SALT LAKE CITY — More than 60 Relatives of Rhoda Rebecca Oakey, believed to be the last person to die on the trail in the Willie Handcart Company of Mormon pioneers in 1856, dedicated a new marker on her grave in the Salt Lake City Cemetery June 7. She died at age 11 years on Nov. 9 of that year as the company was preparing to enter the Salt Lake Valley; she was buried the day they arrived.
"We found that there was no marker on the grave and felt that this little girl, who holds a special place in the history of that company and who did not live to have descendants of her own, deserved to have a monument in her memory," said Norma S. Davis, Provo, Utah, whose husband is descended from Sarah Ann Oakey, Rhoda's younger sister.