Many friends and family members have encouraged me over the years to write down the stories of my youth in recollection of the stories of my Great Grandparents and Grandparents from over 40 years ago around the nightly campfires. In a simpler time, we used to gather for family reunions in Colorado as it was in "the middle" for travel by the far flungs families in Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Denver. We would usually go around the Fourth of July at the heighth of the glorious Rocky Mountain summers when everyone could spend a week together at some out of the place high mountain lake.
All the family tents were pitched and sleeping pallets, quilts and pillows were laid out symetrically around the firepit for the cool Colorado mountain nights. This was the way we had done it for generations. It was magical for a 9 year old. Since I was the oldest of the oldest grandson of the oldest sons and daughters. I knew all eight of my Great- Grandparents well. I remember their faces and their voices telling stories of when they were kids. I was amazed, even as a kid, how my 70 year old Great Grandparents would sleep on the cold hard ground in sleeping bags in a tent.
It is my great pleasure to recount those stories tonight and share them with you in my sporadic commitment to Western geneology from an oral tradition.
I dedicate these stories to the courageous and untold Mormon settlers from whom I descend.
Every morning and evening we built a giant bonfire. Later when the fire died down and the "cooking coals" were raked to the sides, cast iron dutch ovens, skillets and griddles would come out for breakfast and the evening supper. That was always a scene-- feeding 75 people. As a large Mormon family, we knew the meaning of cooperation and teamwork to get that job done. There were lots of chores and helpers to fetch wood and water and get all the dishes and silverware ready and washed and dried.
We had to eat in shifts because we could only cook 10 flakjaps or hamburgers at once. Why does everything taste better and one seems hungrier in the high mountain air? Maybe the senses all are heightened in a primal pristine natural setting. I dunno.
The real treat of the evening was when my Great-Grandparents would succomb to the orchestrated pleadings of "tell us some of the pioneer stories from when you were kids". Many of us numerous Grandchildren loved the traditional cornball ghost stories while we roasted marshmallows in the coals; but the pioneer stories were the best. Even at 9 years old, I knew I had better settle down and listen closely...I was hearing it first hand about the olden pioneer days.
In my last diary, I wrote about John D. Lee and his participation in the now infamous Mountain Meadow Massacre as told by my Grandmother. After he was executed in 1877 by firing squad, he was survived by 19 wives and 64 children. I descend from Rachel Andora Woolsey Lee. She was my Great Great great Grandmother. (My Great grandmother's, grandmother as pictured below) She lived with her seven children and 3 other sister wives in a settlement called Lee's Ferry, Arizona. They lived a harsh, lonely existence at Lee's Ferry. Those years were, for them, some of the most agonizing and tragic of any experienced by early Mormon pioneers settling the West. Life there at the ferry was one continual struggle with the natural world on the Colorado River. In a land where there was little of either plant or animal life, it was extremely difficult for a family to survive. Hardest of all were the long, empty times when for months they would see no other human beings.
In 1872 the administration of the Mormon Church decided to push hard to colonize Arizona and asked Lee to operate a ferry across the Colorado. They offered substantial help in that major project, sending out "Uncle Tommy" Smith to superintend the boat building. With Lee's cooperation, the ferry boat was completed and dedicated on January 11, 1873. By the first of February an exploring party reached the river. Many pioneers crossed on the ferry, both going to and returning from Arizona. That was a dry year, so many of the water holes on the Arizona side of the Colorado River were dry and most of the people sent to establish colonies were forced to return because of drought. Lee's Ferry was the only way to cross the Colorado river from Moab, Utah to Needles, California. The Navaho people were concerned about this influx of white settlers across their lands. They knew it was the ferry that was bringing all the Mormon pioneers. There are great stories of dealing with the Navahos, Paiutes and Apaches. I shall save them for another time.
It was during this period that Grandpa Lee became desperately ill while hiding from the federal authorities down on Navaho lands to the south and unable to take care of his basic needs for a time. One of the great stories in our family oral folklores, as described in verse in his diary, Grandpa Lee asked a little bird to fly swiftly to his home miles away and tell his wife to come to his aid. Rachel, in her little house near the ferry, noticed a small bird behaving in a most peculiar manner, excited and apparently trying to attract her attention. After observing the bird for a time, Rachel decided that this was a message that her husband needed her. Packing food and medicine on her horse, she left without delay to ride to her husband. That is one of the priceless traditional oral histories of the Lee family.
As a 9 nine year old boy, I remember the silent weeping that would overcome the adults under those starry skies as they recalled the tradgedies of the times. My Grandmothers would break out in traditional Mormon pioneer songs and as a family we would sing together around the campfire. After all these years, I too remember the words and melodies:
Come, come, ye Saints, no toil or labor fear;
But with joy... wend your way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.
'Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive;
Do this and joy your hearts will swell —
All is well! All is well!
Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?
'Tis not so; all is right.
Why should we think to earn a great reward
If we now shun the fight?
Gird up your loins; fresh courage take.
Our God will never us forsake;
And soon we'll have this tale to tell —
All is well! All is well!
We'll find the place which God for us prepared,
Far away in the West.
Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid;
There the Saints will be blessed.
We'll make the air with music ring,
Shout praises to our God and King;
Above the rest these words we'll tell —
All is well! All is well!
And should we die before our journey's through,
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the Saints their rest obtain;
Oh, how we'll make this chorus swell —
All is well! All is well!
Even now I openly weep too, as I remember and write about all their sweet voices and tender hearts as they too remembered long ago the pain, shame and happiness of their childhoods in the wilderness of the American West.
The faith, determination, zealotry and superstitions that sustained their devotion to Church and family then; is a foundation of the conservative Mormon Empire that influences politics in the Western states of the Rocky Mountains even today. I cannot understand how issues like protecting the environment, peace, economic cooperation, social justice, immigration and discrimination can fall so deaf upon the Mormon people today to support Bush/Cheney/Romney Republicanism. Harry Reid I can understand.
Hopefully, we as a community can gain a sense of history, family, economy and perspective through the oral histories of the many clans of the Intermountain West.
Maybe someday soon, even the Mormons will awake to their progressive Christian roots of love, peace, diversity, education and tolerance.