Rebecca Winters (pioneer)

Rebecca Burdick Winters (January 16, 1799 – August 15, 1852) was a Mormon pioneer who with her family left the eastern United States to emigrate to the Salt Lake Valley with other Latter-day Saints. In August 1852, en route to present-day Utah, she died of cholera near present-day Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Her grave, located in the Rebecca Winters Memorial Park, has become a popular landmark along the Mormon Trail and is a Nebraska State Landmark.^[1]

Biography

Origins

Rebecca Burdick was born to Gideon Burdick and Catharina Schmidt in Canajoharie, New York. In 1806, Catharina died; Rebecca was only seven years old at this time. Rebecca's father, Gideon, then married Jane Ripley Brown, and when Rebecca was 18 the family relocated to Athens County, Ohio. Here she met Hiram Winters and they were married in 1824. Eventually the two were introduced to Mormonism and joined the Latter Day Saint church. They moved their family to Kirtland, Ohio, to gather with other church members.^[2] Burdick's brother, Thomas Burdick, was also converted to the church.

When living in Kirtland, Rebecca and Hiram were caretakers of the Kirtland Temple.^[3]

The Trek West

After leaving Kirtland, the Winters family briefly stayed in Nauvoo, Illinois, before leaving on the Mormon Trail with the James C. Snow Wagon Company in June 1852.^[4] On August 13 of that year, while near Chimney Rock, Rebecca became sick with cholera, and the illness continued to get worse until she died on August 15. Following her death, William Fletcher Reynolds (1826-1904), a family friend, carved her name and age into an iron wagon tire and buried it to mark the grave's location.^[5]

The Deseret News printed the story in its July 25, 1959 issue:

A close friend, William Reynolds, unloaded an old iron wagon tire he had found on the trail. Into the night his small daughter held a candle while he chiseled the words, "Rebecca Winters, age 50". When her husband saw the inscription he said softly I "That; name will remain forever." They pounded the tire into the ground over the grave, and at sunup the wagons moved on westward. [...]

Many years later, in 1900, when the Burlington Railroad was surveying a route up through the Platte River valley near Scottsbluff, Nebraska, a workman kicked aside some brush to drive a stake, and stubbed his toe on the wagon tire. Someone surmised that it might be something discarded by Mormon pioneers - for they were working exactly where the Harmon trail had been. Upon examining it, the engineers found the name still clear on the wagon tire—Rebecca Winters.

So as not to disturb the pioneer grave, the surveying party went back several miles and rerouted the railroad tracks six feet to the side. Railroad officials built a fence around the grave, planted grass and flowers, erected a sign, and cared for the spot for many years. Later a monument was built with the wagon tire still there as part of the marker with REBECCA WINTERS, the well-chiseled letters made by William Fletcher Reynolds, as plain as ever.

At the time of the incident of the finding of the wagon tire by the railroad people the Reynolds family as well as the Winter's family were stirred with emotion. Rebecca Winters was the grandmother of Augusta Winters Grant, wife of Heber J. Grant. Ellis Reynolds Shipp, pioneer woman doctor of Utah, remembered the incident and wrote a poem, "The Grave in the Desert," after reading the account in the Deseret News.

THE GRAVE IN THE DESERT
On a lone and dreary Prairie,
Near the banks of North Platte River,
Pioneers in grief were camping,
Camping on the lonely prairie
For a noble, faithful mother
Had succumbed from dire privation,
Had exhausted all her powers
And had passed from all her sorrows.
Then her little daughter Helen
Wept with childish grief unbroken,
Sobbed upon her father's bosom
While he held her closely folded
To his heart With grief o'er laden.
Wistfully I gazed upon her;
Sympathetic tears in showers
Flowed with those of little Helen
For upon tomorrow's morning
We must hasten on our journey,
Go without our playmate's mother;
Leave her buried on the prairie,
Where no tender hand could scatter
Flowers of loving recollection;
Where fond tears could never water
Tender buds which here might blossom.
But my grandsire rich in wisdom,
He the counselor and leader---
He the noble honored captain--
Could not deem it just to leave her
Thus without a slab or gravestone
Then he called my worthy father,
Who, with will and genius ready,
Brought a cast-off wagon tire.
And upon it chiseled plainly,
Just the name "Rebecca Winters, "
Then this tire, round, unbroken,
Like the love of those who left her,
As her monument--our token,
Was secured by dext'rous working
Roundabout with stone and boulder,
And the greensward smoothly moulded.
Then we passed upon our journey--
Far away o'er hill and prairie,
Over bare and sandy desert,
Over steep and shelving mountain,

Leaving her in death to slumber
In her grave, so still and lonely,
In the solitude of nature-
In the presence of her Maker
On we passed with prayers to Heaven
That this grave should be protected,
That the sod should stay unbroken,
That this circling band of iron
Should remain where hands so willing
Here had placed it mid their sighing
That the spot of her internment,
Might be found by those who followed.
Now, though years are flown, full forty,
Since we left her on the prairie--
Comes a distant, far-off message:
Close beside the North Platte River,
Has been found a grave still guarded
By a tire of rusted iron,
And upon it, plainly graven,
Honored name "Rebecca Winters"!
Still legible the chiseled letters,
Symbols formed by hands now folded
In the last, long sleep of mortals,
With this message comes the query
"Who was she--Rebecca Winters?
Pioneer?" Ah! truly was she!
Placed her all upon the altar
Gave her life for Cause most worthy!
Then should we the sons and daughters
Of such mothers--of such fathers
Give to them deserving honors
For the hardships and privations,
For the trials they encountered,
For self-sacrifice and patience
On that long, eventful journey
To redeem the western desert!
 
--Ellis Reynolds Shipp, M.D.

Grave site and relocation

After the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, Mormon pioneers stopped traveling by foot and Winters's grave was all but forgotten. Farmers in the Scottsbluff area knew about the grave, but it was not until the end of the 20th century that the grave became a tourist attraction. It was during this time that the Burlington & Missouri Railroad was running a railroad line through the Platte Valley, and after discovering the marked grave, they rerouted the tracks from their original plan to avoid disturbing it. For almost 100 years, thousands visited the grave site, so in 1995 the Burlington Northern Railroad decided to relocate the grave for the safety of visitors (due to its proximity to the railroad tracks). In September 1995, her body was exhumed and relocated a little further east and north of the original location. In June 1996, hundreds of Winters's descendants gathered for the dedication of the Rebecca Winters Memorial Park. The grave remains one of the few marked graves along the Mormon Trail.

References

External links

• The Rebecca Winters Genealogical Society
• Mormon Historical Sites Registry - Rebecca Winters Grave
• Helen Hughes Vick, "Woman of the Dead", The Friend, April 1993.

Coordinates: 41°50′35.7″N 103°37′1.3″W / 41.843250°N 103.617028°W / 41.843250; -103.617028