Nancy's Story
Birth: December 12th, 1842 | female | in Fulton, Itawamba, Mississippi
Death: July 21st, 1852 | 9 years old | in Nebraska near the Wood River crossing
Memorial: Stone 13 | left column
Nancy Clark Pearce is the fourth of seven children born to Georgia and Henrietta Louise Cromeans of Kentucky. Her parents were married in 1836 in Mississippi.
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Pearce family joined the James C. Snow Company to cross the plains 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. Just 10 years-old, Nancy was among the many Saints who fell victim to cholera (a bacterial disease caused from contaminated water). She is buried at the side of the road at Wood River in Nebraska.
From the James Chauncey journal: “21st Traveling across from the south side of the Loupe Fork to the Platt[e] River for about 50 miles their is considerable difficulty in finding water[.] This day Nancy C Pierce died”.