Title: Rescued: The Courageous Journey of Mary Goble Pay
Author: Clark B. Hinckley
Publisher: BYU Religious Studies Center, in cooperation with Deseret Book Company
Genre: Documentary History
Year Published: 2021
Number of Pages: 157
Binding: Hardcover, eBook
ISBN-13 Hardcover: 9781950304059
Price: $19.99
Reviewed by Richard Ji for the Association for Mormon Letters
Rescued: The Courageous Journey of Mary Goble Pay, edited by Clark B. Hinckley, is a historical account of Mary Goble Pay’s experiences as part of the 1856 emigration from England to Salt Lake City. Hinckley is the son of the late Gordon B. and Marjorie Pay Hinckley. Marjorie Pay Hinckley is the granddaughter of Mary Goble Pay. The genesis of this work started in 1997, where descendants of Mary chartered a bus and traveled the pioneer trail from Casper, Wyoming, to the mouth of Emigration Canyon in Salt Lake City. Clark Hinckley prepared copies of parts of Mary’s autobiography which included contextual notes and clarification for this family gathering. Since then, Hinckley collaborated with family members to bring this book to fruition. Hinckley’s primary interest has been to ensure Mary Goble Pay’s story, which is passed down through the family, is accurately recorded.
Mary Goble Pay was just 13-years-old when she and her family (converts to the Church of about a year) left their home in England to emigrate to Zion. They sailed on the ship Horizon which carried members of what would become the Martin Handcart company. Mary’s family became part of the lesser-known Hunt wagon train. The Hunt wagon train followed the Willie and Handcart companies, suffering through the same blizzards, hunger, and enduring similar hardships. Mary lost three siblings on the trail including her sister Edith who was born on the trail. Her mother passed away four hours before they reached Salt Lake City. Mary “rode in the same bed with my dead mother” (p. 54) as the wagon entered the city. Her mother made the ultimate sacrifice in her desire to see to it that her children be raised in Zion. The surviving four children were frozen badly with three of them including Mary, requiring amputation of toes. Despite the doctor’s determination that Mary’s feet would need to be amputated at the ankle, Mary relied “on the promise of Brigham Young that she would never have to have any more of her feet cut off” (p. 64). Miraculously, her feet healed such that her toes were only lost.
Rescued focuses on the months of the Goble family’s emigration from England to Salt Lake City recorded in a handwritten memoir of Mary Goble Pay. This reminiscence “was written by hand in a ledger dated 1903” (p. 13). This was about 47 years after the journey. The memoir was only fourteen pages long. Only four pages of the memoir relate to the emigration itself. Hinckley notates the record in a scholarly fashion and includes a preface, introduction, photographs, paintings, charts, and an epilogue. This information brings together contemporary information to provide corroboration, clarification, and valuable context to better appreciate and understand Mary’s story. The book provides a side-by-side comparison of the related portions of the memoir from four extant transcriptions. It also includes a letter from Mary Goble Pay to Samuel S. Jones dated October 18, 1908. Jones was the chairperson of the Handcart Veterans “Jubilee” celebration held in Salt Lake City in October 1906. Jones requested the information in preparation for a future reunion of the handcart veterans. There is also a comparative chronology of the Willie, Martin, Hunt, and the Rescue companies, the Hunt Company camp journal, and a discourse by Brigham Young from November 30, 1856. This discourse was his words as recorded by George D. Watt. In it, President Young speaks of receiving these inbound Saints from these Companies.
Rescued: The Courageous Journey of Mary Goble Pay is therefore a compilation of transcriptions of Mary’s original text along with other information about corresponding information relevant to those late-season emigrants. The corresponding information brings to life the events as well as provides some corroboration or perhaps some clarifications on the events. Mary’s writings on the matter were quite brief. This may be because of the trauma or the fact that she considered her experiences to be unremarkable. She may have found what we consider to be extraordinary, quite ordinary. Recently, my family and I visited the Muir Woods in Northern California. It was a perfect day with the lush, green vegetation blanketing the area with those majestic, giant redwoods towering into the sky. It was quite a scene, but it was not until I was looking at pictures later that I realized how incredible the area is. As we hiked through the area, we certainly enjoyed it, but by viewing pictures, perhaps in 3rd party fashion, I came to see the stark beauty of what we experienced. Sometimes, as we sojourn through life, we do not always recognize the deep meaningfulness of what surrounds us.
Throughout the book, it was easy to find perspectives to draw inspiration from. There is Mary’s perspective as a 13-year-old, the perspective of her faithful parents, the perspective of fellow travelers and of the other companies, the perspective of the rescuers, and the perspective of those already in the Salt Lake Valley who were enjoying relative comfort as the Saints struggled through the early blizzards seeking the warmth of Zion. These many perspectives provide opportunities for readers of many circumstances to find something relatable. For example, Brigham Young’s words to the Saints in Salt Lake advised that he wanted each arriving person to be “distributed in this city among the families that have good and comfortable houses” (p.145). In fact, he cancelled the afternoon meetings so the Saints could go home and prepare for these arrivals. He said that “prayer is good, but when baked potatoes and pudding and milk are needed, prayer will not supply their place on this occasion; give every duty its proper time and place” (p. 147). I imagined the scenes of the starving, freezing, and exhausted emigrants contrasted with the well-fed, warm, and rested Saints in Salt Lake. Some had commented that the travelers brought this upon themselves by traveling so late in the season. Perhaps others may have felt like they did not know these people who were probably filthy and would most certainly disrupt their lifestyles and conveniences. But the Saints in Salt Lake did rise to the occasion. Imagine today’s scenarios of immigrants, refugees, and others who are in need of help. They are all around us. We may pray often, attend our meetings, and pay our tithing. But what we can learn from this book, is that while those are all good, they cannot take the place of personal ministering.
Clark B. Hinckley’s book, Rescued: The Courageous Journey of Mary Goble Pay, is certainly a treasure for the descendants of this distinguished ancestry. But it is also a work that can be cherished by all those who enjoy pioneer history, inspirational stories of those who were not perfect but had moments of extreme faith, as well as those who appreciate Latter-Day Saint scholarship.