The Trail to Heartbreak

From smt news comes this heartbreaking true story of a family on the Oregon Trail.

The Trail to Heartbreak

Juliet, who has been married to her butcher husband for thirty years, lives in Springfield, Illinois, and has three girls. She saw the ad in the newspaper that if they come west they will get free land, and a cheaper home. So they all packed up and left, they left the home they've known for so long. They planned to get rich and maybe have one-two more kids.

They brought as many things as they thought was enough, for this six month journey.

It was pretty easy at first they brought their five oxen and left. Juliet was wondering why she was getting so fat, she was gaining so much weight, and her stomach was getting bigger, her feet got swollen, and she was craving so much food. She ignored it at first, and then one morning Juliet woke up and puked so much, she felt like she was going to puke her guts out.

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Her family got worried but she told them she was okay and that they should keep moving. She stopped many times but her family couldn't. She then remembers what it was like when she was pregnant with her daughters, she then remembers a similarity, she was in shock, and she couldn't be, could she?

Before they take a break to sleep for thirty minutes, she tells her husband and he checks her stomach, and remembers what it felt like to touch his pregnant wife's stomach, when she was pregnant.

He tells her she is pregnant and tries to figure out what they will do, they can't be on this rough trail, and be responsible for a fragile newborn. There is nothing they can do now, they can't kill the baby. She turned out to be five months pregnant and they would have their baby on the trail, such worse timing. They fell asleep with only ten minutes left, stressed out. This trail would be harder than they expected. They don't tell their kids, or they might be way too excited and slow them down. She almost says something so many times, but stops herself. Her kids get worried that their mom was so sick she might die.

When she was eight months pregnant, she then starts worrying, how many more days until the baby was born? What will they do now; you can't walk directly after having a child. There were still marching on strong with three months left. They are walking when she starts to have some difficulty, she falls to the ground in sudden pain, it feels like knives stabbing her ten times at once. She is now in labor with her family right there, her water breaks and her husband is too far ahead not realizing that his family stopped. Her eldest daughter takes up this responsibility and delivers her mom's baby. It was a girl, but there was no time to celebrate, they cleaned everyone up. Juliet tried her hardest to walk but had trouble.

Her husband stops for them to hurry up; they ate so much food so far that there is a little space in the wagon, which she can fit in. She held her newborn while everyone else was walking; she takes care of everything using leaves as its diapers. When she is able to walk, she does. Her eldest squishes in to hold her little sister; they need to protect her from everything. They all do shifts of 1 day to take care of the baby in the wagon while everyone walks. They soon run out of water and can't find any, the newborn has not used the bathroom as much anymore, and her mom can't make much milk, so the newborn begins to get really thirsty. She now has such dry skin; it feels like you aren't touching a newborn's soft skin, you are touching sandpaper. She is drowsier and everyone gets worried. While everyone was asleep little Ariana dies of dehydration, the family finds out the next morning and they wish this had never happened; they tried so hard to help Ariana survive, they gave her most of the food and water, did not let her in the sun so she couldn't get burned or too hot, put her in the most comfortable spot possible. They lost a day from mourning from their loss, they knew one of the worst and most painful way to die was dehydration, why did a one month old have to face that?

They had two months left to go so they went as fast as they can. In two weeks their youngest started having severe pains in her abdomen. They just thought she was hungry, so they ignored it, which was their worst mistake. In a few hours she starts to feel nauseas and has severe diarrhea. She gets dehydrated from vomiting so much and her family starts to worry. Soon she becomes so weak; Juliet wants to keep Elizabeth with her but her husband told her not to. Elizabeth was left on the side of the road with dried fruit, dying a long painful death from cholera. Juliet was crying so much since they had to leave their 10 year old daughter in the scorching heat. They couldn't stop, they had to keep going, they told themselves. They had to use the water that they found anywhere to drink, since they ran out of water. One month later Aubrie the middle child decides to go on the other side of this cliff and sees a puddle of water, she quickly runs to it. She is so thirsty that her mouth is so dry and any saliva that is in her mouth is so sticky like bacterial glue sewing her throat together. She drinks so much of it not caring about its brownish tint, little does she know she is putting hazardous amounts of contaminated water inside her. She runs back to her family not telling them about the water. Not that long after she feels cramps and ignores it thinking she's on her period, but these hurt much more. She starts having so watery diarrhea you don't know if it's diarrhea or dirty water on the side of the road, in a pothole. She starts to have a fever so she is told to take breaks whenever she sees shade and then run back to her family.

Her fever is finally so bad that she can't even walk one second without getting dizzy; she can't even lift her head up. Her family has to make another heartbreaking decision to leave their 13 year old daughter on the side of the road. When it is nighttime they lay Aubrie on the road while she's asleep with some, lard, they know she might not be able to eat it but it's the best they could do, and they were already running low on dried fruit. Then they left first thing in the morning before little Aubrie could wake up. Right there was little 13 year old Aubrie left to die of Amoebiasis (ah-moe-bye-a-sis). Juliet and her husband were scared to death that they would lose their eldest Alyssa; she was only 16 years old. They only had two weeks left to go, and they all were as healthy as they could be. When they arrived west they got what they were promised, free land (0.000918274 acres, which is 40 square feet), and a cheaper house (0.000688705 acres, which is 30 square feet). They arrived before winter and survived, they are still to this day mourning about their 3 kids they had to leave on the side of the road, and they will never forget it. Although they knew they had to move on, and realize that it's too late to go back for their children. That is the heartbreaking story of Juliet Anderson and her husband Chad Anderson. They both will now take care of Alyssa, who turned 17 on the trail the day before they arrived.