Nancy Warriner and Sanford Porter lived half a mile apart as children, went to the same school when they could attend school, and became close friends while living inVershire, Vermont. A short time after they were married, Sanford was called to serve in theWar of 1812. When he was released from the army, they began homesteading in New York.They moved to Ohio and Illinois.
It was in Illinois that two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints visited their home and converted Nancy and Porter. They were baptized on August 10, 1831.
They sold their home and traveled by wagon through severe winter weather to Independence. There they built a home on a twenty acre farm only to be driven from it before they were really settled in. For the next fourteen years they suffered the persecutions and mobbing that the Saints were called to endure. They later moved on to Nauvoo where they helped to build the city and the temple.
Driven out again, they suffered the terrible experience of the winter of 1846 in Council Bluff. The following summer, the Saints began the migration West. It was three and one half months of hazardous travel for Nancy. She was now fifty-seven years old. Her life had known little rest. She had eleven children and moved from one frontier homestead to another.
Now Nancy was to help establish a home in a barren desert land. They lived in their wagon that first winter. Food was so scarce. Nancy had to ration out the little food they had only one fourth pound of flour per person per day. Sometimes the meat of a wild animal or a bird was added to their near starvation fare.In spite of her hardships, Nancy cared for the sick and was often the midwife when new babies came to the families in the settlements. She lent help and provisions for those in need wherever she found them. The next year after their arrival they moved to Centerville to help settle the area. They lived there for twelve years.
When Nancy was seventy-two, her husband couldn’t resist the challenge for a new settlement. They moved east over the mountains to form a town which they called Porterville which was her last home.
Extracted from: Pioneer Women of Faith and Fortitude, International Society Daughters ofUtah Pioneers: Salt Lake City, Publishers Press, 1998, Volume 3, pp. 2424 – 2425.
