The Saints who were driven from Nauvoo and settled Winter Quarters in 1846-47 "were the true refugees" in the whole epoch of gathering to Zion, Carol Cornwall Madsen said at the Sons of Utah Pioneers Symposium Nov. 16.

Sister Madsen, a scholar at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute of Church History at BYU, was a member of a readers-theater panel at the symposium. Her comments came during a question-answer session following the presentation."The group who left Nauvoo were the true refugees in this whole enterprise," she said. "Others, who came from England or in the great exodus of 20,000 converts from Europe who added to the immigration until 1869 certainly were leaving, perhaps, unpleasant situations, and the Saints were persecuted almost everywhere they lived. But it was those who left Nauvoo who truly were the persecuted ones, the ones who didn't really know where they were going, certainly couldn't stay where they were."

As she has read many pioneer diaries, Sister Madsen said, she has found that one of the great strengths for the Nauvoo exiles was that many had had the opportunity to be endowed in the temple.

"They were the only ones who had had that opportunity," she pointed out. "The other Saints had to wait until they came to Utah, until the temples were built in the 1870s and later."

For many of the Winter Quarters Saints, the first segment of the trek - across Iowa from Nauvoo to Winter Quarters - was by far more difficult than the 1847 portion from Winter Quarters to the Salt Lake Valley, she said.

"Winter Quarters was a place where they could regroup, and they could wait until they were prepared, until they had the wagons and the oxen. They didn't have that opportunity in leaving Nauvoo, so many were unprepared, and I think that added to the difficulty and the misery they found when they finally got to Winter Quarters."

Sister Madsen emphasized that Winter Quarters, broadly defined, covers a large area in both Iowa and Nebraska. "As I've read the diaries, there were many who never saw the leaders of the Church. There were scattered camps all up and down the Missouri and all across Iowa, some just in little groups of their own, families or friends, spending the winter by themselves. They didn't have the advantage of the association of being with many other Saints and being with the Church leaders. And I think it was their faith and determination to come west that is really remarkable."