Showing Perseverance
By: Kayla Adamski
Donner Party
The 32 original people who left for California were the Donner families, employees of the Donners, Reed family, and the employees of the Reeds. 59 people joined the Party during their travel including the Breen family, Eddy family, Graves family, Keseberg family, McCutchen family, Murphy family, and Mr. Wolfinger. Only 47 people arrived to California.
Going Hungry
The Donner Party faced many adversities because they ran out of food, began to starve and were getting overwhelmed. They started hunting and because they were in the desert at the time there wasn't much to hunt. People resorted to eating the people who had died during their travel. They tried to continue hunting but were unsuccessful and many died from starvation.
Stranded
On October 12, 1972 an amateur rugby team was leaving Montevideo, Uruguay and going to Santiago, Chile. The plane landed in Mendoza, Argentina to wait for weather conditions to improve. They took off once the weather had improved. Well flying they went threw bad weather and crashed into a mountain and both wings, and the tail came off. It then slid down the mountain leaving the team stranded until someone on the team took matters into their own hands and found somebody and asked them for help.
The Difference
People consider the Donner Party to be a great tragedy well the Andes Plane Crash was considered to be human triumph. Even though they were both traveling in the Andes Plane Crash the people were on a plane, but in the Donner Party they were traveling by foot, wagon, or horse. Also, they both experienced harsh weather conditions. The Donner Party went through wars, snow, heat, rain, etc. The Andes Plane Crash only experienced heavy snow.
Sources
- The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party by: Marian Calabro
- infoplease.com