Traveling on Lee’s BackBone
My grandmother drove a
covered wagon over Lee’s Backbone. It wasn’t easy.
When the Mormon
Pioneers first came to Arizona from Utah, many of them crossed the Colorado
River close to the Grand Canyon at a place called Lee’s Ferry. They put their wagons and themselves on rafts
that carried them across the river. It
was scary. But worse than Lee’s Ferry
was what came next--Lee’s Backbone, a
steep, narrow, rocky trail with rocks and drop-offs along the way. Wilford Woodruff, the fourth president of the
Church said, “It was one of the worst hill ridge or mountain that I ever
attempted to cross with a team and wagon.”
My grandmother, ‘Lell
Coleman, drove a team of “fiery, high-strung horses” and a wagon over Lee’s Backbone. She had two boys by her side, my Uncle
Neal age 4 and his little brother, Spence, age 2. It wasn’t easy.
She was scared. Later she said “it was a most shattering
experience. The driving to the Colorado was not so bad, and being ferried
across the river was interesting; but the driving over Lee’s Backbone was the most
terrifying, grueling experience of my life. Actually, there was no
well-marked road. It was a trail perilously narrow in places, wider in
others, but always steep hills or dangerous dug ways or curves. Sometimes
I wonder how I did it. . . . The road was so narrow and winding, and (a) ribbon-like
river below, I hugged so close to the hill side that the hubs of the wheels
scraped the sand and rock. I tried to
keep my eyes on the hill but an occasional glance below made me feel that the
wagon might go rolling over and over down to the river with me and my two
boys. I stopped the team and waited
until Mr. Heywood came up and changed. I
then mounted the horse and drove the cattle and he drove the team.”
Look at the
steep cliff alongside the trail.
In
Arizona she became a teacher
My grandmother and her class in St. Johns, Arizona.
My father, Leland Heywood, is on the front row, second from
the left.
Richard Neal Heywood
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