Finding the Personal Stories Behind the Vital Stats

How do you research someone who was functionally illiterate? How do you learn the details of someone’s life who left absolutely nothing written in their own hand? The answer is simple, but deceptively so. Of course, you have to use only what others have written about them. But conceding that those kinds of sources are your only option doesn't solve the greatest problem with that approach. Since there is nothing written from your subject, there is no list, no master source for who your real sources might be. You know who your subject is but you don't know who wrote about them. So how do you find them? How do you find those sources?

You would correctly start with government documents. You could learn some vital statistics from the various Census records, marriages, births, deaths. Even taxes, court records, military and probate records if you are lucky. But these documents, no matter how useful, can only hint at your subject’s aspirations, disappointments, friendships, and allegiances.

If you are fortunate, your subject’s life intersected with the public consciousness in some way. Although my grandfather was not illiterate, I have been able to learn something more about him because his name shows up in a handful of newspaper articles. Nothing startling or scandalous, but simple events like a Millard County newspaper recording his weekend visit in 1931.

Being Mormon, I have been exposed to the wealth of information written by the ranks of LDS missionaries over nearly  two centuries. Some of it personal, but all of it hidden merely because much of it is unsearchable electronically. Jim Conder, an uneducated 19th century man, met dozens of LDS missionaries during the last 33 years of his life. One by one I have created a list of them, often by seeing what other missionaries have written in their journals. Each new – to me – journal entry has the potential of identifying the name of another missionary who in turn wrote his own tidbit about Jim and his family.

Once you have gone through the census and combed the marriage, birth, and death records, you will probably have the basics about a person. But if you want to write more, learn more, and get to know someone on a deeper personal way, there are still many choices to pick from.

• Local histories: Exactly what was historic enough to preserve is a matter of opinion. State and county libraries often have extensive records of what someone thought was important enough to save. The variety of these records never ceases to surprise me. I've seen a collection of high school essays, school yearbooks, newspaper clippings carefully re-typed, a whole community who allowed the handwritten notes in their family bibles to be transcribed, unidentified photos by the hundreds and much more. 
• Newspapers: What was news a hundred years ago would surprise you. Some papers printed the guest list at the local hotel each week. Or who was having a party on Saturday night. One ancestor made the papers because some of the animals he was raising for fur escaped their cages. The Utah Digital newspapers project has a large and growing repository (Tennessee, get the hint).
• Letters: These are sometimes printed in newspapers. LDS missionaries commonly sent letters to the editor just so they could be printed in their local paper. But they were also saved and donated to libraries and archives. Who else might have them? Relatives, friends, and who knows. My state has microfilm of people who wrote letters to the governor.  Few letters were ever indexed, so get used to reading flowery cursive scripts, one by one. 
• Journals & diaries: When written by friends and acquaintances, these can help you learn about some really detailed aspects of your subject’s life. One journal recorded every person the writer helped. From his daily notes I could see who was sick, who had stillborn children, who was having trouble with their landlord, who was growing corn, or watermelon, or tobacco. From that journal I can tell who was the drunkard in the community and who was the expert on herbal folk remedies. But the descendants of these people probably have no idea what has been written about their ancestor.
• City directories: Like the phone book (do we have those anymore?). Not only can you learn a person’s address, but also who was in business. Ours is a society of merchants. Many people tried to make a living by selling something. Most failed at it. But many survived just long enough to get listed. 
• Other options? You tell me. 

The Unexpected Pin - Elder Cullimore Part 8

A continuation of Elder Cullimore's mission Recollections...

After I had been in the mission field about eighteen months, President Kimball asked me how long I had been out.  He said, "You will be going home about October Conference".  In my wife's letter she asked me if I had heard anything about when I might be released.  After the conversation with President Kimball I told her what he had said.  Soon after this we received word that it was not a two-year mission, but a two or three-year mission, or as the Lord desired us to remain.  I had to tell my wife what I had learned.  The next letter from her was the most blue and disappointing one she had ever sent me.  Naturally it hurt me to know how blue she was.  I was very sad and blue myself over it. Her birthday was coming on the 30th of September, and how I wished I had something to send her for it.  I had no money and no way of getting her anything for her birthday.  I thought it might cheer her up if I could send her some little remembrance, and that it would also do something for my own morale.

I prayed earnestly that this desire could be accomplished. As I fasted, I would especially mention this in my prayers.

In our tracting White County, we had to visit a section on the Cumberland Mountains.  It was a flat section on top, very scarcely settled; and the people living there were very poor. The land was so very poor, they could scarcely make a living. The few houses were scattered about two miles apart, and there was very little travel in the area.  We were walking on one of these roads where it looked as though there hadn't been any traffic on it for months.  My companion walked in one track, and I walked in the other.   As we were going along I discovered a beautiful brooch or breast pin lying in the road.  My companion was as surprised as I was.  He said, "Where could it have come from, a new pin on a card just as it would have come from the manufacturer." And it looked as if there hadn't been anyone along there in months.  If there had been, no one in the area could have afforded a pin like it.

I told my companion how I had fasted and prayed for a present to send my wife on her birthday.  He said, "This is the answer to your prayers".  I kept the pin several days and asked the people in the area if they had lost it.   In each case they said, "No, we could not afford a pin like that".  So I secured a little box, and mailed it home to my wife for her birthday.  She was surprised upon receiving it, and wondered how I got the money to buy such a beautiful present.  She wore it until I came home; and when I told her how I got it, that it was given to me for her in answer to prayer, she stopped wearing it for fear she would lose it.  She still holds it as a dear possession.

Maltreating a Mormon Missionary in a Miserable Manner

Southern Scamps

Maltreating a Mormon Missionary in a Miserable Manner

The following extracts taken by the Territorial Enquirer from a letter (dated Aug 19) received by Mrs. Jesse J. Fuller, of Provo, from her husband who has been laboring as a missionary in Alabama and Tennessee, will be read with interest by many who have felt considerable anxiety on Bro. Fuller’s account since the receipt of the dispatch announcing his maltreatment by a mob in Lawrence County, Tenn:

Since I last wrote to you I have been with the Elders – six of them – holding meetings, which have been well attended and resulted in four being added to the Church besides two whom Albert baptized the day before I came.

Aunt Margaret McMurray, who has been kind to me and has believed the Gospel so long was one of them. She had been waiting for a month for me to come, and after I arrived, we held a meeting at her house, to which she had invited all her relatives and acquaintances to the number of 50 or 60. I preached the first Mormon sermon several of them had ever heard. Then I had the privilege of baptizing her and her son’s wife. There were a number present who never saw a Mormon baptism and came out of curiosity.

I presume you have heard of the horrible murder of Elders Gibbs and Berry at a meeting on Cane Creek. That is where I labored when I first came out and have stayed at Bro. Condor’s, where the men were killed, many times. We heard of the murder in the papers, but hoped the report would turn out to be false. To-day, I got a letter from Elder Roberts, which confirmed the sad affair, and it makes us all feel downcast.

Last Sunday, there were threats of disturbing our meeting and we were looking for some trouble, as our meeting was held about a quarter of a mile from where we held meetings, last September, when we were threatened with tar and feathers, but after the meeting closed, on Sunday last, Brother and Sister Lawson desired to be baptized, and we all went down to the creek where Elder Linton baptized them, and all went on nicely, no one offering a word or look against any of the proceedings. Then we separated, the Elders going home with the saints and friends, feeling thankful that all had ended well. About midnight, however, a couple of the Elders were waked up and ordered to dress by several disguised men. Elder Woodbury, leaving his hat, managed to get out of the window and pass by two or three of the mob without being detected. The other Elder was taken out  a half-mile and treated to a little sprouting, and I happened to be the one who got the treat.. There were seven in the crowd that took me out; four of them had guns. They were all young men, and I believe I would have been allowed to go but for two or three surly chaps; as it was they gave me a little warming about the legs. They left some marks on my right leg and arm, but the one who stood on my left side seemingly did not wish to hurt me, as he struck lightly, although the ring leader said, “Take off his coat and pop it harder.” I returned to the house and found Elder Woodbury all right after having been gone an hour. It was half past one o’clock when I returned and I went to bed again and slept soundly.

Next day I came back here (Lauderdale Co., Ala.,) – 10 miles. All the Saints (about 40 in number) are feeling well, and our friends who do not belong to the Church are more attached to us that ever before.

I am feeling splendid, and thankful that I can endure something for the Gospel’s sake.”