On this beautiful Pioneer Day I would like to share a post written by my Dad.
Here you go!
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On Pioneers and Pilgrims
“Of logs we built our houses, of shakes we made the doors, of sod we
made the chimneys, dirt we had for floors.” Joel William White wrote
that in his journal. He was my wife’s 2nd great grandfather and one of
the early pioneers. Another one stated that; “We swept our dirt floors
with a sage brush and when we were done we threw it in the fireplace
to heat our home.”
On the 24th of July, we will again be celebrating ‘Pioneer Days’ with
a parade, rodeo and fireworks; it is primarily a Utah holiday and
rightly so. That is the day, in 1847, that our first Utah pioneer
forefathers drove their covered wagons down into the Salt Lake Valley
after a thousand mile trek across the dusty plains. They had been
driven out of their homes in Illinois because of religious
persecution. They came here looking for peace and safety from the
intolerance of the, so-called, civilized areas of our then young
nation. A nation that had recently instituted a constitution that
guaranteed religious freedom.
Each year on this celebration day, do our minds ever leave the
parade, the rodeo and the fireworks long enough to contemplate what
those early pioneers went through to get here? Do we try to
understand, on that day, the 24th, the many things they had to do in
August, September and October in order to survive their first year.
They had to plant crops late in the summer so they would have food to
eat through the coming winter or they would actually starve to death?
For them, it wasn’t a matter of, well, if the corn doesn’t mature
we’ll have to run down to Albertsons and buy some. Theirs was a matter
of, if the corn doesn’t mature we won’t have any. It was a very
difficult life for them; unlike us, they had very few choices in terms
of what they could do. And when you don’t have choices, what you have
to do must be done with energy, hope and a prayer in your heart that
it will be a successful effort. One interesting way of trying to put
ourselves back then was stated by an unknown author this way; “If we
were put back in that time we would not be ourselves.” We would be put
into an entirely different dimension, a dimension not unlike the
popular TV series of several years ago, called the ‘Twilight zone’.
Some of the first settlers made a pilgrimage to this country from
Europe where they were persecuted for their religious beliefs. They,
too, struggled to prepare for their first Winter and many did not make
it. They were referred to as Pilgrims. The early Latter Day
Saints,also made a pilgrimage to the Salt Lake Valley and for the same
reason, religious persecution. They, too, arrived at an awkward time
of year and they, too, could be referred to as pilgrims.
When I was a young person, I read, “Pilgrim’s Progress”, a story about
Christian, a young man who supposedly was representing all Christians.
While venturing through life he ran into one moral obstacle after
another, each having to be overcome, before he could move on toward
his goal of eternal life. From that perspective we are all pilgrims
with the same challenges.
Those of us who have embarked on a search for our ancestral families,
are also pilgrims. We are often required to seek information from
distant lands. Like a quest, seeking old records, from places, and
languages that we may have had no previous experience with. Searching
here and there for clues that will lead us to a name, a place, a time,
with the hopes that to find one ancestor we will be lead to another.
Do we not wander through time and to new places, even cyberspace. We
are truly pilgrims. We, too, are on a sacred quest with a prayer in
our hearts that we might weather the storms of failure until we find
success. -Emil
