Yesterday was a state holiday in Utah. It was Pioneer Day. On this day we remember the pioneers who made the long hard journey to their new home in the wilderness. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. I had ancestors who were in that company with Brigham Young, and while I though of them and their great sacrifices yesterday, there was a different kind of pioneer I had on my mind.
My Great Grandmother, Redie Susie Robertson, truly was a pioneer. She, along with my grandmother Irene Byrd Snow, were the first people in their family to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. On May 1, 1938, Irene and Redie were baptized by Charles Shirley in Kelsey Texas. Later, Redie would marry Charles Shirley.
Her decision on that day influenced thousands of lives, including me and my children. For that I am forever grateful. I can hear her now, in her East Texas accent, saying her famous phrase "I'm so glad you're my family!"
Here is a 4 generation picture taken sometime in the early 1980's. Top row: My Granny Snow- Irene Byrd Snow and my dad, Earl Snow. On the couch: Me, Great Granny- Redie Robertson, my sisters- Farrah and Kristy. (Side note: I have been looking through a lot of old pictures lately. Growing up, I had no idea how AWESOME my Granny Snow's house was. Every picture I see of her house now I think "Oh my! I want that!" How many times as a youth did I sit on that couch and not realize just how awesome it was? I want that couch!)
5 Generation Photo taken in 2000
Irene, Emily, Redie, Earl, Zac, Allyson
Great Granny has been on my mind so much lately. I am reading her biography right now, which was compiled by my Great Uncle Harold and his wife Diane. I have felt her presence in my life so much lately. Her love for her ancestors and her love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and also for the Temple of the Lord have been ignited in me like they never have before, and I know that she is the one making this happen. This is a woman who loved the Temple so much, she would spend the entire day there, doing 6 or 7 Endowment Sessions in a day. In one part of her history that I am reading, it says that in the first 6 months of 1982 she did 231 Endowments, 72 Sealings, 30 Initiatories and 15 Baptisms. And it says was only able to do that much because she went on a trip for two weeks and when she came home, the Temple was closed for two weeks and also that her husband was sick so she had to take over the yard work and other things. It also says that in August of that year, in trying to make up for lost time, she did 43 Endowments. A little later in the book it states that by the end of the year she had completed 492 Endowments! What an amazing example!
Here is a picture of us, taken outside the gates of the Dallas Temple, which was under construction. I am standing next to her holding her hand.
Here we are outside the Dallas Temple, after my family was sealed for "Time and all Eternity". I feel such a special bond with her right now, that when I looked up these pictures for this post and found two pictures of her standing beside me outside of the Temple, I got so excited.
The following is from the cover page of her Biography and was written by her son, Harold Grant Shirley in 2009. I believe it sums up her life so completely:
How do you bring to life the one who brought you life? How can those who never knew Sister Redie discover the real Redie by reading alone, even when you throw in a few photographs? Hopefully, these pages will give a glimmer of a glimpse of this gentle giant whose selfless service blessed the lives of those who benefited from her healing touch as a nurse and mother as well as her many students in Primary and Mutual and Relief Society and Sunday School. She laboriously sought out literally thousands of names in genealogical research the old-fashioned way by writing letters to and interviewing shirt-tail relatives, visiting cemeteries, and poring over census records without aid of computer. Then she personally saw to it that all the saving ordinances were performed in their behalf: the baptism, the confirmation, the initiatory, the endowment, and then were organized into forever families through the sealing. She loved her families in both directions: those ancestors who brought her to her unique time and place in history: her descendants who profit from having a faithful forbear who forged forward from her conversion in 1938 until her death in 2001. Not that she never took a backward step; her journals attest that she took many, but she tried to be moving onward and upward before she went to bed each night.
What a great woman, example and legacy. I want some day to grow up to be just like her.
1 comment:
I missed this post before. Great post.
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