Jeff Westover

The Vital Importance of the In-Law Family

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Sharon ThomasMy wife and I just returned from a fairly quick trip to California to attend the memorial service for Sandy’s aunt. It was a refreshing and even fun event. I learned a great deal.

Sandy’s Aunt Sharon is a fixture in the family. Sister to Sandy’s Mom, she has always been part of every gathering and Sandy’s growing up years will filled with her presence and influence.

I personally cannot claim more than maybe a dozen interactions over the past thirty years with Aunt Sharon — but what an impact those interactions have had.

I wish I had the time to tell her children all that I’ve learned from her.

Three great things come to mind: parents, children and family.

Sharon, to me, was one who greatly honored and admired her parents. I did not share her growing up years or see much of her interaction with them as others have but to me she always spoke with respect and admiration for her parents.

This to me has always been a hallmark of greatness in a person and it was one of my earliest impressions of Sharon. She was one of the grateful.

Sharon also had the heart of a mother.

She took great pride in her children and grandchildren. After inquiring after my own children, Aunt Sharon would always tell me about hers. They were clearly her life and greatest joy.

This might not seem an unusual trait but in a world where shifting values relating to women and men alike I see it as a standout characteristic. To Sharon, there was no greater title than “Mom” and she wore it proudly.

Sharon also struck me as one being intensely loyal. I rarely saw her alone – she was almost always at my in-laws or we all went over there. Her sisters were honestly and truly her best friends.

That too has come to an elevated status in my eyes. Loyalty such as Sharon’s is my greatest aspiration for my children and it thrills me they have seen it in their great aunts and others in all sides of the family.

I fear it is more rare than it used to be and it is my hope my children continue to work on and value those sibling relationships. They will never find better or truer friends.

Of course, Sharon’s kids knew all this about their Mom, as did my dear wife and her entire family.

It was a joy to me to listen to Sharon’s children at her service and to learn more of her history. Here was a single Mom who clearly overcame great obstacles. Her sacrifices have inspired the lives of her children and they know it. What profound expressions of love I heard from them all.

I hope what they say about the dead attending their own funerals is true. Because to me no greater reward from this life could have been better for Sharon than to hear the words spoken of her by her children this weekend.

It had to be hard for them to do, as I understand better than anyone, but they were things that had to be said and I was privileged to hear them.

I wish my children could have been there because, once again, a good funeral is an important educator in family history.

From these events comes context, understanding and great inspiration. Sharon was an inspiration to so many in ways I never knew.

With events like this comes an elevated level and understanding of love.

This weekend was also a time of renewal and recognition.

Renewal, in the sense that relationships in the family – all of them: parent/child, sibling, cousin, aunts and uncles – and in-laws — are important and play a critical role in our ever expanding knowledge of love.

And recognition in the sense that we are all getting older and our roles are slightly shifting – and new responsibilities in the pursuit of love are emerging as part of those family relationships.

I have the best in-laws in the world. They shine time and time again in so many ways. This weekend they hosted us and regaled us with memories and hope.

I worry in no small measure for my Mother in law, whose loss of her sister just cannot be fully stated. Sharon was more than a sibling and childhood playmate – she was a sister and confidant of the highest order.

We all know the circle of life. We know these days come but even still your heart cannot help but mourn for one who suffers such a loss.

Even still, both Sandy’s Mom and Dad were so free with their thoughts, feelings and emotions as we discussed all the family, both past and present.

There were times where I felt we were on sacred ground in that living room of their home where so many moments of time critical to our own history have passed. It was in that living room where I asked Sandy’s Dad for her hand. It was in that living room where we have shared celebrations, announced our babies, shared moments of hard news, so many laughs and so many tears. Our time this weekend in that room was quite sacred to me.

But it was while we were at lunch with Sandy’s sister, Terri, and her family that I think the most important moment of the weekend happened.

Terri expressed a tearful hope that we could get together as a family at least once a year – in some way.

Terri has a gold heart. She is so right-on in her thinking.

When I think of loyalty as a virtue I think of Terri and this great attribute of the Gillen family I married into. Despite all the many differences there is a fierce loyalty to family and one just steps up, no matter the circumstances, to be present, concerned and responsible for family.

Terri cheers from a distance, runs to rescue, quickly defends, proudly accepts and unhesitatingly encourages family from every side. She is a resource for my children, though I fear they may not all yet grasp the treasure that she is.

I could say the same for her husband, Adam. He is as good a man as I know.

As time passes I struggle with how to adequately record the family history that happens with my in-law family.

Sandy’s Dad, for example, is a natural master storyteller. My kids just love it when Pops gets on a roll and tells of tale of the old days. He gets lost in details, and laughs before anyone else, anticipating a story’s climax and putting the listener there in the emotion of the moment. In every instance, even though he doesn’t know it, he’s educating us all about the character and greatness of those he has loved.

This weekend he told me some more stories.

I struggle with what to do with that knowledge. The writer in me wants to record them on paper but honestly I can’t do justice to Pop’s verbal skills.

I have, over the years, invested a bit of time working on the family history of both my in-laws and trying to help Sandy with her efforts to organize it.

There is a great emigrant story there and, like others we’ve seen in the family, powerful examples of work, hope, faith and overcoming that we can find useful in our lives.

But I have felt restrained in a measure with recording history from my in-law family. Frankly, it’s not my inspiration and revelation to receive. That is for Sandy and her siblings, and all our collective children. I know that as they engage in that work they will find as many miracles as I have in pursuing my bloodlines.

Yet at the same time I think of my father, and the impact he had on the forth coming of the story of my mother’s family. I think how that has shaped and influenced Dad. I know I have a part to play in my in-law family history but I want to make sure it is the right place.

And I hope I live long enough to see one of my children or nephews or nieces take up that challenge and own it. They deserve great attention.

My in-law family has a huge influence on my children and grandchildren. I’m grateful for that because individually they are strong and good people. Collectively they are a powerful influence for good.

I believe the contributions of mothers and grandmothers are endless upon the generations. As I look back I find the stories of the maternal families complete the histories of the paternal families in significant ways.

We must never forget them. In fact, we need to pursue them and champion them as best we can.

I say this as a man with six daughters who will all have a heritage to share as yet new branches to the family are created in the generations ahead.

It has been a tough year. There have been a lot of funerals this year. But at the same time there has been a more complete and comprehensive picture develop of the breadth and depth of our families.

There were times this weekend when I felt rooms full of people. This weekend was different because I had in a real sense the feeling that many were there I did not know.

That didn’t matter. They were there. I could feel them. I know who they are. They are family. Whether they were from my in-law family or the families of my parents I know not. And it doesn’t matter – because they are all family.

With each passing day Malachi 4:6 means more and more to me. And it is miraculous.

Doyle West
Jeff Westover

Finding Doyle West

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He was, to borrow a phrase, a master of the moment.

As the house lights came down the spotlight would zero in on him as he briskly made his way to the podium where he quickly bowed to the audience, receiving polite applause.

He turned on his heel and struck a quick chord with the orchestra and then, suddenly, he turned on his heel again facing the audience, his baton raised.

He held the note there for just long enough – the audience watching in curiosity. You could almost hear them thinking, “What in the world is he doing?”

And then, raising he eyes above and beyond the audience, a slight smile on his face, he brought down his baton and hundreds of voices responded:

“Behold, behold, behold…I am the Law and the Light!”

Stunned, the audience would turn in their seats and look up, and there above them, dressed in white, were 500 young people, their eyes glued to the conductor.

Before the audience could turn back around the spotlight was taken from the conductor and he became invisible. The curtain had parted and in a softer light stood the Savior.

Conducting was Doyle West, a gigantic figure to me as one of those voices in the balcony.

To me he was a man thoroughly convicted of what he was doing in this production of “And It Came to Pass”, known to us as the Oakland Temple Pageant.

Doyle passed away in 2015 and only recently did I learn, via his wife Ardyth, that he was laid to rest right here in Smithfield, just blocks from my home.

Doyle and Ardyth West are well known to my family not only because of Pageant and years of association there but also because Ardyth is a Westover.

Now 84, Ardyth has really only known me via social media, where she keeps a savvy and watchful eye on all the family. She has responded and reached out to me with many kind thoughts.

In response to a recent post Ardyth sent me a message with her phone number, asking me to give her a call. So I did – and I was rewarded with what I like to call a hall of fame conversation — one of those conversations of a lifetime. In nearly two hours together on the phone, I found myself taking copious notes as this dear lady fed me resources, shared memories and laughed with me in sharing details of family members we both know.

She might not think as much of that conversation as I do but I tell you I left energized, enthused and anxious to follow up on all she told me.

She is, for all things family history even, a wonderful resource.

As we spoke of her dear husband she shared with me the details of where he is buried and indicated that she’ll likely never get back this way again while she is still living. She asked if I wouldn’t go visit his grave and see his headstone, which tonight we did.

As we searched tonight for Doyle’s grave I couldn’t help but go back 40 years in my memory to those summer rehearsals and performances of Pageant.

I was lucky.

Around the age of 12 I was given a spiritual witness of the Prophet Joseph. But even though that was true I was a reluctant participant in Pageant. I am not the singer that my Westover cousins are and I’m certainly not a performer. I was also a bit resentful of how much precious summer time was devoted to Pageant.

But I can tell you that sitting in that balcony every night for two weeks – front row, most of the time – I came to love not only the music of Pageant but especially the message of Pageant.

It did much for my testimony and though shy and awkward I found my participation in Pageant during those teen years something of a secret obsession and a deep love.

Doyle West was one very big reason for those feelings.

I can remember once, before a Saturday afternoon performance, we had a quick rehearsal and Doyle said he wanted to work on “We are the Vision”. We began and he stopped us for a moment, to give some instruction, and then we began again.

We got halfway through the song and he stopped us once more.

“Do you realize what you’re saying in this song?,” he asked us. “Never was a time more exciting, never was a time such as this! We are the vision which the prophets saw! This is your song!”

And he started it again, ending that stirring anthem with tears streaming down his face. “Make no mistake my young friends, yours is the most important testimony given in this production. We didn’t actually need to practice that song. That was just for me.”

I love a good cemetery and the cemeteries here in Cache Valley are the best.

Doyle WestSmithfield has a beautiful cemetery. I actually spotted Doyle’s grave rather quickly but I couldn’t help hearing the songs of pageant – Who Am I?, Master of the Moment, Westward – over and over in my head, once again.

Why didn’t I know back then who Doyle and Ardyth are?

I was probably told but in the fog of youth – that dense, thick, dumb period where so very little sinks in – I never made the connection or saw the importance.

How very coincidental, it occurred to me, that here I am forty years later remembering those days but making yet another family connection now.

Why now? Why in this way? And how many times has this happened to me just this year?

My dear family, I want you to know a thought that rested upon me tonight as I looked upon Doyle’s grave.

We are being gathered – as a family – by forces unseen.

This could have happened forty years ago. Or a hundred years ago. But it IS happening now.

Never was a time more exciting, never was a time such as this.

I want Ardyth to know how much I love her and how much I hope we have many more conversations like we did last night. She has given me folks to contact and somehow I sense I will be held accountable for contacting them.

The connection, officially, is via Edwin and his 2nd wife, Sarah Jane Burwell.

As previously noted, I’ve had contact this year with five individuals who hail from that line. I know we have a story to tell there and with their help we will tell it.

I continue to be amazed at the contact I am receiving from Westovers from all over.

Folks of different beliefs, folks from different places, some from as far away as Australia and England. What we hold in common is a shared heritage in our Westover name.

I want to learn who they all are and I want to share all that they have to contribute to the family record. It is much deeper and much more important to so many people than I ever imagined.

I pray the contact keeps up. I hope folks keep reaching out, asking questions, sharing information and resources. Miracles are happening – so many that I cannot possibly detail them all.

I know, as ever, there is great indifference from many. But some are starting to catch the vision and are starting to feel the pull of our ancestors. They ARE reaching out to us, and I know I am not the only one who feels that.

I pray we are worthy of all they are doing and that we in return are doing all we can.

Jeff Westover

A Fitting Memorial for Grandpa

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Memorial Day. A day argued by many that is lost to some in meaning. Many mark it as an extra day off — a day of barbeques, a first summer swim in a lake or a chance to get away.

It began as Decoration Day, an event to decorate the graves of the fallen from the North and the South during the Civil War. It is a day specifically set aside to recognize those who died in the service of country.

Indeed, my own marking of the day has wandered over the years.

These days I make my way up to Mendon, and place flowers on the grave of grandmother Ann Findley Westover, a grandparent I hadn’t even known about 10 years ago. She never served in the armed forces, however, and if we’re going to split hairs you could say she wasn’t even an American.

But for me her grave gives me a special place to remember all who came before me – because they all died in the service of me and my children.

They all fought different kinds of battles, to be sure, and most never wore a uniform. But serve us they did – every one of them. Grandma Ann seems to be representative of them all in so many ways.

To be honest, as the grandson of one taken by war I have always been a bit lost on remembering him well each Memorial Day.

After all, his only grave that I know about is in France.

I have never been there and will likely never get the chance to go there.

There is, simply, no fitting place of memorial where I can leave my tokens of gratitude for him.

It was just Monday of last week that we buried my grandson, Quin.

His was a life taken before it ever truly began. His little body was laid to rest in Salt Lake City, a tiny grave tenderly prepared for him by loving parents and gathered family determined to remember his place in the family.

Odd as it seems, I could not help pondering the similarities between my grandson and my grandfather while at the cemetery this week.

It is no small wonder to me that Quin resides now within the same realm as my Grandpa Carl. These two men of the family – Quin, my grandson and Carl, my grandfather – have their common connection in me and my children.

Perhaps their circumstance is giving them the chance to know each other – a powerful thought to me.

That will be an opportunity we all face as the curtain of life descends on each of us.

In the months before my mother died I had some very sacred conversations with her about the family she would see when she got to the other side.

I asked her what she would say to her mother when the time came and Mom said, “I want to tell her how very much I have missed her but somehow I think she already knows that.”

But Mother was never one to keep conversations like this one sided.

“What would you tell her? Or, better yet, what do you want me to tell her?”

When it came to Nana my answer was simple. “You tell her, Mom, that I love her.”

Of her step-father, Bumpa, Mom was concerned with some earthly things – what he would say about what she did with the stuff he left her.

I told Mom that he wouldn’t care about that stuff but I can recall her smiling as she said, “Yes, but he’s going to ask me nonetheless.”

Her answer to my query about Grandma Begich was one of great interest to me.

Mother and I had not discussed her for many years. It was a topic I had dropped because Mom was, in my perception, a little bitter about Grandma’s refusal to see me when I had visited Minnesota in the 1980s. She took it very personally.

But Mom surprised me.

She sighed and said, “I just want to give her a hug and tell her I am sorry.”

That answer caused me to marvel and quite nearly made it impossible for me to say anything when Mom asked what she could tell Grandma Begich for me. “You tell her the hug is from us both, Mom”, was all I could think of to say.

But when it came to Grandpa Carl the question proved one very difficult for both of us to answer.

You see, my mother did not know her father. The war took him away before she could even create a memory of him. Mother would not have just one question for her father, I assure you.

I consider now what Mom said then to be something very sacred.

So I won’t reveal it here or at this time.

But Mom did ask me what she could say to him from me when the time came.

And that I will share with you.

“Mom, I’d like you to tell Grandpa that we have not forgotten him. I want him to know that even though we didn’t know him or his family in this life that we are trying to. I want him to know I appreciate how much he spoke of love for you and for Nana. I want him to know I’ve read of his love for his mother and for his father, and for his family. I want him to know that while I honor him for his sacrifice, I love him for who he was to them.”

Mother chuckled a little bit when I said that. “I don’t think I can remember all that”, she said. Yes, you will, Mom. In fact, I’m sure you did.

My brother has recently taken up the quest of trying to find out why Grandpa Carl died five days after the war ended in Europe.

The circumstances of his death have always been suspicious and while I think the sting of needing to know has subsided a bit I think the deeper curiosity now is fueled by a desire to know yet another story about him.

That will be interesting to learn, if we ever get to the truth. But there is, simply, more to his life than the tale of his death.

For me, however, the most fitting memorial for Grandpa Carl is finally starting to materialize.

It isn’t in a grave marker.

It is, as it ever has been, in his family.

Recently we have made new connections and we have learned more of Grandpa Carl.

But more importantly – much more importantly – we have felt love from those who claim him as family.

We have heard stories, we have seen tears shed, we have pondered together the what-if’s. And we have celebrated these lost individuals who have left this world to us from the Begich side of the family.

This, I think, would make Grandpa Carl very happy.

When he got to the other side I don’t think there was anyone in his life that he knew there to greet him. His father was another 20 years in passing over. His mother wouldn’t come for nearly 50 years.

But one by one his family members that he knew in this life have joined him.

What did he do to prepare for them? Who did he meet before they ever got there? How has he been able to connect to our family long passed to the family still occupying the earth?

I don’t know the answer to those questions except in this respect: it’s happening.

I am meeting and getting to know my Begich cousins. We are learning what they know of those my Grandpa Carl held most dear.

Baby step by baby step, we are becoming family – in the truest sense of the word.

What more fitting memorial can there be for Grandpa Carl?

To that end we will keep trying and keep connecting.

Who knows? Maybe someday – perhaps on a Memorial Day weekend – we can gather to remember, to honor and to celebrate.

And then everyone can bring flowers.

Norm Welty
Jeff Westover

The Beauty of the Little Details

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Recently I have had the chance to connect with more of my Begich cousins. It has been wonderful.

In conversing with one via email this week I asked some questions about my great Grandpa Mike Begich, who immigrated to the United States around 1905. He lived from 1886 to 1965.

In my lifetime I’ve heard so very little personal detail about him. So little details like this from my cousin this week are very meaningful to me:

“As an 8-year-old, I used to visit and stay over with my grandparents fairly often. Grandpa would always let me rummage through his junk drawer to admire old pocket watches and jack knives and other paraphernalia. Grandpa collected wood slats from peach and other fruit crates (Grandma was ALWAYS canning something or other) and showed me how to make bird houses out of them with his tools.”

So many think family history is tied to the epic events in their lives – the stories of overcoming, of moving from one country to another, of accomplishing great things. Those things have their place but I find greater comfort in the finer and even mundane details of their lives.

Norm WeltyFor example, pictured to the right is my Uncle Norm Welty, my grandmother’s little brother. Taken in 1978, he is about 60 years old and working on an engine in his garage. Cars were a passion with him and his family. This is Uncle Norm in his element. And it is a treasure to me. This picture speaks to me of Norm’s goodness.

There are many such lessons to find in the everyday details.

Another example: Grandmother Ann Finley Westover, a handcart pioneer, was known through-out the community of Mendon for her cookies. Her house was very close the school, which was in the center of town, and most children coming home from school knew they could stop in at Sister Westover’s house for stories and cookies on a daily basis.

Some of the details speak of normal stuff – like fighting with siblings.

In this delightful video Grandma Maurine Westover talks about having to fight like a boy with her brother:

Albert Smith left some wonderful detail about his pioneer life in his journals.

He had more mouths to feed than ever in 1855 and yet had suffered a total loss of his crops due to “the hoppers”, as he called them.

They were destitute and needed food. I can almost hear Albert in conversation as he told the story of what they had to do:

We heard that there was good crops raised up north in Ogden were two of my brothers-in-law lived Isaac Outicark and Orilin Colving. I saw no alternative for we only go there and get some grain, yet I had nothing to buy with so I had to go and get it by faith. I hocked my 2 yoke of oxen to my wagon, took plenty of sacks and Emily with her two babies and Almon her old child a lad of six years old and started for Egip, I mean Ogden, far west. We had good luck going there and we found our friends all well. Nearby one of my brother-in-law there was a large field where there was good chance for to glean. I improved every minute of my time that I could for 16 days gathered it together and thrashed it, cleaned and put it in to sacks and when it was done I had (22) twenty-two bushels of wheat. Emily had gotten 8 or 10 bushels with made me as big a load as I could hall with two yoke of oxen. We returned in safety the distance 150 miles. We found our family all well. So much for work and faith. That 32 bushels of wheat with the potatoes and few bushels or corn served us for bread the year (12 instead of 11 in my family) without and suffering although I had to give the Indians not such less than one bushel of potatoes for 40 or 50 days.

Amongst my Grandpa Carl’s letters I found this thought he had written home on New Year’s Eve in a letter to my Nana, speaking of the day my mother was born:

“…Being New Year’s Eve and all that sort of rot means its just another day for me, another evening spent in further solemnity, solitude and deep thought, thoughts pertinent to exactly one year ago today. And yet, I don’t looking up this day as being anything really, of true value. It only means that 1944 is here. But, I look further, exactly 11 days – eleven days from this evening. Gees — Mt. Kisco Hospital; maternity ward; a big whooping squeal and bingo, there she was: Cathy. Remember? Then too, the next day when I visited you – and saw you in the recuperating department. Yes, dearest, I cherish those things. How find and beautiful you looked the next day, your eyes were plain fire balls, shining like the sun…”

At the end of the day do these small details matter? Do we really need to know that our English grandfather named John Westover III had three cows names Lily, Sparkle and Pickle?

Maybe not, but I think they make a difference.

The beauty of the little details makes these grandparents and ancestors so much more than names on a headstone.

They were just normal folks, doing the same things we all do.

They took their joys as blessings and their challenges as opportunities to grow faith. They did, as we all do — the very best they could.

I find more and more as I seek out family and get to know more about those I have not known I come to appreciate most these little details.

What is normal is sacred to me about them. I think that is because I want to be worthy of them. And it is the small normal things that makes that possible.

Moms
Jeff Westover

Moms of Our Ancestral Past

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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.

Moms

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