Attending Roots Tech 2016

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It has been announced that registration for Roots Tech 2016 opens in about a month, on September 15, 2015. Roots Tech will be held Wednesday, February 3rd through Saturday, February 6, 2016. We want to encourage as many family members as possible to register and attend as their resources and time allows.

Roots Tech is the world’s largest Family History conference. Every major vendor and resource in Genealogical and Family History research is represented at the conference and there are dozens of classes on all kinds of topics related to family history research.

If enough interest exists we would like to sponsor a family gathering in advance of Roots Tech to discuss family history opportunities and strategies for getting the most out of Roots Tech. We would propose a gathering either on the weekend before Roots Tech or on the evening of Wednesday, February 3rd, the first day of Roots Tech.

We would really like to encourage those with teenagers to especially prepare for Family Discovery Day at Roots Tech, which is a free all-day event on Saturday, February 6th. There are speakers from Church leadership, usually a youth challenge related to family history and temple work, and plenty of learning activities for getting our kids involved in Family History. We think it might be awesome as well just to get as many of our young cousins together as we can.

The world of Family History is changing fast. We understand how daunting it is to just even start. We are willing to help any interested family member learn enough before Roots Tech to make attending this event in Salt Lake City worth their time and energy. Please contact us if you would like help or more information. The more we add and involve other family members the more fun and productive this work is.

Our Connection to Pioneer Past

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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.”

Mom

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It is difficult to put pen to paper and begin to adequately convey the impact of my Mother and her teachings on my life.

The bond between a Mother and son is unique, special and, in my case, sacred and tender. I have always been a “momma’s boy” but not in the sense that most in the world view that term.

Being her first born and as she mentioned to me many many times growing up, I did not come with an instruction manual. Mom became a Mother at the tender age of 17. How young that was. Yet, how wise was her counsel and how effective her parenting skills. My siblings will look back fondly at the many creative discipline techniques my Mother deployed and, yes, the vast majority of them were directed towards me. I deserved them. I was the instigator of many conflicts and disputes within the family in those early years.

Why? Upon reflection and now having raised a family of my own and watching my own children raise my grandchildren it appears every family has, to quote Reggie Jackson, ” a straw that stirs the drink”. There is no doubt that I tested my Mother’s patience and yes, I deserved every punishment ever delivered. However, I also know that Mom loved me and that I played a very special role in her life.

Quite simply, Mom and I grew up together. Weird as that may sound, it was very true. As I have grown older, I have thought many many times that the difference in age between myself and my youngest sister is 11 years and the age between Mom and I only 17. I was in my 50’s when Mom was in her 60’s. We not only grew up together, we grow old together as well. As such, Mom was not only my teacher, mentor and Mom, she was my friend and confidante as well.

The exploits and stories of my youth have been chronicled by my siblings in their writing and memories of Mom. But it is their recollections of times past. For me, my fondest and most sacred memories and experiences with and of Mom have occurred during the 35 years when I did not live with Mom and Dad.

How grateful I was and am that my childhood was so fun and for the most part carefree. Mom and Dad worked very hard to make sure we had a wonderful childhood filled with wonderful memories, traditions, core values and teachable moments that would serve us well when we ventured out on our own and began to raise our own families. What a rare and special gift to know with certainty that my parents not only loved me, but would literally do anything for me, forgive every fault and make any sacrifice to insure their children had what was needed.

Mom as a mother provided me the example of what I wanted as qualities in the mother of my children. Loving, caring, willing to sacrifice and a strong love and faith in our Father in Heaven and the importance of family.

Mom as a wife provided me the example of how a marriage should be.. Love, laughter and kindness. Patience, a true helpmate, unconditional love and forgiveness. Family first. Selflessness not selfishness. The importance of marrying your best friend.

Mom as a Nana provided me the example of how a grandparent should be: fun, eccentric, reliable and loving. And most importantly an example and role model that provides your grandchildren a link to the past, someone to reach out to when times are tough in the present and finally someone who prepares them and instills within them the importance of an eternal family and a desire to live large, dream big and go for it.

Mom, thank you. Thank you for your teaching, patience, laughter, love, discipline and faith. Thank you for your example, your long suffering and willingness to endure to the end so that your children and grandchildren could see that there is indeed a plan in place that allows us to be together as a family forever. Mom, I love you and look forward to seeing you again. Enjoy your next part of your journey. Heaven became a bit more lively with your arrival. Let the party begin!

Tales from Mom’s Favorite Child

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There are lots of benefits to being the youngest in a family of five children. Aside from claiming the Favorite Child title, I reaped the benefits of being much younger than my siblings so that when they were all leaving home, I was also beginning my “new life as an only child”. Mom and Dad were all mine.

As we gathered during the final week of Mom’s life and started to reflect on her journey and our part in it, we pulled out the photo albums and noticeably absent were my photos. Mom was pretty meticulous about chronicling her children’s moments but like Dad told me this week when we looked at the photos, each time she added a child, she did less and less with her hair. And so it was with these photo books. By the time I came along, she was up to her elbows in diapers, baseball games, Boy Scouts, teenage drama and more. Who had the time to paste photos in a book? It doesn’t upset me NOW that I am not in the albums although I remember when I was younger being a little disappointed for not being well represented. But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t well documented in photos or that I didn’t get to experience things like my siblings. My brother asked me if I had felt neglected or that I had missed out on stuff. No, I don’t feel that way. My experiences were just different. I missed out on NOTHING.

One of the advantages to being an “only child” is that it was much easier to bring me along on their adventures. If you can call photographing the outside of a Longs Drug Store an adventure – Mom & Dad may argue that it was just a job but for this kid, it WAS an adventure. I was always in the car going someplace with them. In hindsight I think I must have studied Dad when he photographed these stores because he was always looking for the best angle. Let’s be honest Longs stores pretty much all looked the same and to get them to stand out he tried to photograph them at the right time of day, or at the right angle so the background would compliment the photograph. Mom was always at his elbow lending her advice about the photos as she lined up the Polaroid test shots across her lap and dashboard of the car.

These Longs photography road trips were pretty frequent and many times very early in the morning before the store was officially open. Dad needed “customers” to fill the shots and that was up to Mom and I. We’d grab a cart and we’d walk in and out of the store over and over again while he clicked away. So we’d talk, usually about mundane things and I can’t really recall any subject in particular but it sticks in my mind because this was something I was doing with her – just me. And I we did it A LOT. I didn’t think it at the time but you know what? It was fun. Mom was fun.

I could go on and on about the different trips that I got to take with Mom & Dad. Because there were so many from road trips to Arizona, to hanging out in Hawaii to flying to New York to attend a trade show to driving around New England to hit every single covered bridge in Vermont and filling up trunks with shoes they had purchased at every single outlet center they could find. We were traveling beasts. It was pretty cool. With some of the trips, I’d miss school. In order to miss school and still get decent grades, Mom would negotiate with the teachers by promising that I would write a report about the things I saw and experienced. I wasn’t too excited about the report writing but then there we were on a redeye flight back home – all three of us assembling the reports with photos and captions.

If I could describe Mom it would be as “my champion”… she would back me up in almost anything. When I thought I wouldn’t get to go to the Senior Ball, and then at the very last minute was invited to go, Mom took me out of school and we spent the day in San Francisco hunting down a prom dress.

When I met a guy in an online chat room she warned me about how he could be a hatchet murderer and when I told her his last name was Fluck, she didn’t miss a beat and declared, “Ah, crap! You’re probably going to end up marrying him.” Well, she was half right. I did marry him and thankfully for the rest of us, he was not a hatchet murderer.

When I planned my wedding, not only did Mom design all of the flower arrangements but with a picture of a wedding dress I had seen in a magazine in hand, she and Dad hunted down the only shop in California that carried it and drove hours to get there, see it in person and then call me in Tennessee to let me know they loved it and were buying it. I am pretty sure that is NOT how you buy a wedding dress – sight unseen, not tried on, etc. – but I had faith in my parents that they knew what they were saying. And they were right. The dress was perfect.

Mom may have been super supportive at most times but she wasn’t shy about giving her opinion. She was very vocal about the dangers of how I met Mike. And even after the wedding and we had moved into our first home, she and I had words about him. Mom came to visit us in Tennessee and I honestly can’t remember what her beef was but I do remember standing up to her. I remember telling her that I was not only an adult and capable of making my own decisions but that I had chosen Mike and it wasn’t up to her anymore. It was probably the most heated argument we had ever had…seriously…it was a “we’re driving in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee, stop the car, I am getting out and walking” kind of fight. She knew I was serious. And she never again said another word. But I kept that experience tucked in the back of my mind for future use if necessary. I never had to bring it up again.

When Mike died, Mom grieved almost as much as I did. We would talk about him and she would say to me, “Mike was my friend. He listened to me.” That touched me because it not only spoke of the man Mike was but it also meant Mom never stopped learning. Mike knew that he had his work cut out for him to win Mom’s approval and in his “Mike Way” he did that by fostering a friendship with my mother. Mom learned that people are not always as they seem and when given the opportunity they would rise above any expectations and surprise you. Mom loved Mike very much and she would provide me perspective about who he was, what he felt and why he did the things he did. Her words of wisdom in regards to her son-in-law would temper my anger and frustration. I will miss that the most because I am not done dealing with my feelings in regards to how Mike died. I still need her wisdom.

I could probably write a book about my memories of Mom.

In the mid-1980s, Mom LOVED going to boutiques. These were basically home-grown flea markets that people would set up in their garages or living rooms to sell their crafts on the weekend. We went to these boutiques nearly every weekend during the fall months. Eventually mom would get involved in her own boutiques so she could peddle her homemade afghans and padded photo albums. She would partner with some other ladies she knew from church. I would sit there all day as they would chit chat in someone’s living room. Mom would always put a pot of apple cider on the stove, throw in some cinnamon sticks and let the aroma fill the house. It was a marketing technique that worked. To this day whenever I smell that smell it reminds me of sitting there drawing pictures to pass the time while Mom tried to sell her wares.

If there was something iconic about Mom, it was her hair. Dad would tell me stories about how long, thick and dark Mom’s hair was when he met her in high school. I remember thinking “how could that be?” For as long as I have been around Mom has sported a wig and she has pretty much looked the same for ALL OF MY LIFE. The story goes that sometime way back when, someone got the idea that maybe Mom could do more with her hair if there wasn’t so much of it and so her mother – my Nana – one day did something to thin out my Mom’s luxurious mane of hair. My guess is that the plan backfired and whatever Mom was left with wasn’t what she wanted the rest of the world to see so she hid it beneath a wig. Mom was meticulously private when it came to her wigs and we not only didn’t speak of the wigs but not a single one of us was allowed in the room when she groomed her hair.

I can admit now – probably because she is gone and I won’t get a chickpot pie in the face in retaliation – I did sneak a peek a few times when I was a kid. Sorry, Mom.

When Mom had her stroke in 2010 and things got more difficult for her to do, I became Mom’s hairdresser. I know it was very difficult for her to allow me to see her this way. And I must have looked like Luke Skywalker when he took off Darth Vader’s mask the first time I removed her wig. This single daily act of service that I provided Mom is my favorite memory. Mom trusted me to brush what was left of her hair – and it really wasn’t that bad. But I get why she hid it. What was left was a mere reminder of what once was – she still had, even into her 70s dark strands peppered with gray. It was long and thinner but it provided me a glimpse of the girl she that she still was – spunky and fiercely opinionated.

Styling Mom’s wig was a challenge. I could never quite get it how she could get it and I am amazed at how she was able to turn what showed up in a box on our doorstep into what eventually lay on her head. I would style it very much how one would mold clay. And towards the end, I think she cared less and less with how it looked. She just enjoyed the looks of frustration on my face and my reactions when I would come home from a trip and see the state her hair was in. I would ask in horror, “WHAT did you do to your hair?” She would just laugh. And I think that is the best way to deal with what you can’t control – find the humor in it and laugh.

When I think about all these things and other memories that have come flooding back, I can say with certainty that Mom AWESOMED THE CRAP out of me. She is my role model in every way. If my own daughter can look back on my life one day with the same reflection that I look at my mother’s life, then I know I did ok. And I will have Mom to thank for that.

Describing Nana

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If I had to describe my Nana in one word it would be “spunky”. She was full of spirit and passion and something I see so much in my sister, Amy. She was a great example of showing us how to be proud of who we are and standing up for ourselves.

When I was little I remember visiting the old Concord house and seeing the “white room”. I was always in awe over its perfection with its perfect vacuum lines. As a little girl I was itching to go mess them up. Now as an adult I find no better satisfaction then to see those vacuum lines on my own floors.

Just because she had a room that was off limits, except for special visits and occasions, doesn’t mean going to Nana and Granddads was a “you must act proper” experience. She let our imaginations grow and we were able to play to our hearts content. They were just fine with epic lightsaber battles taking place upstairs.

Nana didn’t just give me a love of vacuum lines but between her and my mom I found my love of cooking. I loved going to Nana’s to make or eat, whichever was fine with me, her famous Nana fudge. I loved sitting around her counter, getting out the kitchen aid mixer, and making sweet treats. It’s a memory I have started passing down to my own children. The fudge is not just fudge, its Nana’s Famous Fudge in our house. Nana made holidays and family gatherings important and loved having the family around her.

As we grew to be teenagers, Nana was never afraid to tell us when we were getting out of line or when our latest hair style was not her favorite. She had her opinions and she was never afraid to let us hear them, and we loved her for that. Nana and Granddad always made us feel special and cheered us on, whether it was my sister Darcy, and her writing, Amy in her athletics, or me, in my music, they were always there to tell us how proud they were.

I secretly kept every note and letter I have from them for birthdays or just because, they always meant so much to me. I love looking at Nana’s handwriting and silly pictures she drew on my cards.

I loved following the stories nana found on her genealogy hunt and am so grateful to be a part of that history. Walking into the temple and doing family names always had so much more meaning to me. I was so grateful for those experiences.

During my last visit with Nana she said, “Are all of these people here for me?” The answer is yes, Nana. Yes, they are all there for you, to love and thank you for finding them. She created a beautiful family legacy here on earth, but in heaven, it’s because of her that our family can be eternal.