Part I
...now let me tell you why you should be writing down yours.
Several years ago Pioneer Day (Utah holiday) fell on Sunday. For Relief Society (women's auxiliary meeting) we gathered in a circle around a fake campfire and listened to various women tell stories of the pioneer ancestors.
Quaint, I thought. But I like a good story as well as anyone, so I tried to listen attentively. Except it was so hot I started to have a difficult time staying awake. All of a sudden I was startled from my reverie when one of the stories started to sound very familiar. "What a minute," I thought, as one woman read about Henry Chariton Jacobs being born on the banks of the Chariton River. "That's my pioneer story."
Suddenly I couldn't wait for the meeting to end. "How does she know this story I had heard so many times from my grandfather?" I wondered of Charlotte Loveless, whom I had met a few times but didn't know well at all.
After the meeting was over I could barely contain myself. I made my way excitedly toward my suspected "cousin." Turns out that during the years since we had moved into the neighborhood my very own kin lived right around the corner from me. Henry was great grandfather to both of us! Her family came from Henry's first wife, while mine came from the wife he married after his first wife died.
Moral of the story: Family stories are important! They need to be recorded and handed down. Had either one of us never heard the story--or even not heard it often enough to become familiar with it--the connection from past to present would've been missed entirely.
Part II
...why I love reading someone else's story
For some reason this year Pioneer Day got personal for me. I have been rereading excerpts from the book "The Four Zinas" by Martha Sonntag Bradley and Mary Brown Firmage Woodward. It's the story of my great great great and my great great grandmothers--the first two of the four Zinas. The book appeals to me on many fronts, but this time I was contemplating the life of a pioneer and the dawning realization that they didn't make that trek just for themselves. They endured what they did so we could worship God freely, without persecution. That thought really wants to rock me right out of my complacency.
Here are some passages I'm still chewing on:
Zina gave birth to my great grandfather on March 22, 1846. Just two days later the wagons moved on: "Recovering from the birthing, Zina stayed in the wagon on top of their carefully packed lives."
~I am contemplating the significance of carefully packed lives...
"Many women and children had to walk as well, and Zebulon [Zina's firstborn-age 4 at that time] dramatically recalls them "wading through the mud and such, children crying of hunger and fatigue and the aged tottering ready to faint by the way, but not a word of complaint..."
As a mother I ponder what kind of faith it must have taken--not just to make myself embark on such a difficult journey, but to take my children on such a trek and to bear children along the way. How did they bear those cries of hunger?
~I am humbled by the statement not a word of complaint...
Also from Zebulon: "through all the sufferings and trials of the people, the spirit of the [Lord] was with them continually they could dance and sing as though nothing was the matter..."
~I want to learn to dance and sing as though nothing was the matter...
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6 comments:
I love that last sentence.
And as for little ones trekking along without a word of complaint...how did they do that? I took my kids for a little walk to a pond (good swimming, by the way) in the mountains yesterday (probably not 1/4 of a mile) and they whined the whole way there and most of the way back. I just don't have that pioneer touch, I guess.
cw: I want to dance and sing like that too. i think good parttners help keep the melody moving along. : )
lorien: i think we all, children and adults alike, naturally relax our attitudes in the atmosphere of safety and relative ease. it's a blessing to have the luxury to whine--i tell myself this sometimes to keep things in perspective. you may feel like you're breeding lamans and lemuels at times but if push came to shove and then to 'pull that handcart, baby', i bet you'd be surprised to find yourself surrounded by nephis. you're likely much more of a pioneer than you know.
"Carefully packed lives"...I think that defines perfectly the storage area in my basement. I love it!
I wonder, though, since the "not a word of complaint" phrase was coming from a man who was 4 when it happened, if perhaps his memory was a bit glossified. (Is that a word?) That's the cynical part of me coming out there. I've been listening to my 10-year-old complain ALL SUMMER LONG!!!! As a mother, and at this point of the summer, reading a statement like "not a word of complaint" makes me doubtful.
"The luxury to whine." Good point Geo. Actually, in the context, I took it to mean not a word of complaint from the adults. Which, in our day and age, still boggles the mind.
And Julie, the cynic in me initially thought the same thing. Except I've heard the same thing from a number of sources. I have heard references to the more valiant and the less dedicated, but it's possible that the not valiant at all didn't ever leave. It's a good thing my ancestors were much better people than I am or we'd all still be stuck in Illinois.
Lianne, I was tempted to use the phrase "Step-Grandpa Brigham" in my title to this post. Do you know I am one of the products of what has been called one of the most heartbreaking episodes in the annals of Mormon polygamy? I still think Lorien's and my great great grandmothers may have been friends. Perhaps yours too. I like to picture them all gathered around a quilt together.
I, too, have pioneer/polygamist blood flowing in my veins. I think if you're already living without air conditioning and heating, having to walk everywhere, having babies with no pharmaceutical or medical assistance, cooking over fires, and living from season to season hoping that your food isn't destroyed by Nature, you've got to be one tough lady compared to our standards. I think that in the moment it probably was incredibly difficult, but once it's over, those things subside--sort of like that last month of pregnancy-while you're in it, it miserable, but afterwards it fades into the background--we block it out because we have to.
Anyway, thanks for the reminder to get the stories in writing, and for us to get our own stories down.
My heart has recently been "turning to my fathers" and I was googling Henry Chariton Jacobs. That's when I found your blog. Say, that's my pioneer story too! I'm a grandson of Heber Grant Jacobs. Thanks for your blog, cousin(?!?).
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