Pioneer Pancakes—
Mary I. Sorensen crossed the plains at the age of eleven years, in 1862, with a company of approximately fifty-nine wagons. They made the trip from Omaha to Salt Lake City in twelve weeks. Grandmother walked every step across the plains and was always in the company of four girls and three boys. She says “The scenery was very monotonous and I in company with my friends would often wander away from camp to find something new and more interesting than covered wagons covered with dust, and all the unpleasant duties connected with the camp, so it was with the greatest of joy and curiosity that while traveling along the Platte we came to Chimney Rock.”
While near this place they deviated far from camp and seeking for adventure they climbed Chimney Rock. This was a very hazardous undertaking and was poor management on the part of the officers of the company to allow young children to stray from camp.
While on the rock they found the signatures of many people who had preceded them. They were without a pencil and regretted that they could not inscribe their names upon the rock. They returned from their trip late a night and ravenously hungry. Grandmother feeling the pangs of hunger and knowing she should have something to eat goes to her father and kindly asks for something to eat. Her request is not granted and she is told to go to bed, as she has already caused them enough anxiety from her wanderings.
Returning from her father she spies a pan of milk and immediately tells her friends. They decide to stay up a while longer and have something to eat. A sheet iron stove was carried the distance of a block and a half to the Platte River. Several trips were made to the provision wagon for flour, salt, sugar, pans and griddle irons to carry on the process of pancake making.
Everyone enjoyed the much-deserved pancakes and were very much surprised when the guard, while making his rounds, found the group of merry makers. He was served some pancakes and then returned to his duty. The dishes were washed in the Platte and everything safely carried back to camp. The party then adjourned to sleep the sleep of the “Just.”
The following morning grandmother was awaked by a very considerate father carrying a piece of bread and butter. Grandmother never said a word about their pancake episode until about one week after, when she and her father met a guard, who asked her if she wasn’t the girl who served him pancakes on the bank of the Platte. She confessed all to her father and told him that nothing tastes so good as stolen food when you are hungry.(1)
- Veda Sorensen, Pioneer Pancakes, Unpublished typed manuscript.
The “I.” in Mary I. Sorensen is not a real part of Mary’s name. The "I" stands for Isaac and was used to tell her apart from other Mary Sorensens’ in the family and in Mendon, Utah. The father referred to in this story is her stepfather, Christian Poulsen. Mary’s older brother Soren Christian Jacobsen, used the Poulsen name in America. He and his descendants are known thus today.
