Father's Day lesson

Forefather’s Day

(Ann Alldredge, Ensign, June 2003, p 73)

 “When I learned that my son and daughter-in-law were coming to dinner with their four children to celebrate Father’s Day with me, I reflected sadly that they had not known my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, who were now deceased.  They were good men who had been wonderful examples of faith and character.  “All we have left are their pictures,” I mused.  Then an idea flashed to mind.  “Pictures – that’s it!”  I took framed pictures of my father and grandfathers off the walls and gathered all the pictures I could find in the photo albums.  Then, on the dining room table, I created a display of the pictures and added a placard that read, “Honour the father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Exodus 20:12).

“When my grandchildren arrived for dinner, I was happy to see that even at their young ages, they were interested in their ancestors.  I told them who each one was, where he had been born, and whatever I knew about him.  The afternoon brought a wonderful feeling as we honored our fathers and grandfathers on their special day.”

“Don’t forget me”

“My dear and beloved godfather and my dear uncles and aunts, I beg you to never forget me because I think of you always. ...  I haven’t had the joy to know you but I look at your portraits and I would like to be able to talk to you in person.  Dear family and friends, I greet you from the bottom of my heart.  For life. 

Your niece Marie Rivor widow Gonet.

I close this letter with the tears that wet this page and beg you to not forget me.”

(Anne’s oldest daughter, Marie, Italy)

This passage is made even more poignant when you realize that Marie only had one child who lived to maturity.  Her son, Jean Michel Gonnet, married but had no children.  Marie had two more Gonnet children, Jacques who died at age 1 and Marie Alice who died at age 4.  Then her husband died.  She remarried and had a son Alberto who died at age 3 and her second husband died, too.  Marie married a third time and was widowed again.  She died in Italy in 1931 at age 80.  Her greatest desire, since infancy, was to one day join the Cardons in America.  She was Father Philippe and Mother Marie’s first grandchild, whom they last saw at age 3 as they left for Utah.

Bridges and Eternal Keepsakes

Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander, of the Seventy

Ensign, May 1999, 83

“Genealogies, family stories, historical accounts, and traditions...form a bridge between past and future and bind generations together in ways that no other keepsake can.”

Every family has keepsakes. Families collect furniture, books, porcelain, and other valuable things, then pass them on to their posterity. Such beautiful keepsakes remind us of loved ones now gone and turn our minds to loved ones unborn. They form a bridge between family past and family future.

Every family has other, more valuable, keepsakes. These include genealogies, family stories, historical accounts, and traditions. These eternal keepsakes also form a bridge between past and future and bind generations together in ways that no other keepsake can.

I would like to share a few thoughts about family history, bridges, and eternal keepsakes.

Family history builds bridges between the generations of our families. Bridges between generations are not built by accident. Each member of this Church has the personal responsibility to be an eternal architect of this bridge for his or her own family. At one of our family gatherings this past Christmas, I watched my father, who is 89 years old, and our oldest grandchild, Ashlin, who is four and a half. They enjoyed being together. This was a bittersweet moment of realization for me. Though Ashlin will retain pleasant but fleeting memories of my father, he will have no memory of my mother, who passed away before his birth. Not one of my children has any recollection of my grandparents. If I want my children and grandchildren to know those who still live in my memory, then I must build the bridge between them. I alone am the link to the generations that stand on either side of me. It is my responsibility to knit their hearts together through love and respect, even though they may never have known each other personally. My grandchildren will have no knowledge of their family’s history if I do nothing to preserve it for them. That which I do not in some way record will be lost at my death, and that which I do not pass on to my posterity, they will never have. The work of gathering and sharing eternal family keepsakes is a personal responsibility. It cannot be passed off or given to another.

A life that is not documented is a life that within a generation or two will largely be lost to memory. What a tragedy this can be in the history of a family. Knowledge of our ancestors shapes us and instills within us values that give direction and meaning to our lives. Some years ago, I met the director of a Russian Orthodox monastery. He showed me volumes of his own extensive family research. He told me that one of the values, perhaps even the main value, of genealogy is the establishment of family tradition and the passing of these traditions on to younger generations. “Knowledge of these traditions and family history,” he said, “welds generations together.” Further, he told me: “If one knows he comes from honest ancestors, he is duty and honor bound to be honest. One cannot be dishonest without letting each member of his family down.”

It is my desire that each of us will recognize the great keepsakes we have received from those who preceded us and our own personal responsibility to pass them on to future generations.”

Father’s Day family home evening

When food assignments for the Father’s Day gathering were being handed out, I made the mistake of saying I’d never made a coleslaw salad before.  Instead of giving me a recipe, I got a new assignment: the family home evening lesson.

I decided to focus on the fathers as far back as I could go – 6 generations.  Philippe was born in 1801.  He has 35 memories attached.  His son Louis Philippe had 13.  His grandson Joseph Samuel had 14.  Joseph Harold had 16 memories, but not one story!  He died in 1992.  He was David’s grandfather, and although I had never met him personally, I had written up a tribute about him to include in David’s father’s life history which I compiled.  There were 80 copies of that book printed and bound, but that would not be enough for even Dick’s living posterity to each have one.  The solution: I copied that tribute and put it under life sketch on Joseph Harold’s detail page so that every interested person could know about this great man.  All it cost was a few minutes of my time.

I love how I can learn things from people I’ve never met.  In prepping for today’s lesson I read a story about Joseph Samuel Cardon:

He was living in Taylor, Arizona.  At that time Geronimo, the renegade Indian Chief who was the terror of the Western country had just broken away from Fort Apache, Arizona.  With a band of Indian braves and a few squaws he was swearing to kill every white man he could find. One evening when the Cardons were kneeling around the campfire engaged in prayer, Geronimo and his band saw them and were afraid to attack them because of the wrath of the Great Spirit.

Prayer was an important principle in their lives.  If you read on in his son Junis’ history, he talks about moving to Mexico:

He was only about 6 or 7 when his Mother became very ill. She was so sick that her life hung by a thread. There had been prayers that were offered for her recovery and she had been administered to by the Elders of the Church, but it seemed that she might go any time. She opened her eyes and looked toward heaven, then cried out "Oh, Father if I can only live until my children are grown, I will be willing to go.” A change came over her, she was instantly healed and the next morning she got up and dressed herself and took up the duties as a Mother to her children. She was a loving noble mother who very devotedly taught her children the Gospel. She taught them to pray, instilled faith in their hearts, taught them to be polite, courteous, unselfish and thoughtful of others. Traits of character that has always stayed with them. (Junius says his first prayers were learned at his Mother's knee and he cannot remember of ever doubting that he knows that his Heavenly Father is there just as such as if he could see Him or reach out and touch Him.)