After my Mother's death, I received several sympathy cards, letters, and emails from family that I have not spoken to in over 20 years. Cousin's, grandparents, old family friends. As I opened each card and read the heartfelt words inside, I started to heal. Not from my Mother's death, but from the years and years of isolation from those people that I grew up with and loved. I am no longer alone, I am surrounded by family and old friends. What a blessing that has been.
One of those reconnections brought with it more than I could have possibly imagined. I received a very sweet card from my second cousin "BK", and that reconnection led me down a road I may have never traveled down based on the situation with my family.
If you don't already know this, Mormon's are huge into genealogy. Like huge-huge, to the tenth power. We trace our roots back as far as we can possibly go so we can perform temple work by-proxy for our deceased family members. We believe family does not end with physical death on earth, but that we can all be together as an eternal family after death. This provides a huge sense of comfort to us, to know that our families are waiting for us in the afterlife.
This was not a happy feeling for me in the past. To be completely and perfectly honest, I had ZERO intention of personally doing any temple work for anybody in my family. I had decided I would work on Joe's family history and temple work and then leave my own family work for my own children to figure out.
And then I got the email from BK. And her email changed everything. First of all, it was absolutely wonderful to hear from her again. I was so very thankful to be in contact, and to have that link to my past and my childhood. I spent a considerable amount of time with her as a kid, she was always "the cool one" and I used to love riding around in her cool sports car. She was also a school teacher and as a teenager I loved helping her get her classroom together before each school year, and she also had the coolest house ever.
I sent her a link to my blog, and she read it. All of it. The whole thing. I was touched, and very grateful. She really wanted to know me and my family. My heart was full, and I was healing.
After she read my blog, she sent me an email in it with comments and questions about what she had read, or wanted to know. And something in her email jumped out at me...
"I am betting that Grandma Leichsenring (your great-grandmother) is smiling with the thought that finally one of her off-spring is back in the church."
Huh? Say what? I had absolutely NO IDEA what she was talking about. I was confused. So I wrote her back, and asked if she could please explain... and I got back far more than I bargained for. She sent me a file with genealogy paperwork. Obituaries, news articles, and temple ordnance information (both live and by-proxy) for my ancestors. I remember printing off the file, going through the paperwork, and looking at the temple ordnance print-offs with absolute shock and utter disbelief.
In less than five minutes, I had gone from what I thought was being the first Mormon in the family to seeing that my great-great-great grandparents were not only church members, but they crossed the plains with the pioneers. I was really floored. I spent the better part of the afternoon trying to tie everything together, and it turns out it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. Most of the temple work has been done for three generations on my Mother's side of the family because they were all church members and the ordnances were done while they were alive. There was plenty of information available about my ancestors and I even found letters and a few books published that have plenty of family history in them. And what a story my family history turns out to be. There was an article in the package BK sent me about a man named Bill Hickman. Tracing my roots was easy because of this guy.
Bill Hickman happens to my great-great-great uncle, and filled up my family tree with ten great-great-great aunts and 39 children. He also happens to have been a bodyguard for both of the Prophets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. There are several books written about him, and he is referenced in many books about Mormon history and the pioneer trail.
"As a bodyguard and spy for Mormon church Presidents Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, he was popularly known as a "destroying angel." However, a matter of disagreement among historians is whether he acted more often in his church's interest or independently as a true renegade. During the Utah War of 1857-58, he rallied with his fellow Mormons and was one of the most effective guerillas in the hit-and-run attacks that wore down the attacking U.S. Army. When he was later arrested and jailed for murdering a government arms dealer during the war, his troubles multiplied when he implicated Brigham Young. Young returned the favor by excommunicating him and never speaking to him again."
(Note: He was re-baptized by proxy in 1934 after a lengthy investigation allegedly proved his innocence in whatever murder that led to his falling from grace.)
Sources:
http://signaturebooks.com/2010/02/wild-bill-hickman-and-the-mormon-frontier/
http://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/h/HICKMAN_WILLIAM.html
"As a bodyguard and spy for Mormon church Presidents Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, he was popularly known as a "destroying angel." However, a matter of disagreement among historians is whether he acted more often in his church's interest or independently as a true renegade. During the Utah War of 1857-58, he rallied with his fellow Mormons and was one of the most effective guerillas in the hit-and-run attacks that wore down the attacking U.S. Army. When he was later arrested and jailed for murdering a government arms dealer during the war, his troubles multiplied when he implicated Brigham Young. Young returned the favor by excommunicating him and never speaking to him again."
(Note: He was re-baptized by proxy in 1934 after a lengthy investigation allegedly proved his innocence in whatever murder that led to his falling from grace.)
Sources:
http://signaturebooks.com/2010/02/wild-bill-hickman-and-the-mormon-frontier/
http://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/h/HICKMAN_WILLIAM.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickman
Leave it to me to have somebody in my family tree that has the nickname "Brigham's Destroying Angel". I have read in multiple places that the rest of the family distanced themselves from him and kept far away from him and his "job" as they could. He fits right in as far as I'm concerned. A little family controversy never hurt anybody.
Leave it to me to have somebody in my family tree that has the nickname "Brigham's Destroying Angel". I have read in multiple places that the rest of the family distanced themselves from him and kept far away from him and his "job" as they could. He fits right in as far as I'm concerned. A little family controversy never hurt anybody.
And this is his brother, my great-great-great grandfather, George Washington Hickman, and my great-great-great grandmother, Lucy. He was a doctor, had only one wife, and was a very mild man compared to his brother Bill. And again, I found these pictures of them online, very easily.
I was also able to find letters online written by my great-great aunt Josephine Hickman. She writes:
"Father could have made a generous living with his profession, but how different, oh, how different, would have been the story! He was George Washington Hickman, who had just left the medical college of Ohio and was on his way through Utah to California's glittering gold fields, when the mischievous black eye of a slender maiden became more alluring than gold. He had investigated this strange religion which had brought her people across the trackless wastes. He had approved its tenets and had joined the church. (But oh, the sacrifice for its sake that he was to make, was not less than tragic).
President Young had counseled him not to practice medicine because he wanted to teach the people that faith and dependence upon God, "for by their faith they should be healed." (A stunning blow to a young man who had spent years in preparing for a profession, suddenly to have his staff knocked from under him)! No one was ever less fitted for the role of a frontiersman than he: Fresh from college, and from his father's Missouri plantations where slaves did all the manual labor. He knew nothing of the agricultural life which was the only one now to choose. Every year's failure on the farm called for renewed strength to continue the sacrifice for their religion. There was a life sacrifice. Gradually of course, Father was drawn into giving medical service, but he seldom charged, and when he did, he often allowed the people to set the price and time of paying, which time seldome came. Let me here state my father never regretted he joined the LDS Church and ever rejoiced in its glorious principles and it's divinely inspired leaders".
And of Lucy, she writes:
"In her patriarchal blessing, she was told she was a Royal Princess of the house of Joseph and that her children should rise up and call her blessed. We have not only called her blessed but the dearest and best mother in all the world."
(Source: http://www.geni.com/people/Lucy-Hickman/6000000001402160421)
I was also able to find letters online written by my great-great aunt Josephine Hickman. She writes:
"Father could have made a generous living with his profession, but how different, oh, how different, would have been the story! He was George Washington Hickman, who had just left the medical college of Ohio and was on his way through Utah to California's glittering gold fields, when the mischievous black eye of a slender maiden became more alluring than gold. He had investigated this strange religion which had brought her people across the trackless wastes. He had approved its tenets and had joined the church. (But oh, the sacrifice for its sake that he was to make, was not less than tragic).
President Young had counseled him not to practice medicine because he wanted to teach the people that faith and dependence upon God, "for by their faith they should be healed." (A stunning blow to a young man who had spent years in preparing for a profession, suddenly to have his staff knocked from under him)! No one was ever less fitted for the role of a frontiersman than he: Fresh from college, and from his father's Missouri plantations where slaves did all the manual labor. He knew nothing of the agricultural life which was the only one now to choose. Every year's failure on the farm called for renewed strength to continue the sacrifice for their religion. There was a life sacrifice. Gradually of course, Father was drawn into giving medical service, but he seldom charged, and when he did, he often allowed the people to set the price and time of paying, which time seldome came. Let me here state my father never regretted he joined the LDS Church and ever rejoiced in its glorious principles and it's divinely inspired leaders".
And of Lucy, she writes:
"In her patriarchal blessing, she was told she was a Royal Princess of the house of Joseph and that her children should rise up and call her blessed. We have not only called her blessed but the dearest and best mother in all the world."
(Source: http://www.geni.com/people/Lucy-Hickman/6000000001402160421)
One of the letters that she wrote to her own posterity is filled with her strong testimony of the gospel and church.
"We have always kept the word of wisdom in our home and our children are following our example, and I hope you my dear grand children will keep this law of our church and be partakers of its blessings.
It will seem like one speaking from the dust when your read this but I shall bear you my testimony, that I know that God Lives: that he has again revealed his Gospel to us in this day and age.
I know of its truth and have been a partaker of its many blessings.
I know for myself, as you can know, if you so desire, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the living God, and thru him has the Church of Jesus Christ been again established on earth, never again to be overthrown or given to another people.
I beg of you-one and all-to hold fast to the principles of life and salvation; I pray that you , my dear children and grandchildren to the latest generations, shall be standard bearers in the Church of our God.
Uphold and sustain the Church authorities, and keep all the laws; hearken always to the council given by them, for it is thru them that God speaks to you: Question it not; or speak against; but if doubt should come into your mine bow yourself before your Heavenly Father and ask for light, and if it be true; and you will know and feel of the assurance of it. But let me say, you will never doubt if you are living up to your covenants and doing your best to live right."
(Source: http://www.geni.com/people/Josephine-Elizabeth-Hickman/5692783350060124054)
I cannot help but read this, and feel like she is talking to me. I really can't put into words how I have felt since realizing this information. Happiness, and peace that I do have family on the other side of the veil waiting for me. Disappointment in myself for shirking my genealogy responsibilities because of my awful stubborn streak (thanks for the DNA, Uncle Bill. Jack thanks you, too.) And maybe a little clarity, too... My husband and children thought I was literally NUTS when I told them, randomly and out of nowhere that I was going to back to church. I was drawn to it, pulled to it, whatever you want to call it. I knew I absolutely HAD to come back to church. I've told several people that before, and now I can say that it was an undeniable push, or pull, from the other side of the veil. To continue our family work, to get our family back into the church. I'm thankful I listened to the spirit that day.
If you know Justice, I bet you wish you could have been in the room when I sat him down and went through all of this with him. If you don't know him well, he is a serious Mormon kid. His testimony is rock-solid for his age. He sleeps, eats, breaths and lives the gospel. He welcomes the companionship of the Holy Ghost and prays several times a day. He reads his scriptures and sings hymns every day because he wants to, not because we make him. He was very unsettled about the Wild Bill Hickman part. He was embarrassed. I had to sit back and think about that, and be thankful he clearly got Grandpa George's DNA. Comparing Jack to Bill and Justice to George was very easy and almost eery.
I don't know definitively why my family fell away from the church. I know that my great-grandmother Alice Daniels Leichsenring was indeed an active member, but my great-grandfather was not. She attempted to raise her children in the church, and my great-aunt Mildred attempted to raise her children in the church as well. Imagine my surprise when BK told me that even she and her brothers were all baptized members. My best guess is that we fell away without active priesthood holders in the homes.
In one afternoon I went from thinking I was the only Church member of my family to my maternal grandparents being the only set of grandparents on that side of my family that weren't. If I had done ANY amount of genealogy on my own rather than being stubborn about it, I would have easily discovered this myself. But the bitterness of my own situation prevented me from learning something very valuable about my own ancestry.
I am very thankful to have put that bitterness aside today.
Thank you BK, for reaching out to me.
You have given me a gift that is worth more than anything in the world to me.
"We have always kept the word of wisdom in our home and our children are following our example, and I hope you my dear grand children will keep this law of our church and be partakers of its blessings.
It will seem like one speaking from the dust when your read this but I shall bear you my testimony, that I know that God Lives: that he has again revealed his Gospel to us in this day and age.
I know of its truth and have been a partaker of its many blessings.
I know for myself, as you can know, if you so desire, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the living God, and thru him has the Church of Jesus Christ been again established on earth, never again to be overthrown or given to another people.
I beg of you-one and all-to hold fast to the principles of life and salvation; I pray that you , my dear children and grandchildren to the latest generations, shall be standard bearers in the Church of our God.
Uphold and sustain the Church authorities, and keep all the laws; hearken always to the council given by them, for it is thru them that God speaks to you: Question it not; or speak against; but if doubt should come into your mine bow yourself before your Heavenly Father and ask for light, and if it be true; and you will know and feel of the assurance of it. But let me say, you will never doubt if you are living up to your covenants and doing your best to live right."
(Source: http://www.geni.com/people/Josephine-Elizabeth-Hickman/5692783350060124054)
I cannot help but read this, and feel like she is talking to me. I really can't put into words how I have felt since realizing this information. Happiness, and peace that I do have family on the other side of the veil waiting for me. Disappointment in myself for shirking my genealogy responsibilities because of my awful stubborn streak (thanks for the DNA, Uncle Bill. Jack thanks you, too.) And maybe a little clarity, too... My husband and children thought I was literally NUTS when I told them, randomly and out of nowhere that I was going to back to church. I was drawn to it, pulled to it, whatever you want to call it. I knew I absolutely HAD to come back to church. I've told several people that before, and now I can say that it was an undeniable push, or pull, from the other side of the veil. To continue our family work, to get our family back into the church. I'm thankful I listened to the spirit that day.
If you know Justice, I bet you wish you could have been in the room when I sat him down and went through all of this with him. If you don't know him well, he is a serious Mormon kid. His testimony is rock-solid for his age. He sleeps, eats, breaths and lives the gospel. He welcomes the companionship of the Holy Ghost and prays several times a day. He reads his scriptures and sings hymns every day because he wants to, not because we make him. He was very unsettled about the Wild Bill Hickman part. He was embarrassed. I had to sit back and think about that, and be thankful he clearly got Grandpa George's DNA. Comparing Jack to Bill and Justice to George was very easy and almost eery.
I don't know definitively why my family fell away from the church. I know that my great-grandmother Alice Daniels Leichsenring was indeed an active member, but my great-grandfather was not. She attempted to raise her children in the church, and my great-aunt Mildred attempted to raise her children in the church as well. Imagine my surprise when BK told me that even she and her brothers were all baptized members. My best guess is that we fell away without active priesthood holders in the homes.
In one afternoon I went from thinking I was the only Church member of my family to my maternal grandparents being the only set of grandparents on that side of my family that weren't. If I had done ANY amount of genealogy on my own rather than being stubborn about it, I would have easily discovered this myself. But the bitterness of my own situation prevented me from learning something very valuable about my own ancestry.
I am very thankful to have put that bitterness aside today.
Thank you BK, for reaching out to me.
You have given me a gift that is worth more than anything in the world to me.
That's a pretty awesome discovery! I have pioneer heritage and have been told the stories of my family's sacrifices. My mom even did my work to submit me to be a member of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Society. I just haven't been bitten by the bug yet to do the work. Part of it is sheer stubborness (never saw that coming right, ha!) because it says way more times then I'd like in my PBlessing that I'll do the work. And part is fear of failure and the overwhelming amount of work to do. I love the letters you found. I think that's cooler than names. What an awesome testimony of your great great to be able to have and to read.
ReplyDeleteYou truly are a remarkable woman, and it apparently is in your genes.