From the Improvement Era, January 1965 –

Journal’s End

By Lenora Hansen

It was evening. The flame of the campfire fell upon the empty page of a journal. The hand that held the pen was slender and white with cold.

“February 11, 1846” the hand wrote with a firm, smooth stroke. “Today—” The stroke wavered. The hand hesitated and seemed to tremble.

The writer leaned back against the wagon wheel and gazed out across the frozen sedge. In her mind she saw again this morning’s sun coming through the window of her own room at home. She felt the warmth of the fire and smelled the good bacon frying in her mothers kitchen. Today—!

How slowly she had dressed, taken the pitcher of warm water from her brother Jim and poured it into her basin, straightening the small mirror where it always tilted to the left. She had stopped a little at the window where the tower of the temple, shone, gold touched by the early light. Her clothes lay ready on the bed, tied in her shawl. With them, her Bible, her Book of Mormon, her mother’s silver thimble.

At breakfast she had taken a biscuit and spooned last fall’s blackberry jam on her plate beside it, then had sat without eating, looking around the table at each face, trying to fasten them into her mind against the loneliness of separation: her father avoiding her eyes as he determinedly forked his food; five-year-old Sue squirming in her chair to see the new snow out- side; Jim, hunger and satisfaction alternating on his face; and her mother moving swiftly between stove and table, crying.

Her father had followed her to the door with final urgency: “Mary, Daughter Mary, give it up! Stay here where you belong. A cook! What do you know of cooking— of work— and for another woman and another woman’s children? This is your father speaking, Mary. Stay here, here with those who love you!”

And, because there was no answer: “Well, then, if you must go, go! And the Lord, if he can go into that wilderness, go with you.”

She had wrapped her baby sister up and carried her to the farthest edge of their own field. There she had set her down, kissed her, and sent her back, then picking up her bundle and looking back one long, last time, had walked away through the snow.

Two great tears fell on the journal in the firelight, and her hand wrote on: “Today I left Nauvoo and joined the Saints at Sugar Creek, engaged by Andrew Willis and his wife Jane as a cook for their family. I will receive my board and transportation to the Rocky Mountains.”

February 17, 1846: It was 12 degrees below zero.

All day Mary Marshall had worked in the freezing weather. She had cooked food which no one but the children ate. She had placed a blanket around shoulders which scarcely knew it had been added, had urged soothing herbs past lips that only trembled, had wiped with gentle hand a brow too fevered to feel any ministration.

Tonight she tried to form her thoughts for writing. She gazed on the two young boys beside her— children in slumber, unconscious of today’s bereavement or tomorrow’s grief. She looked beyond the camp where, dark against the snow, stood the bent figure of Andrew Willis and by his side, young Andy. At the sight of the younger man, her heart sought some special word of comfort, but, finding none, she bowed her head in pleading prayer to God.

Then, taking her pen, she wrote: “February 17, 1846 — Pottawattomi Indian Nation, Muskreet Creek, Iowa: Jane Willis died today. Food is low, and the storms continue. The fever has taken some of us each day, but we go on.”

July 21, 1846: An emptiness lay in the camp of the Saints and upon the heart of Mary. She had stood among the others this morning with the early sun warm upon her back and had watched the men of the Battalion march over the hill and out of sight. Andrew Willis had stayed with his family. Young Andy had marched with the army.

She knew that often of late she had found her thoughts turning to this tall young man with the blue eyes and the easy walk and the teasing manner.

Did he think of her? Well—he called her “Miss Mary.” At first he would, sometimes, when his own chores were done, take the empty bucket and fill it at the camp stream for her. Later he began to wait until she took the bucket and started out; then he would take it from her hand and walk by her side as they talked together of the day. Now he — When was it he had first called her “Miss Mary”?

They had crossed a stream of water.

Oh, yes— weeks before, they had crossed another stream. Andy had come up where Mary stood hesitating on the bank and had offered to carry her across. He had picked her up, carried her out into the middle of the current, and dropped her with a splash.

This later time he had come up again, bowed with a wide grin, and begun with a mocking, “Allow me .”

“Oh, no,” she had cut him off, “I like to wade!”

He had grown serious, crossed his heart, and said, “I promise! I will set you safe and dry on the other bank.”

She remembered that he had set her down upon the other side very gently and had stood looking at her closely for a moment. Since then he had called her “Miss Mary,” and she had filled the water bucket by herself. But still she had felt that something special lay between them, that someday

For one moment as the men marched off, rebellion rose inside her. Hadn’t she left, even as the Lord had said, father and mother and all that had been given to her, for the Church? Why must he be taken also?

But tonight her hand was steady.

She wrote: “Council Bluffs, Iowa: Andy left with the Battalion under Colonel Allen.”

She laid her pen away, covered the smoldering coals and, kneeling beside the canvas of her bed, asked a blessing upon those who had gone and gave thanks once more for the gospel of the Lord.

Beside a newly started cabin in the Salt Lake Valley, the Willis family bent over their supper of corn meal mush. As Mary rose from filling another bowl, she saw a man stop at first one camp and then another, seeking someone. She handed the filled bowl to Matthew and glanced back again in curiosity.

The man was walking straight to- ward their fire. What could he — ? Why— the man was Andy! A melody began inside her. Andy had returned!

Mary started toward him, then stopped short, stepping back, thinking not to come between him and his family, suddenly grown shy.

He embraced his father, drew young Matt into his arms and kissed the smaller boy. Then he walked toward Mary. He held out both his hands and, taking hers, said softly, “Mary— Miss Mary!” And then he said, hesitating over the words he spoke, “You are still Miss Mary?”

“Still Miss,” she said, trying to read his meaning in his eyes.

Suddenly those eyes filled with tears as, deep out of the loneliness of absence, he cried her name once more, “Oh, Mary!” and drew her close into his arms.

In her heart the melody of his return burst into a song of joy.

That night she wrote: “October 17, 1847: Andy has come back!”

Great Salt Lake City
January 24, 1848
Dear Mother,

Almost two years have passed since I left you and the family in Nauvoo. I do not know when I will get a chance to send this letter to you, but I must write it now, today, because my heart is happy.

I was married yesterday to Andrew, Jr., the oldest son of the family with whom I crossed the plains. He is tall and strong and good, and I love him!

Mother, can you know how I longed for you to come and put your arms around me and wish us joy? But my Father in heaven has walked by my side and has dealt gently with me.

I had no white dress of my own to be married in, but Lucy Campbell brought me her wedding gown, all satin, and I was married, wearing it. Tell Father that I needed him to stand beside me, but Andy’s father gave us both his blessing.

The men are preparing to build a great new temple and, as soon as it is finished, we shall be sealed as the Lord ordains.

I have carefully folded the satin dress and returned it to Lucy. The dress I wear is homespun, but the happiness inside me is white bridal silk.

I will send this letter to you by the first company going east. How I wish that you were here, that I could see you. Give my love to Father and to Jim. Kiss Sue for me. God keep you!

Your loving daughter,
Mary

January 21, 1849: Mary lay upon her bed. The pain had passed and peace filled the little cabin.

Her eyes looked with love at the small form lying on her arm. She reached a finger to touch the soft hair and thrust it inside the tiny, clinging fist. She pulled a patchwork quilt up around the little chin.

She was filled with the glory of this wee, red thing with dark, bright eyes and wrinkled skin, this marvel that yesterday was not and today was here, this tender, tiny person wrapped in angel breath and sent new from the Father.

“Please,” she said to Andrew, standing by her bed, “please, you get my journal and write in it for me tonight.”

“What shall I write?”

“Why, Andrew, what shall you write?”

How tell the wonder of it: the eternal moment, the mystery of life, the miracle of birth.

Then there came to her the words of scripture:

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”: (Isa. 9:6.)

Outside, the wind of late December howled around the corners of the cabin and threw the powdered snow with fury against the tightness of log and chinking.

Inside, a fire burned high in the fireplace. A candle threw its light circle upon an open journal and the man who sat beside the table reading it. In his arms a baby boy lay asleep. Although the child slept, the man made no move to lay him on the bed. He only stopped from time to time to shift him gently and with a rough tenderness to tuck the blanket closer.

The fire burned into coals and the candle to a short tallow stump before the man came to the end of his reading and sat staring into the shadows.

Finally, wiping a mist from before his eyes and holding the child closer yet, he took a pen and, dipping it into the black ink, wrote:

“December 29, 1849: Mary Marshall Willis died today. She is survived by Andrew Willis, Jr., age thirty-one years, and Andrew Marshall Willis, age eleven months.”