Bodil Mortensen

I signed up to decorate a table for our Pioneer Day activity. I borrowed my Dad's bronze statue and a book that tells about the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies. The bronze was made by my dad's cousin Steve Wirth. It depicts the story of Bodil Mortensen and is titled 'And should we die".

Many of those who crossed the plains were only children. One of those children was Bodil Mortensen, age nine, from Denmark. Bodil Mortensen came alone, before her family to join the saints in Salt Lake City, her older sister had traveled a year before her and was in Salt Lake. Bodil joined the Willie Handcart Company with a family from her country Denmark. Winter storms began early that year and slowed the travel of the company. Rock Ridge was a long hard journey for the children. The distance was about 15 miles, including a two-mile stretch in which the trail rose more than 700 feet in elevation. It took some of the children 27 hours to reach camp. The snow was already more than a foot deep, a blizzard was raging, and the temperatures were freezing. A howling October snowstorm blinded nine-year-old Bodil Mortensen as she climbed with several younger children, shivering and hungry, up the snow-covered slope of Rocky Ridge. Bodil was exhausted and weak, the young girl struggled on her way, hoping to reach Salt Lake City to be with her sister. Bodil was apparently assigned to care for some small children as they crossed Rocky Ridge. When they arrived at camp, in the wee hours of October 24th, she must have been sent to gather fire wood. All she could find was twigs of sagebrush. The next morning she was found leaning up against the wheel of a handcart, twigs clutched in her hands, frozen to death.

Bodil (Lyrics by Jenny Phillips)

Only nine leaving behind your home

what faith to leave all you know

so far to go

you are cold

shivering through the storms

your little fingers never warm

always one step more

you didn't know your journey would end

before you'd see the valley

but you left such a legacy

you didn't know

that your faith changes me

I can't feel my feet (your faith changes me)

There's nothing left to eat (your faith changes me)

Vocals by Jenny Phillips and Chloe Mueller

Happy Pioneer Day!