This day, July 24th, is a special, commemorated day for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to which I belong. It has been celebrated since 1847, the year, date that those first pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley after hard months of travel across the western part of the United States. Persecution drove those families out of their homes in Nauvoo, IL after the martyrdom of their prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr.
I don't have ancestral connections with those early settlers of Utah. In fact, it was more than 100 years later that I even became aware of anything connected with them. I do honor and respect, admire what they did and continue to be amazed at their strength and faith that carried them through the trials they experienced. Diseases, malaria, cholera, lack of funds to move one more part of the distance, the early snows of Wyoming, crossing rivers, giving birth, death, etc. And once to the valley they were seeking, it was a wilderness : sagebrush, mesquite, and the shores of the Great Salt Lake. It all took courage, grit, and faith.
But I do feel a closeness to my own ancestors, pioneers in their own right. From the Puritan and Quaker families of the 1600's, to their descendants who made their way westward through passing decades, settling along the way, living lives that were not easy, but pushing on, forging ahead. I have pictures of some of them. Others arrived in the US around the turn of the 20th century from Sweden and England, looking to improve their lives. More courage and grit.
I am grateful for these ancestors, and that they felt the pull of coming to this new land, and later to this country. Leaving behind homes, family, comfort for the unknown. Some came alone, or struck out on their own once established within a community to find their way again, among strangers, in lonely places. It is the way of life, of progress, development, individually and with others.
