Margaret Caldwell, age 40, had been widowed for nine years when she left Scotland for America with four of her children, ages 9 through 16. After her husband’s death, she had managed a boarding house, and with thrift and industry she saved enough to emigrate.
Walking so many miles across the plains was hard, but Margaret said that,
“after becoming accustomed to walking it wasn’t too bad.”
Traveling became harder when her 14-year-old son, Thomas, had an accident in Florence, Nebraska. Thomas roped a cow so a young girl could milk it, but the cow broke away and Thomas’s foot was caught in the rope. He fell to the ground and released the rope, but the cow turned on him, breaking his collarbone and leaving him unable to help pull the handcart. “This left me with a great deal of pulling to do,” Margaret recalled. The bone developed gangrene, and Margaret “had quite a time clearing it up.”
Pulling handcarts became increasingly hard as rations were reduced. When the Willie company reached the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater, the last of the rations were distributed. Recalling their last meager meal in these conditions, Margaret wrote,
“I boiled a small piece of buffalo meat, seasoned it with salt crackers and thickened it with a little flour, then divided it with others desperately in need of food.”
Two young boys remembered this meal for years afterward,
“as being the best thing they ever ate.”
At a time when Margaret and her family were at the brink of starvation, she reached out with charity to others.
When the family finally arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, Margaret’s 12-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, had to have some of her toes amputated. Nevertheless, Margaret counted her blessings. Thinking of so many who had died on the journey, she recorded, “I still had much to be thankful for.” She remarried soon after arriving in Utah and lived to be 71 years old.