on with the company, and if the Lord spares my life–take a handcart into Utah.”
He said, “Come on, you are the girl I thought you were.” He then took her to another couple in the Company and asked them to look after her. He brought her some clothes saying, “I will lend you these if you will promise to return them when you get to the Valley.”
Her response was, “I’ll return them if I live.”
Still Mary wondered who was this stranger taking such an interest in her welfare. So she asked Sister Ramsey, “Who is that man that speaks so much to me and does me so many favors?” She says, “Why, don’t you know? That is our captain, Brother Dan McArthur.” Mary B. Crandal was traveling to Zion with the Daniel D. McArthur handcart company—the second company of 1856 to make the journey.
The next morning, Mary boldly marched into the Captain’s tent and told him if he would let her have a handcart she would haul it herself to Utah.
The Captain’s response, “You can’t do it.”
Mary said, “Try me and see.”
“You plucky little thing,” said Captain McArthur, “I will try you.”
He gave her and cart and the next morning with all she owned strapped to the cart she set out pulling the handcart alone. Before long two more girls wanted to join with her and the Captain agreed.
“We were a happy band,” Mary said, “traveling to the promised land, singing. “Some must push and some must pull, As we go marching up the hill.”
And on across the plains, Mary and her friends pulled the handcart. They entered Salt Lake City on September 26, 1856 amidst great fanfare and celebration. The handcart plan was a success! As Mary topped Big Mountain and looked down up the Salt Lake Valley, she said, “What a beautiful sight met our eyes after our long journey. A valley in the mountains! The sight filled my heart with joy and peace, and I did not feel the least bit weary.” Mary B. Crandal was the “first girl to pull a handcart across the Big Mountain.”
This may be in part why the Lord said, “Be of good Cheer.” For when we are cheerful burdens become blessings and oppressions become opportunities.
Source:
Copyright Glenn Rawson 2020
