On the rock our fathers planted

Sometimes when I tell people I work at the Church History Library, they ask me if I get access to special records. Well, not exactly. Most of the things I see are open to the public or are online. When I refer to old issues of the Deseret News, I look at the PDFs on the Utah Digital Newspapers website. Rarely I've had to look at microfilms. (If you've ever used a microfilm reader, you know how frustrating that is. I would say they should invent a better one, but they're becoming obsolete anyway.)

However, for the project that I've been working on for a long time (since August, and seriously since December), one of the Deseret News issues I looked at had a very messy scan, both online and on microfilm. That meant my boss wanted me to look at the original! Normally they would be hesitant to lend it out, but since my boss is the managing director and Assistant Church Historian, they do what he wants.

I got to look at a bound volume that contained many original copies of the Deseret News between 1851 and 1855. Some of the pages are badly torn, so I had to be careful. Some people asked me if I had to wear gloves. The answer is no; I think gloves would make me not feel the paper and make it more likely to tear. The senior sister missionary I've been working with pointed out to me some of the papers from 1854, saying, "Look, they used a different type of paper." Indeed, the paper was softer and had a bluish tint. Luckily, I knew enough about the history of the Deseret News that I knew what was going on. They had to make their own paper, so they asked for everyone to donate their old rags to make paper. I was able to see blue fibers mixed in the paper. I had actually been hoping I would be able to see this rag paper, and since all those years were together, I did!

This week I ran for one hour and eight minutes, the longest I've ever run continuously, except for the brief moment I got a drink at a park drinking fountain. Oh, and the time the lady following dogs in her car stopped me. Three small dogs were running loose, so she called out to me from her car, "If they come up to you, grab them." Well, I reached down to grab one, but as I did so, my fear of dogs kicked in, and I thought, "This dog doesn't know me, and if I try to catch it, it might bite me!" So I petted it and tried to gain its trust, but it and the other two dogs ran off again. I felt bad, but I'm not a dogcatcher. It was really random.

Then this weekend, my family went down to visit my dad's family. We had a baby shower to go to in Cedar City in Iron County. Then we had a farewell to go to in Delta in Millard County. When we passed through Fillmore, we stopped at the Fillmore City Cemetery. My grandparents are buried there, and my parents will be, but there are some other ancestors and notable people there.

 This is the tombstone of Reuben McBride, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, who knew Joseph Smith. Many of these old tombstones are broken, but I think this is the original--especially since they didn't spell "Reuben" in the conventional way.

 This is the tombstone of Alexander Melville, my great-great-great-grandfather, a Scottish pioneer from whom we got our last name. Unfortunately, I don't know as much about him as I should.

This is not an original tombstone, and it is not an ancestor, but I was excited to see it because I know the story. Lieutenant John W. Gunnison worked for the United States Topographical Engineers, and he had come with Howard Stansbury when he made his survey of the Great Salt Lake around 1850. In 1853, Gunnison returned through Utah to find a better route to California. Unfortunately, his team was traveling through Utah at the time of the Walker War, when there were lots of tensions between whites and Native Americans. Some California-bound emigrants had killed some Piute Indians. The various tribes in Utah had a strong sense of retaliation, so if Americans killed one of their people, they had to kill Americans. The Indians distinguished between the Mormons and other Americans. Since Gunnison and his crew were Americans, the Indians killed Gunnison and a few others. In 1854, Edward Steptoe and a large group of rough soldiers came to Utah in part to seek justice against the Indians who massacred Gunnison. The Mormons generally were sympathetic to those Indians, so the government thought they were anti-patriotic. Some of Steptoe's men seduced a bunch of Mormon women and took them to California with them. (A lot of this was not relevant to Gunnison, but it's interesting how things build on each other.)

This is obviously not an original tombstone, since the pioneers used sandstone and marble, not granite. But this is Amasa Mason Lyman, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, who is mentioned twice in the Doctrine and Covenants. He did a lot for the Church as an Apostle, including overseeing the Saints in San Bernardino, California, with his fellow Apostle Charles C. Rich. He later left the Church and became a Godbeite.

All this interest in my ancestors comes primarily from my job, but it just happens to converge with my Church calling, as today I was sustained as one of my stake's family history directors. I knew it would happen soon. I wasn't at church today, but my former Provo roommate, Bryton, texted me and told me he heard my name announced at the ward he attended in Centerville! My job makes me more conscious of family history.