Spanish Fork Pioneer Cemetery

I love spending time at the Spanish Fork Pioneer Cemetery when we are celebrating Pioneer Days in July.
This is the monument that we erected with the names we had painstakingly researched and found to be buried here.

Because many of my ancestors settled this area I honor all their hard work and sacrifice that made Spanish Fork what it is today.

Replica headstones mark the places where
pioneers to this area were buried.
Every year for the 24th celebration
each grave is decorated with flowers.

This beautiful statue represents the pioneer families who lived and died here. Many of the burials in the cemetery are babies and young children. When I was discussing with the creator of this statue what I had in vision for this statue, I told him about the babies and young children who were buried here and asked him to include them in his work.  

Notice the young girl looking up at her parents holding her doll while her mother holds her baby and her father holds her mother. It was love of family and the Savior that gave these pioneers the courage to go on amid hardship, deprivations and untimely death.

These are the words I wrote for a talk
I gave at the dedication of this holy place. My husband Ross gave the dedicatory prayer.

My family loves to tell ancestor stories while we are sitting on the bench with this scene in front of us.

Nathaniel Jordan is my ancestor 
who died was buried here. 
His wife Lois Coon 
had recently lost her first husband 
because he was killed
while serving in the Mormon Battalion. 
Nathaniel's first wife died at Winter Quarters
so Nathaniel and Lois married 
then crossed the plains together 
and settled in Spanish Fork.
Nathaniel died two years later.