The recent Keepa post An Old Pioneer Bears His Final Testimony shared the final testimony of Hamilton G. Park, who joined the Church in Scotland in 1840 and came to Utah in 1854. In that testimony he mentions the following about his mother, Isabelle Gray Park:

I joined the Church when I was 15 years old. My mother was very much opposed to it and said to me: “Hamilton, you have brought disgrace on the family. You have brought a greater sorrow to me than your father’s death.” This grieved me very much, and set me to crying, for I loved my mother. I distinctly remember going out into the orchard and prostrating myself upon the grass; I prayed to die.

Happily however he follows that up by explaining:

My mother afterward joined the Church and came to this country, crossing the plains with a handcart, and finally died a faithful Latter-day Saint in her 93rd year.

Isabelle has her own fascinating story to tell and I wanted to share two parts of it, one more spiritual and serious, and the other more humorous.

After all of her children had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Isabelle too joined the Church. In 1856 she fallowed her children to Utah. She journeyed to the USA aboard the Enoch Train and became a part of Daniel D. McArthur’s handcart company. Captain McArthur, in his report of the journey, tells the following story involving Isabelle:

On the 16th (of August 1856), while crossing over some sand hills, Sister Mary Bathgate was badly bitten by a large rattlesnake, just above the ankle, on the back part of her leg. She was about a half a mile ahead of the camp at the time it happened, as she was the ring leader of the footmen or those who did not pull the handcarts. She was generally accompanied by Sister Isabella Park. They were both old women, over 6o years of age, and neither of them had ridden one inch, since they had left Iowa camp ground. Sister Bathgate sent a little girl back to me as quickly as possible to have me and Brothers Leonard and Crandall come with all haste, and bring the oil with us, for she was bitten badly.

As soon as we heard the news, we left all things, and, with the oil, we went post haste. When we got to her she was quite sick, but said that there was power in the Priesthood, and she knew it. So we took a pocket knife and cut the wound larger, squeezed out all the bad blood we could, and there was considerable, for she had forethought enough to tie her garter around her leg above the wound to stop the circulation of the blood. We then took and anointed her leg and head, and laid our hands on her in the name of Jesus and felt to rebuke the influence of the poison, and she felt full of faith.
We then told her that she must get into the wagon, so she called witnesses to prove that she did not get into the wagon until she was compelled to by the cursed snake. We started on and traveled about two miles, when we stopped to take some refreshments. Sister Bathgate continued to be quite sick, but was full of faith, and after stopping one and a half hours we hitched up our teams. As the word was given for the teams to start, old Sister Isabella Park ran in before the wagon to see how her companion was. The driver, not seeing her, hallooed at his team and they being quick to mind, Sister Park could not get out of the way, and the fore wheel struck her and threw her down and passed over both her hips. Brother Leonard grabbed hold of her to pull her out of the way, before the hind wheel could catch her. He only got her out part way and the hind wheels passed over her ankles.

We all thought that she would be all mashed to pieces, but to the joy of us all, there was not a bone broken, although the wagon had something like two tons burden on it, a load for 4 yoke of oxen. We went right to work and applied the same medicine to her that we did to the sister who was bitten by the rattlesnake, and although quite sore for a few days, Sister Park got better, so that she was on the tramp before we got into this Valley, and Sister Bathgate was right by her side, to cheer her up. Both were as smart as could be long before they got here, and this is what I call good luck, for I know that nothing but the power of God saved the two sisters and they traveled together, they rode together, and suffered together.” ((Journal History of the Church, 26 September 1856, p. 5-6))

The Patrick Twiss Bermingham Diary also gives a brief account of this episode:

16th. This morning an old woman belonging to our company was bitten by a rattlesnake in the leg and before half an hour her leg swelled to four times its thickness. She was administered to by the Elders and we started again, but unfortunately as we were starting another old woman was run over by one of the wagons. The front wheel went over her thighs and the back wheels over her shins, and singular to say, although the wagon was laden with 32 Cwt. (“hundred weight,” i.e. 3200 lbs.) of flour, not one of her bones was broken. This day we had the most severe day’s journey we had since we started and travelled over 20 miles of heavy sand hills or bluffs. Besides having to ford many streams. All seemed to be fully worn out when they got into camp.

As the McArthur company neared the Utah territory, relief trains were sent to meet them with supplies and food. Samuel Park, one of Isabelle’s sons, was among the members of the relief train. It is said that when he saw his mother after many years absence he was overcome with emotion and rushed to and embraced her, but things didn’t go as he had expected. Beth Gordan Lawrence, one of Isabelle’s granddaughters relates the following family story:

A family story that is told over and over was that her son Samuel was sent out to meet the handcart company with some supplies. When he saw his mother he rushed up to her and grabbed her. She gave him a sound whack. He said ‘What’s the matter mother.’ She hadn’t recognized him because of the beard he had grown since she’d seen him last. They kidded her about not recognizing her own son. She always replied, ‘Well if you’d kept your face clean instead of wearing that brush I’d have known you.’

After having spent the first 65 years of her life among the green hills of Ireland and Kilbirnie, Scotland, Isabelle Gray Park spent the remaining years of her life living with her children in the Northern part of the Utah territory spending time with Hamilton in Salt Lake City and Samuel in Tooele County. She died on the twenty first of December, 1879 ((In his testimony Hamilton stated that Isabelle died in the 93rd year of her age. Most available records state that Isabelle was born on 1 October 1791 in Newton Stewart, Tyron, Ireland. This means that on 21 December 1879 she would have been 88, not 92. I am not sure if the error is in the record of the year of her birth, or if Hamilton was in error about how old she was.)) at the home of her son Samuel in dusty, brown Skull Valley Utah.