by Sherlene Hall Bartholomew

It’s not hard, remembering my first significant “find,” using a census.  As part of an assignment for a wonderfully vigorous British research course I took at BYU from Dr. David H. Pratt, I searched the 1861 Census of Countesthorpe, Leicester, England, looking for my “Mormon pioneer”  ancestors.

To my amazement, I not only found them still living in Countesthorpe, but found three generations under the same roof!  Emigration records soon revealed why:  My ancestor Thomas Burdett, Jr. and his family, along with his sister Jane B. Hastings and her four children, were regrouping at their parents’ cottage while preparing to cross the ocean to the States on the ship “Manchester.”  They emigrated only days after the census taker found them on April 7 that same year.  (Jane’s husband emigrated seven years earlier, perhaps to find work and help the others join him.)

Thomas Jr. had joined the Church at age eighteen, on May 15, 1846, the same day as his mother, Elizabeth Shenton Burdett.  His future wife, Maria Herbert, was baptized eight months later, also in Countesthorpe, where they married in 1850.  Now, eleven years and four daughters later, Thomas prepared to leave his parents and much of his family behind, in his determination to reach and help build Zion.

Did he know that mother Elizabeth was ailing as he left?  She died only a year later, not living to see her husband Thomas Sr. join the Church, a month after she breathed her last.  How it must have torn her to see the strong Church members in her family leave, taking along eight grandchildren!  I can’t imagine her grief on learning that while crossing the plains, Thomas and Maria buried their toddler and that then Maria herself died, giving still birth shortly after they reached the Valley.

Since Thomas had his hands full trying to earn a living, his daughters were taken in by kind neighbors who wanted to adopt them, but Thomas could not bear to give them up.

Years later, their pioneering experience was described by Thomas Jr.’s third daughter, Eliza, part of which I share, as follows:

Eliza Burdett Horspool (Photo courtesy of Julie Smith Johnson)

We arrived in Williamsburg where we stayed for five weeks, father working in a knitting factory while we were there. We then took a train to Florence, Nebraska or what was then known as Winter Quarters. Here there were sixty-one wagons with ox teams that President Brigham Young had sent to meet us and bring us to Utah.  Captain Horn was placed at the head of the company.

I will never forget how tired I got of that long ride with nothing to see. Most of the older people had to walk all the way, but as I was only four years old, I was permitted to ride. I would beg my father to let me down to walk for a while, and of course I couldn't begin to keep up with the wagons. We would get quite a ways behind, but then he would pick me up, put me on his shoulders, and carry me, so that we could catch up.

No one was permitted to get far behind on account of the danger of Indians. At nights they would drive the wagons all around in a circle, forming a kind of corral. Everyone then stayed on the inside so that the Indians could not steal them. We saw many Indians of the Pawnee tribe, but they were very peaceable and helped the Saints in many ways. The Saints had been warned to feed them rather than fight them.  Brigham Young decided this was the best.

My little sister Faunie, the baby who wasn't two years old, took sick and died.  She is buried near Chimney Rock in Wyoming. Mother grieved so much over her. They dug her grave deep and, not having any boards to make a coffin, just wrapped the body in a sheet.  I can hear my mother crying and saying, 'Those poor little bones'.  I realized as I grew older that she meant that they would be crushed by the weight of the dirt and the rocks as the grave was filled in.

When we arrived at Ogden, a brass band led by Mr. Sprague met us at Riverdale and played some lively tunes to cheer us up. We reached Ogden on September 15, 1861.  At that time there were only three shingled houses in Ogden; Mr. Brown's, Walter Thompson's and the Tabernacle.”

(Eliza’s account, dated February 1941, was given to Elvera Manful on a Federal Writers Project for Utah Pioneer Biographies and is found in Vol. 13 p. 111, Utah 31, at the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.)  

After Marie died, Thomas worked hard to support his three living daughters and did not marry Auguste Fredrickson, of Denmark, until ten years later.  From this marriage he was blessed with only one child, Thomas, who died before reaching age two.

My own father, while identifying this five-generation photo of Thomas and some of his descendants, said that relatives often told him about Thomas’ generous and kind nature.  “Even though he suffered so much himself for the gospel’s sake, it only made him more caring and gentle,” Dad explained.  “Though Thomas had very little himself, he would give the very shirt off his back to help someone in need.  You can see that, can’t you, just looking at his countenance?”

Thomas Burdett Jr. Five Generation Photo (Sitting in front is Thomas Burdett Jr. with his daughter, my ancestor, Emma Maria Burdett.  Behind Thomas stands Emma’s daughter Annie Tracy Butler, beside her daughter, Vincie.  The adorable baby is Annie’s son, Victor Roberts.  This photo is from files of my parents, H. Tracy and Ida-Rose L. Hall.)

Ancestors on my mother’s lines named Langford, Chlarson, Norton, Bedford, Turnbaugh, and Davis also crossed the plains as Latter-day Saint converts.  I save for later some of their incredibly heroic and faith-filled experience.

What I must tell now is what happened when my husband Dan and I went to England, tracing ancestral footsteps of both our ancestors.  (We did not know our Leicestershire ancestors knew each other in the early Church until years after our marriage!)

Arriving in Countesthorpe in April, 1997-- the same month Thomas and his family emigrated 136 years earlier, we were welcomed by town historian, Hettie Schultka, who informed us that because street names had changed, we devoted a whole roll of film and an hour of our limited time to the wrong lane. 

Having researched deeds of many early homes, she took us to the very cottage where three generations of Burdetts once crowded together under the same roof, as found in that 1861 census.  There they said their final goodbyes at what was then Willoughby Road (now remodeled as Nos. 3-5, Austrey Lane)

Mrs. Schultka welcomed us to her home, where she had a room-full of records.  She asked what my research goal was, coming there.  I told her I wanted most of all to know when Elizabeth Shenton Burdett, first LDS convert in that line, died and also to learn where she was buried. 

At that she led me to her fiche reader in a back room, where she brought out notebooks into which she had hand-copied Countesthorpe census records.  “I think I remember seeing a Thomas Burdett living with a Russell family,” she said.  “Oh, yes, look here—by 1871 Thomas was alone and had moved in with his daughter, Maria  Russell. Elizabeth’s death record must be on this fiche.”  Dan was by now sinking deeply into a living room chair, prepared for a long, long wait.

With trembling hands, I focused on the reader.  The very first image of the “Burial Register for St. Andrew’s Church” that came up clear enough to read was “No. 772, Elizabeth Burdett, Countesthorpe.  May 29, 1862.  J. Rogers.”

I was not the only one in the room whose eyes glistened.  I will long remember profound feelings of love for Elizabeth and that electrifying sense of connection we shared as Hettie helped me learn more about my third great-grandmother.  I felt certain that Elizabeth was there, prompting Hettie, as she helped me find information so quickly.  Dan was thrilled, too, when we joined him much sooner than expected!

Dear Mrs. Schultka explained that even nonconformists were then buried in the local St. Andrew's churchyard.  She gave us photo prints showing how the church looked inside and out, while our ancestors were there, and checked her records to affirm that Elizabeth has no standing marker.  Then she showed us what part of the beautiful churchyard probably held Elizabeth’s remains, so we could take pictures and honor her memory there.

There’s much more to share about our experience in England, including finding much about Dan’s ancestor James Mellor.  Of all things, he was the area branch president when my Burdetts joined the Church!  James wrote in his journal about walking the six miles to Countesthorpe and other outlying areas from Leicester each Sunday, as he ministered to scattered area converts.  He did not mention my ancestors in his journal, but church records show their activity during the same years James led that early Blaby (later Leicester) Branch.  James emigrated with his family before my Burdetts left, again leading my people by his own sterling example.

This Sunday Dan and I were blessed to be in the Salt Lake Conference Center as the First Presidency presided at a deeply moving Pioneer Day Commemoration devotional.  The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square (with guests, conductor Crawford Gates and Jenny Oaks Baker, violinist), combined their talents in what President Hinckley described as an “absolutely magnificent” performance.  President James E. Faust delivered a riveting message that included his bright witness that “The Lord Jesus Christ leads this sacred work.” Our Lord’s love was additionally celebrated by musical arrangements, both original and subsequent, of such life-infusing, shoulder-straightening favorites as “They, the Builders of the Nation,” “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” “Reverie on ‘Oh Ye Mountains High,’” “High on the Mountain Top,” “Our Savior’s Love,” Excerpts from “Promised Valley,” Faith in Every Footstep,” and of course, “Come, Come, Ye Saints.”

While taking in this celebration of sound and spirit, surrounded by nearly twenty thousand others in that packed Center (invisible were multitudes more who watched the televised broadcast), I wondered if our pioneer ancestors were there with us, as an additional unseen audience, rejoicing to see what their faith and sacrifice made possible. 

I also thought on ideas that surfaced in a Relief Society discussion I led in our Orem Canyon View Fourth Ward a week earlier.  That day our gospel study centered on this quote from former Church president John Taylor:

God has organized a priesthood,
and that priesthood bears rule in
all things pertaining to the earth
and the heavens; one part of it
exists in the heavens,
another part on the earth;
they both cooperate together
for the building up of Zion,
the redemption of the
dead and the living, and
the bringing to pass the “times of
the restitution of all things;” and . . .
they are thus closely united . . .

I had asked Janet Taggart, a sister in our ward, to apply her trained and practiced talent to create a graphic, making visual the above concept, as explained by President Taylor, in Chapter 13 of our study guide.

by Janet Taggart

What makes Janet’s contribution so meaningful is that each of us, by the Spirit, can gain individual insight while interpreting her artistic response to this revelation. 

You will have different and better ideas as you view it.  What I see in her illustration is a wagon wheel, an appropriate symbol I’m grateful to include in this column about pioneers.

 I also see joined hands, forming a star-beacon to light the way for many who are lost, in unity that binds us not only to each other and to those gone before, but also to the Father of us all who said:

For behold, this is my work and
my glory—to bring to pass the
immortality and eternal life of
man.  (Moses 1:39)

I see ancestors who, also with clasped hands, are upward bound, prepared to enter new realms of education and experience made possible as we, their descendants, circle sacred altars.  There we join in prayer and holy vows that bind us as families together, everlastingly.

Through God’s mercy and power, hearts (as well as wheels) turn, as promised by Elijah, so that swords can someday become plowshares (Is. 2:4), and the earth’s curse be lifted (Mal. 4:5-6).  So it is that God’s work and glory rolls forth in one eternal round as we, like our pioneer ancestors, set aside personal interest to focus on the Lord’s work and the general good of His children.

On this Twenty-Fourth of July, as we celebrate that day in 1847 when pioneers entered the Valley, I’m reminded of President Hinckley’s stirring message, as he dedicated the Mormon Trail Center at historic Winter Quarters in Omaha, Nebraska, in April, 1997:

These were great people in whose footsteps we walk.  They were men and women of courage and faith, of enterprise and great capacity to do what they set out to do.

How thankful I am, how deeply grateful I am, how profoundly I feel a sense of gratitude for the pioneers who left here 150 years ago and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, and all those who followed them . . . . God be thanked for their faith.

We come of a great people, and whether we are of that stock or whether we have just come into the Church, we are all a part of the legacy of greatness, that exodus to greatness which occurred at the base of Parleys Street, where the first wagons moved down and crossed the Mississippi.

God bless us all to be more worthy of that legacy, as we join hands to pioneer today’s challenging frontiers!

###

By Sherlene Hall Bartholomew, copyright 2003

Click here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.

Sherlene Hall Bartholomew is, like you, the descendant of 510 individuals from many lands and every imaginable background, some lost and some found--and that's only counting 8 generations back! She is the wife of Daniel R. Bartholomew; mother of our children, Daniel H. (m. Diane Liu) and Laura B. (m. R. Brandon Woodruff); and grandmother of Brandon Michael and Ethan Matthew Woodruff. These, along with our parents and extended family, are bound to me by love and in covenant, through the gospel of Jesus Christ,and are my life's joy and blessing. Not much else really matters. I do hope through this monthly column to express thanks to my Father in Heaven and to honor those ancestors who made this family and an abundant life possible for me. Best of all, I get to share with you readers just some of the fun and excitement involved in "The Search" after our very living dead.