4 Days Until Trek - Preparations to Leave

Many will never know the hours of preparation and planning that has gone into Trek. Something of this magnitude is not thrown together overnight. Brigham Young, other Church leaders, and pioneer families spent months preparing to leave Nauvoo for their new home in the west. Organization and planning was and is essential to ensure that everyone is safe, fed, and healthy. Packing lists ensure that everyone has what they need to be successful. Trek will be successful and meaningful because we have all spent the time to prepare for this singular event. Like the pioneers of old, we've planned and worked for this time. 

"Four months earlier, the homes and yards of the Saints in Nauvoo presented an equally busy scene as preparations began for an orderly departure for a new Zion when the weather permitted their journey west in the spring. Grass, water, and game would be plentiful. A company of men was called to head out early, searching out a new home for the Saints. The others would follow. Timber, wire, iron, and copper helped strengthen the old wagons and a few new ones boasted coats of paint. Bathsheba Smith opened up her parlor in Nauvoo 'as a paint-shop in which to paint wagons. All were making preparations to leave.' And the Smith home was only part of the bustle: 'The fall of 1845 found Nauvoo, as it were, one vast mechanic shop, as nearly every family was engaged in making wagons,' she describe.

"Little hands and big hands held hammers, scissors, hoes, and axes. Women and girls sewed and knitted warm clothing, wagon covers, and tents. They ground corn and wheat, dried breadstuffs into a long-lasting sea biscuit, dried fruit, and sacked up corn meal, rice, and beans. A bit of finery, a piece of embroidery from the past, and a few family heirlooms were tucked into trunks as tears trickled down cheeks, only to be smudged away by resolute hands."

Selection from Stanley B. and Violet T. Kimball's 2011 book, Villages on Wheels: A Social History of the Gathering to Zion.