Alice's Story
Birth: January 3rd, 1842 | female | in Bedford, Lancashire, England
Death: July ??, 1855 | 13 years old | Nebraska on the Mormon Trail
Memorial: Stone 5 | right column
Alice Mather is the fourth of nine children born to James Higginson Mather and Mary Ann Ditchfield, both from England. The family immigrated to America from Great Britain and joined the Jacob F. Secrist / Noah T. Guymon Company. With other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the company left Iowa on June 13 for the Salt Lake Valley.
Exhaustive travel conditions, disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, premature birth, and extreme weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. Among the greatest threats was cholera, a bacterial disease caused from contaminated water. Alice, 13-years-old was one of many who succumbed to the effects of the illness. She is buried somewhere in Nebraska along the Mormon Trail.