Elizabeth's Story
Birth: April 18th, 1840 | female | in Michigan
Death: ?? ??, 1852 | 12 years old | at Fort Laramie, Wyoming
Memorial: Stone 3 | right column
Elizabeth Jane Odell is daughter of Harris Walter Ward Odell and Elizabeth Sloan, both from New York. Along with other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they joined an “unknown company” to trek to the Great Salt Lake Valley.
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) attacked the company. Elizabeth Jane and her sister, Ann Jenett, were both victims of the disease. It is believed the both 12-year-old Elizabeth Jane and her sister passed away the same day and are buried along the Mormon Trail near Fort Laramie, Wyoming.