Today is a big day for Utahns, as big as the Fourth of July in the rest of the country. We missed the parade this morning because we had a very sick little Sam on our hands (more to come about this; I took him to a natural healer and am so excited to share the experience!). But, since Clayton actually has pioneer ancestors that passed this way, here are some thoughts from him. (The picture above is of my ancestors that settled in Maine.)
July 24 1847 is the day that the first Mormon pioneers arrived in theSalt Lake Valley. Many companies of wayworn handcart emigrants, about seventy thousand in all would follow over the next decades. Eventually they would arrive by train. I had ancestors who came both ways. I revere them for their courage to leave their homelands to gather with the saints. It is a miracle that they made it at all. They buried children, spouses and good friends along the way, worn out and starving. They traveled one thousand three hundred miles on foot with only a few posessions, up mountains and down mountains, over plains, through rivers. They sang songs and danced in the evenings in spite of the cruel journey “..thus merrily on our way we go until we reach the valley,O!” They sang sobering songs too:“Come, Come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way...”
I get really tearful when I look at what they accomplished, these people who gathered from all over the world. I look at the City of Salt Lake with pride. Evidence of their industriousness surprises me around every corner. The Pioneers transformed what was a desert into a shining green city and a beautiful place to live. Driving through quiet streets, marveling at the granite spires of he Temple they built, peeking into beautifully kept homes, in the careful plan of the city, I still see the fingerprints of those first pioneers.
