On the 24th of July, in Utah, we celebrate ‘Pioneer Day’ with a parade, rodeo and fireworks. It is a Utah holiday and rightly so. That is the date, in 1847, that our pioneer forefathers first drove their covered wagons down into the Salt Lake Valley after a thousand mile-plus trek across the dusty plains.
On that date each year, I wonder how many Utahns actually do remember the pioneers and what they went through to get here? Or do they even think about what they had to do once they were here. They had to establish their homes, plant crops so they would have food to eat or they would actually starve to death? For them, it wasn’t a matter of “well, if the corn doesn’t mature we’ll have to run down to Albertsons and buy some.” Theirs was a matter of “if the corn doesn’t mature we won’t have any.”
It was a very difficult life for them, but unlike us, they didn’t have many choices in terms of what they could do. It is an interesting challenge they faced; when you don’t have choices, what you do is pretty much laid out for you. Therefore, you do what you have to do with a prayer in your heart that you will be successful.
As I thought more about pioneering, it occurred to me that it is also common to call one who is the first to investigate or discover a new field of knowledge, they are referred to as pioneers in that field, or that industry, etc. What if we expanded that concept a little and said, maybe it would be appropriate to call every one a pioneer who was, for their first time, investigating a new field of study or learning a new job. Where they were trying to learn all of the particulars and details involved in an area of knowledge which until now they knew little or nothing about.
Maybe a more appropriate name would be pilgrims, as apposed to pioneers. The English Puritans who founded the Plymouth colony were called pilgrims. Perhaps anyone who travels to a sacred place or is on a sacred quest should also be called a pilgrim. Another way of looking at the term is the way John Wayne did in one of his famous westerns, where he referred to anyone younger or less ‘trail wise’ than he, as a pilgrim.
When I was a young boy, I read, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” a story about Christian, a young man representing all Christians, who, going through life, runs into obstacles that must be overcome before he could move on towards his goal of eternal life. From that perspective, we are all pilgrims.
Beginning family history workers should be called pilgrims, as it has a much more challenging ring to it than novice or beginner. We truly are pioneers and/or pilgrims as we embark on our ancestral quests. We are on a sacred journey, through time, investigating old records, from places, and languages that we may have had no previous experience with. Searching here and there for clues that will lead us to a name, a place, a time, with the hopes that to find one ancestor will lead us to more. Is it not a sacred quest?
Do we not wander through time and to new places. Unlike those searching for the Holy Grail, a phantom relic, we are truly on a sacred search quest for the names of eternal links, family links, that must be found and tied to us and ours, eternally. We cannot fail because our ancestors are counting on us. We must be faithful pilgrims, with a prayer that our quest will be successful.