This is the memory palace. I'm Nate de Mayo.

Lewis Kessaburg wasn't a good man.

He cursed and he stole.

He would drink and get into moods and then get into fights.

He beat his wife. He was cruel.

Lewis Kessaburg wasn't a good man.

But he didn't eat those people.

In May of 1846, a wagon train carried 87 pioneers west from Independence, Missouri,

bound for the Sierra's in the Sacramento River Valley beyond.

There were nine families in the caravan.

But I only need you to see two.

The Kessaburgs, the father, Lewis, a German immigrant,

30 years old, six feet and strong,

holding the reins at the front of a covered wagon.

His wife, 10 years younger,

huddled in the back with their infant son and three-year-old daughter.

In the donners, 12 members and all,

led by the father, George, his wife, Tamson, his brother, his brother's wife,

and eight children.

The oldest was 13.

The youngest, Eliza, was two.

See her, wrapped in a blanket and in her mother's arms.

...