05/27/2006
Rememberding the Handcart Pioneers
By AMY SCHWEITZER , Hub Staff Writer
http://www.handcarttrek.org/articles/hub_4.htm
. . . They joined the Martin Handcart Company that left Iowa City July 28, 1956, with 576 people, 146 handcarts and five wagons. Also on that trip with the Martin Company Hannah Middleton Hawkey Sinfield, the great-great-grandmother of Daren Snider of Kearney.Hannah was 24 and living in England when she became a Mormon. She married a widower and adopted his son, James. Although her husband died in a work accident before they left England, she decided to make the trip to Utah with James, then 14, and her two daughters, Margaret, 4, and Hannah, 3. She was 33.Because of the late start and events that slowed them along the trail, the company was still on the trail in November. A blizzard forced the group to take shelter in an area that would be called Martin’s Cove. . .
. . . Hannah Hawkey’s stepson, James, also died along the trail and was buried in a common grave on the Plains. Hannah pulled the handcart with her two daughters in it most of the way to Salt Lake City.The company was eventually rescued by members of the Mormon faith who already were in Salt Lake City.Interviewed in later life, Hannah said the “Lord took away the sting of losing family and friends” and the “pains we suffered” along the trail. Rather than mourn for those who died, “We envied them that they were taken from this extreme trial and suffering.” Asked if she ever regretted leaving England and emigrating with the saints, she said, “No, never.”Hannah arrived in Salt Lake City in November 1856 with her toes frozen, burst open and bleeding. She was cared for by other settlers until following spring, when she was able to walk again. She eventually married John Sinfield. . .
