Friends and Family

Circles of Friends and Family

In April of 2021 we took a road trip to Southern Utah. It would be my Dad’s final road trip, an exploration of family history.

It was his desire to connect the names and dates on the family tree to places – places even that he was familiar with from his first years growing up there.

I can recall Dad telling me that he wanted to really know these people as best he could before he passed.

In response, I spent as much time studying the people and the places we went to. I wanted to be so familiar with it all that the stories could be shared in real time.

My Aunt LaRee and Uncle Will worked on putting such a trip together for more than a year.

I fear they may never know what a big deal that was to both my Dad and for me. That trip, I feel, extended Dad’s life a bit because it gave him purpose beyond fighting illness and recovering from surgery.

As we drove we visited and Dad mixed memories of the times and places he lived in when he was a boy, sharing things of himself and my grandparents the rest of us did not know.

We stopped at pioneer cemeteries and shared what we knew of the people we found and the places they lived.

Some of these were remote, almost forgotten places. Ghost towns, really.

Places like Hebron and Pinto and Hamblin. Other places were smack dab in the middle of civilization, such as St. George, Provo and Manti.

While Dad had broad places and target individuals in mind I was swimming in details ahead of where I knew we would go.

Despite all this there were surprises and spontaneous moments.

Dad, knowing that Aunt Gladys (daughter of Grandpa and Grandma Snow) was buried in Junction, Utah, decided to make a brief stop there after we had left Kingston.

Junction still has only about 200 residents and it was no problem finding the cemetery, which resides on such a hill that the graves are terraced. Finding Aunt Gladys took just a few minutes and while the others stood there to look I turned around and found this grave:

James Bay - Friend of the Westovers

My surprised response to this discovery was, “Well, hello old friend!”

~ James Willard Bay ~

James Bay converted to the Church in 1840. He was single.

Guess who his influencing missionary was? The same Elder Goodale who taught Hannah Beal and later, Electa and Edwin, in Ohio in 1844.

In fact, James Bay became embedded in the whole company that included the Westovers coming from Ohio to Winter Quarters, and then on to Salt Lake in 1848.

He not only knew the Westover family well but also others who would also interact with the family over the decades.

My surprise in discovering James Bay’s grave that day in Junction in 2021 was centered on the fact that he knew and was important to my family.

What I did not know then was the story of the rest of his life once he got to Utah and how many others in our family story he knew and interacted with.

As we have noted many times on these pages, there are few coincidences that surprise in family history.

James Bay has more than his share of them.

~ A Mission and Marriage ~

There are a number of people who were involved in the Westover trek west to Utah. In the group were men named Aaron Sceva and John Kempton. Both men would, in time, marry Hannah Beal.

Traveling as a body of Saints under the direction of Apostle Ezra T. Benson they headed first to Council Bluffs, Iowa before staging for the trek west at Winter Quarters.

Like others in that pioneering group, Bay, being a farmer, spent about two years in the Salt Lake Valley just trying to help people survive.

He desired to serve a mission back home in Ohio because he hoped to convert his family and his old girlfriend.

Brigham Young obliged him, calling James to serve 1850. He went East and tried again with his family. Though civil to him, his family rejected him.

His former girlfriend was a little harsher with him. Years later, after he heard she had passed on, he had her sealed to him because “I still love her so”.

As James Bay returned from his mission he was called to Captain a company west in 1852. This experience set up his future and speaks of his associations in the past.

In his company was a blind woman by the name of Laura Adeline Beal.

Yes, she is another sister to Electa and to Hannah. There is no doubt that James Bay was asked to see her home to family in Utah because of his prior association with Hannah and Electa. They trusted him.

A years-later published news clipping about James Bay declares Laura to be his wife. However, this is now believed to be false. There is no official marriage record between Laura and James found in either history.

Laura had been blind since childhood. Her parents sent her to a school for the blind in Ohio, where she learned Braille. She had obtained a copy of the Bible in Braille and would be known for generations for her love of continually reading from it.

When Laura’s parents died, they left her a small inheritance that would help fund her way west to where her sisters lived. All they needed was someone to care for her on the trek.

There is little doubt that James Bay was trusted for this. The same man who had helped with financing the Westovers through the inheritance of Sarah Jane Burwell was the same man who made the arrangement for Laura’s money and passage west. James Bay was asked to see those arrangements through.

James knew another man in his company by the name of Festus Sprague, who was traveling with sister Lucinda. Festus was James’ friend as well.

Within just weeks of starting their trek west James and Lucinda were in love and were married on the trail by Elder Orson Hyde.

In his journal, James wrote:

While walking together in the hot sun today, keeping pace with the slow tread of the oxen in their steady trek toward the land of Zion, I persuaded Lucinda to marry me.

When they reached Independence Rock histories of James Bay and Laura Beal say this:

“On July 22, they reached Independence Rock, in Wyoming, and at noon, James Bay, his wife Lucinda, Laura and others walked upon it. By August 4, the company had reached the Big Sandy Creek in southwestern Wyoming. James Bay sent word ahead to Salt Lake City that most of the company was well, but the cattle were weak, and he asked if twelve yoke of cattle and four wagons could be sent to assist them. He also mentioned Laura Beal, a blind woman, sister to Electa Miller, “her that was Westover”, and requested that Electa come to meet them. It notes: “It would be a great satisfaction to her sister Laura, for she is unwell and wishes her assistance very much. My wife takes charge of her now, and has since leaving Ohio.”

Their destination once arriving in Utah was Grantsville – home to Laura’s and Electa’s sister Hannah.

James Bay stayed in Grantsville only a short time and within the year of 1853 they were called to move south to Johnson’s Fort.

~ Joel Hills Johnson ~

Johnson’s Fort, now known as the city of Enoch, between Cedar City and Parowan, was founded by a fairly well-known individual named Joel Hills Johnson.

Johnson had a long history in the Church dating back to 1830, just after the Church was organized. He played a minor role in the history of Church, witnessing and participating in many well known events between Kirtland and Nauvoo.

Joel Hills Johnson

After arriving in Salt Lake he wrote the hymn High on a Mountain Top while waiting one day to pay his tithing. He was a trusted man of action to Church leaders no matter where they sent him. After sending him south to Parowan they directed Johnson to build a farm and a ranch not far away.

While there, a few other families joined him in efforts to expand the offerings of what could be grown in the territory. One of those families was James and Lucinda Bay.

James Bay had become something more than a simple dirt farmer during these years. It is thought that his association with Joel Hills Johnson extended as both men moved to Bellevue, a remote area of far southern Utah. It was in this place that both Bay and Johnson found success growing different kinds of fruits and vegetables.

James Bay took to calling himself a “horticuluralist”, and the charge from Brigham Young to grow cotton in Utah’s Dixie was one hotly pursued by both Johnson and Bay, leading to the colonization of St. George and surrounding areas in 1861.

It became Bay’s life’s work to grow things. He supported his family through his healthy crops in Bellevue, then Virgin City and finally in Junction.

In the mid-1860s he entered plural marriage with a widowed sister of his wife. In time, he would have several more women sealed to him, though most were sealing arrangements for support of widows and single sisters. He would have 11 children in all through three of his marriages, adopting several children along the way.

In a history written by two granddaughters named Pearl and Eliza Snow (I haven’t yet figured the connection – but bet money there is one) much is made of James Bay’s gentle nature, his many friends, and his gospel living philosophy.

“His was a practical religion. He believed he should help his neighbors and speak no ill of them. He had numerous friends. We have never met an enemy of his. His home was humble, but it was a haven to all who wished to share it with him and his family.”

James Bay had other family associations. One of the more enduring was with Charles Westover, one of many family members he first crossed the plains with. Charles and James worked for Erastus Snow after first coming to the Salt Lake Valley. As single men, they were ideally suited to help the Apostle to build and maintain his new Utah farm for his families.

Another important association was with Aaron Sceva.

Aaron Sceva was born in 1806 and while we don’t know exactly how James Bay and Sceva first met we do know that Aaron Sceva was passionate about the gospel of Jesus Christ. James Bay was baptized in the spring of 1843. By the night he was baptized James was accompanying the missionaries who baptized him to preach to others.

In December James Bay was ordained an elder by John Kempton, husband at that time to Hannah Beal. Shortly after that ordination, he met and baptized Aaron Sceva, who was also immediately ordained an elder by James Bay and, like Bay, immediately went on a mission.

Sceva was known throughout his adult life for his missionary zeal. He was always preaching the gospel, whether serving a mission or not.

This passion led Sceva to leadership positions, even speaking before general conferences of the Church in Salt Lake City. For a time, he served as a counselor and general authority in the church Elders Quorum Presidency in the early 1850s.

Upon reaching Utah, however, he made his home in Grantsville, not Salt Lake City. It was there he married Hannah Beal after John Kempton died. Sceva never left there and it was his homestead where the Beal families and Westover families – and yes, at times even the Bay family – gathered and found safety.

One line from the journal of James Bay seems to sum up the relationship he formed with Aaron Sceva, as well as provides us a small glimpse into each man’s convictions: Aaron Sceva had a vision before I baptized him and he thought he had received the Holy Ghost, so when he found out that I had the authority to baptize him he was very happy.

James Bay would have other close connections to people we know from various family histories. He received his Patriarchal blessing from Isaac Morley. He was married under the hand of Orson Hyde, and later by Brigham Young, Daniel H. Wells, and James G. Bleak.

He was an avid temple-goer, and along with Lucinda he performed the work for hundreds of their kindred dead or even his friends. He frequented both the St. George and Manti temples.

James and Lucinda Bay

James and Lucinda Bay

Given all his associations with Westovers and Beals there is no doubt he was at the St. George temple dedication with Electa, Charles, Edwin and others he knew from way back at Winter Quarters.

His association with Joel Hills Johnson is personal for me because Johnson is the 5th great-grandfather of my daughter-in-law, Angie. Thus he is a direct ancestor of my grandchildren.

Johnson is buried near Edwin Westover in Johnson Canyon, Kane County, Utah – another location we found on that trip in 2021.

It was at the Johnson farm there where Edwin sought refuge in the final days of his life and where he passed away. The Johnson family took him in and tried to save his life. When he died, they buried him with their own.

I find it a rich irony that my grandchildren’s two great grandfathers, who were the first men of their families to join the early Church, are buried together. There is no way they could have known then, of course, that they would share descendants.

Or perhaps, in the realm of the great beyond we all go to after we die, they do know now.

I know it is not coincidence.

I’ve worked on this brief review of our friend James Bay for some time. But it was only today, March 15th, 2024, that I came to another bizarre connection that’s not so coincidental.

I have a good friend who is the same age as my son. We’ve known each other for several years.

Weeks ago I learned of some vandalism at the cemetery in Grantsville and I shared that news in a group this friend and I are in online. He mentioned that he had grandparents buried there and, when we go out there, to see if their grave sites were affected.

In looking at his family tree and digging a bit into his family’s pioneer Utah past, I discovered that that his family are among the founders of Grantsville and, in fact, one of his great grandfathers designed the very cemetery where many of his family are buried.

Like all family histories, it was interesting to learn of their lives and sacrifices as they pioneered that area.

But in my quest to learn more about James Bay through his wife Lucinda I learned that her brother, Festus Sprague, stayed in Grantsville after arriving in Utah. He married one of the daughters of my friend’s great-grandfather, a founder and former mayor of Grantsville.

This seeming coincidental and unimportant connection, like all others we talk about above and in other places in our family history, has a purpose.

I cannot help but think of my Dad, who said to me on that trip in 2021, “Who is James Bay, again?”.

Dad has to be smiling about all this. It’s been about three years since that trip and I’m still learning new stuff – beyond the stuff I knew that day in Junction. There is a reason for all this.

I have no idea what it might be. The possibilities are endless.

All I know is that the friends we make and the friends we have are not far distant from those we call family.

It was true of James Bay in his day. And it is true of me in mine.

We are all connected. For a reason. The Lord is in it.

The Honeymoon Trail

Just west of a place out in the middle of nowhere on the Utah/Arizona border called Fort Pearce is a old pioneer trail. In this remote place on this mostly forgotten trail are rocks where at a time in the old west travelers left their mark on red stone in wagon wheel grease.

Those marks remain today and can still be read:

Honeymoon Trail

Those written words are “Westover” and “Funk”.

There has to be a connection, right?

Yes. There are several.

~ The St. George Temple ~

In 1877 the St. George Temple was dedicated. It was a huge event for the Westover Family.

Mother Electa Beal Westover, through her sons Edwin and Charles, gathered the family to go through the temple for themselves and for their families.

The St. George Temple was the first completed after the Nauvoo period. Though work had started on the Salt Lake Temple almost as soon as the pioneers arrived in 1847 it was a work in progress for decades.

The Endowment House in Salt Lake City was built for the purposes of “sealing” ordinances for the living and nearly all the Westovers and their extended families had been there for their own weddings.

In January of 1871 the prospect of a temple in St. George was raised by Brigham Young.

The Cotton Mission, known as Dixie and encompassing many small communities around St. George, was struggling and many settlers were wanting to leave. Brigham, frustrated that work on the Salt Lake temple had stalled for 7 years, proposed a temple in St. George as a means of unifying the Saints living there.

There was an immediate enthusiastic response. Work began and continued for several years with contributions from nearly every pioneer family in the area, including the Edwin and Charles Westover families. As the dedication approached in early 1877 everyone in Electa’s family gathered.

St. George Temple

Edwin and family, living in Hamblin, had come to St. George in advance of a new mission call to settle new communities in northern Arizona. Property had been traded, supplies had been gathered and further preparations, which included going through the temple and getting patriarchal blessings, had to be done.

Charles and family had relocated sometime before from Pinto to Washington City, just outside of St. George. Mother Electa lived with them.

Their bishop was a man named Marcus Funk.

~ Charles Westover ~

Charles WestoverAlexander and Electa Westover had four children while building their farm in Ohio and three of them lived to adulthood: Edwin, Charles and Oscar.

All three came west with Electa and she remained close to all three. Edwin, the oldest of the three, farmed next to his brother in the Cottonwood area of the Salt Lake Valley until the early 1860s.

Charles and families were called to the Cotton Mission as part of the original settler group in 1861. His name and original family home shows on the first pioneer map of St. George.

Edwin and families were called to the Cotton Mission in 1862, after living for a brief period in Grantsville near Electa’s sister, Hannah.

Oscar left Utah as a young man and moved west to California, raising a family in Petaluma.

Of the pioneering Westover brothers it was Charles who seemed to be the most well known and well connected.

Charles Westover had a personal relationship with Apostle Erastus Snow.

Erastus Snow

Erastus Snow

As a young single man in 1848, when the Westovers traveled to Winter Quarters, Charles sought Snow out because he heard he was looking to hire someone to drive his family’s team west.

In the course of making those arrangement Charles indicated his desire to be baptized so Erastus Snow baptized him.

For the rest of Snow’s life there would be interactions between him and Charles Westover.

It is assumed that Snow influenced the call of the Westovers to St. George and, of course, he played a central role in the construction and the dedication of the St. George temple.

Charles and his wives spent the rest of their lives in St. George.

That is why it is ironic that Cache Valley – far to the north on the other end of the state – would not only be known as home to Edwin’s posterity. It would also become home to many of Charles’ descendants.

Thanks to Bishop Marcus Funk.

~ Marcus Funk ~

Marcus Espersen Funk was born in Denmark in 1842 and came to America in 1857 with his parents. His parents, Dederick and Kirsten, joined the Church after missionary work was established in their area of Denmark by…Apostle Erastus Snow.

They came to Utah and found farming opportunities in the tiny Cache Valley community of Richmond.

While in Richmond, young Marcus became known for his ability to handle horses. Throughout his life, wherever he lived, he was known for his fine horses and for the care and gentle treatment he gave them. Eventually he became a teamster for William B. Preston, who was the chief founder of Logan, the town mayor, and bishop (all by the age of 29). The job would eventually change Marcus’ life for good when he answered to call to drive one of his teams on a “down-and-back”.

It was on such a drive in 1864, on a return trip, that Preston’s company helped a pioneer handcart group on their westward trek. In that group was a girl who caught Marcus’ eye. By the time they all arrived in Salt Lake, they were engaged.

Not many years later Marcus and his wife were called to move their family south to the Cotton Mission by Brigham Young. They settled in Washington City, assigned there by Erastus Snow, and became embedded in Church and civic leadership. In time, Marus would serve as both bishop and mayor.

Marcus Funk

At the time of the dedication of the St. George temple, the Charles Westover family and the Marcus Funk family each had several children living with them.

In 1877 Lewis Burton Westover was 9 years old. Eliza Johanna Funk was 8.

In 1889 they married. In the St. George temple.

Around that time Marcus Funk was called yet again by the Church to settle a new area in Sanford, Colorado. He was again called as Bishop.

The newlywed couple of Lewis and Eliza followed him to Colorado. The Lewis Burton Westover family would stay there until Marcus Funk and family left – in 1909.

~ The Honeymoon Trail ~

When the St. George temple was dedicated it wasn’t just a big deal to the Westovers and Funks and other in the region known as Dixie. Mormons from everywhere came to St. George to go through the temple and they did so for years, at least until the next temple opened in Manti.

An unwritten chapter in the life of Edwin Westover belongs to that of his Southern Utah family. Edwin was sure to communicate to his wife Sarah Jane that their entire family was called to settle in North Arizona. He wanted her to continue on to fulfill that mission, which she did.

The Westovers, under Sarah Jane’s direction and that of Edwin’s eldest son, Edwin Lycurgus Westover, grew the generations of the Westover family in Arizona in an epic and righteous way.

As they prospered, met spouses and married they had to travel the Honeymoon trail to St. George to get to the temple.

Honeymoon Trail

For better than 30 years this trail was well known to newlyweds.

Ironically, the newlyweds in Lewis Burton Westover – a grandson to Electa Westover (who was a temple worker in St. George) – and Eliza Johanna Funk were living in Washington City when they married in the St. George temple. It was only after they married and were living in Sanford, Colorado that they traveled the Honeymoon Trail and put their names on the rock.

~ A Latter-day Westover-Funk Connection ~

This might or might not be something, I don’t know yet. I only discovered the above story in the past few days.

My own move to Cache Valley happened in 2012 when a change in jobs allowed my wife and I to reconsider where we were living and raising our children. We felt we needed a change.

We looked all over Utah but were drawn to the little town of Richmond after one of our daughters expressed a desire to attend high school in nearby Smithfield. We went there, found a house and it just felt right.

This move had everything to do with my family history awakening. A short time after we moved we got called to serve on trek, which would include two of our daughters.

We went and I had some powerful experiences in learning all about my pioneer ancestors.

Our stake president, in the early morning devotional on the day we left on trek, promised us that if we desired a spiritual experience we need only to pray for it. I did and I had several.

Upon our return, I emailed him and told him of what happened to me on trek. His note was short but gracious. And he signed it with this post script: “Oh, Brother Westover, by the way, my mother is a Westover”.

I looked her up and she is Zaetell Westover, a daughter of Lewis Burton, and thus another descendent of Charles and Electa.

I have scoured the cemeteries local to me here in Cache Valley. I visited them often enough I can trace many familiar names, even people I am not related to. One of those names in Funk, which is prominent still in Richmond.

My children had friends from our time living in Richmond with the last name of Funk.

Boy, do I have a story to tell them.

Kirtland Connections

With the news that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has acquired the Kirtland temple and additional historic sites in Nauvoo the question has come in about our family connections to Kirtland.

The individual who comes immediately to mind is Grandfather Gardner Snow, who is the great-grandfather of Muriel Snow, wife of William Riggs Jr and mother of Maurine Westover.

Gardner Snow

You would be hard pressed to find a more active family in the LDS faith than the Snows. Long before plural marriage that family name was central to the early history of the Church.

Names such as Eliza R. Snow (a wife of Brigham Young), apostle Erastus Snow, President Lorenzo Snow, and, of course the many sons of Gardner – particularly James C. Snow, Warren S. Snow, and George Washington Snow – would go on to pioneer fame in Utah. They are all related, in various ways, and their posterity are numerous.

In 1900, Congressman Charles B. Landis of Indiana, remarked that the Snow family was “the most consistent Mormons in the whole bunch”.

Gardner Snow and family left their home in Vermont for Kirtland specifically because of the promise of the temple. They arrived a few months after the dedication of the temple.

Gardner by this point was an established member of the Church, having been baptized with many family members by Orson Pratt in 1833. Not long after arriving in Kirtland he was ordained an elder.

His ordination was noted as a certificate, available in the Joseph Smith papers:

Gardner Snow

He later was provided with a “license”:

Gardner Snow

The Snows were thoroughly embedded in the activities and events of Kirtland. Here is a copy from a ledger of the Kirtland Safety Society noting a $500 investment Gardner made:

Gardner Snow

Gardner Snow and family would move to Adam-ondi-Ahman in 1838. Following Missouri persecutions the Snows relocated to the Issac Morley settlement, not far from Nauvoo.

After coming west the Snows were asked to help settle Manti – along with the Morley and Albert Smith families and others. There Gardner Snow would live the rest of his life, serving in several callings and in civic offices, until he died in 1889, having lived a long life of 97-years.

At present I cannot think of other family connections to Kirtland.

Albert Smith and family joined the Church in 1835 and started towards Missouri not long after that but headed to Nauvoo. Albert Smith would later serve in callings in the same ward as Gardner Snow in Manti. Neither man would live long enough to see their descendants marry.

The Westovers of Ohio, while technically the closest to Kirtland, did not discover the Church until the 1840s. They started moving west in 1844, intending to go to Nauvoo, but diverted directly to Winter Quarters in advance of the move West.

All of these sites in Kirtland and Nauvoo have been available to visit for years and they will remain so. I’ve been to Nauvoo but Kirtland remains a bucket list item for me.

There are, of course, other family members with ties to these areas. Horace Roberts – who was the father Jane C. Snow (James C. Snow’s wife) – was known as the Potter of Nauvoo. He is frequently mentioned in Nauvoo tours.

Thanks to our many family histories we can visit all of these places – and the spots marked on the trail west – and identify with them better.

Albert Smith

Albert Smith and the Lessons of Seagulls and Mormon Crickets

The other day I went to turn on an outside faucet and it seemed to me my lawn was moving beneath my feet. We have been infested, along with the rest of the American West, with Mormon Crickets.

Without fail my mind turned to Grandfather Albert Smith.

Albert Smith was grandfather to Mary Ann Smith Westover, wife to Arnold Westover. He lived nearly every experience of a 19th century Mormon. Albert joined the Church around 1835, was headed to Far West and ended up in Nauvoo. He served a mission. His family lived in the same ward as Joseph Smith and he helped build the Nauvoo temple.

The Smiths were in the 1847 company of Brigham Young and Albert served in the Mormon Battalion. After his service he caught up with his family in Salt Lake, arriving just weeks after their late July arrival. He immediately set to work on his new farm, as all the settlers that year rushed to get in crops before winter.

Albert’s Salt Lake City farm was one of the scenes of the miracle of the seagulls we all learned about as children. As the story goes, Mormon Crickets descended on crops of grain in the valley threatening the food supply of the pioneers. The crops were saved by flocks of seagulls that came and devoured all the grasshoppers.

There is even a statue on Temple Square commemorating the event

Seagull Monument

But, as Albert’s journal tells the tale, there is a lot more to the story.

Albert wrote on that event in as it happened. He did not hold back in describing what took place:

“President Brigham Young addressed the saints told the Brethren not to be discouraged, but put in all the grain they could for they would not be hurt by the crickets, but, we should have an abundant harvest….The circumstance I will never forget. I put in 10 acres which was all I had and all the brethren put in all they could altho the ground was covered with crickets.

When I thought it time for it to be coming up I went to see it. My farming land was 8 miles from the city. I had heard that the seagulls had been seen in the field. When I got in sign of my grain I saw that it was covered with seagulls. I stopped till they flew to another part of the field. What was my joy and surprise when I went to the place and found every cricket destroyed. There was not a single one alive to be found while dead ones laid in heaps where the gulls had thrown them up on the ground they would fill themselves again…”

While Albert’s record confirms the legend I have found the story of Mormon Crickets didn’t end there.

Albert’s journal is a meticulous record of his farm productivity. Each season he would record how many acres he planted, what was planted and how much he was able to harvest. This was Albert’s living. Everything about his family’s survival depended upon his ability to raise and harvest crops.

So his journal is filled each year not only with the statistics of his production but also the challenges he faced each season. Drought and Mormon Crickets were constant problems. In fact, hardly a year went by when Albert wasn’t cursing their existence.

Sometimes, conditions got the better of him and he had to find other means to support his family.

Albert and Sophia Smith

Albert with Sophie, “my Danish wife”, taken late 1880s

One year the harvest was so poor Albert feared they would starve come winter. But a letter from a friend in far away Davis county said they had a good harvest and Albert could come glean the fields. So, by wagon and in the company of some of his children at home, Albert set out for Davis County. He returned several weeks later with a wagon load of grain he was able to gather after others had left it in the field.

Another year there was another crop failure. Albert was able, in his mid-60s, to work on the railroad to earn the money needed to get through the winter.

But overall, Albert’s journal makes consistent notes about his production: despite the never ending challenges, his production grew year after year overall. The “hoppers”, as he liked to call them, never went away. But his diligence, resourcefulness and persistence helped him to overcome in time to where they were not the challenge they first presented.

Albert was also persistent in his faith. He always expressed gratitude and acknowledged the hand of God in his pioneering work.

Albert had good reason to curse Mormon Crickets. I don’t. They infest my lawn and nibble at my wife’s garden. They mostly gross me out.

But they remind me of why Pioneer Day has become a sacred observance of sorts for me. I have tremendous respect for the unknown journal-keeper known as Albert Smith.

He, of course, was not alone in dealing with the Mormon Crickets. All of the pioneer settlers had to fight them. But his chosen course in dealing with them and other adversities inspiring me as we deal with the many challenges of our time.

Edwin's Promise

Edwin’s Promise

Edwin’s Promise is a new video promoting what we have been calling the Edwin Westover Family Project.

When discussing this idea with some cousins several years ago it seemed then – and now, frankly – an impossible task. The work of family history is the gathering of information of our ancestors who have passed on.

But in the case of Edwin Westover, my fourth great-grandfather who lived from 1824-1878, he was given a promise. He was told of a future gathering in which both his ancestors and posterity would attend.

In discussing this with cousins we mused what it would be like to gather the living descendants of Edwin Westover. How many could there be? What are their stories? How have we all added to the legacy of Edwin Westover in 200 years?

As I set out again for Rootstech this year I’m asking these questions anew. I’m hoping that perhaps I might meet even more cousins who might be interested in the Edwin Westover Family Project.

What we’re putting together here is more than just a family reunion. It is a family history event that is unique because we’re trying to learn the extended story of Edwin Westover. We’re a part of it.

We have roughly 18 months to put this together. We want to offer it to those in person and online. All of those details are yet to be worked out but as it comes together we will share through regular updates right here and through as many family channels as we can acquire.

I’m excited for this event. I cannot wait to learn more about my cousins of the 20th and 21st centuries who claim Edwin as an ancestor.

The work of learning how to do family history at Rootstech is one I gladly take up again after three years away due to the pandemic. In years passed I have been able to meet family – almost all exclusively related as well to Edwin – that I did not know previously. Through this website and Rootstech I have met so many wonderful cousins and I cannot wait to meet more.

According to my Rootstech app and FamilySearch.org, I have more than 45,000 relatives attending Rootstech either in person or online.

So, if you’re there, drop me a text or give me a call at 435-294-9783 – I will be there all three days. I would love to meet with you, take a photo and exchange contact information.

With each contact we make we take another step forward in fulfilling Edwin’s Promise.