Mary Ann East

Mary Ann East is the third of 11 children born to Edward Wallace East of Virginia and Willmirth Matilda Greer of Georgia. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the family joined the Seth M. Blair / Edward Stevenson Company of 1855 with the desire to go to the great Salt Lake Valley.

Disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, prematurity, and weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. Cholera (caused from contaminated water) invaded the camp, included several of the East family. Mary Ann, her brother William, and sister Nancy became ill with the disease. Mary Ann, age 5, and her brother, William, age 12, died on June 19. They are buried near Marysville, Kansas.

Notes from Mary's father reads: “cholera broke out in our Camp on the 18th, some twenty-three miles from Atchison. Brother M. R. Jones’ daughter was taken in the night and Brother Jones in the morning, and my children, William, over twelve years old, and Mary nearly five, were taken the same day.”