01bd944932b4--talk-2000-by-steven-roper-about-genealogy.txt

ujckvzok —JT Skiui'V ’2-OOoJ ujoty/i/f Building upon pioneer faith to move forward that we don’t need to have pioneer ancestry to do that. I am going to tell you two stories and one will be about pioneer ancestry and the other not and we are going to see if we can build faith to move forward from either of these stories. At the end of the first story I gong to stop and shake the bishop hand and then come back and tell the second story and then I will find a way to build faith in both of them. What is pioneer faith? i am going to tell you a story about Suzannah Smith was the daughter of George Smith and Ann Hutchinson Smith she was born on March 23rd 1804 in Cambridge England. She married John William Roper on October 18, 1831 Cambridge shire England. They had five children. Suzanne’s husband John William told Suzanna that he would watch the children while she went to church, When Suzaana came back from church she found that William had left her. He remarried but soon left his second wife and small son and that is the last we heard from him Suzanna was left with small children to support she made fancy work to sell and also taught the art to others. When she heard the Gospel she join the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints and was baptized June 5th 1845 in England. On the second day of January, 1848 she was counseled to take her children and gather to the land of Zion. On the 17th of January she boarded a ship named, “Ring field” and after nine weeks and three days they landed at New Orleans. Henry said, suzanna’s third son, which is my gggreat father, “some of the folks by there actions thought that my mother had not been baptized enough”. “One night they thought they would baptize her a little more by throwing a slop bucket, full of filthy slop all over us because we were Mormons an had no one to protect us or defend us. We were the only Mormons on board. Henry washed tubs full of dirty dishes on board the ship to help pay there fare. After arriving in New Orleans they took a steamer up the river to Council Bluffs. When the arrived at Council Bluffs they live for a week in in house built of sod. Suzanna had send money ahead to buy cattle for the journey across the plains, so there were two yoke of cattle and cow ready for them. They left Winter Quarters, Nebraska which was the outfitting station on May 29, 1848 in a company headed by Heber C. Kimball. There were 662 souls in the company and they arrived in Salt lake valley on September 23rd, 1848. Then Late in 1856 when the Martin handcart company came in to the Utah more dead than alive, President Young in the meeting asked the saints to take immigrates into there home and nurse them back to health. Suzaana volunteered to take a girl in to home to share there shelter and lodging. Charlotte Elizabeth Mellor was riding in one of the rescue wagons. As her feet were badly frost bitten and she unable to walk. The wagon stopped at the Roper’s home, and Suzaane instructed her son, Henry to carry the young lady in to there house. This is Henry Roper story . Charlotte Mellor was only fourteen years old and light as a feather in my arms. As I carried her into my mother home 1 looked in to her dark eyes and saw love at first sight. And there, our romance began. WE were married February 4, 1057, just two months and few days after having first met. Charlotte had observed her 15th birthday in January. Now Charlotte Mellor also joins the church in England and was a part of 850 saints that left liver pool England on May 25, 1856. There hand Cart Company was directed by Edward Martin. The captain would go among the camps each morning and call, “All alive in here? Because of the blizzard they faced they were accustom to seeing love ones placed in a shallow graves and before they reached Utah, about one fifth of the company had been left along the way. This is a book written about my ggreat grandmother and her trials in her life. It is called Tenacity, tragedy and Triumph. That is i/vhat Pioneers is all about. They had Tenacity to walk and persevere any tragedy they might have had along the way and Triumph over it. Read Sweet water story. This story represents the faith of the Pioneers. That it had the Tenacity to work through any Tragedy in order to Triumph. I am grateful for my pioneer heritage and honestly want to be faith ful because of them blazing a trial for all of us to follow. Thank you for you faith full service and I hope we can all honor what you have done by being faithful to our Savior. Shake hands with bishop. My mother side of the family. No pioneers or none are member of the church as far back as I can go. My grandmother was named Marie Tremblay from Canada and she married my grand father Delphis Bo vert who we found out latter that he change his name from Boven was Zakrzeski. His father was Stanislas Zakrzeski bom in Poland. Yes I am a Pollock and all the jokes I told in school about the Pollocks were about my self. His wife was Marie Oliva Boisvert bom in Quebec Canada. I have gone back all the way to the 16th century on the Boisvert and Tremblay side but seem to hit a brick wall with my great grand father Stanislas Zakrzeski. I know Stanislas owned a store in Canada and came to Canada in 1885 but how did he get there or where was he bom in Poland, “1 don’t know”, “and who his parents are 1 don’t know.” My grandmother would not let my grandfather speak polish or talk about any of his ancestors so we have very little to go on. All I can remember about my grand father Bovert is that when my dad was in the hospital for whooping cough Grandfather watched me out side and he had to chase me around the car because I was so afraid that he might beat me because 1 would not lessen to him. How can I build faith if none of my ancestors were Pioneers? Is my mother family, The Bo verts and less than my father family The Ropers because they were pioneers and my mom’s family was not? Do I value one over the other? NO. But I can learn from both of them and be able to have faith to move forward because of the trials and persevering of the Roper as well as the Boverts. Do I need to read about the pioneers if I have no ancestry from them? Yes Can I learn from the stories and how they exercise there faith to bring there family to Zion to live the gospel. My wife’s family has no pioneer heritage at all and can she build upon pioneer faith to move forward? The answer is Yes. How? You don’t need pioneer heritage to learn to have the faith like the Pioneer’s have. We are all pioneers in a sense. 1 would go rock jumping with my daughter Angel and she would tell me if I jumped, she would jump no matter how high we were. She said I would watch where you land and I would jump in that same spot. Is that what we do to developed faith to move foreword with our own lives when we read stories about our pioneers and we are faced with challenges and we know what they did and do the same with our own lives. We can because some one showed us where to land and how to jump into our problems with Tenacity, tragedy and Triumph no matter if our forbears were pioneers or not. We have to honor what they did for us so that our posterity can be blessed just as there posterity. Ya know the Jews are the chosen people and we may not have ancestry from them but we are adopted into his linage to be able to have all the blessing of Abraham, Qavtd and Jacob. J>.v/VC I am touched about the story about the Sweet Water Rescue and the men that braved the cold water. Can we be like them today by doing home teaching or visit teaching to find those that need to be rescue or a family member or friend that may have not strength to cross that cold and icy river? We can have Sweet water Rescues in our own life by searching out for those that are in need and helping them cross Sweet water to rescue. We can be a pioneer in our own lives. We can practice of faith by moving forward the gospel in our own lives. Take it to a higher level just like the pioneers. We can be pioneers our selves. k. THE CARRIERS A depiction of four men who carried women and children across the icy Sweetwater River, as described in the following story: On 28 July 1856 a handcart company under the leadership of Edward Martin left Iowa City, Iowa, and started across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. By October, cold weather and snow caught them in the mountains in central Wyoming. Short on food and other supplies, members of the company experienced exposure to cold, hunger, and exhaustion, and some began to die. They would suffer more losses than any other pioneer handcart company. Earlier in October, when Brigham Young learned that there were still many Saints out on the trail, he sent a rescue party with supplies to help bring the people to Salt Lake. The Martin Company met up with rescue party members in late October and early November and received welcome but limited amounts of food and supplies. With the rescuers’ help, they struggled on toward Salt Lake. On 4 November they came to the Sweetwater River, near Devil’s Gate. The river was about 100 feet wide and almost waist deep in places. To make it worse, big chunks of ice were floating in the water. For the weakened members of the Martin Company, the crossing appeared almost impossible. One of the handcart pioneers later remembered that some of the pioneers were able to ford the river, but others could not At that point, several members of the rescue party—one account names C. Allen Huntington, Stephen W. Taylor, and teenagers David P. Kimball and George W. Grant—stepped forward to help. These courageous men “waded the river, helping the handcarts through and carrying the women and children and some of the weaker of the men over” (John Jaques, “Some Reminiscences,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, 15 Dec. 1878,1; see also 19 Jan. 1879, 1). One of the women who was carried over the river later recalled: “Those poor brethren [were] in the water nearly all day. We wanted to thank them, but they would not listen to [us]. My dear mother felt in her heart to bless them for their kindness. She said, ‘God bless you for taking me over this water and in such an awful, rough way.’ [They said], ‘Oh, I don’t want any of that. You are welcome. We have come to help you.’ ” This sister also reported that one of the rescuers “stayed so long in the water that he had to be taken out and packed to camp, and he was a long tune before he recovered, as he was chilled through. And in after life he was always afflicted with rheumatism” patience Loader Rozsa Archer, reminiscence, in Women’s Voices: An Untold History of the , Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900, ed. Kenneth W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr [1982] 236; spelling and punctuation standardized). These rescuers and what they had done were brought to President Young’s attention. “When President Brigham Young heard of this heroic act,” one writer stated he wept like a child, and declared that this act alone would immortalize them” (Solomon F. Kimball “Our Pioneer Boys,” Improvement Era, July 1908,679). SNOWBOUND AT RED BUTTES Artist Statement: This painting depicts my then 15 year old great, great grand mother, Charlotte Elizabeth Mellor, and her 16 year old sister Louisa returning to their camp near Red Buttes after walking more than a mile from camp in the snow to gather firewood on October 21st, 1856. In researching for this project I was impressed and moved to learn that these two teenagers faithftilly pulled one of their family’s two handcarts from Missouri until their rescue near Devil’s Gate. Many times the handcart not only contained their supplies it often held one of their twin three year old sisters, Emma or Clara. Artist Biography: Stephen Mark Bartholomew is a descendent of Martin handcart pioneers James and Mary Ann Payne Mellor, as well as rescue party member Thomas Murphy Alexander. Stephen considers himself a realist/impressionist, and his theme is consistently the Utah landscape. A graduate of Brigham Young University, his paintings are included in many private and public collections.

ujckvzok —JT Skiui'V ’2-OOoJ ujoty/i/f Building upon pioneer faith to move forward that we don’t need to have pioneer ancestry to do that. I am going to tell you two stories and one will be about pioneer ancestry and the other not and we are going to see if we can build faith to move forward from either of these stories. At the end of the first story I gong to stop and shake the bishop hand and then come back and tell the second story and then I will find a way to build faith in both of them. What is pioneer faith? i am going to tell you a story about Suzannah Smith was the daughter of George Smith and Ann Hutchinson Smith she was born on March 23rd 1804 in Cambridge England. She married John William Roper on October 18, 1831 Cambridge shire England. They had five children. Suzanne’s husband John William told Suzanna that he would watch the children while she went to church, When Suzaana came back from church she found that William had left her. He remarried but soon left his second wife and small son and that is the last we heard from him Suzanna was left with small children to support she made fancy work to sell and also taught the art to others. When she heard the Gospel she join the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints and was baptized June 5th 1845 in England. On the second day of January, 1848 she was counseled to take her children and gather to the land of Zion. On the 17th of January she boarded a ship named, “Ring field” and after nine weeks and three days they landed at New Orleans. Henry said, suzanna’s third son, which is my gggreat father, “some of the folks by there actions thought that my mother had not been baptized enough”. “One night they thought they would baptize her a little more by throwing a slop bucket, full of filthy slop all over us because we were Mormons an had no one to protect us or defend us. We were the only Mormons on board. Henry washed tubs full of dirty dishes on board the ship to help pay there fare. After arriving in New Orleans they took a steamer up the river to Council Bluffs. When the arrived at Council Bluffs they live for a week in in house built of sod. Suzanna had send money ahead to buy cattle for the journey across the plains, so there were two yoke of cattle and cow ready for them. They left Winter Quarters, Nebraska which was the outfitting station on May 29, 1848 in a company headed by Heber C. Kimball. There were 662 souls in the company and they arrived in Salt lake valley on September 23rd, 1848. Then Late in 1856 when the Martin handcart company came in to the Utah more dead than alive, President Young in the meeting asked the saints to take immigrates into there home and nurse them back to health. Suzaana volunteered to take a girl in to home to share there shelter and lodging. Charlotte Elizabeth Mellor was riding in one of the rescue wagons. As her feet were badly frost bitten and she unable to walk. The wagon stopped at the Roper’s home, and Suzaane instructed her son, Henry to carry the young lady in to there house. This is Henry Roper story . Charlotte Mellor was only fourteen years old and light as a feather in my arms. As I carried her into my mother home 1 looked in to her dark eyes and saw love at first sight. And there, our romance began. WE were married February 4, 1057, just two months and few days after having first met. Charlotte had observed her 15th birthday in January. Now Charlotte Mellor also joins the church in England and was a part of 850 saints that left liver pool England on May 25, 1856. There hand Cart Company was directed by Edward Martin. The captain would go among the camps each morning and call, “All alive in here? Because of the blizzard they faced they were accustom to seeing love ones placed in a shallow graves and before they reached Utah, about one fifth of the company had been left along the way. This is a book written about my ggreat grandmother and her trials in her life. It is called Tenacity, tragedy and Triumph. That is i/vhat Pioneers is all about. They had Tenacity to walk and persevere any tragedy they might have had along the way and Triumph over it. Read Sweet water story. This story represents the faith of the Pioneers. That it had the Tenacity to work through any Tragedy in order to Triumph. I am grateful for my pioneer heritage and honestly want to be faith ful because of them blazing a trial for all of us to follow. Thank you for you faith full service and I hope we can all honor what you have done by being faithful to our Savior. Shake hands with bishop. My mother side of the family. No pioneers or none are member of the church as far back as I can go. My grandmother was named Marie Tremblay from Canada and she married my grand father Delphis Bo vert who we found out latter that he change his name from Boven was Zakrzeski. His father was Stanislas Zakrzeski bom in Poland. Yes I am a Pollock and all the jokes I told in school about the Pollocks were about my self. His wife was Marie Oliva Boisvert bom in Quebec Canada. I have gone back all the way to the 16th century on the Boisvert and Tremblay side but seem to hit a brick wall with my great grand father Stanislas Zakrzeski. I know Stanislas owned a store in Canada and came to Canada in 1885 but how did he get there or where was he bom in Poland, “1 don’t know”, “and who his parents are 1 don’t know.” My grandmother would not let my grandfather speak polish or talk about any of his ancestors so we have very little to go on. All I can remember about my grand father Bovert is that when my dad was in the hospital for whooping cough Grandfather watched me out side and he had to chase me around the car because I was so afraid that he might beat me because 1 would not lessen to him. How can I build faith if none of my ancestors were Pioneers? Is my mother family, The Bo verts and less than my father family The Ropers because they were pioneers and my mom’s family was not? Do I value one over the other? NO. But I can learn from both of them and be able to have faith to move forward because of the trials and persevering of the Roper as well as the Boverts. Do I need to read about the pioneers if I have no ancestry from them? Yes Can I learn from the stories and how they exercise there faith to bring there family to Zion to live the gospel. My wife’s family has no pioneer heritage at all and can she build upon pioneer faith to move forward? The answer is Yes. How? You don’t need pioneer heritage to learn to have the faith like the Pioneer’s have. We are all pioneers in a sense. 1 would go rock jumping with my daughter Angel and she would tell me if I jumped, she would jump no matter how high we were. She said I would watch where you land and I would jump in that same spot. Is that what we do to developed faith to move foreword with our own lives when we read stories about our pioneers and we are faced with challenges and we know what they did and do the same with our own lives. We can because some one showed us where to land and how to jump into our problems with Tenacity, tragedy and Triumph no matter if our forbears were pioneers or not. We have to honor what they did for us so that our posterity can be blessed just as there posterity. Ya know the Jews are the chosen people and we may not have ancestry from them but we are adopted into his linage to be able to have all the blessing of Abraham, Qavtd and Jacob. J>.v/VC I am touched about the story about the Sweet Water Rescue and the men that braved the cold water. Can we be like them today by doing home teaching or visit teaching to find those that need to be rescue or a family member or friend that may have not strength to cross that cold and icy river? We can have Sweet water Rescues in our own life by searching out for those that are in need and helping them cross Sweet water to rescue. We can be a pioneer in our own lives. We can practice of faith by moving forward the gospel in our own lives. Take it to a higher level just like the pioneers. We can be pioneers our selves. k. THE CARRIERS A depiction of four men who carried women and children across the icy Sweetwater River, as described in the following story: On 28 July 1856 a handcart company under the leadership of Edward Martin left Iowa City, Iowa, and started across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. By October, cold weather and snow caught them in the mountains in central Wyoming. Short on food and other supplies, members of the company experienced exposure to cold, hunger, and exhaustion, and some began to die. They would suffer more losses than any other pioneer handcart company. Earlier in October, when Brigham Young learned that there were still many Saints out on the trail, he sent a rescue party with supplies to help bring the people to Salt Lake. The Martin Company met up with rescue party members in late October and early November and received welcome but limited amounts of food and supplies. With the rescuers’ help, they struggled on toward Salt Lake. On 4 November they came to the Sweetwater River, near Devil’s Gate. The river was about 100 feet wide and almost waist deep in places. To make it worse, big chunks of ice were floating in the water. For the weakened members of the Martin Company, the crossing appeared almost impossible. One of the handcart pioneers later remembered that some of the pioneers were able to ford the river, but others could not At that point, several members of the rescue party—one account names C. Allen Huntington, Stephen W. Taylor, and teenagers David P. Kimball and George W. Grant—stepped forward to help. These courageous men “waded the river, helping the handcarts through and carrying the women and children and some of the weaker of the men over” (John Jaques, “Some Reminiscences,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, 15 Dec. 1878,1; see also 19 Jan. 1879, 1). One of the women who was carried over the river later recalled: “Those poor brethren [were] in the water nearly all day. We wanted to thank them, but they would not listen to [us]. My dear mother felt in her heart to bless them for their kindness. She said, ‘God bless you for taking me over this water and in such an awful, rough way.’ [They said], ‘Oh, I don’t want any of that. You are welcome. We have come to help you.’ ” This sister also reported that one of the rescuers “stayed so long in the water that he had to be taken out and packed to camp, and he was a long tune before he recovered, as he was chilled through. And in after life he was always afflicted with rheumatism” patience Loader Rozsa Archer, reminiscence, in Women’s Voices: An Untold History of the , Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900, ed. Kenneth W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr [1982] 236; spelling and punctuation standardized). These rescuers and what they had done were brought to President Young’s attention. “When President Brigham Young heard of this heroic act,” one writer stated he wept like a child, and declared that this act alone would immortalize them” (Solomon F. Kimball “Our Pioneer Boys,” Improvement Era, July 1908,679). SNOWBOUND AT RED BUTTES Artist Statement: This painting depicts my then 15 year old great, great grand mother, Charlotte Elizabeth Mellor, and her 16 year old sister Louisa returning to their camp near Red Buttes after walking more than a mile from camp in the snow to gather firewood on October 21st, 1856. In researching for this project I was impressed and moved to learn that these two teenagers faithftilly pulled one of their family’s two handcarts from Missouri until their rescue near Devil’s Gate. Many times the handcart not only contained their supplies it often held one of their twin three year old sisters, Emma or Clara. Artist Biography: Stephen Mark Bartholomew is a descendent of Martin handcart pioneers James and Mary Ann Payne Mellor, as well as rescue party member Thomas Murphy Alexander. Stephen considers himself a realist/impressionist, and his theme is consistently the Utah landscape. A graduate of Brigham Young University, his paintings are included in many private and public collections.