--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Snow, Moroni collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 14 number: 12 published: 1911-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Snow, Moroni, "From Nauvoo to Salt Lake in the Van of the Pioneers. VIII," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 12 (October 1911): 1099–1102.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera14012unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera14012unse start_page: 1099 end_page: 1102 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera14012unse publication_year: 1911 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # From Nauvoo to Salt Lake in the Van of the Pioneers. VIII LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE. 1097 red-carpeted corridors, carrying a large key attached to a brass numbered arrangement the size of a young plate, and the only mark that differentiates your rooms from the others as you approach it, is the number 1422. It would be hard to imagine a wall motto "God Bless Our Home," hanging in a hotel. It would seem irreverence with an undertone of sarcasm. The elaborate array of dishes on the menu may attract for a few days, but you soon grow tired of the simplest articles of food masquerading under French aliases and you long for simple meals and simpler surroundings. You would like to see a boiled potato with the courage to stand up boldly and definitely in spite of its humble origin, and not trying to slip into your good graces under alibi of a foreign title. You long for plainer food and home cook- ing, for more genuine comfort and less gilt and glitter and deco- ration where you can be truly your natural self, where you can even lean your elbows on the table if you leel like it. It is just an honest heart-hunger for a home. Eating in restaurants has driven many a good young man into matrimony; living in boarding-houses and hotels later has driven many a man out of matrimoDy. The vain display, the vulgarity, the fictitious luxury, the constantly enforced contrast between your circumstances and those of others, combine to create a rest- less, uncertain, irritating living far from conducive to happiness in marriage. One vital note in the music of life is the sense of possession. In marriage it transforms the lonely pronoun "mine" into the one of larger, sweeter meaning "ours," and the alchemy of love makes "mine" and "thine" interchangable elements. It is the impelling spirit that makes homes, where the sense of dual possession in unity transforms a new picture, a new ring, a few new books, a new chair or new curtains into a real event that brings genuine pleas- ure. It is not the petty value of the things themselves that counts, for all that is best in the home would defy a tax assessor to discover, for it is ever the intrinsic and the intangible. The advent of these new possessions responds to something deep in the human heart — the joy of united ownership, of build- ing together for a larger future is what counts in the sacredness of making a home. It is this spirit that makes our simple geran- 1098 IMPROVEMENT ium in the window seem greater and more real than some one else's conservatory across the street. Home is the gathering together under one roof, of all that is dearest and nearest to us. Like that earlier Eden given to a man and a woman, it can be made a real paradise if love, honor, comradeship and unity be its atmosphere. ("The Wife's Settled Income," is treated in the next chapter in the November Era, which begins volume fifteen). Elder Harold C. Kimball, writing from Basel, Switzerland, gends a likeness of the branch orchestra which was organized three or four months ago, and which practices promply once a week. Most of the members are also members of the Church. Once a month they give a musical concert in the branch in several of which this orchestra has already taken part. "Good results may be obtained in a few months by organizing an orchestra, even if most of the players have to start from the beginning." He thinks orchestras should be encouraged as they are good converters. The orchestra shown here is the first of its kind in the mission, and the names of those shown here are, back row: Emil Markt, conductor; L. Haas. Middle row: M. Urish, Elder Frank T. Reber, Thekla Shaerr, Carl Zimmer, Elder H. C. Kimball. Front row: M. Buhler, Herman Fuchs, Martha Fuchs. There are fourteen in the orchestra, ten of whom are shown. From Nauvoo to Salt Lake in the Van of the Pioneers. The Original Diary of Erastus Snow. EDITED BY HIS SON, MORONI SNOW. VIII. In the last issue of the Era our account left the pioneers en- camped on a small creek flowing into the North Platte. Continuing his journal, Erastus Snow records the following: April 19th. It rained gently nearly all day, but was cold with a wind in the north. We traveled eight miles, passed over another of those sand ridges that extended abruptly to the river brink. It was about one and a half miles across it. Our wheels rolled in the sand nearly to the hub. We found on both sides of this ridge a clear stream putting into the river. 20th. We have had good roads along the river bank today, or rather a good chance to make a road, in which we played our part and left a very good trail behind us, as good as seventy- three teams, seventeen cows and one hundred and seventy-three men could make. We baited at noon opposite Ash Hollow, on the south side of the river where the Oregon road strikes the north fork again. At four o'clock p. m. we crossed the mouth of a stream of about the same size and character as the large one we encamped upon on the night of the 13th. We find that the quick- sand in all of these streams seems to pack by traveling so that the last teams pass over with much more ease than the first. We camped tonight at six o'clock on a small stream where we find plenty of driftwood for fuel. Have traveled fifteen and three- fourth miles. By the way, I wish it understood that during the forepart of our journey we had to guess at the distance, and sometimes over-stated it, but by the mechanical genius of Apple- ton Harmons, we have now the distance counted off to us like clock-work, through the agency of a machine attached to his 1100 IMPROVEMENT ERA. wagon bed, the wheels of which are turned by the revolutions of the wagon wheel. 21st. Today has seemed more like spring than any day since we left Winter Quarters — not only warm and pleasant, but on every hand have we been greeted for the first time with the music of the quadrupeds from the numerous little ponds along the bottoms. The season is evidently about three weeks later here than in the same latitude on the Missouri river. We have not seen buffalo either yesterday or today, except now and then a lone one that seemed lost from the herds. Two Sioux Indians came to us about the time of our camping tonight, and others were seen through the spy-glass skulking about the bluffs. There is undoubtedly a hunting party not far from us. We have traveled today about fifteen and a half miles. 22nd. This morning near our camp we found a large bone supposed to be out of the foreleg of a mammoth. It weighed twenty-four pounds and was left for the inspection of other com- panies, being buried with an inscription of it written on a board put up at its grave. At our noon encampments we first discovered, through the telescope, what is commonly called Chimney Rock which seemed about twenty miles ahead of us on the south side of the river. Towards night we passed over another range of hills about two miles across. This was different from the former ones. Instead of being deep sand it was chiefly hard ground, the knobs covered with rock and pebble stone, and the sides of the deep ravines and gullies were clay. We passed over the beds of several creeks in which at some seasons of the year evidently flows much water, but which are now perfcetly dry. We are now encamped on another of these lost creeks about two miles from the last range of hills. We have no reason to believe that there has been any rain here this spring. There is consequently little or no feed except on the low bottoms of the river. We have traveled today about ten and one-half miles. Sunday, 23rd. Held an interesting meeting this afternoon and received excellent instructions from President B.Young. During the forepart of the day the Twelve, myself and several others, grati- fied ourselves with a survey of the bluffs and hills to the northeast of us. The scenery is picturesque and romantic in the extreme.