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©iStockphoto.com/Eileen Hart |
By James W. Petty,
AG, CG, and Mary E. Petty
On Pioneer Day we remember, but Evelyn
Henriksen never forgets. On a given day, you can find her in a
small log cabin not much bigger than a walk-in closet in This
Is the Place Heritage Park.
"My daddy touched these logs,"
says Evelyn, running a hand gently along the wall. "I loved
my daddy so much." Evelyn, who is 83 going on 53, with a
sparkle in her eye and a 100-watt smile, is a volunteer host at
the park, but she's more than that. Her father, Phillip Pay, was
born inside these walls, the seventh of 13 children born to pioneers
Richard and Mary Goble Pay.
So begins the account of the Pay Family
Homecoming. This account, by Doug Robinson, a columnist for the
Deseret News, (see http://deseretnews.com/)
“Tiny log cabin houses family memories”) details the
efforts some 400 descendants of Philip Pay to preserve the home
of their ancestor at This Is The Place Heritage Park, in Salt Lake
City, Utah, and the resulting homecoming they experienced as a family.
This article was especially significant
to us. We too, are having a Homecoming, in 2008. We have no such
personal physical monuments or reminders of our pioneer ancestors,
as the Pay family, where we can touch the past, except for gravestones,
and some family photographs. Nevertheless, we have equally been
connected to our ancestors and have desired to share this love with
our relatives in a family reunion. Using two powerful concepts “Historical
Event Genealogy” and “Bring History Home,” we
have been working for nearly a year on a four-fold dream:
1. Find Lost Loved Ones of the Lars
and Sidse Kirsten Larsen Family — all the descendants
of their 22 grandchildren.
2. Collect and share the history,
heritage, legacy and genealogy of this family with the descendants.
3. Hold a 140th Anniversary Family
Reunion honoring Lars and Sidse’s two orphaned children,
Niels and Hans Larsen, and their walk to Utah in 1868 as members
of the last pioneer company coming into the Salt Lake Valley —
Our family’s Martin’s Cove-like Story – and
their part in the building of the Transcontinental
Railroad. "Find A Hero In Your Past” by James W.
Petty).
4. Go to Denmark and visit the ancestral
homeland with the Larsen Family.
On June 28th, 2008h we are holding
a 140th Anniversary Family Reunion at This is the Place
Heritage Park honoring Mary’s ancestors, Lars and
Sidse Larsen and their Danish immigrant family. Giving their all
to the Perpetual Emigration Fund, they sailed to America on the
Cavour in 1866 with five of their children and servants.
Most of the family died of typhoid
during the crossing or on Ward’s Island; with the father surviving
long enough to tell his young sons “to go onto Zion and finish
the work.” We are celebrating the coming to Zion of these
boys, Niels and Hans Larsen, who lived to have descendants.
They arrived in the final days of the
Pioneer Trek on September 24th, 1868, as members of the Edward Mumford
Company, the last wagon train. This special anniversary memorializes
their walk as young children to the Salt Lake Valley just before
the coming of the Transcontinental Railroad, and their contribution
to its building and to Utah.
We, too, hope to have in attendance
some 400 descendants of the 22 children of these two Utah pioneers
as we gather at the Park Bowery in 2008 to reminisce, re-enact,
share family histories, stories, genealogy, pictures, make memories
and new friends, build family ties and strengthen familial bonds,
give new generations their heritage, and make plans and dreams for
the future. We are grateful the Pays have a cabin at Heritage Park
that is historical evidence of how our ancestors lived. Our family
will go to their cabin next June. Now, we too, will touch history
with our Homecoming.
How about You?
Have you had a Homecoming with your
family? Were your ancestors “pioneers” who crossed the
plains to go to Zion — or were they settlers in some other
area of the world?
Do you have a historical event in your
past that you can use to inspire your family about their ancestors?
This is called Historical Event Genealogy. Instead of focusing only
on specific individuals in our genealogy, we can look to events
surrounding these ancestors and remember them by commemorating those
events. This will excite many family members and open their eyes
to who their ancestors were, and help them become connected to the
people and events of history. By learning the details of their personal
history and the historical events surrounding the lives of our ancestors,
we “bring history home.” We can all have a homecoming.
The year 2008 commemorates the 140th
anniversary of the last pioneer wagon trains arriving in the Great
Salt Lake Valley in 1868. In the spring of 1869 the Transcontinental
Railroad was completed with the driving of the “Golden Spike”
at Promontory Point. In 2009, Americans will celebrate the 140th
anniversary of that historical event.
With the joining of the rails
and the arrival of modern technology, the historical pioneer era
came to an end. Millions of people have family connections to that
era and the upcoming celebrations that they can use to organize
a homecoming for their family. Readers can find out about their
ancestors who crossed the plains before the completion of the railroad,
by visiting the website Mormon
Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847-1868. A
subset of the www.lds.org
website.
Here you can access lists of ancestors
through alphabetical indexes, or chronological lists of wagon train
companies. This site also provides historical accounts of each wagon
train, and citations directing researchers to original documents
that can further fill in the details of the ancestors’ history.
With this information you can choose a historical event around which
to build your family reunion.
As stated, 2008 is the 140th anniversary
of those who came in 1868, but if your pioneer forefathers arrived
in a different year, start planning now for an appropriate anniversary
gathering. 2008 is also the 160th anniversary for those who arrived
in 1848 and the 150th anniversary (Sesquicentennial) for those arriving
in 1858. These historical events can be used to teach your children
and grandchildren about “heroes” in their past who braved
the Mormon Pioneer Trail to come to Zion and make a new future for
their family.
This is called “Bringing History
Home.” Having a homecoming or holding a family reunion is
an opportunity to learn a common heritage, renew relationships,
gain new friends, share stories, link the generations, and start
new traditions. By doing these things we can create the memories
and the love that will help bind families together.
Not Just for Utah Pioneers
If your ancestors never saw Utah —
or have never visited the United States, for that matter —
don’t let that stop you from having a Homecoming. Every state
and country has its own significant events, and its own pioneers.
Your ancestors may have help settle Jamestown, Virginia, for example,
or could have been among the Dutch settlers to colonize South Africa.
Look for history in your own family tree, wherever that tree may
have taken root.
We encourage all to have homecomings.
Look into your family history and build a reunion around a historical
event associated with your family. Look for their place in history
and bring history home through the artifacts, stories, writings,
and records of your ancestry and those associated with them in their
unique place in time. Everyone on our family tree has played a special
part in the history of mankind. They are our ancestors and they
bring history home for us because “Ancestors are the People
of History.”
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© 2007 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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