Very early yesterday morning I slipped up to Salt Lake with David and waited through his choir rehearsal so I could sit in the audience for the Tabernacle Choir’s Pioneer Day broadcast. I had a couple hours to wait, so I grabbed my cell phone and started going through the e-pile of e-mails in my Inbox and stopped at one from Family Search with the subject line: Your 2nd-Great Grandparents Were Pioneers.
I’ve said before, we are all pioneering, breaking ground for those who come after us. And I’ve grown up hearing the stories of several ancestors who crossed the American plains with handcarts and wagons, forging toward the new frontier. “But, all my 2nd-great grandparents? That’s 16 people,” I thought. So I looked it up on my trusty cell phone. Did you know you can “Map My Ancestors” on the Family Search app? Sure enough, I went back to my second-greats, and their lines were jumping the globe from everywhere! For people who didn’t have cars or trains, let alone planes, they logged some serious mileage in their lifetimes. From the Isle of Jersey, in the Channel Islands; Washingborough, England; Hagate, England; Cornwall, England; Hereford, England; Burnley, England; Aalborg, Denmark; Karlsruhe, Germany; Flesberg, Norway; Stirlingshire, Scotland; Ontario, Canada; Quebec, Canada.
Would I travel to those places if I couldn’t book a flight on Delta? Gotta think about that.
Why did they? I can’t know for sure, but some family histories tell me they made the journey to make life better, for themselves and their children.
Before I knew it, it was time to put away my phone and find a seat for the broadcast. The music was beautiful, the message inspiring, with video of pioneers trekking across the plains toward an expanse of uncertainty. I sat in that 21,000-seat air-conditioned conference center, cool and comfortable on the hottest day of the year, and thought about how easy it was for me to get there.
Could those second-greats of mine have ever imagined that the choices they made and the hardships they endured would be celebrated? Revered in word and song? That one day a device in the hand of their second-great granddaughter would trace their life’s timeline with the touch of a fingertip?
It’s sobering to think how quickly life, and the way we live it, has changed through the years, and even more sobering to imagine how our descendants will be able to review our decisions one day.
My second-greats were pioneers, and so were yours. Let’s be grateful for all of humanity who came before, people who wanted to make life better for their families, who forged ahead through the expanse of uncertainty with a worthy goal in mind. Let's hope we can be equal to the task.
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