If you haven't heard of Badass of the Week, it's a pretty interesting and very humorous take on both fictional and historical figures that are larger than life and are known for either unprecedented achievements, death defying acts, unbelievable personalities, or all of the above. Totally worth checking out, and they do have an excellent book out that follows the same formula that's also worth a read.
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| A picture of Nellie in her younger years. |
One great candidate for this that I don't think has been covered on their site yet, is the story of Nellie Pucell Unthank. Now that first name is unusual for today, and is jokingly associated with livestock nowadays, but you'll be hard pressed to mock her for it when she ends up being a lot tougher than the most voracious bull you'll come across.
Now her birth name was really Ellen Purcell and she was born across the pond in England in 1846. Around the age of 9, her family, consisting of her Mother, Father, and sister Maggie (aged 14) were contacted by some quaint, kooky Americans calling themselves Mormons, and her family converted soon after. After that, they quickly made the decision to join the rest of the followers of the church that were migrating to Salt Lake City Utah.
Now, this may not sound like a big deal to people today, but let me set the stage for you of what the situation was then. First off, the Mormons were pretty universally hated in America at that point, and had recently had to flee their homes in Missouri and Illinois because their leader was recently assassinated while in prison for trumped-up charges, mobs were attacking and threatening to run people out of their own settlement in Nauvoo, Illinois, and the governor of Missouri decided to actually legalize killing Mormons on sight with an "extermination order" like he was Lord Humongous in a Mad Max film.
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| We go in, we kill them! |
Because of this, the average Mormon was obviously a little disillusioned with how America was the supposed "land of the free and home of the brave" at the time. So with all this crap going down, the Mormons said, "screw this place, we are leaving the country and making our own without blackjack or hookers!" So in 1847, they did exactly that and straight-up fled the country to what was then Mexico to settle in Salt Lake City, a feat that wasn't exactly easy at the time.
When it comes to Nellie's family, they not only had to cross the country, but also had to make a near 4800 mile journey starting from England to get to Salt Lake City on a shoestring budget. All this at a time when just going on the average boat trip carried a reliable fatality rate and took longer than the average molasses run on a cold day, while costing your life savings and that was just to get to America to start the rest of the trip!
To put it in perspective, most people that wanted to emigrate to be with the rest of the Mormons in Salt Lake were dirt poor. I mean, straight up "I need to take out a loan just to afford food stamps" poor, and the journey often completely bankrupted them, and that was just for the Americans that were just going cross country, let alone sailing from England. The Purcells were undaunted though, and after almost six weeks of sailing they arrived in Boston and then after a few months more of more travelling, the family eventually made it to Iowa City, to start the next leg of the journey.
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| A historically accurate depiction of Mormon pioneers before they headed out. |
Once they get there, most people (including the Purcell family), couldn't even afford a covered wagon to make the journey, and had to do so on foot while hauling a handcart. Yeah, you heard me, flee the country you just arrived in to run like a refugee halfway across the continent on foot. Also, if you aren't familiar with the concept of a handcart, imagine that you need to go halfway across the country but can't afford a bus, plane or car ride, then said, "screw it, I'll walk there while pushing a wheelbarrow full of my crap across unpaved roads the whole way." I dunno about you, but my fat butt isn't able to even keep my breath an hour after peeling an orange, let alone walking halfway across the continent like some slow-motion Forrest Gump reenactment while hauling all my crap around with me.
But, that's exactly what they need to do. The family hooked up with a bunch of other English immigrants traveling together who called themselves the Edward Martin Company. This group consisted of 575 people with 145 handcarts and 8 wagons, leaving in late July of 1856 to start their 5 month trek. All this to journey across the bland, flat, dry construct that is the midwest, cross the rocky mountains just in time for the beginning of fall/winter so they can eventually arrive in the high desert in Salt Lake, all on freaking foot like the Bataan death march is going out of style.
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| Like that, but with less technology and you're going to a place you actually want to be. |
Another little detail to keep in mind here, is that these people didn't exactly have the best boots or Adidas to really help with this, but old school shoes with leather and wooden soles that weren't exactly the most comfortable crap to hike in. Add on top of that, there wasn't much civilization to speak of along the way, so if you had your shoes wear out, you were stuck walking barefoot the rest of the way, feeling like some kind of Cro-Magnon.
That, and although a part of the trail to Salt Lake followed the Oregon Trail, there were pretty large stretches of it that were seldom-marked and areas that carried a high risk of Indian attacks that would even make John Wayne question your sanity for going there. That's not even mentioning the everyday dangers of the desert and rocky mountains like freezing river crossings, dangerous mountain passes, barbed vegetation, venomous snakes, mountain lions, bears, wolves and coyotes to deal with along the way.
Now, here's the part where Nellie's story starts getting crazy. Not only does the family convert to a new religion and sacrifice everything to emigrate to a new country, leave that country to go across the continent on foot because Americans are legally hunting you for sport like some bastardized version of Battle Royale, all while dealing with hostile Indians, low supplies, rough terrain, terrible weather, terrible medicine, wild animals, and not even having a ride to do it in, but disaster strikes the Company just like it's your last game of Oregon Trail meets hell.
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| Ever wonder why it's such a common ending? It actually happened. |
Towards the end of this five month slog, a freak snowstorm hits the procession while they are low on supplies. People all around start suffering from frostbite, hunger, exhaustion and hypothermia. In this maelstrom, Nellie's father dies due to exposure after slipping into a stream they were crossing . Then, to add insult to injury, her mother dies only five days later, leaving just Nellie and her and her older sister Maggie to fend for themselves. All told, it's estimated that about 150 members of the company died during the journey, and most were unable to be buried because the ground had frozen over in the cold.
As Nellie and Maggie continue on, Nellie starts developing a severe case of frostbite on her legs and feet, slowing the two down to the point that the rest of the company begins to leave them behind along with many others who are also suffering from a variety of the afflictions mentioned earlier.
Now those who were in good condition at this point were high tailing it as fast as they could to Salt Lake City so they could get help to send back to those who were falling behind. Once they got there, they immediately hit up the current Mormon leader, Brigham Young to send a rescue party to assist. If you aren't familiar with him, just imagine a simultaneously even more jovial and pissed off Klingon version of Winston Churchill. Except, he has an epic beard, is tired of these people killing his dudes, and who actually married all the women he was planning on fooling around with...because it was the honorable thing to do. So, you can imagine he had plenty of vulgar words for all the P'takhs who showed up without all the people they were supposed to, regardless of the reason and rushed out rescue parties immediately.
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| Yeah, that's the guy. See? Klingon. |
The rescue parties that were dispatched eventually found the survivors, but they discovered a scene that is nothing less than horrific. Imagine a mid-winter kegger at your local party-college, but without all the fun parts, and all the bodies you find strewn about are kids and old people dying of exposure and hunger. Most of those left behind were suffering from a number of ailments, and many were found only after being dug out from under the snow and hauled back to civilization on horseback or in wagons.
For Nellie in particular, being rescued from the trail wasn't the end of it either. The frostbite was deep and she had to deal with the finest medicinal care at the time which had only just recently leveled up from using leeches on the tech tree of Civ IV. Nellie was facing an emergency amputation of both of her legs just below the knee, and there was no anesthesia to speak of. I can only imagine that at that time, she simply slapped a leather belt in her mouth and looked the doc in the eye and just muttered, "let's do this". Also, if you're counting, that's literally twice the number of amputations that guy from 127 Hours had to put up with, so she's winning the achievement here.
The operation was a success, but medicine being what it was at the time, her legs never fully healed from the amputation and caused her great pain the remainder of her life. However, you would think this would turn her into into a grumpy, jaded, angry, piss and vinegar type of person after having to deal with all of that, but she was generally known as a pleasant woman by those who met her. I'm personally convinced that they invented the phrase "eating danger and crapping victory" just for this girl, cause I would have certainly been bitter by that point if I was in the same Lieutenant Dan situation.
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| Yeah, that would be my reaction. |
Eventually, Nellie settled in Cedar City, Utah, and married a nice bloke named William Unthank. She did have wooden legs made for her, but they only aggravated her condition, so she rarely wore them. In her later years, she would volunteer to regularly clean the local church building with her children as gratitude to the church for helping her survive and was known as an active member of the community her whole life.
Today, standing on the south side of the Southern Utah University campus in Cedar City is a statue of her in her younger years still with her legs with a plaque that details the epic story of her journey, perseverance and strength despite such tragedy.
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| A picture of her memorial on the SUU campus in Cedar City. |
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_Trail
https://www.suu.edu/news/2017/07/nellie-unthank-pioneer-settler.html
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/1986/10/ellen-pucell-unthank?lang=eng
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