19th Century – Page 9 – Westover Family History

Getting to Know Albert Smith

August 5, 2018/0 Comments/by Jeff Westover

Ancestral Line to Albert Smith

All year long I’ve made reference to a video (or two) coming out about Albert Smith. It is still a work in progress.

The challenge stems from what to include and what to leave out in telling of his story. Thanks to Albert’s journals and to a long life lived so close to events of Church and Utah history there is a great deal of information. There is little of the 19th century Mormon experience that Albert didn’t have.

He came from a religious family. That led to his conversion sometime in the mid-1830s, a time that saw him join the Church in Ohio and one that put him on a slow path to Nauvoo.

His intent was to settle his family where the Saints were gathering in Missouri. What stopped him? Something called the extermination order by Governor Boggs.

Around 1840 Albert and his family arrived in Nauvoo. They joined the Nauvoo first ward.

He joined the Nauvoo Legion.

Albert was called on a mission to New York in 1842, returning nearly a year later in 1843.

He helped to build the Nauvoo Temple. He was friends with Wilford Woodruff. He knew the Prophet Joseph.

Both Albert, and his wife, Esther, received patriarchal blessings from Joseph Smith, Sr.

They were there when the Prophet and his brother, Hyrum, were martyred.

Like others in Nauvoo, they abandoned the home they had built and the land they had developed when they were pushed west by a mob. They received their endowments in the Nauvoo temple in January 1846, before being among some of the first to head west.

The 50th anniversary of the Mormon Battalion held 4 years after Albert died, in 1896.

Upon hearing of a need for 500 men for the Mormon Battalion, Albert and his 17 year old son, Azariah, volunteered.

They separated from their families for a full year, marched all the way to San Diego. Both would come home from the experience with severe injuries. Azariah would get thrown and kicked in the head by a horse and Albert was wounded when run over by a bull – three ribs years later were found to still be broken and separated from his sternum.

As they were headed to Salt Lake in 1847 they were told there was little food there and their company was admonished to go back to California. Azariah did return, for a season, working for a period at Sutter’s Fort where he would become part of the group that discovered gold there, ushering in the gold rush of California.

But Albert, anxious to return to his family, pressed on to Salt Lake, becoming one of the few pioneers of 1847 to arrive from the west.

Like all others, the Smiths set out to work to get settled in Salt Lake City. They had a terrible go of it the first few years. But there were miracles. In fact, the famous miracle of the seagulls actually happened to Albert Smith. He writes:

“When I got in sight of my grain I saw that it was covered with sea gulls. I stopped until they flew to another part of the field. What was my joy and surprise when I went on to the place and found every cricket destroyed. There was not one live one to be found while dead ones laid in heaps where the gulls had thrown them up when they done that they would fill themselves again and so continue to do. The Indians said that they were new birds that they never saw them before. I raised a large crop for 10 acres. I might mention a great many interposition of providence in our behalf without which we might have all perished.”

The next spring, Albert and family were called to be part of a pioneering group to settle Sanpete County – the first settlement south of Salt Lake to be established. I love the way Albert describes the general reaction to their new home:

“When we arrived at the place that is Manti, there was a large number in the camp that were wonderful disappointed with the place. Some went to Sever to see if they could find a better place to settle, but it was decided that this was the place where we was sent and that here we would settle.”

It would be his home for the next 43 years. There he would be known as “Father Smith”, a beloved member of the community who was older, most experienced in the church and faithful to the very core.

Again, all that he experienced in the coming years seemed to be drawn from the legendary experience of Mormonism in the 19th century.

It was there that Albert lost his first wife, Esther in 1856. He remarried almost right away and then, a short time later, he took on a plural wife who didn’t even speak English.

Almost overnight he went from having just 5 in his home to having 14 people under his care, including his disabled son Azariah, who was still suffering from fits of epilepsy from his head injury in California.

The crickets came back and the miracle of the seagulls did not repeat itself in Manti. Each year Albert would faithfully record his farm production and some years he grew nothing because of the pestilence or the lack of water. One year he records taking a trip by wagon to Bountiful to glean from fields of successful crops there, just so he could care for his family over the winter.

The life of plural marriage was not easy on Albert. In fact, after his second wife had pestered him enough for a divorce he gave it to her in 1865.

Throughout all this Albert lived faithfully and served in the ward and the community in Manti. He fought Indians and tried to be an influence to peace, an unpopular position to hold among anxious settlers. There were many skirmishes, and many people on both sides died. Albert preached for peace every time.

He continued his associations with Church leadership. When visiting authorities would visit he attended meetings and made a record of what they said. As first the temple arrived in St. George, Albert took note of the growing understanding of the doctrine of sealing families and vowed to take part.

He paid a professional genealogist to seek out the names of his ancestors and waited four long years for results. As the announcement was made for the Manti Temple Albert continued in those efforts in preparation, lending money and labor to that building as well.

To that end, Albert dedicated the last several years of his life to temple service and seeing that as many as 1500 of his family names were recorded as receiving ordinances under his hand or direction. He remained connected and devoted as well to his living descendants.

But for even all this I haven’t even touched on the lessons of the life of Albert Smith. That I will save for the video.

He was an extraordinary man, a man who lived the Gospel stubbornly, and a man whose understanding of the atonement led to one astonishing act of compassion that leads me to tears each time I think of it.

Right now, honestly, I’m trying to find a way to tell that part of Albert’s story.

It is tender. It is sacred. It is a necessary and, as far as I can tell, so far an untold story of our family history that needs to be shared and appreciated.

That part of Albert’s story is NOT told in his journal. Nevertheless, I would encourage you to head over to WestoverGenealogy.org to read the many pages of Albert’s journal.

I believe there is great value in getting to know him through his unique form of expression and in his own telling of his story.

The Life of Ane Marie Jensen Barnhurst

July 22, 2018/0 Comments/by Jeff Westover

Of the many reasons to be on Family Search few are as important to me than a fairly new feature known as the Family Calendar. It is just a simple timeline tied to your family tree that shows important dates – birthdays, days of passing, marriage, etc. It’s kind of cool because if you set it up right it will send you reminders of these dates via Facebook.

Tomorrow’s date marks the passing of Ane Marie Jensen – a pioneer of great significance in the Riggs line.

Just who is Ane Marie to me? My grandmother, Maurine Westover, is the daughter of Will Riggs. Will Riggs is the son of Will Riggs, Sr and Priscilla Barnhurst. Ane Marie Jensen is Priscilla’s mother – making her my 4th great grandmother.

If you visit Ane Marie Jensen’s profile on Family Search (KWNC-D9G) you can read a great deal more about her than I am going to share here. Her life is very well documented and it is a great investment of your time to get to know her better.

The spelling of her name is Danish – because that is where she is from. It is pronounced “Annie”.

Ane was born of parents who had done well in their lives in Denmark. Her father served in some capacity with the government there. Regardless of their prosperity, it was required that all adults have a trade and Ane chose to be a seamstress. She learned young and did well, growing well known for her skills in making fine clothes.

While in her early 20s she was discovered by Mormon missionaries and began her conversion experience. Like many, her family did not approve. You can read the details of that on Family Search but suffice it to say here she determined to follow the faith shortly after she was baptized.

She was a handcart pioneer, arriving first after a miraculous sea voyage and then pressing on to Omaha, Nebraska where she would join a company of other Danish saints heading west.

The year was 1857 and her company, the Christensen Company, made their way west either with or near Johnston’s Army, who very famously were headed to Utah to “put down the Mormon rebellion”.

Ane was something of a clothes horse. Perhaps her skills as a seamstress and her family’s position in the community back home in Denmark gave her a great wardrobe. Stories are told of all the clothes and accessories she brought with her. One unproven history states she started across the plains in heels.

She was distressed to have to leave a great many of her belongings behind. Like other handcart pioneers she was limited to about 17 pounds of “stuff”. We don’t know how she covered her feet but somewhere along the journey she ruptured a blood vessel in her foot, which led to infection and made her very ill. Many thought she would die.

She heard people talking outside the tent one night, speculating on her chances of survival. She heard a man pass her tent and she prayed for a blessing. He was prompted to check on her and he did administer to her. He commanded her to get up and get dressed, and she did so – now healed.

She arrived in Salt Lake safely, decorating her handcart and singing her way with the others on the broad streets of Salt Lake as they arrived.

She was placed in a ward with other Danish Saints and the Bishop there, who spoke both English and Danish, asked her why she was not married. She explained that she had been engaged in Denmark before she left but that her fiancé did not want anything to do with the Church and didn’t think they should be married if she became a Mormon. Her heart was broken and she had grown reluctant at the idea of love and marriage.

The Bishop asked her if he found a worthy young man if she would be willing to raise a family to help build the Kingdom. To this Ane faithfully agreed.

Residing in that same ward was a young man whose name was Samuel Barnhurst. We have told a little of his story before. He was previously married, in Philadelphia, and his wife was a conspirator in the plot to get him thrown into an insane asylum – for joining the Mormon Church. He fled, came west to Utah, feeling ambivalent himself about love and marriage.

As with Ane, the Bishop asked Samuel if he would be married and raise a family to help build the Kingdom. He faithfully said yes.

So the Bishop got them together, speaking to Ane in Danish, and to Samuel in English.

They got married in the office of Brigham Young in November, 1857, and about a year later, while living in Ephriam, they brought twin girls into the world to begin their family.

The story is told how it was agreed upon that in the family home the children would learn to speak Danish until the age of 5 – at which point only English would be spoken. This was done to teach them both languages.

This “dual immersion” approach proved useful for all the family, especially for Samuel and Ane, who continued to associated with Danish Saints in the many places they lived. They were able to serve in a variety of capacities because of these skills, as did their children.

In their growing up years both Ane and Samuel had grown up in families with means. This was not their lot in life as Mormon pioneers in central and southern Utah. The rest of their lives were a struggle to survive. They lived for many years in Cedar City, where Ane served in the Relief Society. They later moved to Hatch, where she would be for the rest of her life. While there she was the postmistress — and the Relief Society president.

Ane passed away on July 23, 1906 – leaving a remarkable family legacy.

I’ve only provided a very small glimpse into Ane’s history. I strongly encourage to visit her profile on Family Search and read the many histories of her there.

None Knew Them But to Praise

June 2, 2018/0 Comments/by Jeff Westover

The generation of my grandparents is rightfully known as The Greatest Generation.

They have been so identified because of their sacrifices and contributions during the years of the Great Depression and World War II.

We likewise are free with our praise of the Pioneer Generation, those pre-and-post Civil War era ancestors who conquered the West

We marvel as well over the Generation of Emigrants who crossed oceans and continents around the turn of the 20th century.

In greater measure, we identify our Pilgrim and Puritan ancestors of the Great Migration generations of the 1600s.

But as I continue to work family history it occurs to me that there was a generation just as great as all these yet they seem to escape any recognition. I have come to call them the Unheralded Generation.

This is the generation of ancestors born from roughly 1790 to 1810, or so – the children and grandchildren of early colonists of the American Revolution.

We just don’t give them the credit they deserve.

This thought came to me as I pondered over the graves of ancestors this week in Mendon, Utah.

There, between the tiny markers for William and Linzey Findley, is a monument erected in their honor by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

The monument clearly says “None knew them but to love them. None named them but to praise.”

Curious, I began to poke around looking for where those words came from. I wanted to know why these words are assigned to a marker to these 5th great-grandparents of mine.

The all-knowing Google could only point me in the direction of an obscure 19th century America poet by the name of Fitz-Greene Halleck.

Halleck was something of a mover and shaker in early American publishing circles in New York. He rubbed shoulders with the likes of Washington Irving and Edgar Allen Poe.

A New York Times article described his poetic works as “ranging from the incomprehensible to the awful”. Yet there Halleck is, immortalized on the great Literary Walk of Central Park with William Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Robert Burns.

His one claim to poetic greatness comes from a work he penned for another poet, Joseph Rodman Drake, when Drake died. This poem made Halleck’s name widely known in the 19th century:

Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.

Tears fell, when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep,
And long where thou art lying,
Will tears the cold turf steep.

When hearts, who truth was proven,
Like thine, are laid in earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth;

And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine.

It should be mine to braid it,
Around thy faded brow,
But I’ve in vain essayed it,
And feel I can not now.

While memory bids me weep thee,
Nor thoughts nor words are free,
The grief is fixed too deeply
That mourns a man like thee.

I have pondered all week why the Daughters of Utah Pioneers would put those words on that monument above the graves of the Findleys.

I have shared the history of the Findleys before in telling the story of Ann Westover, her brother William, Jr. and his wife, Sarah.

But I’ve not said much about their parents, William Sr. and Linzey, because there is honestly little known there to share.

I have a feeling it is the story of a great love between two people. It is clearly a story of tremendous sacrifice. And it is certainly a story that has never been told nor rightfully recognized.

William Sr. was a Scot, a coal miner and quite nearly an old man when he pushed the family handcart with Linzey and Ann to Utah in 1856.

He was 47 years old that year and he would spend the last 30 years of his life toiling on the farm in Mendon in obscurity.

The town of Mendon has a plaque honoring the founding families of the city near the town square and the Findley name is on it. But that is a reference to William Findley Jr, who came to Mendon in 1859 and claimed some of the best farm land there to be found.

It was William Findley Jr who was well known in the community. He was the one with the impressive team of 12 champion horses. It was William Jr who on the High Council. It was William Jr. the journals of visiting Church authorities would mention as a leader in the Mendon Ward.

William Sr. and Linzey settled next door to William Jr. and Sarah.

When William Jr. unexpectedly died in 1869 it was William Sr. who sent for daughter Ann.

We know William Sr. was faithful. He appears on the records of the Mendon Ward in various activities all the way until about a month or so before his passing in 1887.

When Ann received her patriarchal blessing it was mentioned that William Sr. had just previously given Ann a father’s blessing, and was standing in with the Patriarch as Ann received her patriarchal blessing.

There can be no doubt of how close Ann Westover was to her parents. She named her first son William.

When she came to Mendon it was to help William, Jr.’s widow – Sarah, and her children – but she lived in the home and on the farm of her parents next door.

Their place, in time, became “Sister Westover’s house”, where the school children would pass each day and stop for cookies and storytelling.

Throughout all this drama the steady influence and presence of William Sr. and Linzey is evident – but never mentioned.

We know that Linzey was a beloved Matriarch. Generations of granddaughters after her carry her name. We know the little iron that Sarah carried beneath her skirts across the plains has been passed down in the decades since only to daughters named Lindsay.

Yet no stories or known written history of William, Sr. and Linzey Findley exist.

“None named thee but to praise”, indeed.

These honored and beloved pioneers are not the only ones of their generation whose true stories are not really known.

Alexander Westover – Edwin’s father – is practically unknown as a man. His wife, Electa, we have a little more about but she too lived a life of incredible loneliness and sacrifice.

David Rowe and his wife, Hannah – grandparents to Ruth Althea Rowe Westover – were of this generation as well.

Their son William’s stories of service in the Mormon Battalion and great spiritual experiences are documented well. But the stories of conversion and sacrifice for David and Hannah are not known or remembered.

Levi Murdock, and his wife Elizabeth, are significant figures in the settlement of the north Ogden area of Utah. But they were considered among the oldest and wisest of Mormon pioneer families yet they left behind no family records, relying on their history to be recorded in the journals of others.

David Smith and his companion, Deborah Alden – parents to Albert Smith, are better remembered not for their own history but for their distant heritage among the pilgrim and puritan settlers of New England.

Grandma Sophie’s parents – Johan Frederick and Sophie Catrine – have no known history. Perhaps all the records from Denmark are yet to be found.

From the Humble side of the family we do know a little more of those of this generation. George and Mary Ann came over from England in about 1850. But while we know their travels a lot more could be known of their story.

We do have a few from this generation whose stories we know.

Notably we know the stories of Gardner Snow, Horace Roberts and of Elam Cheney. These are all notable characters in early LDS history. But without outside record keeping from Church events we might not know anything about them at all.

I think of this generation as unheralded because they were truly the first to push westward. They may have first settled in places like Indiana, Ohio and Illinois before pressing forward towards Utah but they aren’t celebrated for that.

They were, if truth be told, pioneers to many of those WE consider to be pioneers.

So I find the DUP marker between William and Linzey in Mendon to be quite appropriate in its sentiment.

But I hope to one day make that sentiment obsolete. Their story should be discovered, shared and celebrated. They were, by all evidence, greatly devoted to family and grandparents I would be proud to know.

Moms of Our Ancestral Past

May 6, 2018/0 Comments/by Jeff Westover

In the work of family history it is the story of the women that are always tough to find. It has been a man’s world for a long time and records for women are scarce.

Yet when you get past the raw data of names, places and dates what frequently survives are stories and those stories more often than not feature more women than men.

I think this is true because as humans we tend to remember and honor mothers first. That is to take nothing away from our fathers or other great men in our lives. But Mother naturally comes first.

Take, for example, the story of Electa Beal Westover.

Her name and her place in the family is so seared in my memory that I sometimes forget that many in the family don’t know her place or where she falls on the Westover line.

Electa was William Westover’s grandmother.

Born in 1802, she was the first Westover to join the LDS church. That conversion came a long 10 years after the death of her husband, Alexander Westover and after a decade of living apart from her children.

Can you imagine how hard that must have been upon her heart?

Electa and Alexander had a family of three surviving sons – Edwin, Charles and Oscar. Not only did Alexander’s passing mean a loss of their childhood to their boys but it also meant a loss of their childhood to their mother, Electa.

How hard and lonely those years must have been for her.

You can easily imagine how the hope of the gospel restored her hope for her children. They each came west with her, though there is no record of her youngest son, Oscar, ever joining the Church.

In coming west Electa vowed never to be separated from them again and for the rest of her life she spent her days living in the homes of her children.

In fact, Oscar pushed west to California and lived there in the years after the Gold Rush. When his wife there died who rushed off to help Oscar with the children?

It was Electa, of course.

Her record after joining the church clearly shows she went to the rescue time and again for her children and grandchildren.

The very same sentiments could be held for Ann Findley Westover, mother to William Westover.

Ann was Edwin’s 2nd wife and was dutifully by his side until 1869 when word reached her in southern Utah that her brother had passed away in the northern Utah community of Mendon.

With her four children Ann moved to Mendon to help her brother’s widow, Sarah, who had five children of her own.

Conditions in Mendon were not easier for Ann. One history suggests she tired of the struggle Edwin was having in southern Utah but in reality life was even a little worse for the family living in Northern Utah.

There were two family farms to run there and only Ann’s father – William Findley – remained to run them.

He was, by this time, nearly 70 years old.

Young William was only 7 – and the next 15 years of his history was dedicated to helping to support the brood of Westovers and Findleys in Mendon under his mother’s direction.

A story of legend is told both in family records and in surviving journals from Mendon history about Ann Westover. In 1870 Ann gave birth to her fifth and last child, and she despaired at how to support the family she now had charge over.

While her father and her son and nephew worked the farm, she needed to get a job that would allow her to bring in much needed money. What was a woman with several small children and an infant to do?

She prayed and one night was visited by a man who knocked on her door and offered to give her a priesthood blessing. This she allowed him to do and she was told in the blessing that the Lord was satisfied with her sacrifice and would open the way for her to find a job.

A short time later she was offered a position in a local store that would allow her to bring her baby Francis to work with her as she kept shop. She felt, and others in the family agreed, the man who disappeared after giving this blessing had to be one of the three Nephites.

One of the most valuable resources in learning the more personal sides of our ancestors is the availability of patriarchal blessings recorded by who received them.

They provide insights that prove useful, if not prophetic, long after these beloved ancestors have passed, especially in the lives of our ancestor mothers and grandmothers.

My grandmother, Maurine Westover, was told in her blessing, in part: “You shall be able to obtain to obtain many names of your ancestry, some who have died hundreds of years ago. They’re watching you, waiting for you, praying for you, that you may be an instrument in the hands of the Lord. Many of them have been converted to the truthfulness of the gospel in the spirit world and when you have accomplished this labor they will rise up and call you blessed.”

That blessing was given to her in the 1930s, long before she married. Those who knew her and have read her history know she fulfilled that part of her blessing completely.
But these blessings also give us glimpses into the hearts of those we didn’t have the privilege to know.

To Ann Findley Westover, it was said: “We seal upon thee the attributes of faith, love and fidelity of heart that your path of duty may ever be in plainness before your mind, that you may have wisdom in all your counsel, to direct the steps of your offspring that they may follow your examples and precepts, that thy name may continue with them to the latest ages of posterity…”

Electa, in her blessing, was told: “…Thou has seen many afflictions and had trouble and sorrow heaped upon thy heard but thou hast obeyed the gospel with a perfect heart and hast not fainted. The Lord is well pleased with the integrity of thy heart and he hath given his angels charge concerning thee…”

Mary Ann Humble, another great mother in our family, was wife to Albert Smith, Jr.

In her blessing it was said, “And there is power and virtue in the touch of your hands to the healing of the sick and to the comforting of the down trodden and there is light and intelligence sparkling in your eyes and your sisters and your friends among whom you labor will recognize the light of the Lord in your countenance and the wicked will not be able to gaze upon your countenance for there will be rebuke therein for everything that is sinful…”

Can you imagine the kind of woman she must have been?

When I consider these great mothers of our ancestral past I recognize that within my own Mom, and my wife, and even my daughters a sacred accountability, capability, and heartfelt devotion that make them so capable and great in that most sacred role.

It humbles me to no end and I marvel at the things they do and how selflessly they do them.

May we remember and honor them all – from the distant past to the great mothers of the future among us. They do a great work.

Mary Nielsen Snow with five of her children — Gladys, Muriel, Flossie, Bryon and Chester

Influencers in My Family History

April 14, 2018/0 Comments/by Jeff Westover

Two very separate events have kind of taken over my thoughts this past week.

A while back I was downstairs in the treasure room and I came across a letter written by my grandparents to the Church asking a question about how to pursue a family line in England.

Attached to the letter was the response from someone in the Genealogical Department of the Church in Salt Lake City. The letter was dated around 1974.

The instructions included an address for a contact at some library in London who they were certain could put them in contact with someone at a library somewhere else in England.

This whole thing made me think of how far family history research has come. 1974 was not all that long ago. Yet look what they had to do in their search for information!

Another thing that has given me reason to think are the many new contacts I’ve made recently as a result of the DNA testing I’ve done through Ancestry.

All of the people I have met are distantly related but they come with fresh energy and almost excitement in our shared worked.

One of them, after contacting me at Ancestry and then coming here to our little family history website, asked: “Who are your influences? What is there in our history that makes you want to do this?”

As I’ve thought about it I have enjoyed a spirit of thanksgiving – almost a counting of the family history blessings, you could say – that has brought many tears this past week. There are so many influencers for me. I think they are worthy of recounting here.

These are my grandparents, Leon and Maurine Westover. I count them as among the greatest influences upon me in many ways, not just in family history. As a grandson they invested in me a great deal of time and love in just teaching me I was part of something greater – my family. Both of them have been gone from this life for 30 years now and yet their influence is still so very profoundly felt and appreciated. My Grandpa was so smart to talk to me about both the past and the future. I can remember him many, many, many times telling me about the Westover Ranch in Idaho. I had never gone there as a child and I regret to admit it took me many years – after most of my own children were born – to get there. He knew that yet he planted those seeds and dang if he didn’t prophetically foresee what a symbol it would become in my life. Grandma’s approach with Family History with me always so wisely focused on my Mother and her insistence that I had to help my mother with that work. While she was free with the details of the Westover and Riggs family history she knew and had worked on she let me know what a great work waited for me on my mother’s side. Grandma was so very wise.

This is my Mom. I’ve told you her story many times before. It is, quite honestly, a miracle and I’m convinced she remains a guiding force even from the other side for her family. Some days what I wouldn’t give to be where she is, sharing in the conversations I know she is having. But at the same time I enjoy now a connection with my Mom that is entirely unique. It is a closeness I cannot quite describe but it is all about family and all of my family – past, present and future. I very keenly feel that influence.

These are my in-laws, Gary and Barbara Gillen. I’ve not shared much of the Gillen family history here that I know and I’ll tell you why: it’s not my place. I’ve worked on it, and I’m interested in it, but that joy of discovery belongs to them, my wife, her siblings and my children and grandchildren. Like my Grandma did with me, I can encourage and advise. Here is what my children already know about my wife’s parents: they are a chosen generation in their family to kick-start the work of family history there and they have done a wonderful job of it already, even if they don’t know it. I have marveled at how they have built a deep relationship with my children though the years and a thousand miles have separated them. This has come from a responsive interest in the lives of the kids and a patient, peaceful and kind representation of all things family. Sandy’s Dad – and everyone calls him Pops – may not be the strongest with names and dates but there isn’t a better storyteller on God’s green earth. I have watched him time and again take the kids back in time and make them part of the family he has always known and appreciated. Nonny, Sandy’s Mom, is a hometown girl who loves where she lives and the life she has had there. She seems to know everyone and can tell you their story. She is a peacemaker who has nothing but love to share and her influence with my children is so much greater than she realizes. That’s just the way it is with grandmothers, I’ve decided.

This is a picture of my Uncle Gerald and my great Aunt Milda, my Grandma’s sister. Both were a joy to me. Gerald in particular reminds me much of Pops in that he could tell a story that would keep you in stitches. He always seemed to have a tear in one eye and a twinkle in the other. This was man who took joy in every member of his family, who spoke nothing but kindness in each one of them, and whose personal habits were completely unselfish. I can remember, just watching him speak to Milda, and how he spoke to me, that as I child I thought, “I want to be just like him.” Over the years I have contemplated that feeling I had and wondered if I could ever be that kind of giant influence on the heart of a child. Gerald made me feel important, and like my grandparents, he tried to get me to understand I was part of something greater. It humbles me now just to think of him and his goodness.

Here is another one of my Grandma’s sisters, my Aunt Allie. That is how I’ve always thought of her – she was “mine”. I wasn’t able to know Aldyth growing up but I recall so many times my father talking about “my Aunt Allie”. I got to know her when she came to the rescue when Grandma got so sick. She set everything aside in her life and came and just took care of business there at Grandma’s house. It was so like her that nobody else in the family seemed to be phased at her commitment. She just came and served. And while she served she smiled, she laughed, she remembered. For me she was instant family from the moment I met her. Like so many others I speak of here she invested in me and took time to tell me things about her upbringing, my Grandma’s life and my father’s life. She cried when she told me about her children and she laughed and cried some more when she talked about her grandchildren. Aldyth was also committed, just like all of her sisters, to the work of family history and I find her name on things everywhere I look. Her love wasn’t reserved just for me, clearly, but she sure made me feel like it was.

Here is a picture of my Mom, around age three with her mother and her step father, Pat Caldwell. As a child and even today we refer to him as Bumpa. Pat Caldwell does not fit the mold of the most of the other men I speak of here. His upbringing was completely different and his journey was entirely unique. But he gave me valuable lessons related to family – how to be a step-parent, how to be a loyal son, how to even be a grandfather. I had unique experiences with him that I never had with my other grandfather. Some of those experiences were physical – working side by side. Other times were just talking, sharing philosophies, man to man. Bumpa was a man who carried great love yet didn’t quite know how to express it. He was generous. He was respectful of differences. If I disagreed with him he would sometimes say, “Well, maybe you know something I don’t know yet”. He was a man who learned his lessons and applied change. He was free with sharing his mistakes. I could see where my Mom got her sometimes brutal honesty and I came to see that as a strength and something to admire. I admired it greatly in him.

This is a photo of Mary Ann Smith Westover, my great grandmother. She died before I was born. All that I have heard about her speaks of how she was a force to be reckoned with. I recognize her as one of my influencers because she left a physical record that not only advanced my knowledge of family history on many sides but also demonstrated to me her tremendous faith and hope in the work of temples. Her hand-written family group sheets – complete in many cases with photographs (quite the feat back in those days) are really what remains at the foundation of our total family history efforts. She was visionary in the respect that as a Mother and grandmother she not only took pictures but organized and stored them into albums. She wanted them preserved and I think she would be happy to know what’s become of them and how they are so greatly valued by us, the later generations.

Along those lines are these Smith grandparents of Mary Ann Smith pictured here – Albert and Sophia Smith, of Manti, Utah. Talk about vision. Both of these folks embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ with their whole lives. Family and the love of God was what it was all about and no amount of effort required would stay them from moving that forward. These pioneers built the temples they so desperately came to Zion for and found a way to get generations of their family past through the temple on their behalf. Better than 1500 family names on both sides were researched, gathered and then organized for ordinance work that was completed between 1888 and 1892. What an epic accomplishment!

Here is one of their great grandsons, my Uncle Darrell, with another of Grandma’s sisters, my Aunt Evie. I do not think enough can be said of their many efforts on behalf of the Westover and Riggs family lines (and thus the Smiths and the Snows and all the others). I always felt singled out among my siblings by my Uncle Darrell, whose efforts to advance the deep history of the family seemed to be targeted squarely on me. He sometimes quizzed me. I can recall going to a Priesthood meeting with him when I was thirteen, with him sitting on my left and my Dad sitting on my right. It was quiet until he turned to me and asked, “Tell me what you know about Albert Smith.” And he just never stopped with that stuff. I was nearly 50 years old and he was still doing it to me. Oh, how I miss him and how I wish he would grill me again. Fortunately my aunt Evie has been less inclined over the years to put me on the spot. She’s got the grandma approach down pretty good and it can’t just be because she has a hundred billion grandchildren and great grandchildren now. I don’t know what they sprinkled on the Wheaties of the Riggs children back in the day but I weep when I think about each one of them and their sweet love of all things family.

Here’s a picture of my father and I have a million more just like this. Dad would always say he belonged on just one side of the camera and if you look at some of the pictures of him it is clear why he feels that way. From the youngest age I have heard my Dad tell the family stories. He’s not been one to engage in tree making or data gathering of names and dates but he’s got a clear vision of the entire epic family story. From my Dad I have learned to reverence it and to celebrate it. Like my Dad, I have a hard time feeling worthy of them. Dad has always encouraged my work in family history and these days I go to him first with news of any discovery. He advises me on this site and what we store here. But I think the greatest lesson from my Dad has been his involvement with my Mother’s family and the great role he played in bringing them into her life. My Mom would not have accomplished all she did without my Dad doing what he did. Talk about a proxy work! And now, with Mom passed, I work side by side with my Dad in family history efforts that will have lasting impact for those generations that follow us. I also post that picture of him behind the camera for another reason and I’m serious about this. You see, I’ve always given Dad a bit of a hard time about all the photos he’s taken of things like the Grand Canyon. But along with those efforts has been a very dedicated effort to document through photography the history of the family – and that includes many hours as a kid when Dad would copy old photographs and we’d develop them and then share them. Dad was way ahead of his time in all this.

Here’s a picture of my great Uncle Pete. We got to know Pete only after Dad called him while he was on a business trip to Minnesota. Not many years after that Pete and Alice and Bunni came to California to be sealed in the temple. A few years later, on a whim, I made a lone car ride to Minnesota and spent a week in his home. Day and night Pete invested great effort in me to share the history of the Begich family. He shared stories and pictures. And he made a very difficult effort with his mother, who was still living, but who just could not handle the pain of seeing me. He explained to me why it was so hard on her and felt that my effort to come to Minnesota was inspired. I know he wanted his mother and my mother to meet, and my being there trying to break the ice was a step in that direction. It didn’t happen and that fact made Pete weep. But he honored his mother and he honored me with his efforts. He was so very kind to me and I cannot wait to thank him again.

Here is my Aunt LaRee, my father’s sister. Like my father she shares a great reverence for her heritage. How could she not, being raised by my grandparents? What LaRee has taught me are lessons in seeing people more deeply and in forgiving their faults. I love this picture in particular of her as she looks up to her father, my Grandpa. In some ways I’ve felt Grandpa was a misunderstood man. LaRee has helped me to better understand him and appreciate him. She has helped me to see that she has that respect for him not just because he is her father but also because he really was a great man. LaRee to me is also one of those family members who always will be family no matter what. I can go years without seeing her and then sit down and chat with LaRee and Will like a day has not passed. I consider her “up there” with all my great aunts and that’s no small thing. That is just how I feel about her.

This is my brother Jay, and my sister-in-law, Mary. I have spoken of Mary many times before because she more than anyone else has been in the trenches of family history research and discovery. But Mary has had to discover her family on her own and she was done a tremendous work. She has brought various members of her still-living family together and made them family again. I love to get messages from her when something new pops up or when she discovers a rich new vein of information. Mary possesses a passionate vision that I equate with that of my Grandmother’s. In fact, I can’t help but think how Grandma and Mary would have gotten along and how they would have thrilled in each other. Mary doesn’t give up. She turns over every stone, hops every fence, and asks every question when she hits a dead end. Miracles happen as a result. It is a joy to witness.

These are my children. They put up with me always talking about family history. I picture them here as influencers on family history because they have in their young adult lives remained so very close and have the vision – every last one of them – to recognize not only the value but real need they have for that in the future. They are all best friends and that makes me weep more than they can ever know. I know that they will eventually see that the safety and the warmth and the love they feel to each other extends to family on every side and it’s here waiting for them to embrace. When they discover it they will take great joy in it. Oh, how I wish to see that day. They will find people just like them and they will find others who are just like they are to each other. These are treasures that await them and they will want for their children to have them too.

And lastly, this is my wife, Sandy. She would tell you that she doesn’t belong with all the people I’ve mentioned above because she hasn’t done her family history. She would tell you that she’s not organized, that she never made baby books for the kids like my mother did, and that all our pictures were taken by me, and that she’s not worthy and she’s guilty and her book of life is just a book of shame when it comes to all this and blah, blah, blah. Don’t listen to her. Let me tell you where her gift is with all this. Sandy has an ability to walk into a room a connect with anyone there. She sees the heart, feels the pain and she lifts when she can sit down and hold a hand and share a tear. It delighted me to see her get close to my mother and how precious she became to my Mom as a result. Few people knew my Mom like Sandy did. She has a particular “weakness” (if you can call it that) for the elderly, especially little old men. It seems every little old man reminds her of her father. There’s a lot of love in that statement.

These are only some of the family historians in our family. There are many others I could mention. Each brings a little something unique to the effort. But common among them all is realization of what a powerful thing for good the family is. In them is where the real joy of life – both this life and the life to come – is to be found.

Getting to Know Albert Smith

The Life of Ane Marie Jensen Barnhurst

None Knew Them But to Praise

Moms of Our Ancestral Past

Influencers in My Family History

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