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.

When the Worlds of Westovers and Smiths Collide

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My great grandfather is Arnold Westover. He married Mary Ann Smith.

Both the Westovers and Smiths have great histories. You will learn a lot more about the Smiths in an upcoming video about another Utah pioneer named Albert Smith, of Manti, Utah.

But for now I want to focus on his great grandfather, a man with one of the great names in the family, Chileab Smith.

Albert’s history speaks of his Ashfield, Massachusetts roots and the strong religious history of the family in the Baptist faith.

Chileab was the man in Ashfield, hugely influential and a founder of the Baptist church there.

When he died at the age of 93 in the year 1800 he had at that time 145 living descendants – eleven of them were Baptist ministers and ten others had married ministers – at least when they stopped counting in the 1850s.

(Just one, our Albert Smith, was once a resident of Nauvoo, a member of the Mormon Battalion, and a temple pioneer. What a rebel).

Anyway, I was reading this morning yet another history of Sheffield, Massachusetts — looking for a little new information about our Revolutionary war generations of that area.

But in reading again of the founding of Sheffield – and the contributions there made by Jonathan, Nathaniel, Jonah and John Westover – I can across the name of another area settler in the 1730s.

His name was Chileab Smith.

Could it actually be possible that the grandfathers of Arnold Westover and Mary Ann Smith were actually neighbors in settling Sheffield, Massachusetts? Could they have possibly known each other?

The answers: yes and yes.

Chileab Smith and John Westover sat on a town council together, it turns out.

But wait…there’s more: Chileab Smith married a woman named Sarah Moody.

Where have we seen that name Moody before? Well…Moody was the maiden name of Electa Beal Westover’s mother.

(You following all this?)

So…is it possible that Chileab’s wife is related to Arnold Westover’s great-great-grandmother?

I haven’t solved this one yet. Sorting through all the Sarah Moody’s in New England of the 18th century is like trying to find a Wong in a Chinese phone book.

But nothing shocks me anymore.

This is a good genealogical mystery to solve. It all hinges on who the parents of Daniel Moody are.

Who is Daniel Moody?

He’s Electa’s grandpa.

Daniel and Rebeckah Moody were parents to Rebecca Moody, who married Obadiah Beal. Electa was their sixth child.

Oh…if you’re still following along with this…here’s another mystery to solve:

Obadiah Beal was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts (say that fast) but moved at some point to northern Vermont, not far from the Canadian border.

It was there, I believe, that the Beals and the Amos Westover family came to know each other. This was around the year 1800. Alexander was born in 1798 – likely in Canada – and Electa was born in 1802 in Bristol, Vermont (not far away).

Curiously, the Beals and the Westovers somehow both next appear near each other in Ohio – in about 1810 or so.

Alexander and Electa would marry in 1823. In Ohio.

Electa had several older siblings, including a big brother named…Daniel. His full name was Daniel Moody Beal. (Named after guess who?)

Just to add to your confusion…big brother Daniel married a girl named Olive Westover. Who was Olive? She was Alexander’s little sister.

Want more?

How about this one: Amos Westover – Alexander’s Dad – married Ruth Loomis.

Her parents were Timothy Loomis and Mary Morton.

Where have we seen that name Morton before?

Well, Amos’s mother – Rachel – her maiden name was Morton.

Yep – Rachel and Mary are sisters – making Amos and Ruth first cousins.

It’s a wonder any of us were not born with six heads.

(By the way, if you want to dig into the early history of Sheffield to see the link between Chileab and John, click here). It is “Western Massachusetts, a History 1636-1925” Volume II, published in 1926.

Doyle West

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.

Ella Jensen

Our Family in the Spirit World

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Ella Jensen

Ella Jensen on her wedding day in 1895, about four years after her near death experience.

It has been something of a difficult year. This week we noted the passing of two more family members, the latest felt very keenly with my wife and her dear family. It is a tender time.

It is amazing to me how losing a loved one re-centers me.

I have found that even attending a funeral for someone who is not a family member touches me on a very fundamental level and reminds me how the things of this world pale in comparison to the eternal principles of love.

A good death, it seems, leads to a greater appreciation for living and loving better the people around me.

It is natural, in the process of mourning the loss of one so loved, to worry about where they are and if they are happy.

Those with gospel-centered teachings and a testimony of the Savior take comfort in God’s known plan. Others, whose lives have not given them access or opportunity to learn those things, may suffer more when a loved one leaves this life.

That is why I have always had a fascination with stories of “the other side”.

Long, long before my testimony strengthened in the Gospel of Jesus Christ I read and collected stories of near death experiences.

Today I again stumbled upon a story I had read before of a woman named Ella Jensen.

There are many accounts of her experience but I prefer this one, first published in 1929 while she was still alive. A shorter version can be found here.

This is an old story. Ella was nearly 20 years old when she died and was called back to life after being dead for nearly 3 hours. As with many near death experiences she tells a remarkable experience in seeing and conversing with loved ones who had preceded her in death. The detail in her story is amazing.

As I read her tale again, and contemplated it in the context of loved ones we have recently lost, it occurred to me how close Ella Jensen lived more than 100 years ago to where I am living now.

I know we have her maiden name Jensen in our Family Tree and the family historian in me couldn’t help but wonder if there was a connection. So off to Family Search I went.

I looked her up and – boom – there it was: a link to “view my relationship” with Ella Jensen. “I’ll be darned,” I thought. “We ARE family.”

I quickly scanned her tree looking for familiar names, thinking in my head this was another of my Westover connections from Northern Utah and South Eastern Idaho. But none of the names looked familiar.

So I hit the relationship link and was shocked to see I’m not related to Ella Jensen through my Westover line – it’s through my mother’s family that the distant relation dating back to the Puritans of Duxbury, Massachusetts is made. My 9th great grandmother, Mary Howland, is Ella Jensen’s 6th great grandmother. We’re cousins.

That changes the story doesn’t it? Her family is my family, just as much, I feel, as my wife’s family is my family. That being said, in context with Ella and her experience when she died, what might be the experience of this dear aunt lost this week on the other side?

For me the answers are clear. She is with family. She is with people who love her. And she is happy.

Does that lessen the sense of loss?

Good heavens, no.

It has been more than three years since I lost my Mom. I miss her more and more every day. I cannot count the times I have wept over missing her.

But at the same time, as hard as it is for me to explain, I’ve become closer to my Mother since she died.

I very firmly believe it comes from working on her family especially in these efforts of family history. This, I believe, is something I very much still hold in common with Mom.

I would give anything to have another conversation with her. I would give anything to tell her once again how much I love her.

But as Ella explained to those in her life that grieved, I feel Mother would be unhappy to know of my continued mourning.

Those moments, and they surely come, I find are more about me than about her. And by that I mean I want her back, I want her here during moments that are important to me. That makes the sting of death truly sting.

What gives me relief is that my Mother is with those she once lost – and that I too, have truly not lost anyone and never really will.

Yes, there is separation, a part of God’s plan to help us learn and grow in knowledge and in love. But those moments of separation are indeed merely moments on an eternal time line.

I will continue to be fascinated with the next life and, in a small way, live in envy of those who have already made that transition.

I know I too will someday go through it, as we all must. But it is not something I dread. In fact, I think of it with great rejoicing and give thanks to our Savior who makes such things possible.

Ella Jensen lived to tell the story. My mother, in her dying days, had moments while here with others on the other side, too. I witnessed it.

I believe it is part of the dying process and I’m convinced those we’ve lost this year all experienced the same. It is part of living, of this earth’s experience for each of us.

And in the end I think we will be surprised at all we can count as family. Whether they comes as in-laws or as distant relations like Ella, we are all family.

None Knew Them

None Knew Them But to Praise

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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.