Celestia's Story
Birth: September 21st, 1847 | female | in Carterville, Pottawattamie, Iowa
Death: July 6th, 1850 | 2 years old | in Wyoming
Memorial: Stone 1 | right column
Celestia Ann Durfee is the first of six children born to Abraham Durfee of New York and Ursula Curtis of Pennsylvania.
With a desire to join other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in traveling to the Great Salt Lake Valley, the family joined the Benjamin Hawkins Company. Exhaustive travel conditions, disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, prematurity, and extreme weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers.
Cholera (a bacterial disease caused from contaminated water) as well as other illnesses invaded the camp. While the cause of death is undocumented, 2-year-old Celestia passed away and is buried along the Mormon Trail.
According to a diary of Nancy A. Tracy: “There began to be considerable sickness in camp and some deaths. Peter Shirts, captain of the first ten, had to bury his wife by the wayside. Abram Durphy [Durfee] buried one of his children, and there were others who died.”