Walter Simmons

Walter Simmons is the third of 12 children born to George Simmons and Mary Ann Ford, both from England. The family immigrated from England to America and joined the Richard Ballantyne Company to trek with other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint to the 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. Walter Simmons was born, died, and buried the same day near Fort Laramie in Wyoming.

From his mother’s journal: “I had a baby boy on the 16th of August, which lived about half an hour, and was buried. Then we started on our journey.”