Minerva's Story
Birth: January 1st, 1835 | female | in Kingston, Frontenac, Ontario, Canada
Death: June 25th, 1850 | 15 years old | Platte River, Saunders, Nebraska, USA
Memorial: Stone 1
Minerva Spafford is the sixth of 11 children born to Horace Spafford from Vermont, USA and Martha Stiles from Canada.
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the Spafford family joined the Warren Foote Company to journey west to the Great 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. Cholera, a bacterial disease caused from contaminated water, infected many of the travelers. Among those who perished from Cholera were Minerva, her mother, a sister Rhoda and brothers Hoace and Moroni. Minerva’s father wrapped them together in a feather bed and quilts and buried them in one grave. Stones were placed on their final resting place in an effort to keep animals from disturbing the bodies.