Rebecca Winters (pioneer)

Rebecca Burdick Winters (January 16, 1799 – August 15, 1852) was a Mormon pioneer who with her family left the eastern United States to emigrate to the Salt Lake Valley with other Latter-day Saints. In August 1852, en route to present-day Utah, she died of cholera near present-day Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Her grave, located in the Rebecca Winters Memorial Park, has become a popular landmark along the Mormon Trail and is a Nebraska State Landmark.

Although the grave remains a popular tourist attraction and is one of the few identified graves along the Westward Expansion Trails, some descendants—citing a lack of maintenance and safety at the current site—have requested her grave be removed from the trail side and relocated to a museum in a neighboring city. In response, descendant Jacob Oscarson created a survey of family members asking for feedback. As of summer 2022, the grave was to stay at its current site, with the Scotts Bluff County Board of Commissioners granting permission to volunteers to make some minor improvements.

Biography

Origins

Rebecca Burdick was born to Gideon Burdick and Catharina Schmidt in Canajoharie, New York. In 1806, Catharina died; Rebecca was only seven years old at this time. Rebecca's father, Gideon, then married Jane Ripley Brown, and when Rebecca was 18 the family relocated to Athens County, Ohio. Here she met Hiram Winters and they were married in 1824.