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"I won't go. I can't go. I've poured my life's blood into this house. Please don't ask me to leave it now. It's nearly finished. It's all I ever hoped for. I've just barely finished the carpeting. It's unique. Why can't you just work in Virginia and come home every other weekend for a while until you can find work in Denver?"
Melba looked down at the multi-colored floor covering filling a 24" front room and wrapping itself past the fireplace and around the corner into the 14" by 14" dining area. Only Melba would have the patience to comb all Denver gathering free carpet samples piece by piece until every color in the rainbow was represented in her color-balanced checkerboard. The carpet, only one of many countless-hour projects did make this home unique. Its four two-story pillars set apart their plantation style home from all the others on Yucca Flats. Yucca Flats was a high plateau overlooking a beautiful valley between two big cities, Denver and Colorado Springs. Only from this high vantage point could one see (when the humidity was right), light reflections from both cities splashing up into the sky on both ends of the valley. The first time Melba saw these reflections, it took her breath away. She wondered if she were witnessing the beginning of the millennium.
The Union Pacific Railroad ran southward across the east side of the valley in early morning; the Santa Fe Line ran northward on the west side in early evening. One could set a watch with their whistles.
On summer days the hill to the valley floor became the most fun four youngsters could ever have on bikes and trikes, and middles of the scrub oak patches offered each child their very own outdoor rooms when they needed rest in the shade. Melba's mind wandered down the snakelike road. Only one mile lay between the house and the bottom of that valley, but what a mile . Melba remembered that cold winter ridge winds often deposited eight foot snowdrifts on that road which required using horses to bring the kids home from where the school bus stopped. Winter nights though were wonderful. Because the children had never lived near family members, care-packages from grandma, letters from friends, pictures in scrapbooks, and stories--endless stories were the only things that made relatives come alive. Due to Melba's interest in genealogy at an early age, she had collected pictures and stories no one else in her family possessed. It was a priceless collection which she loved to share with the children, mostly at bedtime. It made names more than names, and relatives more than the word genealogy. Perhaps it was just the children's attempt to put off turning out the light, but reviewing these stories at bedtime made all the people friendly and all the places come alive.
This Kapp home, a do it yourself kit, had been purchased at a bargain price from a collapsing unit of the elite Pepperidge Farm family of Denver Boulevard. The home's assembly had been halted by the of the Pepperidge family's internal problems which snowballed into tons of Kapp assembly problems for Carl and Melba, but now those problems--the roof, the well, the plumbing into the house, the property line, even the flooded basement--had all been solved. A lawn, a garden spot, corrals, and even a pine tree perimeter around all eighty acres had been added to enhance the home's value. The carpeting was the last phase.
"Yes, the carpet adds to it's uniqueness (but looks much like a giant patchwork quilt)," thought Carl to himself.
Melba had married Carl when he was 30, and the late pursuit of substantial income had caused the couple to relocate eight times already. This was the third home in the last five years. "I don't want to leave it either," was Carl's rely, "but Brunswick contracts both with government and commercial. Once within the company, I can transfer to the stable commercial end, so we can abandon our gypsy lifestyle keeping up with government contracts. We can then stay put until our children get through teenage years. We owe them that."
Melba could see the wisdom of Carl's thinking, so after both confirmed the plan through prayer and fasting Melba bought the "Home For Sale" sign. The preparations to go East began.
I want to interrupt my story here to ask a few questions. Do you think that maybe the feelings of Melba and Carl could have been similar to the feelings of our early pioneer ancestors when they had to leave the East to go West? Do you think this family will be happy in the East? Do you think their records will be important to them?
Well, Carl left Melba to sell the Denver house which, incidently, was done at a tremendous profit. Carl found housing for the family in the new place and settled in to his new job. The area was beautiful. Back in the hills of Virginia, the Blackberry plants ran rampant, free for the picking--the apple trees the same. They make you a believer in the story of Johnny Appleseed. Up every other hollow stood replicas of "The Little White Church in the Wildwood", and many bargained priced plantation estates, with winding cherry wood staircases and crystal chandeliers still in tact, lay dormant among the Pine and Chestnut trees. The clean-up of these old vacant mansions would be a tremendous chore because the humid Virginia air spawned moss, mold and mildew everywhere, but Melba catered the thought of reinvesting capital gains in one of them as soon as things settled down--but things didn't settle down. Carl was called to be the Branch President of a two county area, the new baby arrived, and Carl was laid off all within the first nine months.
"We don't want to move again. Please, let's stay here." This time it was the three older children's voices.
Twelve year old Jeff, particularly, had found a home in Virginia. He got along with everything there except the poison oak. Jeff's favorite thing was to spend time in the trees, and there were so many trees there. The pines grew so close together in the front yard that Jeff developed the ability of moving from tree to tree without disturbing a branch. Melba worried so about broken bones that, in desperation, a rope was strung through the trees, and the children counseled to always hang on to it when following Jeff's example.
Jeff somehow became acquainted with the neighbors. These new friends, Peggy and Doug, ran the Mount Rogers trail rides for tourists on weekends, and doubled as teacher and mechanic on weekdays. Peggy helped Jeff with his reading and followed with invitations for his whole family to share Mount Rogers with them. Carl could never go. You see, Carl was now busy trying to find a way to support the family. The profit from the Denver home was being used to sustain the family until work could be found. It became a family joke that every week they could eat a different part of the house. They ate each bedroom, the kitchen, the living room, the dining room--but nobody ever wanted to eat the bathroom or the porch. And nobody would think of eating the big white pillars that had stood at the entrance to the front door. The kids seemed to have a strange feeling for them. Each time the books came out at nights to talk about the people they never got to see, they always finished with the picture of the big white pillars. Somehow, they seemed alive. Somehow, the pictures and stories made blended everything together and made, even of dead grandparents, seem alive.
Carl's job hunting proved interesting. Once he landed a short term job to sell a whole town. Dow Chemical, a company town in a place called Saltville, had been closed because of toxic waste. Carl was hired to sell what he could of it. Once day Carl sold a building, the next--a railroad, the next--a whole mountain. It was a job like real life Monopoly but lasted only for a short time. Permanent employment seemed to evade him. Carl was getting discouraged. Working in the church was tremendously draining for Carl too, especially after he decided to try a billiard business with a partner in Greensboro, North Carolina. For one year, Carl had to commute four hours a weekend to conduct all meetings and business. That year was draining on the whole family, but many spiritually things happened to Carl--and to Melba.
While sitting in the Solemn Assembly room of the Washington temple with the prophet of God, Melba heard him say, "In the dedication of this temple we must give thanks to all our pioneer ancestry who sacrificed to take part in the building up of the West, and, equally, we give thanks to all the pioneer ancestry who have returned to build up the East."
Those words struck Melba with wonder. "Do you suppose the reason Carl couldn't find work any place other than Virginia was because the Lord wanted us here? Do you suppose the Lord guided the house sale with huge profit because he knew it would have to sustain us while we are here? Our money is just abut gone. Does that mean our time here is just about over? Has our family just been part of a plan?"
Melba's suspicions were right. It was only a short time later that Carl was released as Branch President and with still no employment, a trek West began. Melba was in a van with the five children and the camp gear. Carl was in a truck with a make shift camper that could be lived in if necessary. The plan was to look in every city across the continent for work, and, if found, Carl could stay in his camper until enough money could be earned to establish a home and send for the family. Melba would depend on Jeff to help her take the smaller children for a long summer stop at grandma's to visit. From here they could visit all those relatives whose names had come alive from the scrapbooks, pictures, and stories.
The family possessions--clothes, dolls, books, everything--was placed in a country house rental--except for the piano and the genealogy books which were entrusted to a close friend's basement. Melba shed a few tears when all their earthly possessions were boarded up in this less than desirable rental. She knew that if work could not be found by the end of summer, the winter rains would bring enough mold and mildew to ruin everything just like in the abandon mansions that characterized this area. For all any of them knew, they may never see their possessions again.
The trip across the continent was really a very wonderful experience for the children. For three months they traveled slowly--exploring, camping, singing, and discovering things together. They ate picnics under the St. Louis arches, ran through Dorothy's Wizard of Oz fields in Kansas, and caught their first fish in Yellowstone. And blessing of all blessings, Carl found work in Idaho by the end of summer and arranged for a moving company to pick up the possessions and bring them West. Those from the country rental went into the moving van first--then the piano, and then the precious genealogy books placed right at the back before the van door was closed.
Well, the story would have ended here, except that the driver who picked up the possessions used alcohol. The first winter rains began the day he started out of the Virginia hills, and his inattentiveness caused his rig to Jack-knife on the slippery winding hill roads. The back end of the rig tipped at an angle overhanging a steep embankment. The pressure of the load shifting popped open the back doors scattering much of the load down the mountain in the rain. The cartons that remained in the van were bent and crushed from the shifting load until virtually every carton was torn. An immediately summoned company crew gathered what they could find on the mountain and shoved it into new containers--wet. They repackaged everything within without labeling anything and sent it on to its destination. Melba opened box after box smelling mold and mildew, but the greatest sadness of all was that the precious genealogy book, pictures and stories, were missing. Being next to the back door, the books had apparently fallen out first, and perhaps ended up the farthest down the hill unnoticed. Every box had been inspected except the containers of canned food, and the precious records were not there. Melba was heartbroken.
It was many tears and many days later when Carl finished the shelves for the food storage in their Idaho home. Having access to a community cannery in Virginia, Melba had jarred a surprising number of blackberries, apples and, of course, applebutter made from real cinnamon oil. Apparently, those packing cartons had received such a bump in the accident that many of the jars had broken. Jars still in tack had been repacked into new cartons sometimes smearing the stains of the ruptured bottles in the hurry. Nothing stains as badly as blackberries.
"I don't believe this," Melba exclaimed. "Here is a page of my genealogy book wrapped around the blackberries--and here is another--and here is another--and another. My genealogy book must have broken open as it fell down the hill, and the packers have gathered the sheets to use around my jars of fruit which remained unbroken."
Melba's efforts increased momentum as she opened the remaining boxes with the same results. Though pieces of blackberry or apple were dried on the outside of many bottles, not one additional bottle had ruptured in the rough treatment of the repacking. Not one genealogy sheet packed around them had been stained to the point of illegibility, and not one picture had been creased even though the pages on which they were mounted were crushed into paper balls and stuffed around the bottles. Melba heated the steam iron to mildly warm and started to iron the pages out flat. By the end of the day, every record, every picture, and every story was accounted for. Melba was jubilant. It was a miracle.
Well, as some of you may have guessed, this is not a story of Carl, Jeff, and Melba at all. It is a true story of Harvey, Steven, and I. I changed the names to make it a little easier to tell. My point is that I will never understand how God protected my records, but I know that he did. He wouldn't have done that if it were not important. I would like to summarize with four personal statements of testimony.
1) I will always feel that the Lord sent our family to Virginia to be some of those from the West that the prophet talked about. I felt a quickening of my spirit when our prophet spoke those words. I know that the Lord blesses us when we go and do what is needed no matter where it is.
2) I believe that the family genealogy-memorabilia, pictures and stories are priceless. They kept my family and me from feeling isolated so far from home. Though still distanced in a different way from relatives, our family knows they have a lineage. They belong to a group. Detachment is named as the major cause of problems such as substance abuse and suicide, especially for teens. Nothing is worse to a teen than feeling they are alone, have no unit--no identity. Making grandparents or even great grandparents come alive solidifies a feeling of belonging. Belonging is an innate feeling of people, and I feel it is natural because it is the Lord's way or order. We are told the Lord's house is one of order and his communications come through the lineage to which you belong. That's why He tells us to search our lineage and be sealed up as such. Stories and pictures of relatives tie us to a lineage. They are used as conversation pieces to jog memories when gathering information for ordinances, the temple work. While you use dates and names, not pictures or stories, for the temple ordinances, the use of stories and pictures often helps locate the names. The new title "Family History" suggests working at both is more is important. I included my son, Steve, in my story because he has a love for genealogy and is using his computer skills to further our families record keeping. I think he may have gained this interest because I always told parent, grandparent, and great grandparent stories. Young people can write stories as well as older people. Young people can take pictures as well as older people. Young people certainly have a better knack for working on the computers than older people. I bear testimony that not only our generation of children needs ties to a family unit for stability, but the Lord need a sealing line for the order of Heaven. Any contribution to family history is important.
3) I bear testimony that money is as important as food if there is a family emergency. Interestingly, our experience of total unemployment with no supplement was two years to the month. It took all $40,000 dollars for sustenance, travelling to job interviews, church service, crossing the continent, and re-establishment costs. Our food supply lasted beyond, but we completely diminished our cash flow. Money is important in a two year storage plan. Our family ran completely out of it the week of Harvey's first paycheck from Aro-jet Nuclear at the site. The Lord blessed us to have our exact needs.
4) I bear testimony that I witnessed a miracle of record keeping. I know that the Lord brings forth records--even hidden records, and protects records--such as mine, in mysterious ways. Genealogical record keeping, now called family history, is an very important work. I will always remember the joy I felt as I ironed the sheets.