The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses starvation, cannibalism, and death.

On April 12, 1846, 21-year-old Sarah Graves embarked on a journey from Illinois to California alongside her new husband, Jay Fosdick, her parents, and her eight younger siblings. The Graves family, descendants of early American settlers, were spurred by the desire for a better life in the West. Their decision was influenced by promising accounts of Alta California found in Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast and Lansford Hastings’s Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California.

Life in Illinois had become challenging for the Graves. They suffered from “the Illinois shakes,” known today as malaria, and the economic downturn following the 1837 bank collapses. Franklin Graves, the family patriarch, had initially been attracted to Illinois for its farming potential but now envisioned a more prosperous future in California. Therefore, he resolved to lead his family westward, joining the exodus of families leaving Illinois and Missouri in pursuit of better prospects.

Concurrently, 1600 miles to the west in the Sacramento Valley, Lansford Hastings, the author of the Emigrants’ Guide, was collaborating with John Sutter. Sutter had grand plans for