Sweetwater Rescue-Press Release

150 Years Later, Handcart Pioneers Remembered

SALT LAKE CITY— From 1856 to 1860, ten groups of handcart pioneers traveled to the Salt Lake Valley—the place they considered Zion. Eight successfully crossed the plains from Iowa to the Salt Lake Valley. But two—the Willie and Martin Companies—met with a wintry disaster in October 1856, as they found themselves stranded on the high plains of Wyoming in treacherous snowstorms. Those who traveled from the Salt Lake Valley to rescue the pioneers faced the same horrific snows.

As many as 200 of the emigrants from Great Britain and Europe traveling in these companies were buried in shallow graves, but more than 1,000 of them lived—and told their story. This year marks the sesquicentennial of their fateful journey. In commemoration of the sacrifice made by these pioneers, documentary filmmaker Lee Groberg, author Heidi Swinton, and hundreds more, joined together in a nearly two-year project to create Sweetwater Rescue: The Willie and Martin Handcart Story, which will air nationwide on PBS Monday, December 18, 2006.

“As a documentary filmmaker,” Groberg explains, “I look for good stories from history. Since producing Trail of Hope: The Story of the Mormon Trail 10 years ago, I have been intrigued by the idea of capturing the emotion of an amazing chapter in that story. In 1856, two of the handcart companies that crossed the plains that year became trapped in Wyoming because of leaving too late and because of harsh winter conditions. The rescue of those 1200 emigrants is an amazing story. I wanted to tell it because it is somewhat overlooked in America’s history books and because it is such a powerful statement of the triumph of the human spirit.”

An award-winning filmmaker, Groberg has produced several other documentaries that have aired on PBS, including American Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith (1999) and America’s Choir: The Story of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (2004).

Well-known historian Wallace Stegner said of the handcart pioneers, “Perhaps their suffering seems less dramatic because the handcart pioneers bore it meekly, praising God, instead of fighting for life with the ferocity of animals…. But if courage and endurance make a story, if human kindness and helpfulness and brotherly love in the midst of raw horror are worth recording, this half-forgotten episode of the Mormon migration is one of the great tales of the West and of America.” (Wallace Stegner, "Ordeal by Handcart," in Collier's, July 6, 1956, 78-85.)

Those that returned to the plains to save the pioneers are also an important part of this story. Swinton said of the rescuers, “They didn’t have any idea what was ahead and went back on the trail anyway. They went after people that, for the most part, they didn’t even know—risking their own lives in the process. What more could be said of charity one for another? In what is often billed as a gun-slinging, fiercely independent culture—the American West—the story of the handcart pioneers, and those who went to find them, captures the untold story of sacrifice for others and a unified vision of community.”

Groberg adds, “Every time I find myself on the trail where these emigrants found themselves stranded, I can feel the powerful feelings of a ‘spirit of place.’ And as I have taken in the stark beauty of the sites that make up this story, there has been a powerful feeling of profound respect. It has been my hope that viewers will share that same feeling as they see the images of the trail and its travelers.”

Contact: Jim Bell
KBYU Television
801-422-8427
Cell: 801-360-1195
jim.bell@byu.edu

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