My father was raised by a member of The DUP. I grew up knowing the expansion of that acronym (Daughters of the Utah Pioneers) because my grandmother made sure I understood what my ancestors had endured in the name of religious freedom. She also made sure I knew that some of our earlier ancestors were on the Mayflower, and I could also become a member of the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) if I felt so inclined. At the time, acronyms and their expansions felt way too big for me. I was really only the daughter of a farmer and his wife, and if there was an affiliation for that, I was not in line to sign up.
I learned a lot from my dad and his mother about our heritage. Her great-grandmother was a 7-year-old when her family crossed the plains with the Martin Handcart Company. She lost her father and two little brothers on the trek. She survived to reach the Salt Lake Valley with her mother and two sisters.
My grandmother was good at giving gifts that made one think. She gave me homemade rag dolls like the ones pioneer girls made from scraps of fabric, and because her great-great-grandmother was a milliner before she left England, she gave me a doll dressed in a proper black English dress and a matching hat so I would remember a milliner was a person who made hats. And she told me their story every time she got the chance.
My father, ever her son, was just as good at the pioneer story, but his versions always included more about the horses and wagons. On his bookshelf, sat a model of a covered wagon, pulled by two horses. He would point to the places on the wooden axle where they’d always run into problems, and he’d point to the horses and explain how much better it was for the families who had sturdy oxen, even though they were slower, and woe to the poor folk who had to go it afoot, like our ancestors. I was young, but it didn't take much imagination to know pulling a handcart would take all the fun out of a road trip. I grew up feeling like I owed something to those long-gone ancestors for making such a journey to find a place where a better life could be lived.
So, fast forward many years, to the small Utah town where I now live, where right on Main Street is a little brick building that serves as the local Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum - a building I have never visited.
What is wrong with me? (That is not a question for my ancestor. Consider it rhetorical.)
The building stands as a source of shame. For all these years, I have intended to visit, but I’ve secretly suspected that I’d be met by a well-meaning overly exuberant elderly woman who would have me enlisted in the effort before I could explain that now was not the time in my life when I could get involved in such things. So I shied away from both the idea and the building. My grandmother, I know, would’ve had something to say about hardy pioneer stock. And now that I’m old, it’s just embarrassing to think about walking in now and announcing I’m affiliated with the group like I've just received my DNA results and beforehand I thought I’d been raised by wolves.
For those of you who don’t live in Utah and may not be aware, July 24 is a state holiday celebrating the day in 1847 when pioneers rode into the region and declared it the place to settle down. There are parades and rodeos and fireworks, and for some, a paid holiday from work. All weekend the whole state has been celebrating the pioneer.
Thank you, people who tell pioneer stories, for keeping us humble, for reminding us to be grateful for the journeys that were embarked upon on our behalf.
If my father were here, I would ask him what he remembered of his grandparents. Did they tell him pioneer stories? And because I cannot ask my long-departed grandmother how she got so good at pioneer stories, or why she was so enamored of the DUP, I will finally visit the local museum and see for myself what it’s all about. I’ll try to see it through her eyes because I do feel a connection and a debt of gratitude to my ancestors, and I am now old enough to either commit to the acronym or stand up to the exuberant (and as yet, still imaginary) recruitment volunteer.
Do you have someone who likes to tell you about your ancestors? Ask them why. Why? Why are they driven to tell you? What started the fire in them? I bet there’s a good story in the answer.
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