During my preparatory class for this study abroad program in the UK, I was given an assignment to find some ancestors in England. Because I grew up in a LDS home and all my grandparents and most of my extended family were active in the Church, I assumed that this would be an easy assignment. I figured I could just call home and we'd have stories and ancestors out the wazoo for me to pick form.
That, however, was not the case. Though I was able
to complete the assignment, I was shocked to find how little my family actually
knew about our ancestors. I decided to learn more about my own family as a side
project during my studies in the United Kingdom.
Once in London, my religion teacher gave us a lot
of freedom for our final project topic in his class. Family history seemed like
the perfect thing for me to do.
I’m writing
this blog as a summary of the information I found about the family and the LDS
church in the UK during the restoration, and also to help share the cool stuff
with all of the fam!
I ultimately
discovered two incredible, spiritually enriching stories that I want to share
with you guys.
The first was the
story of Mary Magdalene Reid Tyndale Baxter. I guess you can call her my
accidental namesake because Madeleine is a variation of the name Magdalene. She
lived from 12 February 1826 to 24 November 1909 (that’s 83 years!). She is my
great x3 grandmother on my paternal grandfather’s side.
Can you see the
family resemblance?
She was such a
remarkable lady that her story is written in Pioneer Heritage Volume 6 Pioneer
Midwieves [Part 1i]. Here is her story:
Grandma Baxter Emigrant's Guide Mary Tyndale Baxter Ferguson was born in
Glasgow, Scotland, February 12, 1826, the daughter of Dr. John Tyndale, a
Reverend Divine of the Secession Church, and Magdalene Anderson Haethen
Tyndale. Her mother was a widow with four children before her marriage to Dr.
Tyndale. Mary was the only child of this union. Her mother being very ill, the
little girl was placed in the care of the hired nurse, Agnes Reid. After a long
illness Mrs. Tyndale passed away and the following year Mary's father died.
From that time on she was reared in the home of Mrs. Reid and grew up to feel
that her foster parents and brothers and sisters were as close to her as her
own blood relations. The following sketch of her life is taken from a letter
written in 1881 to her youngest daughter, Victoria Delia Adelaide Baxter Blade,
which was put in the Jubilee Box of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints: “... Mrs. Reid was a good, kind mother and brought
me up in the fear of the Lord. I was sent early to school but my health was
very bad until I was twelve years old, after which I had excellent health until
the present time, with the exception of the ague when I was in St. Louis. I was
given a good education under the direction of my uncle, Andrew Welsh, who came
often to see me and urged me to go with him and make my home with his family.
Up till this time, I never knew that Mrs. Reid was not my own mother, and when
the truth of my parentage was told me, it was a source of great grief to me for
I loved her and never knew any other and refused to leave her. I remained in
school until I was sixteen and then went to work in the silk factory for three
shillings a week. After a while I went to the Steam Loom Factory, where I made
good wages and from that time, made my own living and never took a cent more
from my uncle. Mrs. Reid's husband was killed in the coal mines when I was
three years old, and she had no money to care for her family except what she
received for my care ... I was always religiously inclined and always went to
church and Sunday School. When I was seventeen I became a member of the Relief
Church and was a Presbyterian. I was also a member of the Ministers' class ...
I was appointed president of the Missionary Society, the object of which was to
collect funds to send to ministers in Africa ... I did not know then that we
did not have the true gospel. That was in 1844 and we had not heard of a
Prophet being raised up. In the fall of 1845, my sister Catherine and her
husband joined the Mormons and I felt very bad about it ... I began to
investigate and search the Bible, and the more I tried to convince them of
their error, the more I, myself, was convinced that the Lord had indeed raised
up a Prophet. I was going with a young man when I first heard the Gospel
preached, and he told me that if I joined the Latter-day Saints, I should lose
his society. I became fully convinced of the necessity of baptism for the
remission of sins. The members of my foster family were investigating too, but
none of them ever obeyed. I was baptized the 16 of October 1846. All of my
companions left me and I had my good name cast out as evil, for the Gospel's
sake ... I am now met with the Saints in a little school room, and we were
laughed at and scorned by the world ... We had good times at the conferences...
The Saints came from all the branches, also some of the American elders. It was
at one of these conferences that I first met your father. He lived at Airdrie,
twelve miles from Rutherglee. He was a good Latter-day Saint and a well-behaved
young man. We were married May 31, 1849, at Rutherglee by Andrew Ferguson ...
Your father took me home to Airdrie where I was well received by his father and
mother and also by the Saints there. Your grandmother had three children die,
and I was with her assisting in all their sickness. She then took sick and was
in bed nearly a year. I took care of her until I was confined with my first baby,
who was born March 7, 1850. He was named Henry after his grandfather, who was a
good, kind man. Shortly after, my husband took sick working in fire damp in the
coal mines and didn't recover for nearly a year. His father, who had quite a
bit of money, offered to pay our way to America as he thought his son's health
would be better. He also paid the passage of William Stevenson, wife and
family. My mother and brothers felt very bad about our decision to leave, and
brother William offered me every inducement if I would leave the Mormons. We
set sail on the 6th of January, 1851 ... We landed in New Orleans and from
there took a boat to St. Louis ... Stayed two years, saving all we could to get
our outfit to Zion ... In the spring of 1853 we got our outfit together and
started on our journey... I could not begin to tell of the particulars of this
journey in this short sketch. My son John was born on this journey at Black
Fork, forty-five miles from Salt Lake, September 6th, 1853. I was better after
his birth and arrived in Salt Lake City on the 17th of September 1853. I was
happy to be with the Saints in the gathering place, but we had a very hard
winter with no experience in a new country and very little to eat. My husband
was very discouraged and wanted to go to California where we could get a better
living. He could not stand to see us suffer, but I would not leave the Church.
My oldest son Henry took sick with scarlet fever and died January 24, 1854. I
cannot tell my grief. Following the death of my husband we had a hard two years
... Six years later I married Andrew Ferguson. Mary (daughter) died September
25, 1878, after a long illness. I was appointed president of the Relief Society
of Spanish Fork July 2, 1875, by Bishop Snell and have endeavored to magnify my
calling before the Lord and the people and do take great pleasure in relieving
the wants of the poor. I was also treasurer of the Relief Society of Goshen the
four years I lived there. I have also acted in the capacity of midwife ever
since 1864 and have never lost a case up to this date. I have been successful
in administering remedies to the sick, both young and old, and for this reason
I wish to apologize for the imperfections of this sketch, for at this time
there is a great deal of sickness among the children, lung fever and some
diphtheria and I am called out so much. And in all I do. I ask for wisdom and
understanding and His Blessing to be upon me. For myself--I am nothing. And I
here testify that I know the Lord has spoken from Heaven, in this, my day and
that Joseph Smith was a true prophet ... Now I shall close this and hope that
whoever may receive this short sketch will overlook the imperfections and
receive them thankfully, for it is a great blessing to have parents who have
received the Gospel and have remained steadfast through privation and hunger,
and have labored diligently to help make Zion blossom as the rose...”
This was written
in 1881. She would go on to live twenty-eight more years, which she would use
to continue the building of Zion.
I find her parting
statement very powerful. To me, it sounds as though she is writing to her own descendants.
She didn’t have parents who accepted the gospel (in fact her parents had died
and her foster parents had disowned her when she joined the church), so she
must have been speaking to the future generations of her own family that she
believed would be born under the blessings of the covenant. That's me!
The second story
is one I got to piece together myself. My paternal grandmother is an Allred,
which is a family with plenty of church history. Because they were converted in
the United States and most of their work is done, I decided not to do much
research on them, but for the purpose of this story I have to tell you about
one man:
Reddick Newton Allred
is an ancestor of mine whose story Henry B. Eyring told in a General Conference
talk titled “Finding Safteyy in Council” in 1999. I’ll quote him because he
tells it best:
“He was one of the rescue party sent out by Brigham Young to bring in the
Willie and Martin Handcart Companies. When a terrible storm hit, Captain Grant,
captain of the rescue party, decided to leave some of the wagons by the
Sweetwater River as he pressed ahead to find the handcart companies. With the
blizzards howling and the weather becoming life-threatening, two of the men
left behind at the Sweetwater decided that it was foolish to stay. They thought
that either the handcart companies had wintered over somewhere or had perished.
They decided to return to the Salt Lake Valley and tried to persuade everyone
else to do the same.
Reddick Allred refused to budge. Brigham had sent
them out and his priesthood leader had told him to wait there. The others took
several wagons, all filled with needed supplies, and started back. Even more
tragic, each wagon they met coming out from Salt Lake they turned back as well.
They turned back 77 wagons, returning all the way to Little Mountain, where
President Young learned what was happening and turned them around again. When
the Willie Company was finally found, and had made that heartrending pull up
and over Rocky Ridge, it was Reddick Allred and his wagons that waited for
them.”
Eventually, the Martin handcart
company was found and also helped as well.
This story became extra special to
me while I was researching my mother’s side. (Remember, Reddick is from my
father’s side.) Though there is zero information on my maternal grandfather’s
family on Family Search, my mother was able to help me find some information
about the Cushings.
In reference to the above story, I
found one couple particularly interesting. William and Mary Anne Openshaw were
origninally from Radcliff and Bolton Lanchasire, England. They were converted
sometime around the late 1840s / early 1850s they joined the church. The
eventually decided to make the trek to Salt Lake City to join the saints and were
part of the unfortunate Martin handcart company.
That means that my father’s
ancestors helped save my mother’s ancestors. So cool right? It’s little discoveries like this that make
family history so amazing. My family has been affecting each other’s lives in
this tangled web for literally centuries, and I am only just now discovering
it! This story is part of the many events that took place to make this gorgeous
family happen:
(Front: Kirsten Cushing Lewis, Sophia Anne Lewis, Madeleine Ora Lewis. Back: Gregory Kenneth Lewis, Eleanor Francis Lewis.)
These two stories made a lot of
tedious searching worth it for me. I’ve barely scratched the surface of all the
work that needs to be done, but I'm eager to do it.
I’m thankful for my ancestors’
faith, bravery, strength and endurance. I hope I can live up to their legacy. I
want to honor them by continuing to look for the names of those whose work has
not been completed, and I want to learn and document the stories of my family,
so they can be known outside my family too.
