108 degrees or 114 degrees

Social Media is Motivating and 

Thought Provoking

     Here is what my friend posted on my time line by a friend from Illinois: “I have been watching the weather and it seems your area is very HOT! I sure hope you are staying "inside" with the A/C on full blast. We have been hot too and I stay in my lower level of our raised ranch house where it is cool because I don't have air!”
     My response: ”Yes, I'm staying inside. My "A/C" is window air conditioners... so I stay in my bedroom, mostly, keeping the other rooms warm but not 114 like Sunday, or 112 yesterday. It's supposed to be only 108 today! Won't go below 105/6 the rest of the week. When I was mobile, I'd go from air conditioned house to air conditioned car to air conditioned store, etc. So it never bothered me much. Now it takes too much time getting from house to car into a store and I melt. Getting old ain't for sissies!"
My Illinois friend said: “ I hope you are alright! We have had 90's with no A/C and I think my dogs suffer more than me. I have a pool exercise class 3 times a week and that is very refreshing. My house is surrounded with big oak trees so always a breeze outside. Having a fence installed across part of the front to keep Jethro from getting on the road, about 230 feet, with a nice gate. Then "we" can all be outside when I want to do gardening.....Molly loves to lay in the green grass. Think of you often my friend!"

What to Do When it’s Deadly Hot

     It doesn’t matter whether it is 108 or 114 degrees temperature where I live or not. These six degrees are still deadly hot. I am not going outside. Keeping my house cool is very difficult. So what do I do when my internet connection, doesn’t function well? I watch Netflix…. Nope, can’t even do that without a wi-fi connection. Shoot. After a week of this imprisonment, I’ve decided that there IS one thing I can do. 
     Go through all my paper files and documents and start checking to see if they are online in FamilySearch.org Family Tree. If I find original stories or documents, not there, I am scanning them and will put them into the system. My own memory is getting worse, so reviewing notes that I took while interviewing people back in 1969 when I first began researching, is revealing more accurate versions of memories than I had misremembered. Guess I’d better get busy. 

 Picking a Surname

     Where to begin? I’ve always assumed that my children and grandchildren would absolutely love to have what I’ve accumulated over the years. WRONG! My daughter, who is adopted, simply can’t understand why people save objects that have only sentimental value. Her husband does, however and so does her son who is 9 years old and starting to make his own memories in Scouting. His mother does recognize that others have this need to keep “things” and agrees to ask permission to throw away stuff, before taking action. At age 29 she can’t imagine going through all of my “stuff” when I die.  So to make things easier on her I am taking action

My First Choice in Surnames Goes Awry

     I’d gone to my father’s Surname, Eckles, first and posted on Father’s Day, in Face Book, that I was going through all my years of research notes, etc. in order to pass the torch or baton, so to speak, to a younger generation. And the response that I got was startling. I’d already give the tapes of my interviews with my dad (taped in the early 1980s) to my half-sister, C. She didn’t want to transcribe them, but did, and they sit languishing in her closet while she travels the world. Her younger brother J, a financial type guy, responded to my post:
     “hi Bev!  Hope you are well.  Please don't add my name to anything to do with pictures of our Dad.  I have very, very, bad memories of him- he was an abusive, bigoted, alcoholic.  I spent years "unlearning" the garbage he taught me, so I would rather not see pictures of him nor have my name anywhere close to his.  Thanks, J“
     My response: “Oh, my, so sorry. That was kind of my impression of him, too, but no personal knowledge. I promise to not add you name again. I truly understand. He damaged C, too. I always blamed my poor self-image on him, but over the years have realized my memories were a bit off. So am on the forgiveness path; but I'm 72 so it's taken me a looooong time. Love that you're my "brother" even though your mom kept emphasizing that I was no relation. I've always admired you, so I guess you're doing something right. Keep up the good work.”
     His response: “Thnx. I get the forgiveness thing as well.  But the fact remains some people have no business being around children, he was one of them.  He is not someone I am proud to call my father, thus, the preference to avoid the association.”
     My final post: “I was lucky that I got him early before he let alcohol take over. He was starting to do that dinner-table-drinking thing when I lived with them in 1961 for six months my first year at Junior College. So okay he's no longer a topic... now... Let's think positive thoughts. Have a wonderful Father's Day.”

This is a Classic Genealogical Conundrum 

     Negative things want to be forgotten by people. When there’s a lot of that family drama, no one wants anything to do with it. Stories are buried and no one learns from the mistakes of their elders, and then seem to repeat or make the same type of mistakes over and over again. Call it cellular memory or cussed orneriness. Somehow, I missed that gene. I don’t care about all of that. I love the stories, love the research and putting together the pieces of my family puzzle. 

Seeing the Whole Picture from an Eternal Perspective

     Christian’s believe that through Christ’s atonement all who accept Him as their Savior will be forgiven. Golly, we all make mistakes. Some of us make bigger boo boos than others. Mormon’s believe that everyone who has ever been born on this earth will have the opportunity to accept or reject Christ. Of course, millions have died without ever even hearing His name, much less His Good News!  That is why we research our own families and perform vicariously for them the ordinances, including baptism, for those who have died. We are responsible for our own family, no one else’s. God knows where to send us and into what family he wants us born. He knew us before and knew which one of us would actually do this vicarious work, if we had a choice. Guess He knew me. I don’t judge my ancestors, and when they are particularly naughty, I envision them as a seven year old child, without the stains of sin. Hope Heavenly Father will look at me the same way when I see Him again.

Speaking with the Tongue of Angels

The Spirit of Elijah Like a Fire is Burning Within My Heart

A letter I wrote to the Missionaries serving from my Ward

March 13 2016

     As missionaries you often speak with the “tongue of angels” when testifying of Christ and His church. Yesterday it was my privilege participate in this glorious, joyous, and sacred gift of the Holy Ghost while working at the FamilySearch History Center.
     I’d prayed several times in days previous that I might be helpful to the patrons who were going to come. Then I began to pray for people to be prompted to come that “needed” to be there. Finally, I prayed for a specific member who had called me saying, “You are the only one who has ever gotten me the least bit interested in doing my own family history,” so can we get together again? I met Rafael in my water aerobics class three years ago and invited him to begin working on his family history at the center; he came once. This time, I gave him homework (get a three ring binder, notepaper, pen to bring) and any documents he might have, and come to the center at 9 am, Saturday. His reply was, “He didn’t have any documents, and that we’d put everything he knew into FamilySearch already.”
     He came and miracles happened. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and never knew his father, who left his mom when he was about three. His dad was born in Puerto Rico. Rafael was there promptly at 9:00 a.m. when we opened. We always have a prayer with the volunteer workers before we begin. I was just sitting down with him at a computer, when in walks a non-member patron, Juanita, who had a microfilm she had been viewing for the past few weeks. Juanita is an expert in Puerto Rican genealogy. She helped found a Puerto Rican Genealogy group in New York City when she lived there!
     I introduced the two, left them together as she began teaching him the importance of documenting sources, recording and organizing his research, finding census, death and marriage records, birth records and even translating them in full for him for the next four hours. Just before closing, she rushes in to me saying, “This really is God’s work, I just found Rafael’s second great grandmother and she was born on March 12, 1890…. March 12th…. March 12th … Oh, my gosh!” “126 years ago exactly!”
     At this point I testified that this was true and that our ancestor angels attended us as we worked on finding them in the records they left on earth. Both Rafael and Juanita found joy in their discoveries. She never got to read her microfilm, but she didn’t care.
Now, this was not the only sacred event that happened at the center. Another woman, Darlene, a non-member that I’d also met at water aerobics and helped her to get started on family history several months ago at the center, came in to look for immigration records for her Swedish line. She’d told me how she’d just gotten hooked on this new hobby and couldn’t stop doing it! She’d say to her husband, “Just a minute, just one more thing, and an hour later….” I know the feeling. “It’s addictive, she said.” Yes, I know, and had previously told her about the Spirit of Elijah, and how that was the Holy Ghost testifying of the divinity of the family. She is planning a trip to Sweden in August with her son to go see their ancestor’s church and homeland!
     I sat her at a computer, next to another non-member patron, John, who never puts anything into FamilySearch but is an engineer who methodically has documented his family including sending away for naturalization records…via snail mail and ordering microfilms. I asked John if he would help Darlene find some immigration records. Four hours later, they were both so excited at having found what she was looking for and more. I apologized to John that he didn’t get to do much of his own work and he said, “Actually at the last minute I found a record that I’d spent years searching for. It was just right there!!!!” I testified to him that this was a reward for the generous help he gave Darlene, and that God was indeed helping them both! Both were uplifted and edified.
     I shared both these stories with the other volunteer workers testifying of the power of prayer in this work. And I “speak with the tongue of angels,” again to you, that I know if we pray diligently for patrons to come into the center, they WILL come. God prompts them to come, then prompts others who can help them to come. We are a Center for feeling the Holy Ghost as powerful as when missionaries testify in the homes of members and investigators.
     So missionaries, bring your investigators to the local FamilySearch Center. Arrange for special hours to visit with the Center director, if regular hours aren’t convenient. Listen to the promptings and include members who can help, youth who can help, to come at the same time. God will work miracles for you, too. It is all part of the Plan of Salvation and angels will assist.
With all my love,
Bev Field