Winter Quarters, Nebraska

A ten minute drive across the Missouri River brought us to Winter Quarters. I had last visited the place 21 years ago. Then there was a single statue in the cemetery. Now there is a full scale visitor center, the cemetery, and a small temple. There was a nice 15 minute film (which used clips from the Kanesville Mormon Battalion movie) and some standard pioneer exhibits. Most interesting to me was the number of people that were fitted into the rather small cabins.

The time spent in the cemetery is always poignant. The camps were devasted by disease (apparently primarily scurvy which means it would be primarily because of lack of citrus fruit or other vitamin C carrying food and thus simply malnutrition.) I think the plaque said that about 600 people died during the two years, out of roughly 3,000 that were encamped there. Many of these were very young children.



The stain glass on the new temple is quite interesting.