The Letters
In 2007 while my
wife and I were serving a mission in Salt Lake City, we had a most remarkable
experience, one not directly related to our mission assignment, but one
relating to some of our ancestors. It
had not been anticipated, but it was one I will always be grateful to the Lord
for. My interest in family history, or
genealogy began when I was a young college student. I enjoyed learning about my
ancestors as I engaged in research over the next 40 years, but I found nothing,
which compared to that which I saw on that memorable day.
Not far from where
we lived and worked, was the museum of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. The museum itself, with its thousands of
artifacts, is very impressive, but in the back, on the first floor, they also
have a history department in which is archived hundreds and hundreds of pioneer
stories submitted by various people over the years. My wife wanted to see if anything existed on
one particular relative of hers so we made several trips up there to see what
could be found. That in and of itself
was a bit of a challenge as the first time we attempted to go there we arrived
just after the librarian in charge had gone home and on a different day we
arrived to find the building locked.
Finally, we decided to try it during one of our lunch breaks. After getting something to eat we walked up
the hill north of the Administration building, where we worked, to the museum,
located near the state capitol building.
This time the building was open and the librarian in charge of the
archives was present. My wife found the
name of her ancestor in the file books, filled out the proper request form and
handed it to the person in charge. Since
I was there, I decided I might as well do a little research also, so filled out
a request for information on my second great grandmother, Abigail Varney
Griffin, wife of Albert Bailey Griffin.
When the librarian
approached the table where I was seated, she handed me a thin manila envelope
containing some information on grandmother Abigail, but she also had another
file in her hand and said, “Do you want to look at this file, it was stuck to
the other when I pulled it out.” I
looked at the file, which was much larger, and wondered what could be in
it. As I opened it, to my amazement, I
found it contained copies of about seventy five letters written to grandfather
Albert Bailey and his family, who were then living in Kanarraville, Utah. They were mostly from Vermont and covered a
period of time between 1852 and 1895.
Some were from friends, cousins and children, and even one had been
written by his mother, Sylvia Bailey Griffin, but the majority were written by
three of his sisters, Sylvia, Rosetta and Electa, and a brother, Harrison.
As I thumbed
through them I began to see a marvelous history of his extended family with
details of their lives that I never knew existed. With in the lines of those letters was also
personal information including names of children and grandchildren along with
dates of birth and etc. I was so touched as I read of the love those sisters
for a brother whom they had never seen since he left Essex, Vermont in
1837. One of the sisters had addressed
one of her letters to, ‘My Dear and Far Away Brother.’ It was overwhelming as I read and tried to
grasp what lay before my eyes. There was too much to copy at the time, but I
did make a few prints with a plan to return at a later date when I could make
copies of all of them. Eventually I did do that and in the months that followed
and even beyond our mission, I poured over those letters, finding more and more
information and at the same time growing ever closer to that family from so
many years
Where the letters
came from, I do not know, nor could the library tell me, but I will be forever
grateful for those who kept and preserved them over the years and deposited
them in that archive, and to our Father in Heaven who placed me where I needed
to be.
On the same
eventful day that I looked at that file, that just happened “to be stuck” to
the other one, I also called my brother, Bradley, who lived in the area, to
wish him a happy birthday. He was not
home, but amazingly enough, his son informed me that he was that very day in Vermont
visiting the birthplace of Albert Bailey Griffin and his son Charles
Emerson. The spirit of our ancestors was
upon us that day.
Royce Griffin
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