Thursday, August 18, 2011

Generations Project:The Taylor's

Saying that I’m “in to” LDS Church History is a gross understatement. I love Church History!!! I’m enthralled by Church History!!! I am passionate about Church History!!! I live for those “boring” D&C lessons where everyone’s struggling to stay awake on a sultry Sunday Morning. Needless to say, I can’t tell you how excited I was when I saw this job post on lds.org …. Church History Acquisitions Specialist !



















No WAY! Job description: "Assist the Church History Department in working with Church ... in surveying, identifying, evaluating and appraising, collecting and capturing, historical materials". How cool! It’s like a Mormon Indiana Jones! (Unless he is already Mormon, there is that scene in “The Last Crusade” that opens in Utah…?)! Almost am I persuaded to pursue… if not that I am 1. Under qualified 2. Not living in SLC. Oh well, we all can dream…I’m most passionate about early Church History, and I’ve always been interested by how my ancestors joined the church. From what I’ve been able to gather, I’ve really got a pretty broad spectrum of ways my ancestors joined the Church, early Saints who joined the church in the 1830’s, pioneers who crossed the plains, immigrants who joined the Church in the old country and traveled to the US by sea and rail, and more modern-day converts. I always knew that somewhere back there was some pioneer history, but it wasn’t until on my mission that I really become interested how my family joined the Church. I was thinking about it the other day, when when this great idea came upon me, "Why not do a series of blog posts about how my ancestors joined the Church?"
Awesome! I'm not quite sure all the details, so it will require to do a bit of research, but will be a unique way of documenting my family history as well as try to understand what role my ancestors played in the Church.
When I came back from France, I enrolled in an Church History class at BYU-I, where my semester project was to write a paper on an early saint of our choice(related or non-related). I chose William (Warren) Taylor (read about him here http://www.taylorassociation.org/biographies/taylor/taylor_william_1787-1839.htm).I can't find the paper I wrote, I think I lost it in the Great Computer Crash of Dec '09, but since I already knew some of the information, it would be an easy place to start. The Taylors' are my maternal grandmother's side. More about their family at http://home.comcast.net/~susanjackman/burketweb/ancestornarrative/b273.htm. William joined the LDS movement in June 1834 as one of the first converts in Missouri, but I was touched deeply about by the life of his wife, Elizabeth Patrick Taylor .(http://frtaylor.community.officelive.com/ElizabethPatrickTaylorhistory.aspx)   
Elizabeth Patrick Taylor
To me, she embodies early Latter-day Saint women and all they stood for. She was a seamstress and an excellent cook. Her's is a story of sacrificing home after home, bringing meals to the Prophet Joseph Smith while in Liberty Jail, losing her husband to typhoid while fleeing Missouri, chasing off the mob with a burning brand from the fire, witnessing the speech where, being sealed in the Nauvoo temple to her dead husband in 1845, witnessing the “Mantle of Joseph” fall upon Brigham Young, and crossing the plains as a widow to Salt Lake in 1849. When Saints were ordered to leave Nauvoo, Elizabeth was one of the first to begin the trek, driving an ox-team, as far as Council Bluffs that year. She traveled with the William Hyde family in the Samuel Gully/Orson Spencer Company of 1849 to Salt Lake. Elizabeth Hyde records, “Sister Betsy Aldred [Elizabeth Patrick Taylor Allred] was with me, we traveled with ox teams”. My favorite story is how, during the flight from Missouri when an aged couple named Singleton lost their only horse, and were powerless to move their wagon beyond the reach of the mob, at Elizabeth's prompting, William unhitched one of his best horses and hitched it to the old gentleman's wagon and told the couple to take the horse and go in peace. Her stories are my favorites by far. Her son Pleasant Green  wrote of her "What a kind and good mother she was." These good pioneer women to me represent everything good and giving, whose example of kindness and charity are inspirational.  She truly lived the Savior's teaching " If ye have done it unto the least of these my bretheren, ye have done it unto me." She clothed the naked, fed the hungry, and cared for the sick, even when she herself had so little to offer. The 1842 tax list for Nauvoo has the location of Elizabeth's land at 212 6N 8W in Nauvoo.
  












Their son, John Taylor (not to be confused with “the” John Taylor, 3rd president of the Church) was my great-great.…???.... grandfather. He was a friend and bodyguard to Joseph Smith, participated in Zion’s Camp, and was imprisoned several times for his affiliation with the Church.  (http://www.taylorassociation.org/biographies/Biography.asp?ID=155&Char=T ). During the Nauvoo period, Joseph Smith had considered several options for the Saint’s next exodus, as he knew they they would not stay in Illinois long. He considered a site in Wisconsin where timber for the Nauvoo temple was cut and floated downstream, out west past in Rocky Mountains (Salt Lake), as far as Canada, Mexico and California, and the newly founded Republic of Texas.
John Taylor
An early Apostle, Lyman Wight, was sent to discuss the possibility of these plans with Sam Houston, however the martyrdom of the Prophet cut these plans short. During the succession crisis after the death of Joseph Smith, Wight felt compelled to follow the orders Joseph Smith had given him to find a safe haven for the Latter-day Saints in the Republic of Texas. In 1844-45 Wight moved a group of Latter Day Saints there and eventually founded several communities on the central Texas frontier near Austin, TX. John Taylor and his family were part of this group! I have ancestors who lived in Texas! I can’t tell you how surprising that was! Brigham Young tried to get Wight to join the main body of the in the Utah Territory several times, but Wight refused each time, however it appears that the Taylor’s decided to accept President Young’s invitation, they moved to OK, prepared for 2 years to make the long trek, and joined the Saints in 1854.
This blog is too short to go on and on about how fascinating I find my family history, but in trying to keep it short enough to be interesting, yet long enough to cover the essentials, I am looking forward to learning more about my family history! 

posted by Austin @ 7:55 PM

3 Comments:

At August 18, 2011 at 8:29 PM , Blogger Melissa said...

See, you DO have "Texan" blood in you! :) Heeheehee!!! :) I'm glad that you are enjoying learning about your ancestors, it is a great work to undertake! I'm so glad that families are forever... :)

 
At August 19, 2011 at 4:05 PM , Blogger Amanda said...

I learned something new about u! i hope u get to have a job like that someday...where u get to make money by doing something ur so passionate about!

 
At August 20, 2011 at 8:08 AM , Blogger Austin said...

Thanks Dad for recovering the paper I wrote! I had sent him a copy before the crash!

 

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