My Whole Life Story

In an attempt to take everyone to new heights (or is it new lows) of boredom, I've decided to post my life story every week. The reason I'm really doing this is that I've been meaning to write my personal history on Sundays and now I'm going to do it. It seems like a pretty good Sabbath activity.

This post will be about a couple of my ancestors and what they mean to me. The photo above is George Wallace Armstrong, my Great Grandfather on my dad's mom's side. I love this photo. That was his football uniform at the University of Idaho in Moscow. It looks like the football pads were built right into his pants.

His mom gave birth to 16 children, 15 of whom lived past their youth. I can imagine her in her homestead on the farm sitting down probably for the first time that day to answer the questions of the census enumerator. Sixteen kids. And this is before all the housekeeping helpers we have now. Imagining her workload just scrambles my brain.

On my mom's side, there is a branch of the family whose last name is Lindsay. They were from Scotland. The father, William Lindsay, and the sons worked in the lead mines.

"Oft times in the winter time we scarcely ever saw the daylight except on Sunday. We were in the mine before daylight and didn't get out until after dark. In the spring of 1861 we moved into the town of Kilmarnock and were there only a few months when our dear and loving father was killed by a large stone falling on him. Brother James and I had left him all right and were gone about thirty minutes and returned to find him dead. We were two frightened little boys and in our haste to get help our light was knocked out to make it more terrible. This was a dreadful time for all of us especially our dear mother. Our home where peace and love had always reigned supreme was turned to one of sorrow. It seemed all our hopes of ever getting to Utah were blasted. Some of our friends, mostly LDS members, aided us at this time and our dear father was buried in St. Andrew's Churchyard in Kilmarnock....
(me at St. Andrew's where William was buried in Scotland)

for a time we were so grieved we were at a loss which way to turn. But mother did not give way to despair and said to us boys, 'Never mind, we will get to the Valley yet on the very first ship next spring.' ...The words came true...but it was the emigration fund of the Mormon Church that got us here. Then the word came giving us notice to sell everything not needed and to be in Liverpool by the 21st of April, 1862 to go on board the sailing ship John J. Boyd, where passage had been secured for our whole family of eight children and mother. Some people have quite a trial in leaving their friends and their relatives and native land but we were happy in having the privilege to do so."

When I have a difficult day and my spirits are low, sometimes I think of these women, my ancestors. Mary Elizabeth Armstrong, who cooked for, sewed for, cleaned for, taught, and raised 15 children on a farm. And Christina Howie Lindsay who had to bury her husband in Scotland and then take eight children by herself on a 39-day sea voyage to New York and then over the plains and mountains to Heber, Utah. When I think I'll never pull through my trials I sometimes remember them and think "Their blood runs into mine...I'm made of the same stuff that they were...I can get through this...this is nothing, don't make them ashamed to call me their posterity."