Gratitude Day #26 - 2018 - Our Ancestors

Gratitude Day #26

Today I am grateful for my ancestors.

As a genealogist, it would not be fitting if I didn't express love and appreciation and gratitude for those in my family who came together to create me...and Mr. Kerry, too.

Kerry's family history is one that is just as interesting to me as my own. His great-grandfather was a stubborn Dane who resisted the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for seven years.

He eventually joined the church, and through much hardship brought his family across the ocean on the Monarch of the Sea. Other Scandinavian families were on the same ship, which landed at Castle Garden. As the cross the country, they could hear the cannon and gunfire of the Civil War i 1862.

When they arrived at Winter Quarters (near Omaha, NE), the family, along with his other Scandinavian ancestors, cross the plains with the handcart companies. When they arrived in Salt Lake City, they were then sent on to Sanpete Co., UT.

A few years after arriving in Utah, he was gored to death by a bull, and is buried in Moroni, Sanpete, UT.

I have no courage. Kerry is standing beside a replica of a handcart in the photos below. I can't imagine walking the entire way when I whine in an air conditioned Jeep with rubber tires and a windshield.

I will forever be grateful for the sacrifice of his family for building up the LDS Church in the west, and for creating a legacy that filters right on down to Kerry.

Kerry's mother's side has strong ties in Arkansas. We recently came through Eureka Springs, and were simply astounded at its beauty! The family left that area for Utah in a car with their ten children. They kept having flat tires, so they stopped in Denver, got rid of the car, and every one who was able went to work to earn money to travel on. They took a train, which ended in Escalante, UT. They couldn't go further because that's as far as the tracks went.

Again, I can't even imagine. Ten children in a car that kept breaking down.

My own family doesn't have a history in the LDS Church. Well, there are a few fragments that have ended up in the Mormon Battalion when I lost track of them in Tennessee. I have received hints that led me to their service in the Mexican-American War, and to being in Nauvoo, IL during the early days of the Church.

But, none of these were direct line ancestors. They were shirttails.

In our genealogy travels, I have:
1. Stood by the gravestones of a mother and her twin girls who died just days apart. This was in July 1861, when her husband had just left for the War two months earlier. There were nine other children left behind.

2. Gazed for into the distance of the Great Plains at the pathway Kerry's family would have walked.

3. Huffed and puffed up a hill in Virginia to view the grave of one of my grandfathers who was a Revolutionary War soldier. I honestly don't know how in the world they would have gotten his casket up that hill.

4. Walked up and down the rows of one of our family cemeteries viewing the many, many graves of loved ones, mostly babies, lost during the Flu Pandemic of 1918. Seven of those babies belonged to my grandmother's sisters. Four of them belonged to my grandmother.

5. Viewed the magnificent beauty of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, wondering why my people left it to go westward into Kentucky.

6. Perused documents that showed quite scandalous activities, which included adultery, adultery, and yes...adultery.

7. Astonished my own self looking at how the wealth of one of my family lines diminished into pure poverty within two generations...because they didn't/couldn't pay the taxes on the land. They became so poor they had to farm their children out.

8. Collected in reverent awe as many records as I can of men and women who served in the military in my family. That will be in another post.

9. Ran my hands along the cabin of a house my grandfather built with his own hands. It no longer stands, but a snippet of it is shown below.

10. Followed record after record of the births in a county where a great-grandmother of mine was the midwife.

I will never be done. I am amazed at the hardships they had, and the pure character it must have taken to continue on when things were tough.

I suppose I don't always have the compassion I should have when people talk about anxiety. It may be for the following reasons.

1. My parents were married in 1932 - the Depression was in full swing. They began their lives with $7 and a hog. They butchered one each year to get through the winter months. It's the way things worked...until a pack of wild dogs killed the hog they were going to feed their family that winter. They had to come up with Plan B. There was no time for anxiety.

2. My dad was the only one in the coal camp called up to serve in World War II. It left mom and my three sisters to fend for themselves while dad was sent to Pearl Harbor. Mom girded up her loins and figured out what they would need to do. There was no time to crawl under a blanket and shut out the world. She was the world to her three little girls.

So, if I remain silent as people may talk about those issues, accept my apologies. I'm working with my ancestors who had to find a way.

And, I'm grateful that they did.

Peter Lauritzen, who joined the LDS Church in Denmark and brought his family to settle in Utah.