Jehu and Sarah's sacrifice

On June 15 Jehu and Sarah's daughter Lucretia, then six years old, fell off the front of one of the wagons and was killed as the wagon passed over her neck. The company stopped briefly; a grave was dug; and the little girl was placed in it. The family received many expressions of support and sympathy from others in the company, but they had to move on, leaving the little grave behind them on the plains. A short but moving statement from the diary Jehu wrote many years later "...when we were coming up on Platte River to the valley she was run over with a wagon and died June 15, 1848," tells much of pioneer suffering and fortitude.


The Coxes joined the church in difficult times and left a grave as monuments to the most of the important historical places and events in Mormon pioneer history: the baby Nephi (1846) in Nauvoo, the City Beautiful; the baby Joshua (1847) at Winter Quarters; Lucretia (1848) on the plains of Nebraska on the epic trip to Zion, Henderson (1848) at Tragedy Springs near Donner's pass after the famous Mormon Battalion march. Later Elisha (1856) a baby was buried at Union during the difficult early years in the Salt Lake Valley.