Saturday's 90-minute commemoration included prayers, a half-dozen hymns, remarks by leaders of the three associations, a reading of the names of the victims and survivors, a reading of Carlton's original burial report and a 21-gun salute by a regiment of military re-enactors using black-powder rifles.

"I'm struggling to hold back tears — these ceremonies are always emotional times," said Patty Norris, Mountain Meadows Descendants president, adding her appreciation of the LDS Church's efforts in appropriate property development. "That means more than words can say."

Phil Bolinger, president of the Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation, camped overnight Friday at the siege site. He said Saturday he's always seen the area as "a haunted place" but hopes ongoing reconciliation efforts between all descendants "will finally put the ghosts of Mountain Meadows Massacre behind us."

Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the Quorums of the Seventy and church historian, said the LDS Church's extensive research over the past decade into the circumstances leading up to the event, the massacre itself and all the subsequent situations and the publishing of the "Massacre at Mountain Meadows" book "sort of unleashed feelings of understanding of the people here."

Introduced and on display during the commemoration was one of two quilts being crafted — one to hang in perpetual display in northwestern Arkansas and the other in Cedar City. It featured family-tree branches with leaves bearing the names of victims and flowers the names of survivors and 48 large blocks bearing expressions from descendants of both victims and perpetrators and associated historians.

One sewn statement summed up not only the quilt's purpose and Saturday's commemoration but the whole cooperative effort of never forgetting but striving to forgive and understand:

"Facing the past to heal the present with hope for the future."

E-MAIL: taylor@desnews.com