Winter Quarters

September 11, 2012

This morning we are refreshed and excited to reach the far side of Nebraska where we hope to find the burial place of Bill’s (several greats) Grandmother, Rebecca Mangum.  Nebraska is flat and different for us with its corn fields one after another after another.  But, we are rewarded when we arrive in Florence, Nebraska along the Missouri River.  This is the stopping place of our early LDS ancestors.  Here they waited out the long, bitter cold winter before moving on toward their new home in the Rocky Mountains.  We know that Rebecca died and was buried here in the pioneer cemetery that sits beside the beautiful, modern temple.  We had heard that the cemetery was not plotted out and that we would not be able to find the actual grave, but we were delighted to find that, indeed, a previous missionary had discovered and plotted out the entire cemetery.  We were, with help from a sister missionary, able to determine Rebecca’s final resting place and take pictures.  We were also able to obtain a couple of family histories on the Mangum and Adair families.  I read the histories to Bill as he drove us on to our next stop.