Westover Family Ranch
Jeff Westover

Revelations from a Trip to Rexburg

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I just returned from a visit to the Westover Family Ranch in Rexburg, Idaho. I was there to attend a board meeting of the ranch. I learned a great deal.

I must confess that my own personal time spent at the ranch has been limited. As a child I heard much about the ranch. But it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I attended a family event there.

After the business of the board was done I attended a nice family meeting and then began a short period of visiting. During the course of the morning I heard many stories I had not heard before — stories of my uncles and my grandfather, all of who had a hand in building the facilities there at the ranch and all who sacrificed much more than just money in bringing the thing about.

As I heard these stories I was impressed with the need to record them. There is so much of our recent family history of the past 100 years sewn within the walls of the Westover Family Ranch yet they reside only in the memories of those who tell them. It is a great history, one we should all know and celebrate.

My feelings about the ranch have always been ambivalent. After all, I did not grow up there and because I have not attended all the many reunions held there, I have not had much invested in it. It has been, in my mind, just a plot of dirt in Idaho.

I have been wrong about my feelings.

I should have been more interested. I should have attended some of those events when it was in my power to do so. I should have been more faithful to the idea that it is a place prepared for me by family members for sacred purposes.

This weekend I learned the two purposes of the ranch are to regularly gather the family and to preserve the history of the family.

That is nothing to be ambivalent about. In fact, sitting where I am now in my life, I am inspired by how visionary my grandfather and uncles were in their efforts.

How can I become a better part of the ranch and it’s mission?

The actual history of the ranch dates back to the 1880s and the founding of Rexburg. Back then it was the homestead of the William and Ruth Westover family.

When William and Ruth passed away in the early 20th century the ranch land passed through a few hands but a portion of it was always kept within the family. Later generations worked to continue a family presence there and to build the Westover Family Ranch, as it is now known, in the 1970s.

Next year, 2019, the Westover Family Ranch celebrates 40 years.

I believe between now and next summer much can be done to celebrate that accomplishment and to make a record of its impact on the modern history of the Westover family.

Can you and will you help? I am specifically looking to interview those with an intimate knowledge of how the ranch effort came together in the 1960s and 1970s. I want to collect the stories of those who worked on it and to learn the details of what transpired in building the ranch. Please contact me.

I would like to collect photos, films, and documents relative to the ranch.

I would like to prepare and archive all of this information both here on this site and then to present it at reunions scheduled to be held by various branches of the family in 2019 and 2020.

My quick day trip to Rexburg also revealed some sad facts to me:

1. I don’t know as many members of the family as I should and they do not know me. That is not good.
2. While many members of the family appreciate our history they do not know it.

Those things fall to me. I can and I will do something about it.

I hope those who read these pages will join me in the efforts of celebrating better the Westover Family Ranch and participating in what happens there. I hope to see a recommitment to the ideals set forth by those who pounded nails, made plans, contributed money, time and great effort to build the ranch and make it what it is for us today.

I hope to expand the understanding of why that piece of dirt in Idaho matters. I believe it to be a place where every one of the descendants of William and Ruth Westover should visit and participate in events there.

I learned that what is there at the ranch is not all that the generation of my grandparents intended. They wanted it to be more. They wanted to include a building that would specifically archive the family’s history and provide a place for it to be taught.

I believe that our generation could and should make that happen. I believe taking the ranch to the next level – well, really, to fulfill what was originally intended – is something we owe to those who came before and to our children and grandchildren here after.

If they could pull it off, we can pull it off – and we should.

If you have been ambivalent about the ranch, please join me in making a commitment to no longer feeling that way. Turn your heart.

Miracles have and are happening there and that is for a reason. They are every bit as important as the miracles we have experienced relative to our work family history. They belong together and we need those miracles in our lives.

Jeff Westover

The Value of One Personal History

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When I got up in the middle of the night last night to, apparently, stub my toe (mission accomplished) and get a drink of water, I decided for some reason to jump on my computer for “just a minute” to take a look at Family Search. (Nobody but me seems to understand this habit). I figured I’d be back to bed within 60 seconds.

Two hours later I crawled back into bed for a brief nap before having to get up again for work.

I stumbled upon a file cousin Paul Westover recently uploaded featuring the personal history of his grandfather and my great uncle, Darrell Westover.

I had never seen it before and I’ve downloaded to archive here on Westover Family History. (In Documents in the menu above)

Here are three things I take away from Darrell’s personal history:

1. One life record is actually a record of many people
2. Stories you’ve heard in the past are forgotten unless they are written down
3. A personal history does not have to be exciting to be interesting

The want of personal records from our ancestors has grown to be my fondest wish in my family history efforts. Using government and church records to mine the dry data of genealogy is fine but to me that’s not really history.

History is passion. History is reactions to real situations. History is thought, and mistakes, and judgments and bit-playing on a larger world stage. History, especially as it relates to family, is the expression of love and hope through life remembered.

We have so few personal histories. We need many more.

I would offer up my Uncle Darrell’s record as a great example of how it is easily done.

What is written is offered up much as Darrell spoke. He did not, it seems to me, bother himself too much with style or organization. In fact, knowing him as well as I did, reading his personal history seemed like sitting down with him to talk.

Darrell was a great storyteller. His use of humor and candor was fairly normal for him. His history reflects these facts.

I found myself greatly involved in his telling of his early life in Rexburg. I had heard many of these stories before, many of them as I was growing up. But to read them now in context with the entire family story now residing in my head after all the work of these past several years in family history provides for me color, zest and gap-filling context in not only his story but also in the stories of others in the family.

If you read Darrell’s history be prepared to learn a lot more about others. His detail will make the names and dates of those who he mentions who have passed on become more real.

I especially appreciate the details he provides of his parents – folks I was just too young to know or who had passed on before I was born.

I also so greatly appreciate having some familiar stories written down by Darrell himself. I would much rather read the stories in his words than tell them in mine. His story, for example, of being taken to the girl’s bathroom to address an injury as a 7-year-old school boy is a classic and while it is easy to imagine such a horror for any young boy to hear Darrell explain it is far better than coming from anyone else.

It is also important to note that Darrell Westover led an everyman kind of life. He hasn’t gone down in history as a maker of world events or a figure on the global stage. He was just like the rest of us. Yet he was like none of us — a man of greatness so few get to meet.

His personal history is an interesting read. I started it from a groggy sleep and completed it a few hours later with great interest.

What makes it so powerful, of course, is that I love him. I love the people he talks about. His life was one of example to me and he will forever be an inspiration not only to me but to so many others in the family.

Darrell also provides a glimpse of how just a small effort in recording a personal history can be beneficial.

He’s gone now. He will never write any more than what he has left behind. Perhaps Evie or Kirk or Paul have other things that will come out in the years ahead, I don’t know. But if this is all there is I would tell you it is enough.

It is far more than we have of so many countless others in our history. In just 35 pages it reveals a great deal of history on others in the family we otherwise would not have.

My uncle Darrell was a busy man. He was a school teacher. He was a builder. He was heavily active in the church and, of course, with his family. Yet he found time to put his personal thoughts down for us.

That’s a marvel to me. As I read what he wrote I thought of so many things, especially the times he invested in me. There are far more than I can possibly chronicle here. I’ve mentioned a few of them in the past but let me share another memory of him.

This comes from the year 1977 or 1978 – the years in which he was building the home we would live in across the street from him there in Concord. I was a teenager, charged with being there daily during the summer months to help out in whatever way I could.

Darrell did not spare me the assignments. He would send me off on this project or that while tasking others with things that would move the construction of the house along. Then he would set to work on the largest task himself. I recall many a hot summer day when we began early and worked late.

One of my roles was to help him clean up and put away tools at the end of the day. I marveled at how much water he could put away in a day and how much of that water would fall off his brow in the form of sweat all day long. Darrell was a worker and he never knocked off before anyone else. I can recall trying to keep up with him as he hauled in the heaviest tools himself at the end of the day.

One day, nearer the end of the project, he was hanging the double doors that would be part of my parents’ bedroom. This was not a project that was difficult but he saw the doors as important and he wanted the job done right. It was also at the end of the day and he and I were the last ones there, as was sometimes the case.

In those moments when it was just the two of us and he was working in a slow and careful manner we would talk. Sometimes we would talk about the job but often he would talk about the family, perhaps a story from his youth or some other member of the family. Sometimes there was a point he was trying to make. He mentored me and I was a willing student.

He measured and trimmed one door, using the table saw he had moved into the house for some of the finer finish work. As he worked on the first door he talked to me about the construction adage of “measure twice, cut once”.

This lesson gave Darrell a lot to talk about. He expounded on the idea that measuring is kind of like setting goals, making a plan and having a proper target to pursue. He added the importance of making such plans a matter of prayer. He talked on and on about how you can learn a lot about life through the simple of things like building a house.

As he hung the first door, he continued the lesson.

Sometimes, he said, things don’t go as planned. And you have to react. Other times, things go wrong you cannot control. But most of the time, if there is a mess up, it is because you made a mistake somewhere and you just have to own those moments.

He put the second door on table saw, and started to trim it along one edge, taking a little less than a quarter inch off its length. As he did so I saw his eyes widen about halfway through the cut and he hesitated for just a slight moment. The saw also hesitated and somehow I knew something was wrong.

But he finished the rest of the cut in one fluid, steady motion.

When he finished he stood there for a second looking at what he had done. He looked at the other door. He look down at the door he just cut. Then he just shook his head.

“I measured twice,” he said. “Good plan. But I cut the wrong end of the door. Talking too much. Bad execution.”

He shook his head again and set up two saw horses. He laid the door down and clamped it tight on the saw horses. Then he took the piece he cut off and fetching some finishing nails from his apron he nailed the piece he had just cut back in place.

I was amazed how his big hands would do such delicate work. His hammer swung in frustration, and I watched him sink four nails in that thin piece of wood, striking each only twice. When he finished you could not tell the cut had been made.

But he ran his hand over it, feeling the edge on either side of the door. “Every time I see this door in the years to come I’m going to think about that cut,” he said.

He told me I would be the one who sanded and painted that door. It would be my job to make sure nobody could see the mistake.

Then he flipped the door back on to the table saw and trimmed the correct end. Then he hung the door, looking up at the top of the door where the mended piece just throbbed at him. He shook his head one last time.

Days later I did sand down that door and weeks after that, I painted it.

To my amazement, there was absolutely no evidence of a mistake and I would bet, if that door is still in that house, you couldn’t tell it still.

I can recall months later, long after we had finished and moved into the house, he was showing the house to someone. We walked past the bedroom doors and he just quickly looked up at the top of door and then shot a look at me.

Then he smiled. “Laddy,” he winked. “That door is almost perfect. The paint was really well done.”

Darrell, to me, was a master teacher. His many lessons endure in my mind to this day.

So many of them are reflected in his personal history.

It has, in the course now of just 24 hours, become as big a treasure to me as the other things we have archived here on the site.

I hope you consider adding your personal history someday. Each record we add makes the family record stronger – no matter where it comes from.

And from each we gain valuable lessons.

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.

Jeff Westover

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
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.