. . .In February, 1850, when Mrs. Morris was 14 years of age, the family sailed for America on the Josiah Bradley, coming by way of New Orleans, through the Gulf of Mexico. They came up the Mississippi and landed at St. Louis on May 2, 1850, having been nearly three months on their journey. Traveling as many of the Saints did in those days, they were under the necessity of laying in supplies before leaving shore, such as bacon, herring, potatoes, butter, sugar, rice, oatmeal, etc., not forgetting sea biscuits or hard-tack as it is sometimes called. Fresh water had to be taken on board to last for the entire journey, therefore it was necessary to measure it out, perhaps as little as a pint of drinking water per day for each person. This measured water had to be used for cooking which they did for themselves.

Quoting from the sketch of Mrs. Morris's life, which she wrote:

"Sometimes we had trouble cooking such things as rice and beans, which absorb so much water that we would not have sufficient to finish cooking them properly. This cooking was done on a sheet-iron stove about the size of an ordinary kitchen table, in a small room not much larger than a pantry. Many would be cooking at the same time, and would have to stand and watch their own things lest someone should come and push them back to give their own a better place. The ship furnished a cook to attend to the fires and superintend things and assist the passengers. Father, having learned to cook at home when a boy and considering the galley, where the cooking was done
, an unfit place for women, did our cooking himself. The only way of going to and from the galley was by means of a large ship ladder. You can imagine the difficulty of carrying this hot food from the galley which was on the deck, down the ladder to our berths which were in the steerage. Fortunate indeed was the individual who was possessed with a good stock of patience, for it was surely needed under these trying circumstances." - Contributed by Kathryn V. Cannon. . . . [p.450]

BIB: Morris, Mary Lois Walker. [Reminiscences] Our Pioneer Heritage, comp. by Kate B. Carter, vol. 12, (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1969), p. 450. (CHL)
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