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Happy Pioneer Day, everyone. It’s the 24th of July Down Under. I’ve got a very simple question: is anyone else as tired and worn-out hearing about the pioneers as I am? Okay, I get it – the pioneers sacrificed in a way I’ll never understand, suffered depredations, and carved a lovely paradise out of a barren desert. But how many Mormons today actually trace their heritage to those who came across the plains? I’m a decendant of pioneers on one side of my family. My wife is a convert from outside of the US, and obviously has no pioneer heritage. She gets awfully tired of hearing the same stories over and over, every year. Frankly, I do to. I think the whole pioneer thing would get much more traction if the Church would give it a rest once in a while.
*End of rant*
I can see how the whole pioneer obsession could be offensive and insensitive to converts and members outside of the United States. The speakers in our ward on Sunday talked about pioneer heritage, but they also talked about the root meaning of the word and how it applies to each of us, no matter our ancestry. One of them is the son of one of our Stake Presidency Counselors, and he read the classic quote about the Martin and Willey handcart companies that included the statement that it was wrong to leave as late as they did. I don’t mind that kind of focus at all around July 24th, and if it was limited to one Sunday a year . . . I could celebrate that.
Kumahito wrote:But how many Mormons today actually trace their heritage to those who came across the plains?
I don’t, but where I live (U.S., not Utah), a lot. I don’t bristle at Pioneer Day because I do think the church encourages everyone to know and love – or at least value – their ancestors, Utah pioneers or not. I like that about us.
Sitting right now on the Days of 47 parade route, about 357 S 200 E, my DW loves parades…. Yeah, we went to the concert at the conference center, and the rodeo…. Pioneer Day is a big event here. My LDS ancestors came over in the later scandanavian immigration. There was really an amount of vision, courage and fierce determination that empowered our crazy ancestors to come to a god-forsaken desert and make a life.
I can’t resist having the profoundest respect.
And then, today, there are Pioneers willing to stand against the bigotry and narrowness of institutional thinking and declare with one voice, we CAN accept diversity and unity with all…
Blessed, honored Pioneer, indeed!
For me, the pioneer heritage, and I mean that in the broad sense, not the literal descendant sense, is one of the things I love about the Church. They did what we so often advocate: they voted with their feet. I have long held that the Church isn’t perfect, but that the people in the Church (for the most part) are amazing, caring, wonderful, dedicated, and hard-working people. The pioneers are the prototype.
I understand your frustration, because I often hear their story poorly presented. We can too often dwell on the melodramatic. We too often ascribe super-human-ness to the pioneers. But let me share a couple quotes from two of them. These were real people. They were poorly treated. Much was demanded of them. They overcame their trials in a major way. I’m glad to be part of their tribe:
Emily Partridge on leaving Missouri to find refuge in Illinois:
Quote:Mother put what she could of her effects into a wagon and, with her family, started for—well, anywhere out of the state of Missouri.
We were set down on the banks of the Mississippi River, opposite Quincy, and were again houseless and homeless, wandering in the cold and bleak winter weather, with scanty food and clothing. We pitched our tents and waited for an opportunity to cross the river. There were several families of Saints there when we arrived, and they were continually coming, so the bank of the river was dotted with tents, now the only home of the again exiled Saints. The wagons bringing families were unloaded and taken back for more of the Saints. When we crossed the river it was partly on the ice and partly in the ferry boat. The shore on the Quincy side of the river was lined with the inhabitants of that place, to witness the crossing over of the Mormon outcasts even the exiled Saints in midwinter. Perhaps many thought they were a strange people, or some kind of animals; not human beings like themselves, subject to sorrow and pain, cold and hunger and distress.
In all our wanderings and being driven, we have had to go out in the cold winter months, and the suffering of the people must have been very great. Children could not sense the awful reality of the situation as older ones did, on whose shoulders the burden rested. I sometimes look back upon those scenes with horror, and wonder how the Saints did continue to endure, time after time, such heartless cruelties. But many could not endure, and so found an early grave.
And now, in 1885, nearly all of the Saints that were living then have passed away, and the few that are living now are those that were children then, and they are becoming advanced in years, and it will not be very long and there will be none left living upon the earth to bear witness against the horrid deeds of the Missouri mob.
Her sister, Eliza, 8 and a half years later, in Wyoming:
Quote:August 20th Platte De Alton Lyman born, at about 6 o’clock on Sunday morning. This is the second son that I have had born in a wagon and I still think it is a most uncomfortable place to be sick in. He was born on the east bank of the Platte river opposite Fort John or Laramie. The journey thus far has not been very pleasant to me, as I have been very nearly helpless all the way, but it is all right, we are going from the land of our oppressors [to] where we hope to raise our children in the fear of the Lord and where they will never suffer by the hands of our enemies as we have done.
21st Crossed the Platte river. The rocks in the bottom are so large that it seemed sometimes as if they would tip the wagon over. I held fast the baby and sister Caroline held fast to me so that I was not thrown quite out of bed.
My wife’s fourth-great-grandfather was one of the first two native Italian converts to the Church. (The journals simply record the day and not the order.) His ancestors had been the Waldensians – “The Poor” – who had been persecuted and killed by Catholic armies for 500 years for refusing to accept Catholicism. Those people were driven out of their Italian homeland time and time again, at one point almost becoming extinct, but they vowed never to leave for good – so they kept filtering back to their valley until the killing finally stopped. It was a sacred bond they had with that land, passed on for hundreds of years through intense hardship, suffering and death. If you want to read an amazing story of dedication, faith and dogged determination, their history is stunning. (Whenever I feel like being sorry for myself because I’m not understood, I think of them and immediately realize how self-centered and blown out of proportion that self-misery is.) John Daniel Malan walked away from that sacred homeland and his kindred dead when the saints were asked to gather to Utah, largely because he chose to believe in a modern prophet, the Book of Mormon, the principle of vicarious ordinances and the eternal vision the missionaries preached. He did it largely as a sign of his devotion to his heritage and his belief that his new religion honored them in the fullest way imaginable.
I don’t want obsession and fanaticism, but, as wayfarer said:
Quote:I can’t resist having the profoundest respect (for him – and others like him).
Blessed, honored Pioneer, indeed!
I very much agree with what Ray and Way have said. I also believe that part of this is about our brand. Pioneers are part of our brand just like the angel Moroni. We aren’t the only religion who holds our “pioneers” in reverence. The Amish are a much older faith, their pioneers, martyrs, etc. suffered hundreds of years earlier than ours, yet today in every Amish household the book cherished as much as the bible and hymnal is a book about the early persecuted martyrs. Their stories are retold and it’s a book they teach from.
Learning that was really helpful for me. The part that does make it hard, is that as a world wide church the story isn’t a personal. When it’s not personal it can get very boring at the least. Because the Amish live in communities with each other, the story line remains vital.
Thanks, all, for your thoughts. Like i said, I grew up in the Church and am descended from pioneers. I heard story after story growing up. I’ve visited the sites in Utah, Wyoming, Council Bluffs, etc. I totally loved Pioneer Trek (see my comments on the other thread re: Pioneer Trek). I’ve just grown weary in hearing the same types of stories over and over and over. And now that I don’t live within the shadow of the CoB – or even in the US, for that matter – the connection I feel to the pioneers is tenuous. I can only imagine how the Aussies, Polynesians, Kiwis and others in my ward relate to American settlers from the 1840s and 50s. I do understand, though, how and why others feel compelled by the pioneer stories of the ancestors. Kumahito, I can understand your feelings on this. My LDS ancestors left Utah to settle in the east, in disgust of the ongoing practice of post manifesto polygamy. I did not grow up with the veneration of the pioneers… we were free thinkers and realists about the church, so the pioneer thing wasn’t ever pushed on us. church was at times 35 miles away, so i never went to primary. but later, i married a wonderful girl whose parents were from solidly idaho LDS pioneers (although she grew up in DC area), and pending time with her relatives, i came to really enjoy the traditions. Then, as i learned the supressed histories within my mother’s family secrets (the dirty filthy polyg stories), i also came to revere those of my own progenitors who had tht pioneer background, recognizing their humanity.
it is fascinating to see how human nature mythologizes the past.
There are some pioneers I will celebrate this week: – cwald, who took a bullet for the rest of us. And never should have had to.
– Elder and Sister Mattsson who had the courage to speak openly about their perspectives on Mormonism even though they probably knew the backlash that would ensue.
– John Dehlin, who, for all his quirks and tangents had been a voice for good in helping people see the viability of balancing faith and doubt.
– Old-Timer who post under his real name and in doing so gives us the confidence that maybe one day we might be able to be open about our real beliefs too.
– All the mods on the board who devote hours on to create out own safe valley, far away, in the west (north, south and east)
And the rest of you who pull this, sometimes heavy, handcart of emotional, spiritual turmoil with me.
Thanks all.
mackay11 wrote:There are some pioneers I will celebrate this week:
– cwald, who took a bullet for the rest of us. And never should have had to.
– Elder and Sister Mattsson who had the courage to speak openly about their perspectives on Mormonism even though they probably knew the backlash that would ensue.
– John Dehlin, who, for all his quirks and tangents had been a voice for good in helping people see the viability of balancing faith and doubt.
– Old-Timer who post under his real name and in doing so gives us the confidence that maybe one day we might be able to be open about our real beliefs too.
– All the mods on the board who devote hours on to create out own safe valley, far away, in the west (north, south and east)
And the rest of you who pull this, sometimes heavy, handcart of emotional, spiritual turmoil with me.
Thanks all.
I second that. I was warmly welcomed into my husband’s family with its handcart pioneers. They’ve become my people, too. But what’s my route to Zion? Thanks to everyone here, and to another real name-user, Brian Johnston.
Thank you, mackay11. That means a lot to me. Old-Timer wrote:Thank you, mackay11. That means a lot to me.
And I as well.
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