Pioneer Legacy

Friends and neighbors often asked Orin Gulbranson why he would gather his family and their possessions into horse-drawn wagons and trek towards the Salt Lake Valley. To those both curious and concerned, Orin’s response was always the same. “Our story is genuine,” he would tell them, “if people knew the truth, they would understand.”

Even if members of their community had known the truth, it was unlikely that they would have ever understood. The departure of the Gulbranson family might have made sense at a time when thousands of Mormon pioneers fled violence and persecution in search of a new promised land. But that unique chapter of American history was written in 1846. Orin Gulbranson seemed determined to reopen that chapter in the year 1962.

Against the backdrop of rising tensions with the Soviet Union, a controversial Cuban Embargo, and a nascent space program, 1962 America heard only minor details of the Mormon family from St. Cloud Minnesota trekking across the Midwest by horse and wagon. Unlike their pioneer predecessors who had fled persecution 116 years earlier, the Gulbranson’s were attempting to flee the hardships of poverty which had hit them when Orin became seriously ill with the mumps. The complications from his illness prevented Orin from providing for his family for several months.

Prior to his health issues, Orin enjoyed a successful career as an accomplished salesman of arc welders and organs. He was as headstrong as he was gregarious, and both qualities perfectly complimented his imposing and hefty figure. His wife Mabel was his exact opposite. She had a fragile appearance. She was far more docile, and far more modest. While Orin enjoyed the spotlight, Mabel felt more comfortable behind the scenes.

Orin recovered from his health issues, but not before the family had exhausted their savings and lost their house and car to the bank. All that remained were some basic household possessions, a small buggy wagon they took to church, and the horses they hitched to that wagon. The family managed to survive that winter of 1961 on a daily diet of cooked wheat and beans. The task to provide for the family fell to my father – 15 year-old Melville and his 13 year-old brother Danny. They took charge of Orin’s fledgling riding stable business and made what money they could, in spite of the bitter Minnesota cold. However, their efforts did little to meet the needs of the family of ten. Their prolonged basic diet made even more family members ill. Conditions wouldn’t improve until a neighbor overheard an innocent conversation between one of the younger Gulbranson girls and the other neighborhood girls, in which she divulged some of the family struggles. At that point, the neighbors quickly stepped in to help the family.

It was after this challenging winter that Orin began thinking in early spring about a fresh start for his family. He settled on the idea that the family would move to Utah. A few years earlier a pair of LDS missionaries had approached their family and introduced them to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Luckily, these missionaries possessed  enough persistence and charm to overcome Orin’s stubborn nature, and he began to listen to them in earnest. Orin desired to join the large community of Latter-Day Saints in the Salt Lake Valley, but the details of how they might get there had eluded him.

One evening, Orin gathered the family and proposed to sell the family’s beloved horses to raise enough money for the purchase of a car. His children passionately protested. In what seemed like a joke at the time, Orin suggested that they hitch up the horses and wagons instead. Much to Mabel’s surprise and alarm, the children took to that idea with great excitement. The children thought this would be an adventure much like the ones experienced by Ward Bond, Robert Horton, and Frank McGrath of the popular Wagon Train TV show. Mabel was less enthused, but she trusted Orin enough to support the plan.

The family worked feverishly that spring to prepare for the journey. They patched jeans, greased wheels, fixed harnesses, repaired canvases, and packed all their possessions. On the day of departure, reporters and well wishers lined the streets of St. Cloud to catch a glimpse of the Family Wagon Train rolling west.

One article from the St.Cloud Daily covered the departure of the Gulbranson’s:

WEDNESDAY, JULY 4, 1962

A St. Cloud family has selected the Fourth of July to declare its independence.

In an age when independence is linked with oddity, a sincere and devout Mormon family is traveling 13,000 miles west to Salt Lake City, Utah – by covered wagon to “start a new life.”

Mr. and Mrs. Orin Gulbranson,[of] Clearwater road, and their eight children, pulled stakes this morning and set off on a trip recalling the days of Brigham Young, a hundred years ago.  The train is made up of four covered wagons.  They expect the trek will take about 65 days.

Today, Gulbranson leaves with $6.00 in his pocket, plus, of course, the independent spirit which he figures will spur his family safely to Salt Lake…

Mrs. Gulbranson will be cooking on a kitchen stove supplied with bottle gas.  Since the Mormons believe in storing large quantities of food, the Gulbransons have a 1,000 pounds of wheat, 200 pounds of dry milk,  a wire cage housing 15 live chickens… [T]wo dogs, one cat and a guinea hen…

Two barrels of drinking water will be carried on the wagon, and will be replenished at watering holes along the way.  Oats – enough to feed each of the horses two gallons a day – are also on the supply wagon.

[T]he summer-long camping excursion that will take them to Yankton, S.D., Columbus and Kearney, Neb., Cheyenne , Laramie, Rawlins, Cold Spring and Evanston, Wyo. From Evanston, the Gulbransons face “only about 90 miles of mountains.”  Special brake equipment is stored in the wagons for use in the high route.

Does Gulbranson think his family will make it?

“I don’t know.” [he quips], “Columbus took a chance on the water.”

Adventure lay ahead for the Gulbranson family, but misadventure was never too far away.

On their very first night, it was clear that they wagons were overloaded, causing too much strain for the horses. Once again, the family had to make more hard decisions about what would go on to Salt Lake City, and what would be left behind.

A day after that, one of the horses spooked from a passing car and bolted down the road, throwing 10-year old Lily from the saddle. Her fall necessitated an emergency trip to a hospital farther up the road. The family picked her up the next day as they passed through town and they carried on.

In South Dakota, a kind man who had hosted the family for an evening lost his barn to a fire started by one of the younger girls playing with matches alone in the hay loft. When the family noticed that 6-year old Karen was missing, Melville stormed into the blazing barn where he found her bravely stamping out embers on the ground. She was entirely oblivious to the raging inferno that had lit the rest of the barn until Melville dragged her away from the burning building.

The journey was demanding and grueling, but it often seemed that the Lord would fulfill the promise He had made to others when He said; “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”

Almost daily, a good Samaritan would offer food, shelter, and aid at a much needed time. When the family passed through Burwell, they were invited to become a feature of Nebraska’s Big Rodeo. There they made a little money joining the parade, judging the beauty pageant, and being chased around by real live Indians in staged reenactments, just like the brave folks of Wagon Train.

Later in their journey, a police officer even pulled over a passing moving truck to extort some moving blankets for the family on a cold Wyoming night. It seemed the farther down the trail they went, the closer to the Lord they got.

This fact became most apparent one early morning in rural Wyoming. When the family had awoke to begin their day, they had found that all of their horses had simply vanished, either stolen or on the loose. The family scoured the vast Wyoming landscape searching in all directions for the horses, calling out their names and praying for them to return. They could see for miles in any direction, but they could not see the horses. Concern became panic, and panic became despair. Losing the horses would have left them stranded and unable to buy replacements. In the distance they noticed a small dust cloud, probably the trail of a dusty farm truck they were hoping to flag down for help. Slowly the cloud grew larger and larger as the distance between them became smaller and smaller. At about a mile away, the family could make out the shapes of horses; their horses. The horses greeted the family happily, and not a single one was missing. The family considered this a miracle; an answered prayer from a loving Heavenly Father. That experience cemented their testimony and gave them added courage to press on through the difficult mountain terrain ahead of them.

The Gulbranson family overcame many hardships to make it to the Great Salt Lake. There they made a modest living in Draper, until opportunity called for them in British Columbia, Canada. That is where my story begins, though in no small part from the efforts and sacrifices of my father and his family.

We ought to remember that the pioneer spirit did not end once the west was tamed. Nor did it end as the Gulbranson family settled in Draper at the end of 1962. The pioneer spirit carries on in the hearts of good people who face trial and conflict with longsuffering, patience, and a hope for something better.  Your journey may be one that calls you to escape a broken family, a crippling addiction, or any other hopeless situation. The trail may be different for all of us, but the stakes remain the same. Big or small, the trail you blaze for your posterity is the legacy that they will look to. Keep that in mind when you feel like giving up, giving in, or giving out.