Our pretend day of pioneering

Every Thursday, much to the astonishment of our friends and family, we turn off all electronics, i.e. T.V., game consoles, cell phones (limited use) and anything else that disconnects us from each other, and spend the whole day doing things as a family.  Some days, we hang around the house putting together puzzles but for today I had this brilliant idea to get us out of the house....we were going to hike the 2 miles up the mountain to Lamoille Lake.  We packed plenty of water and lunch and headed up.

The problem is that this old gal is...out of shape!! Big time.  What for most people is a 2 hour hike took me around 3 hours.  Yikes!

So as we are hiking up this steep mountainside, it occurred to me that I had two miles to go.  That was it!  And I was crying and complaining.  The pioneers of old had thousands of miles to walk, sometimes having to cross steep mountains like the one I was crawling up.  What a thought that gave me.

Lamoille Lake, NV 18 July 2013 (That is my family on the outcropping of rock)

My 2x Great Grandmother Loucinda (Patterson) (Burrows) Witherspoon, migrated from Wise County, Texas to Roger Mills County, Oklahoma.  I have a little story she wrote for a book about pioneers from Sayre, Beckham, Oklahoma (where she later moved).  In her story she talks about how on the trip to Oklahoma they lost her Ma, and ran out of money.  They had to stop and pick cotton to earn enough money to make the rest of the trip.  And they were lucky enough to find people to help care for their horses.  Once they made it to Roger Mills, they lived in a dugout for the first winter.  And her husband my 2x Great Grandfather Benjamin Burrows became ill and passed away.  She doesn't talk about the fact that she lost a baby around the same time, but who can blame her...it was probably hard enough talking about losing her husband.  And that was for a relatively short distance.  Many pioneers traveled across the county to get to their destinations. 

Once the wagon was loaded with their belongings and supplies for the trip, their usually wasn't a lot of room for the women and children.  So they were forced to walk the whole trip.  How their feet must have hurt and their muscles sore.  After awhile, their bodies would get used to the constant walking. 

The sites they must have seen though! Heavenly Father's work was all around them, for them to rejoice in.  I would like to think that that might have helped them make it through the days and nights of travel.  It certainly helped me today....

Sobering thought for the day....

Try to put your ancestors experience into perspective.  It's easy to not understand what they may have gone through, while sitting on the couch under the air conditioner.  Instead, get up and try to do the things they might have done.  Just a two hour (or in my case three hour) hike, could give you a new perspective for what they went through.  Try making butter or cheese, use a hoe instead of a rototiller, walk instead of putting together a puzzle.  There are a lot of different things you can do, to help you understand the things that your family went through to get you where you are today.

Benjamin Talton Burrows

Loucinda (Patterson) (Burrows) Witherspoon