Heritage Gateways

Official Sesquicentennial K-12 Education Project
sponsored by the Utah State Board of Education, the BYU-Public School Partnership and the Utah Education Network

Back

Wendy Westergard Journals

May 19, 1997

Location: Hershey, Nebraska - Location: 41:09:31N 101:00:08W Elevation: 2901 feet

Summary: Buffalo for the first time.

Journal entry: We went 19 miles today. I rode on the wagon. I started out riding on the Dicken's wagon (from Washington), and then moved to Paul Merrill's wagon. We sang songs. Since my parents gave me my song book I have now remembered many of the songs that I couldn't remember. I'm glad that I didn't walk today because Heber sang 1,000 bottles of pop on the wall. Otherwise I wish that I had walked. It was very cold and the wind chill factor made it even colder. Once we got into camp it warmed up quite considerably.

We saw buffalo on the trail for the first time. It was a herd that was fenced in, but had plenty of room to roam freely. It was a magnificant site. Part of the herd was running. Even with the fence around hem I believe we all felt some of the awe that the pioneers must have felt when they saw their first herd of buffalo.

Today when we were helping with dinner we had a group gathered around he slop bucket. The slop bucket is where the waste goes. We were peeling carrots and potatoes for our venison soup. The carrots were particularly juicy today. As we were peeling them we were spraying each other with carrot juice. We also had biscuits.

Today Elizabeth Proud put manure down my dress as I was writing in my journal. Luckily it was dry crusty manure. Thank the lucky stars. Of course when I realized what she was doing I started to yell "Get it out !!! Get it out!!" No harm done in the end.

We are heading into harder stuff now. For the next little bit we will be going through a lot of sand. It is harder to pull the handcarts as well as harder for the horses.

We are having clear skies and sunshine. It has gotten cooler as of yesterday. Hopefully it will stay pleasant. We appreciate everyone praying for us and keeping us in their thoughts. I'd like to say hello to Grant Elementary school in Utah. We thought of you as Wendy, a docent told us about you.