My Own Pioneer

Today was Pioneer Day. We did nothing to celebrate - Jenna, Lauren, Phillip, Nick, Randy and I all had to work all day. Then, the boys took off to a BBQ with the cast of the show they're in, Jenna went to hang out w/ her fiance and Lauren went to spend the evening with her boyfriend. After I finished up with spreadsheets and reports, the little girls and I made Orange Julius's and watched the DVD of the CSYP production of Seussical from a couple of years ago.

After putting them to bed and while walking the dog, I was thinking about pioneers - more specifically, MY pioneer heritage. On my father's side of the family, I've got it all in the way of church history. Nauvoo, the trek across the plains, polygamy - you name it. I'm as Molly Mormon as they come if you're counting genealogy.

My mother's side is different.

She was born in Switzerland in 1942. Her grandmothers on both sides had joined the church and brought their children with them into the gospel. Her parents grew up in the same branch, dirt poor and completely devoted to their faith. They married and had 3 daughters - Elfriede, Therese (Mom) and Ruthi. When my mother was 5, my Grossatti (grandpa) decided to immigrate to America. They were told there would NEVER be a temple in Europe, and there were worries about marrying off the three daughters to returned missionaries one day, when church membership in Interlocken was so small. So, they left everything they knew, hopped a boat and off they went.

My mother remembered running along the deck and playing with Ruthi, who was just 1 year younger than she. She had a doll she loved and one day she was retying her apron, when a gust of wind whipped the apron from her little hands and blew it overboard. I'm quite sure that to her dying day, she felt devastated over such a traumatic little-girl loss!

Her family settled in Holladay and rebuilt a farmhouse into a beautiful Swiss chalet, near Olympus High school. My grandfather was a renowned tree surgeon and landscape artist and
he and my grandmother worked HARD every day of their lives. It meant everything to them, to be sealed together through temple ordinances and be a family forever.

After Mom graduated from high school, she started saving her money for a trip back to Switzerland to visit her aunts and uncles and cousins. While she was there, she was called on a mission! Prior to the creation of the MTC, it took missionaries quite awhile to learn the language in foreign countries. Even though she was only 19, and female missionaries are usually 21, she accepted and spent 18 months in her homeland preaching the gospel.

She loved the gospel. The light of her testimony shone through her eyes every day for the rest of her life. She taught me about Jesus Christ, about His glorious atonement, about repentance and forgiveness. We listened to the soundtracks of Saturday's Warriors and My Turn on Earth - cheesy, I know - but so much of my understanding of the church was enhanced by those musicals! We would sing at the top of our lungs while doing housework and making dinner. It's funny to think about it now...

In My Turn on Earth, there's a song - Heaven is Like. It's an upbeat song, bubbly and happy and all, and the last line of it is "...Heaven is my home town." Mom would always cry when we sang that. Maybe she knew she was heading home early.

So, today - I honor my mother. My own personal pioneer. She came across the ocean, instead of across the plains - in the 1940's instead of the 1840's. I think about her every day. While I watched Seussical, I thought about how thrilled she would have been to have been sitting in the audience in between Randy and Jenna w/ Courtney on her lap, to hear Phillip and Becca sing their duet in Alone in the Universe - to watch Nick dance hip hop as a Wickersham brother and see Lauren shine as The Cat in The Hat.

I am trying so hard every day, to be the example to my children that she was to me.

Goodnight, Mom - see you in Solla Sollew!