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| A wallhanging quilt I made for the sesquicentennial (150 years) celebration of the Mormon pioneers first arriving in the Salt Lake valley in 1847 (the top corner squares). Also a tribute to Ella's family who emigrated from Scotland to America in 1949 (the bottom corner squares). (Click to enlarge.) |
When we talk about pioneers, we typically think of covered wagons and handcarts and trekking west across the American frontier. But I think of Ella and her parents, pioneers who left their homeland and family to settle in an unknown-to-them territory.
Ella LOVED Pioneer Day, July 24, which commemorates the arrival of the first Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Her love for pioneers started in her youth, as her family would gather together around their piano and sing Come, Come, Ye Saints, and they would hope, and dream, and plan for the day when they would join with other members of their faith in America.
Here are some thoughts that Ella shared in a talk she gave to her church congregation in Long Beach, California, in the 1960s. See the full scan of her original talk, below.
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My parents joined the church before I was born and I think the missionaries must have had a tough time with them as it took them a year before they accepted the gospel and were ready for baptism.
At that time it was the hopes and goals of all [Latter-day] Saints to emigrate to Zion and so my parents started saving and in 1939 the ball got rolling for us to come to this country. But as you know the world was very unsettled at that time and Britain declared war in September of 1939, and our hopes were dashed. One of the missionaries who helped convert my parents was to be our sponsor and he offered to take care of my sister and I until our parents could join us after the war -- as they had Red Cross ships sailing to America with children, but my parents declined the offer and I am so happy about that as I was only 5 years old at the time and I wouldn't have remembered Scotland or appreciated it as I do today.
Once war was declared all missionaries were called home. My father was made Branch President and during all of the war we only had two active families, [but] we held Sacrament meeting every Sunday evening and my father and the other Priesthood holder would take turns conducting, blessing and passing of the Sacrament and giving talks.
We feel that we were blessed greatly, because although bombs dropped close to us and bullets hit our house no harm came to us or the other members of the branch. My father worked in the shipyards and had many close call[s] both from bombs and having to come off the ships and ride his bicycle home often late at night in complete darkness as we had total blackouts, and in Scotland the nights in the wintertime are very, very dark. But as a child I can truthfully say that I felt my parents trust in the Lord and never felt fear and knew that we were in His keeping.
During the latter part of the war my mother started working diligently on her genealogy and was able to collect a great deal of names and was able to even get into [m]onasteries where a great deal of records are kept and [up to] that time had been inaccessible. So having to stay behind in 1939 had indeed been in blessing in disguise.
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The years went by and our thought once again turned to Zion. My mother played the piano and her favorite [song] was Come, Come, Ye Saints --- and she would gather us around the piano and say, "[Come on learn this son[g] as we can't go to America if we aren't able to sing this.["] I guess she thought it was a [p]assword to get in, but sincerely it is a very special song for me, although my parents were not early pioneers, they did have to give up everything they had to come to this country and start [over] which isn't exactly the easiest task when you're in your forties.
So in 1949 our plans gelled once again, many letters were sent back and forth. Our visas and passports were procured after having medicals and interviews with the American Consul.
On Friday, May 13, 1949, we sailed from our homeland and loved ones to a new Frontier. [A] land full of dreams and expectations, and we were not disappointed as life had been good to us and my parents have been repaid many times over for their faith in the Lord.
I want to say how thankful I am for the missionaries who brought the Gospel to my parents and how doubly thankful I am that I can claim a double heritage, Scottish by birth and American by choice. Brothers and Sisters let us be thankful for this promised land and for our precious freedom that we can worship and live as we choose.
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Although I have grown up as and am an actively practicing Mormon, I am in awe, and humbled, by the sacrifices our ancestors made, to more fully live what they believe.
Selling virtually all that they owned and traveling essentially with the clothes on their back, they waved goodbye to family as they boarded the train that took them to the ship harbor. Grandma was now 15 years old. The journey was so expensive and they had saved for so many years, they didn’t know if they’d ever return to their homeland. These were one-way tickets.
America didn’t necessarily offer them greener pastures, either literally (they settled in Arizona, after all) or figuratively: It’s no small task to start a new life from scratch. And they were sometimes ridiculed for their accent, and treated as second class citizens.
Why did they do all this? I think about this often. The conclusion that I’ve come to is that I believe they had a vision of the future, of how their sacrifices would benefit generations to come. We are now standing on their shoulders.
We have that same blood coursing through our veins. And we can tap into that same strength and determination. We too can trust in God, and that he has a plan for our lives and he will direct us as we seek to know that plan. We can have courage in the face of hardships, as we ourselves face oceans and continents that separate us from our final destinations, and as we may sometimes find ourselves as strangers in a strange land.
We too can do great things, GREAT THINGS, that will influence, for good, generations to come.
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