Handcart documentary airs
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As this sesquicentennial year of the handcart chapter of Mormon pioneer history winds to a close, a nationwide public television audience will view a new documentary on the sufferings and rescue of the Willie and Martin companies.
"Sweetwater Rescue: The Willie and Martin Handcart Story" will air nationwide on the Public Broadcasting System Monday, Dec. 18. (Viewers should check their local listings for air times.) This will follow a local premiere of the film on Sunday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m. MST over KBYU-TV in Provo, Utah. That day, KSL-TV in Salt Lake City will air "The Making of Sweetwater Rescue" at 4 p.m. MST.
The one-hour film and its companion book Sweetwater Rescue: The Willie and Martin Handcart Story are the products of filmmaker Lee Groberg and author Heidi Swinton, veterans of other PBS projects covering Church history subjects such as the Mormon Pioneer Trail, Joseph Smith and the building of the Nauvoo Temple.
"I personally traveled this trail a dozen times or more in the telling of the story," said Brother Groberg. "I hoped for miserable weather, and we got it. Blowing snow, like these emigrants would have experienced, was particularly difficult to deal with. We were forced to abandon filming at times because of the drifting snow, which furthered my respect for what the handcart emigrants experienced for weeks."
Sister Swinton's 136-page volume, already in stores, includes 80 original works of art by 43 artists commissioned for the project. They are on display at the Museum of Church History and Art (see accompanying story on this page.)
"To write I had to understand not only what had been written, I had to feel the cold on the trail, see the sun set and feel the bitterness of the wind and snow," Sister Swinton wrote in an e-mail to the Church News from her home in England where she is serving with her husband Jeffrey Swinton, president of the England London South Mission.
"I have been on those rocky hillsides and stood exposed to the elements. That anyone lived through that ordeal is an indication that God is with His people. I studied their journals; I followed their tracks. Unlike most historical accounts of the overland trail, there are so few daily records. It got so cold the ink froze and it was all they could do to stay alive. The few who kept a journal, like James Bleak, noted mostly the snow, the dead and the shortened rations until all had been consumed. And they still kept going and he kept writing — barely."
One of the experts speaking on camera is Melvin L. Bashore of the Family and Church History Department, who says: "It was just cold! And cold can kill you, especially if you are trying to survive. And if you're a man trying to provide for your family, you're expending energy. And that, that can sap your strength enough to when the night comes, you may not be there in the morning."
E-mail to: rscott@desnews.com
