How Did They Send Their Children?

I have been preparing for my two oldest children to go for 4 days on the handcart trek.  I have been thinking lately about the families over 100 years ago that sent their children and loved ones a few at a time across the ocean to a foreign land.  Parents who stayed behind while they sent their children ahead to what they felt was a better life, a place where they could worship God as they chose without fear.  What kind of faith does that take to take that leap?  I don't know that I could have done it.  I don't know that I could have separated our family in that way.