Faith of Our Fathers, Dr. Ezekiel Lee
His name was Dr. Ezekiel Lee. The year was 1843 when a Mormon missionary came to Comstock, Kalamazoo, Michigan. He spoke of the new religion and though Lee had been reared in a very religious family and was a leader in his church, he knew he had heard truth and he and his family were baptized 7 February, 1843 by E. Milo Webb. George A. Smith and Wilford Woodruff were holding conferences in Comstock in Dr. Lee’s home when the Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred. They were urging the people to go to Nauvoo and assist the Saints in building the Temple.
Dr. Lee and most of the members of his family arrived in Nauvoo in the summer of 1845, just in time to see that city at its best and its worst. Beautiful homes, prosperous farms, a wonderful city “Nauvoo the Beautiful” but a city in torment. The word had come. The Saints must leave or give up this religion. They prepared to move. Ezekiel Lee in his heart must have said: “Here I am Lord, I’ll go where you want me to go, I’ll do what you want me to do.” And his wagon moved out into the darkness across the frozen Mississippi with nothing but their faith to keep them.
Winter Quarters—tragic Winter Quarters, the scene of 600 dead. Yet the faith of the living transcended even death. Dr. Lee was chosen to go with the first company under Brigham Young to the Rocky Mountains. But—“Wait, you are a doctor, you are needed here.” Faith to wait. In 1848 he was chosen with three other men to bring the first mail to Utah from the people in Winter Quarters. As they journeyed, they picked up a man on his way to California. He was completely out of provisions. They had barely enough for themselves but they did not question; they just added another burden willingly, in faith, to their already burdened shoulders.
In the late fall of 1849 they made the return trip to Kanesville, Iowa. Ezekiel Lee found his family safe and well and in 1850 they returned to Great Salt Lake Valley—faith again their guide and protector. He served as a bishop in Holladay Ward in 1851. Grasshoppers had destroyed most of the crops and some of the Saints were living on sunflower seeds ground fine for flour. At a meeting held in Big Cottonwood, Ezekiel reported that he had flour, considerable more than his portion and he wished to divide it. He had already given 100 lbs. toward the deficiency. He had faith to know that “as ye do it unto the least of these ye do it unto me.”
Ezekiel Lee was born November 8, 1795 in Chesterfield, Worcester County, Massachusetts, the son of Charles Lee and Rhoda Keith. He passed away in Salt Lake City, Utah June 12, 1877.
(Transcribed from document at the Pioneer History Room, Mormon Trail Center at Winter Quarters. Note: Text is transcribed as written with spelling corrected in brackets.)