Family History and the Friend

Every morning, while we’re eating breakfast, we have a small family devotional. We read a story from the Friend magazine . If we’ve read all the stories from that month’s edition, we read from William Bennett’s ‘The Book of Virtues’. The kids love this! They really enjoy reading the stories, and it’s a nice quiet family time in the morning.

One morning, we read a story from the August edition of the Friend. It was called Ribbons for Shoes. It's a story about a little Irish girl who found some money on the ground and wanted to buy a ribbon for her hair. She was very excited! Then, when she got home, the missionaries were there. At some point during the afternoon, she noticed that one of the missionaries' shoes were completely worn through. So, her father went to see if they had enough to buy him a new pair. They were short on money, but the girl decided to add hers, and it was exactly enough!

Usually, we read the story, then discuss a little, then read the little captions at the end by prophets and/or apostles. Well, the caption at the end of this one told about the person behind the story. The real name of the girl in the story was Mary Jane McCleave! Yes, to most of you this doesn’t mean a thing. However, this little Irish girl is one of MY ancestors! I thought it was so cool!

THEN, in June’s (it comes out in August…) edition of our family’s newsletter, whom should many people be talking about, but Mary Jane McCleave! So, I learned a whole slew of new facts about this lady who was my i don't know how many greats- great-grandmother.

I just thought it was so interesting—my grandmother does SO much family history, and is always telling us stories about different ancestors. How cool is it that someone else had done their family history, too, and wrote a story about the life of a mutual ancestor in a magazine for little children around the world…and sitting here in Africa, I could read a story about her that I had never heard before. I learned a little more about the people I came from, and understood a little more about what family history (and personal history--as all the stories shared about her came from her journals...which makes you think twice about what you write in there, eh?) is all about.