It was 150 years ago this weekend that Brigham Young and his LDS followers left this city under pressure of mob violence. For hundreds gathered Saturday to commemorate the event, the bitter cold has been a stark reminder of the deprivation and hardship the Nauvoo exiles faced.
Record temperatures of 20 below zero and colder have closed schools and disabled automobiles in the tri-state area of Illinois, Iowa and Missouri."I think the Lord wants us to remember," said Linda Oscarson of St. Louis, whose ancestors were among those who made the 1846-47 trek across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley.
"You could drive a car out on there," said Bill Price, referring to the frozen Mississippi River. He and his wife, Sidney, are public affairs missionaries in Nauvoo, appointed by the church to organize the commemoration.
The river was frozen in February 1846 as well - but not until later in the month. The first wagons ferried across the river on Feb. 4, while later ones crossed on the ice.
The event was symbolically re-created Saturday by a procession of spectators and dignitaries down Parley Street, the route to the ferry landing, and by the deployment of horses, wagons and a campfire at the landing.
An estimated 1,000 people nestled themselves inside a tent pitched at the riverbank and warmed with space heaters for a program of speeches and music. It included a performance by a local re-creation of William Pitt's brass band, the group of musicians among the exiles that entertained Iowa townspeople during the 1846 trek.
A choir made of up of church missionaries and members performed among its selections "Come, Come, Ye Saints," the hymn composed by William Clayton on the Iowa plains after the exodus from Nauvoo.
Representing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder Hugh W. Pinnock of the First Quorum of the Seventy said: "As those pioneers fought for their physical lives 150 years ago, we have been called upon to fight for our moral lives today. A great prophet, Brigham Young, led the pioneers to peace and freedom a century and 50 years ago, just as Gordon B. Hinckley leads us in a battle against the problems found in a decaying society with the social ills we sometimes see about us."
He brought greetings from President Hinckley and expressed the 85-year-old church leader's wish that he could have attended the commemoration.
Susan Easton Black, associate dean of honors at Brigham Young University and a church history expert, said the residents in 1846 abandoned the beautiful city they had built because they were following a prophet of God.
"Now the question comes, we know why they left, but what are we doing here today? It's cold! . . . We're here to show our love and respect for those who went before. . . . Some of you are here who had ancestors who helped push us out. I think we're here to say we're back, and we're so glad for the great welcome. I think we're finally friends once again. I hope the wounds of yesteryear can be healed and that we can reach out in love and be a more gentle society."
Saturday evening, more than a dozen communities along the Mormon Trail in Iowa and Nebraska lit bonfires in commemoration. The campfire ceremonies were sponsored by the largely non-LDS Iowa and Nebraska Mormon Trails associations.
"We are lighting a campfire this day to remember that 150 years ago tonight, the first Mormon pioneers went to sleep knowing it was their last night in their homes," the programs read.
Chuck Offenburger of the Des Moines Register - who is not LDS - wrote a column calling on Iowa churches to sing "Come, Come Ye Saints" during their services Sunday. He said he got more than 50 calls requesting words and music, many on behalf of more than one church.
An LDS fireside featuring Elder Pinnock and other speakers was scheduled for Sunday, the anniversary of the exodus.
The Nauvoo events kick off two years of sesquicentennial celebrations that culminate next year with the anniversary of the pioneers' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.