Jeff Westover

Love Stories of Family History

/0 Comments/by

Perhaps one of the most overlooked areas of doing family history are the love stories of the couples who build the family. Every couple has a love story.

Historians caution us that couples of the past did not always marry for love. Some married out of necessity and others married because of cultural traditions of the time. But I like to look at love stories from the perspective of the end. In other words — what did they accomplish? — versus how they began.

For example, the love story of Albert Smith, Sr. and Sophie Catherine Klauen was far from the usual boy-meets-girl variety. Both had already been married and had families of children before they met. It wasn’t attraction but rather survival and spiritual obedience that brought them together.

They came from different worlds and spoke different languages. There was every reason for them NOT to be together.

And yet, in the end, looking at it backwards, theirs is a wonderful story of love and sacrifice.

Albert was a stalwart Mormon pioneer and early member of the Church. He lived in Nauvoo, marched with the Mormon Battalion and was called to help settle Manti, where he fought the crickets every season in an attempt to harvest crops and he helped to build the temple there. Long before he met Sophie he wives and children.

Sophie’s story equally relates a full life before she met Albert. She was married and had seven children with her husband Peter in Denmark. Shortly after Peter unexpectedly died Sophie had a spiritual dream of a visit by missionaries bringing her a message from Christ. Her dream came true, she later met the missionaries and joined the Church. With her remaining living children she left Denmark for England and then joined the Willie Company in England to migrate to Zion. You know the story of the Willie Company. Sophie survived, losing one child along the way. But she was penniless and homeless when she arrived in Utah.

Albert could be said to have lived several lives. There was a life as an early Latter-day Saint in Nauvoo. Then the life he lived as a pioneer, first in getting to Utah and then in carving out an existence. His first wife, with whom had had several children, died in September 1856. He married just a month later to Rhoda Gifford, a widow with several children of her own. Then, on Valentine’s Day 1857, he married Sophie.

You have to put the lives of all of these people in context with the history taking place. The fall of 1856 was when the Mormon Reformation took place, a period when church members were called to repentance and asked to live more righteous lives. It was a time of fervor, of re-baptism, of greater commitment to the faith. At no other time, historians say, was the practice of plural marriage more widely accepted. Many outside of Utah and outside of the Church looked upon that practice in a salacious way but the truth of the matter is that plural marriage was a matter of great faith and even survival. It was a principle they believed came from revelation.

In the case of Albert and Sophie, it was also a practice with a practical upside. Sophie arrived with the Willie Handcart Company in late November 1856. She was completely destitute. Her family was taken in by local Church members in Salt Lake City and literally had to be given all the necessities of life because they had absolutely nothing left. During this time Sophie attended a meeting presided over by Heber C. Kimball.

Before leaving England Sophie had been given a blessing, encouraging her to go to Utah. In that blessing she was told that she would meet a prophet there, that her testimony of the restored gospel would be strengthened as she sacrificed in helping to build the kingdom. Sometime between late November 1856 and February 1857 she was attending a meeting and she met Heber C. Kimball. He did not speak Danish and she did not yet understand English. But somehow they communicated and President Kimball assured Sophie that the Lord was aware of her sacrifices and would see that her needs would be met. Sophie was convinced President Kimball was the prophet she was told she would meet in Zion.

Albert was in this meeting as well. And when President Kimball said many of the single mothers who had recently come to Zion needed husbands he hesitantly volunteered to help. Sophie was assigned to him and he took her home to blend in with his other new wife and her family. Between them were more than a dozen children who were not Albert’s own. On February 14th — Valentine’s Day, ironically — Albert and Sophie were sealed in 1857.

Can you imagine? Albert at this point was about 53 years old. Sophie was much younger, around 33. They had a language problem. While ALbert had a large farm and what many considered the largest home in Manti it wasn’t THAT large. And in addition Albert’s oldest son, Azariah, who was a pioneer in his own right and also a veteran of the Mormon Battalion, had long before suffered a devastating injury that left him with seizures and erratic behavior. Most people were afraid of him. In fact, Albert’s other new wife, Rhoda, eventually asked for a divorce and it is speculated that part of the reason was because of the challenges with Azariah.

Now forward the clock more than 30 years. Albert and Sophie have added seven children to their union and have raised them faithfully. It was Sophie who nursed Azariah for years and helped him to become healthy enough to live on his own, marry and raise his own family. Records show Albert and Sophie were active in Family History and attended the Temple sometimes three times per week to complete the work for better than 1300 names on both sides of their family.

Over the course of time they became beloved to each other. It’s a wonderful love story to contemplate.

It stands in great contrast to another love story central to the history of the 20th Century Westover family. William Westover was the son of Edwin and Ann Westover, of Mendon, Utah. This great patriarch of the family was born in 1861 and early on he had to grow up. When he mother moved to Mendon to aid her parents and her dead brother’s family in 1869 William became the man of the house because his father, Edwin, returned to the mission field where he was called in Southern Utah. As he grew from boy to teen he was active in the beautiful community of Mendon and fell in love with a local girl who was likewise the offspring of Mormon pioneers. Her name was Ruth.

William and Ruth would endure a seven year long courtship before finally being able to marry. We don’t know exactly why the delay — it was certainly unusual for the time. But finally, in 1883 when both William and Ruth were both 22 years old, they married in a grand event celebrated by family on both sides. Like their parents before them they struggled to make a living and pushed the boundaries of the frontier. They suffered from difficulties in bringing children into the world. There was sickness, and hardships, and poverty. There was also faith and community service.

Their story was seemingly met my tragedy. William developed a cancer that was discovered when he was only about 41 years old. He died in 1903, leaving Ruth to make ends meet on a struggling farm in an isolated place known as Rexburg, Idaho with eight children between the ages of 1 and 16.

Ruth was heartbroken. Surviving family histories of the time relate that she “lost her mind” in the decade she would outlive William. Their condition was desperate. But like Albert and Sophie, William and Ruth and their children had the foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that they lived by. Looking back at their story — desperate and tragic as it was — you can see the success and happiness that came of their love story. They left behind a family of children that would go on to love and accomplish much, writing their own love stories along the way.

What love built between William and Ruth could not be destroyed by the harsh realities of the world.

Note: The photo at the top of this post is of Arnold and Mary Westover. Mary is a granddaughter of Albert and Sophie. Arnold is a son of William and Ruth. Theirs is another great love story of Westover family history.

Jeff Westover

Seeing the Sword of Laban

/0 Comments/by

For several years now the Church History Library has teased me. Knowing what I know now about much of our 19th century family history I’ve wanted to go there to see what I could find out. Today, after registering for Rootstech, I had a few hours to kill before my first class. Now was the time.

I hoofed it on over there and walked into the front door, meeting a man in a suit and wearing an ear piece. He looked at me and asked what I was looking for.

“The sword of Laban,” I said confidently.

Ok, I didn’t say that but I wished I had thought of it at the time.

But that is the difference between this facility and others I have visited associated with family and church history. In this building they will allow even amateur researchers like myself access to Church records.

I decided I would play nice and follow by the rules. They checked my ID, made me log on to my LDS.org account and then I had to watch a video about how things are handled and what the procedures were there at the library.

After going through all that I put my visions of Liahonas aside and meekly asked for the ward records for Mendon, Utah.

In the time I had to spend I thought a worthy goal would be to find out if Ann Findley Westover was really primary president in Mendon for 37 years.

I had about ten minutes with a historian. He seemed impressed with my target and what I knew about Grandma Ann already. He was confident that maybe the records would show something of her calling and service.

As it turns out the ward records dated back to 1861 (I knew that) and all I needed to do was to sort through those. They made me sign, ditch my coat and phone, and sent me to the reading room where I awaited 4 rolls of microfilm. I wouldn’t see the records themselves – because they had them on film and that was safer for me to handle.

I thought about that sword again – surely they had a picture, no? I still lacked the nerve.

The first roll of film had nothing I could use, though I spent a good 45 minutes going through it. There was no rhyme or reason to what was filmed. One minute I was reading notes from the Bishopric in 1890 and the next I was dealing with YMMIA meeting notes from the 1950s.

The second reel I hit pay dirt. “Primary meeting minutes, November 5th, 1888, President Ann Westover presiding.”

There she was. Week after week, first for years and then for decades.

These were comprehensive meeting notes. Immediately I felt the pangs of guilt for the 2-line meeting notes I kept as Teacher’s Quorum secretary years ago. These pioneer meeting notes outlined total attendance (over 60 kids usually in the Mendon Ward), who spoke, what they sang and the themes of the meeting.

In looking at week after week of these notes one trend became clear: President Westover was the storyteller of the Mendon Primary. She was always relating something – the story of the blind boy who had faith, the story of Moses from the Bible, the story of Joseph sold into Egypt. My favorite note was “President Westover tells stories of early church history”. Boy, what I wouldn’t give to hear that story today!

In all, I spent three hours in 19th century Mendon, perusing minutes all the way past the year 1906, when Ann’s name stopped appearing the minutes and she no longer presided.

I doubt she was Primary President for 37 years…though I think she spent close to that time in the Primary presidency because she was a counselor for several years before she was made president.

It was a good training session for me. And you can bet I’ll be back.

I wanna see that sword.

Jeff Westover

The Epic Life of Gardner Snow

/0 Comments/by

Added to the document area of the site is a PDF version of the life history of Gardner Snow, titled Valiant in the Faith.

How are we related? For me, this comes through my grandmother, Maurine R. Westover, daughter of William Reeves Riggs, Jr. and Muriel Snow. Muriel was the daughter of Joseph Homer Snow, who was the son of James Chauncey Snow, who was the son of Gardner Snow.

What makes this history different is that it reads like a novel. It is incredibly detailed and I’m sure it represents the work of many people.

This is not the kind of history you will find on FamilySearch. This is an old-style compiled history that was published once-upon-a-time in book form and donated to various libraries. Somewhere along the line that book was digitized in the form that we offer here. It is a huge file but a worthy read even for people not directly descended from the Snow line. It is an example of yet another type of family history resource that can be mined out there and an excellent model to follow in compiling family history.

Gardner Snow’s history is not only important to his family but to any member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who wants an eye-witness telling of much of the early history of the Church.

Gardner Snow

Gardner Snow

Gardner was not the first Snow to join the Church and there are many of his extended family who joined the Church and proved influential in Church affairs, the most notable being the Apostle Erastus Snow, a cousin, who would be so closely associated with the Westover Family. Gardner and his wife and children were baptized in 1833. His history details his ordination to various offices in the priesthood and covers a parallel ground to Church history in his travels — from New Hampshire to Kirtland to Missouri then to Nauvoo and then to the West, to Utah.

Mob violence took a young child from Gardner and Sarah from their time in Missouri. He was later ordained a Bishop by Hyrum Smith and took out his endowments in the Nauvoo Temple. The Snows came to Utah in 1850 and settled — or were called to — Manti, where he prospered by serving as a County Commissioner, a member of the stake high council and later as a Patriarch.

Included in this volume are the various histories of some of the descendants of Gardner Snow, including James Chauncey Snow and his wives, including our Jane Cecilia Roberts Snow. James’ early church experience is also worthy of note. He was called as a missionary at the age of 17 and he found much success in New England as he served at various times and places. in fact, he would go on to serve in many important church callings over the course of his long life such as member of the Third Quorum of Seventy, high councilor, clerk of the conference, a member of the Nauvoo Legion and, later in life after moving to Utah, as a Stake President.

I could go on — there are histories aplenty in this volume, including those of Joseph Homer Snow, Jane Roberts Snow, and Grandma Muriel Snow.

Jeff Westover

When You Find More to the Story

/0 Comments/by

For more than a year we have been working on telling the story through a new video about Ann Findley Westover, mother of William Westover and grandmother of Arnold Westover.

But the video keeps getting pushed back. Some of it has to do with my own personal time and life getting into the way of completing the project. But also there has been a little hesitancy because we keep finding out new parts to her story — causing me to re-write the video script time and again.

Ann’s life is crucial to telling the story of the Westover family. Born in 1838 in Scotland her years spanned the 19th century and all the events of Mormon history in Utah. Hers was the prototypical life of a 19th century Mormon woman.

The problem in telling her story, as with so many others, is that we lack a personal narrative of what happened to her. She left no journal that we know about. So we are left to pick of the pieces of her life from here and there — and from the records left by others.

These records just leave more questions we want answers to.

Ann was 17 when she arrived in the 2nd handcart company to make it to Utah in the fall of 1856. Just a few months later in February 1857 Ann found herself as the plural wife of Edwin Ruthvin Westover.

What was that like? Getting married at 17 may not have been unusual for the time but becoming a plural wife, at any age, was certainly out of the norm.

Putting her experience in Utah in just her first six months here requires us to know something of what the atmosphere was like in Utah when she arrived.

1856 was the year the first handcart companies made it to Utah. Ann was in a group that was successful in crossing the plains. She, along with the others of that company, were cheered as they were welcomed into Salt Lake City. But just two weeks after her arrival Brigham Young learned of the Willie and Martin companies still out on the plains and in a meeting called the Saints to rescue them.

She had to have been there. Was she? Rescue parties were formed, donations gathered and supplies were rushed to Wyoming. This saga lingered through the middle of December as Willie and Martin were not the only companies out there. The Hodgett and Hunt wagon trains were out there too. How much of this effort did Ann witness?

But there was other drama going on as well.

During the fall of 1856 the beginnings of the “Mormon Reformation” were taking place and this directly affected the life and future of Ann Findley. Mormon Apostle Jedidiah Grant began with a chastisement of the Saints in Kaysville, pleading with the Saints there to live lives more in harmony with the Gospel. The year 1856 was a year of horrible drought and devastating infestation of crickets. Some speculated that God was not pleased with the Saints and Grant led the charge as a member of the First Presidency in declaring repentance and reformation of faith among the Mormons.

It cannot be stated enough how much this impacted lives. As Saints recommitted themselves to living more holy lives they were rebaptized, they worked harder on doing baptisms for their kindred dead and they embraced more fully the principle of plural marriage. Records show thousands were engaged in these sacred activities at this time, including Ann Findley.

This was also the time when word was received that Johnston’s army was being sent to Utah to “put down the Mormon rebellion”. This event also affected the daily lives of regular Latter day Saints like Ann Findley Westover. Within months her new husband would be absent due to his duties as part of the Lot Smith band of Mormon Raiders — whose assigned duties included harassing the incoming army and breaking up their supply train.

Ann’s first two years in Utah were filled with drama and we don’t know what she thought of any of it. She bore her first child and by 1859 began a ten year period of moving from place to place with her husband and his other wife and family. She would bear five children and go as far as St. George in her travels before abruptly leaving Edwin to move to Mendon, Utah.

Sarah Shaw Findley

Sarah Shaw Findley

What was that all about? There are conflicting stories in what histories I can find. But maybe some answers could be found in the histories we can find from others who lived near her. One of those histories comes from Sarah Shaw Findley, Ann’s sister-in-law.

From FamilySearch we can find a lot about Sarah and her husband, William, who was Ann’s brother. But recently I found a history completely unrelated to our family that discusses some of the later years of Sarah — and that history sheds some light on the life of our Ann Findley Westover. It is called The Reluctant Bride — and that history is now available for download in our documents area of the site.

Sarah is another one of those women with an epic tale as a 19th century Mormon woman. But her life was marked with heart wrenching tragedy.

Sarah Shaw was married to William Findley Jr. in England in 1849 on Christmas Day. At the time, William was a coal miner and Sarah was a housemaid. Previous to getting married, William had heard a Mormon street preacher and converted, and Sarah joined him in converting to the church either during their courtship or shortly after they were married. She became pregnant but lost the baby, a boy, who survived just five minutes. It was with no small amount of heartbreak that she buried this child.

The Saints of England were emigrating in vast numbers and William wanted to join them. But Sarah was reluctant to leave her dead son and her parents. Several surviving histories document her struggle with this. At one point, William told her that he was going and he would pay for her passage with the church emigration agent if she ever wanted to go. And then he left. After days of agonizing over the decision Sarah left and joined William, catching him just in time as he was about to board the ship.

But their’s was a love story never to be forgotten and told through the generations. Sarah packed a small iron that she would use to iron a cap that William liked to wear. As with all immigrant companies they were not allowed to bring much and the small iron was definitely not a necessity. But Sarah didn’t view it that way. She hid the little iron up under her skirt and traveled the whole way to Utah with it concealed that way. The iron and it’s story has become a family legend. It ended up in the hands of…Ann Findley Westover. She gave it to one of Sarah’s grandchildren long after Sarah died — with the instruction that it be handed down only to a daughter named Lindsay (after her Mother, Linzey Hannah Hughes Findley).

That connection between Sarah and Ann is important.

How well they knew each other in their early years in Utah is unknown. Ann was all over southern Utah with Edwin, bearing children and living a wretched pioneer lifestyle in some of the most difficult areas of the territory. Meanwhile, Sarah was with William, who left Big Cottonwood in 1859 and moved to Mendon, Utah in Cache Valley. There William became a member of the stake high council and he farmed — becoming somewhat famous for his team of 12 beautiful horses. William partnered in some respects with another former coal miner from Scotland by the name of Henry Hughes.

William and Henry were best of friends, living near each other. Their children played together. And together they farmed. In 1868, after finally achieving some prosperity, both William and Henry decided they could now live the law of plural marriage and each took a teenage bride. A double wedding was held in Salt Lake in December 1868 but over the winter of 1869 William developed pneumonia and died. He, of course, left two wives — Sarah, and her five children — and Agnes, his new wife who was now pregnant with another child.

How and when Ann heard about her brother’s passing we don’t know. But we do know that she and Edwin reacted and it changed the course of their lives. Some histories suggest that Ann wanted to give up the rugged pioneer existence Edwin was giving her and another history says Ann felt compelled to go to Mendon not only to attend the funeral for her brother but also to help her aging parents, who with William were considered among the founding settlers of Mendon. Whatever the real reason, Ann and her children ended up in Mendon living with Sarah, her children and the newlywed Agnes.

What was Ann’s motivation in staying in Mendon? What did Edwin feel about that? What were Ann’s thoughts about marriage and family then?

But it was Sarah’s life that was thrown in to chaos.

William’s friend, Henry Hughes, informed Sarah, that he intended to marry her. This had nothing to do with love between Henry and Sarah. It had to do with a promise between friends — William and Henry. As they took plural brides in December 1868 they promised each other to “raise seed to the other”, as was a common practice among Latter Day saint men who lived life on a dangerous frontier. We have seen this once before in our family history. When Edwin died another man married his wife Sarah in Northern Arizona and famously “raised a righteous seed” in his name.

This was all news to Sarah, who liked the idea not at all. Not only was she left to grieve the sudden loss of her sweetheart but she was now being pursued by her husband’s best friend — who just happened to have been called as Bishop of Mendon around the same time.

Can you imagine the pressure on Sarah? How was she to move forward? How would she support her family? How much did all this turmoil in her life get discussed with Ann Findley Westover and how did all of it influence Ann’s decision to stay in Mendon?

The story doesn’t end there, of course. Tragedy continued to mark the life of Sarah Shaw Findley. A few short years later her eldest son, James Findley, who along with young William Westover, were now the men of the combined household, drowned in the Logan River. It was only after this and feeling backed into a corner for want of support for her other children that Sarah gave in to the insistent urging of Bishop Hughes — and married him.

Was Sarah happy? How did this affect her future? How did this affect her relationships with the rest of the family, such as her relationship with Ann? You’ll have to read about that in The Reluctant Bride.

Sarah died in 1891. But Ann, who obviously loved Sarah and her children, did much to honor her memory and the love story between William and Sarah by passing down the story of the iron and setting forth the traditions associated with it. Was Ann a closet family historian? You gotta wonder.

We will get Ann’s story told this year. But we’re going to dig a little longer — we think there is more to the story of Ann Westover to tell. We know that Ann stayed in Mendon where she experienced sacred events that blessed her life and the lives of her children. We will tell you about those. We know that she became a huge figure in that little community — eventually called by her quasi-brother-in-law Bishop Hughes to be the Primary President in Mendon.

We know that Ann was a storyteller and a lover of children. She lived a life of going to the rescue of others and their children.

But we think there is something more to learn about Ann — and we’re going to find out what it is as we learn more of her story from the parallel lives others around her were living.

Jeff Westover

Our Connection to Pioneer Past

/0 Comments/by

It is Pioneer Day in Utah, an event marked much like the Fourth of July with parades, fireworks and picnics. To me it is a day I celebrate much differently now.

For several months I’ve been contemplating the patriarchal blessings of our pioneer ancestors, particularly those of Edwin Westover. He had three blessings in his lifetime.

Now that we know so much more about this first LDS patriarch of the Westover family it is more meaningful to me to celebrate Pioneer Day.

Edwin was not a perfect man. We tend to be guilty of what some call “ancestor worship”, especially within the Church as we picture them fighting the elements on the dusty trails of the west. I had read somewhere in the account of Grandma Sophie through the journals of Albert Smith that while the trek west as part of the Willie Handcart Company was indeed a trial it was merely a four month period in their lives. The greater trials, according to many of them, came not from the trek itself but the fight for survival afterwards.

I think that can definitely be said of Edwin. For Edwin, who had barely joined the Church and remarried before he started his trek west, the trial was indeed one of faith and enduring to the end. He was called upon to fulfill a life of toil — back breaking, even lonely work. Can you imagine how sparse it was to be in Southern Utah in the 1870s? Edwin was one of those of whom J. Golden Kimball said “paid a terrible price” for settling southern Utah.

What has stuck with me about Edwin was that he accepted those missions of the Church to Southern Utah under the same promise that led him on the trek in the first place. Remember that Edwin lost his father when he was ten, and his family was split up. He witnessed first hand the torment of his mother Electa, who for more than a decade afterwards searched for a way to bring her family back together.

When Edwin married and became a father it was to his mother he turned when he lost his first wife. If anyone understood, it was Electa. She taught him her newly acquired hope in Christ and quite nearly together they joined the church around the same time. And they never stopped chasing that promise of being with their loved ones forever — whether it was a spouse, a parent or a child.

Fast forward the clock more than 30 years — three full decades of hard pioneer living — and Edwin and Electa stood together inside the St. George temple to complete the temple work for their lost loved ones. Before going to the Temple Edwin sought out another patriarchal blessing. He had already had two.

But this third one was different. In it was a glorious promise so very tied to the temple, a promise central to the hope we all find in Christ. He was promised that one day after all of Israel had been gathered in he would feast with the Savior and the prophets and the apostles with all of his progenitors and posterity.

I weep when I consider that promise. That promise is addressed to each of us and I thrill at the idea that I might one day be able to sit with this beloved grandfather and celebrate the glad tidings of salvation. He believed in those things and so do I.

It makes Pioneer Day worthy of celebration because it connects us to him in ways even pictures and stories cannot. We are the vision that not only the prophets saw but also that our pioneer ancestors clung to.

Not long after his temple experience in St. George Edwin died and was released from his many earthly missions he was serving in Southern Utah. I have to wonder who was there on the other side to greet him.

What would he have said to his father, Alexander? What could he have testified to those generations before him who did not have the gospel of Jesus Christ? — to Amos, to John and to Jonas and Jonas, Jr?

I think he would have said the same things he would say to us today: “I will see you there, in that millennial day.”