Miriam Billingsly and Samuel Barnhurst: Miriam and her family moved from Mississippi to Nauvoo after joining the chuch. They met up with a company of saints and headed west with the saints.
Anna Marie Jensen was from Denmark. She joined the church and though lots of family discouraged her from coming she sailed to America to join the saints. She had saved and paid for supplies to go with a wagon train but knew an elderly lady that was going with the handcart company and probably wouldn't have made it so she gave her her spot with the wagon train and came west with a handcart company. She didn't speak English and couldn't communicate with those in the handcart company. One day after a particularly hard day of pulling she had a stroke and became very sick. She felt that if a certain captain of one of the companies would give her a blessing she would be healed but she couldn't communicate well enough to tell anyone what she wanted. He ended up coming by her tent and she signed that she wanted a blessing to him. He gave her a blessing and she was healed. She wanted to eat so she went out to the fire pit to try to get some food and all of the women at the fire ran away because they thought she was a ghost.
Samuel Barnhurst joined the church out east and his family was going to put him in an insane asylum but he had a dream to come west with the saints so he did. When he got to the valley he was still single as was Anna Marie Jensen so they brethern suggested they might marry. They did get married even though she didn't know English and he didn't know Danish.
Grandpa Neal Adams said that the Kirby side of his family came with handcart families and they had a pretty easy time without serious problems.
Grandma Carol Ericson Adams said that her Great Great Great grandpa Ole Madisen froze to death on Rocky ridge and was buried in a common grave with 13 other people. His wife, Ane Jensen and 4 kids continued west and she ended up in Mt Pleasant Utah which is 5 miles from where Grandma Carol was raised.
