I know I have Grandmothers'. Great ones I love, remember and cherish. Also some I never knew. Because of their effort to leave their life's story, I know they loved me and decades later teach me by example.
They each have 'great' names, some are back in fashion like; Margaret Isabelle and Mary Eliza.
Others haven't made it all the way back yet, such as Lucy Vail and Wilhelmina Lavina. Yet these are the ones that wrote "stuff" and I'm blessed more than I can express by their writing.
Ever since hearing inspiring words from our Stake and General Conferences, and the Spirit, it is the latter two I have on my mind and carry a part of them with me.
We were counseled to "try to navigate around the 'FamilySearch' site", and I did enough to unearth some new family stories for myself, and now to share with our ever increasing collection of granddaughters.
Previously I have loved them, my ancestors, and the diligence and dedication of these who wrote down their lives.
We have in our possession a few marvelous accounts, one includes traveling on horseback to what is now "Yellowstone National Park". These accounts are written and described by relatives, detailing supplies bought, tours given, and adventuring into undeveloped back-country. We have the records of the beauty, the terrain, even including fish caught, and animals viewed and miles traveled. Trail conditions and weather.
And until I got older not many of these travelogues held my interest, at least not as much as they might. I'll just state they didn't enter my heart like these
new ones, these new-found histories and accounts have. As a woman, these had a perspective from which I can relate.
Thanks to FamilySearch, some have been published recently, even some in their own hand writing. And because of these I now know about these young girls, my Grandmothers. Their treks, travails, and trials, their making mad dashes, and even moving away from the "wicked mobs".
Seen from their point of view a part of what they saw and what they did, I give thanks to something as simple as a saved and preserved notebook.
While enjoying details like; what her friends called her and thought of her religion tells me about some of the persecution of her day. Writing what 'characteristics' she wanted in a husband, (asking the future reader to allow her that "extravagance"), and surmising that someday her children would want to know, 'did she have any beaux?' Her written interests, talents, chores, and clothing details are fascinating!
One's excellent penmanship and use of language, makes it extra fun and caused me to search a dictionary.
Reading with empathy of the death of a 2 year-old brother, described as "the pet"of the family and her explanation of the crude casket made from a hollowed out log her father crafted and carved with a lid. And her describing the final fitting of "the little treasure" in it for the burial/resting place brought tears.
They spoke of finding "love" and their companions, with humor and admiration just as we might.
I've read of a beloved husband 'taking a second wife', written with only a sentence, when I know from family group sheets this was a younger sister. Her brevity here said volumes, but what? How I wish for more...
I've also read on the family search site a few less than accurate random accounts from well meaning 'relatives', who likely haven't read these pages left by the life's author.
For their facts in their own words, I am grateful and moved. Thank you Grandmas Lucy and Wilhelmina!
So MUCH Speculation, guesstimate, summation, surmising and presumption are removed.
A am lucky enough to have a meaningful metaphor most girls only retain in their memory. This comes from a young girl's diary account of hiding out in Holland, her city Amsterdam and seeing Anne Frank's home on a self-guided tour. My experience in going through it was almost hallowed and sacred, like a 'temple experience'. Feeling such depth of emotion, and then in the final room seeing her aged father, Otto Frank, who survived her, saying poignantly and almost prophetically, he never realized what she was going through or feeling. All this about her, "he too learned too late", from the little red and white journal she kept. She had extracted a promise from him as he locked it up each night for her, he would never read it. Finally, posthumously, he did read, and later allowed it to be published. His generous sharing has given the world a legacy of the human spirit and insight into some dark days in human history. Her slice of time, though brief, gives volumes of context to the reader.
Similarly my grandmothers journal writings, have caused them to become real for me, and promise some suspended anticipation in an inkling of meeting.
They left me and other readers their footprint of living and loving, by them composing a legacy of 'enduring it well'.
Now when I 'make homemade soup' from packages of 'store bought' cut-up frozen vegetables, I see and remember them lighting fires to cook, and wash, cut, and chop. And kill and skin.
When my pantry is low, and I need to go shopping I see the days when they had nothing to eat but bread. Working with brothers to clear and hoe and plant... possessing no shoes, let alone work gloves!
Their mother's, often ill or gone, continual care of the family fell to them. They gathered, washed wool, carded and wove what they wore.
They did not have 'confidence' as the world teaches, but in using Faith and Strength their circumstances created opportunities for them to be
proved. They each received
abundance from lives filled with very similar trials. And some we also face.
Income, housing, resources, relocation, illness, death, and the ravages of war, along with a host of other challenges did not distract them from their testimony of the Lord and Savior and the blessings of the Restored Gospel.
I will build skills like them; try new and hard things, do
that which I find distasteful, pitch in, help out, and be a sister to
those in need. I still have a chance, and if they could do it, so can I!
And looming larger and greater is what I have felt from the significance of
leaving written history. "Let's Hear It for the Girls!" Let's give the girls the chance.... by doing likewise.
