I Need Help Identifying a Movie

[truemane]

OKay, so a friend of mine wants to buy a movie for a friend of hers. However, all she has to go on is a rather vague plot summary. I have no idea what film she's talking about, and for once my Google-Fu has failed me.

So I turn to you, Internet Friends, in the hopes that your combined ranks in Knowledge: Geekery will be sufficient to unlock this mystery...

The movie is about a woman travelling west in some sort of pioneer trip. Two of her children die along the way. She adopts a boy when they arrive, but the other children don't accept him. She won't let anyone touch the dead children's things. At some point, there's a doll involved, at Christmas time, and she names the doll Jesus, or pretends it's Jesus, or something of the sort.

And apparently, on the back of the VHS box, there'sa picture of a man standing next to a horse and carriage.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

[Mr. Friendly]

Can you give anything else to help ID this film?

Color? Black and White? A general range of the age of the film would help too. It doesn't need to be all that specific...

[truemane]

Can you give anything else to help ID this film?

Color? Black and White? A general range of the age of the film would help too. It doesn't need to be all that specific...

Now you feel my pain. I got nothing except what's up there. No stars, no year, no director no nothing. All I have is the basic synopsis, passed along second-hand to me from someone who got it from someone else.

Hence my Google-fu's complete failure. And hence my impassioned plea to the boards.

[....]

Sounds like a psycho version of the Grapes of Wrath.