One of our honored members, Lt. Col. Virgil V. Peterson, was the first Adjutant of the newlyj-organized U.S. Mormon Battalion, Inc., in 1953. He was also the Editor of THE PIONEER, the official house organ of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers, who first organized today's Mormon Battalion. Now in his 90's, Virgil still has the keen mind but lacks the willing legs to carry on what he started. He and his wife, Audrey, are presently members of Co. "A." In honoring Virgil, we reprint an excerpt from an article he wrote in THE PIONEER, Vol. 5, #6, for July-August 1953, about Rebecca Winter's grave. In August, 1852, cholera broke out in the James C. Snow Company as they were traveling through what is now Nebraska. While caring for those afflicted, Rebecca caught the same disease and died, August 6, 1852. William Hawley, captain of the ten in which the Hiram Winters family was traveling, had his boys dig her grave, with the admonition, "Dig deeper, boys. No wild animal shall disturb this grave." Being late in the day when they had finished, the company decided to lay over. That night, one of the members of the company, William F. Reynolds, asked Captain Hawley for an old wagon tire which the Captain had picked up with the statement, "We may have some use for it later." With his daughter, Ellis (Rebecca's best friend) holding a lighted candle, William chiseled Rebecca's name and age on the old iron tire. The next morning it was secured with rocks and dirt, standing over Rebecca's grave. For years, passing caravans stopped to read the wording on the iron tire and recorded it in their journals. Sometime later, 1886, when Mr. Norman DeMott homesteaded the land, he and his family revered and cared for that iron tire marker. Other homesteaders also recognized the historic significance of the grave and honored it. When they brought water to their land from the Platte River, they named their water course, "Winters' Ditch," and one of the feeding lines is still called, "Winters' Canal." Even a voters' precinct, organized in the 1880's, was called, "Winters' Precinct." It is probably still called that today. In the 1890's, the Burlington Railway Company surveyed the area, with the intention of putting a railroad line through DeMott's property. DeMott made only one provision--they were not to pass over or disturb Rebecca's grave. When the first survey took the rail line right across her grave, DeMott insisted that they do another survey (which they did) and it now only passes close to her grave. Then the railway line put an iron fence around it to preserve it. However, there was no road to the grave, and it is on private property, so permission was needed to visit the site, for many years. Today, a road does go past the grave, and many stop to look and wonder.
In thinking about the memorializing of the graves of pioneers and Mormon Battalion members and their wives, the above story serves as an illustration of what COULD BE TRUE for our present plan of honoring these noble men and women. For a little act of compassion; for chiseling a name and an age on an old tire iron; for only one night's labor, millions remember Rebecca Winters--two of whose granddaughters became: Huldah, wife of Heber J. Grant; and Helen, wife of Apostle A. O. Woodruff.