Rebecca Burdick Winters

                  In August, on the trail in Nebraska, cholera struck the company. A close friend, Rebecca Winters, was stricken and died on August 15. She was buried on the prairie with a simple ceremony. William unloaded an old iron wagon tire he had found on the trail, and stayed up into the night. His small daughter held a candle while he chiseled the words, "Rebecca Winters, age 50".  When her husband saw the inscription he said softly "That name will remain forever." They pounded the tire into the ground over the grave, and at sunup the wagons moved on westward.

Many years later, in 1900, when the Burlington Railroad was surveying a route up through the Platte River valley near Scottsbluff, Nebraska, a workman kicked aside some brush to drive a stake, and stubbed his toe on the wagon tire.

"Turn back," said the leader, "we cannot desecrate the last resting place of a Pioneer Mother."

So as not to disturb the pioneer grave, the surveying party went back several miles and rerouted the railroad tracks six feet to the side. Railroad officials built a fence around the grave, planted grass and flowers, erected a sign, and cared for the spot for many years. Later a monument was built with the wagon tire still there as part of the marker with REBECCA WINTERS, the well-chiseled letters made by William Fletcher Reynolds, as plain as ever. At the time of the incident of the finding of the wagon tire by the railroad people the Reynolds family as well as the Winter's family were stirred with emotion.