I find it interesting how this blog morphed from what I had planned into pioneer stories.  It has been fun gathering these pictures and the information for each post.  The correspondence I've developed with new friends and previously unacquainted relatives is priceless to me.  There are many more stories I'd like to tell, but time is getting short.

We will enter the MTC in three weeks and I expect my posts will transform again.  Just what form they will take, I don't know.  These things seem to have a sort of life of their own, but once I find out what they will become maybe I'll change the title of the blog to something more accurately descriptive.  My wife tells me the current title is really misleading.  She's right.  I can only plead that it wasn't planned that way.

But if you've stuck with me this long, I hope you'll be patient as I embark on this new journey - this new chapter - of my life.  I hope I can make it interesting through my words.  I'm sure it will be interesting to live it!

In the meantime I'll try to get three more stories done (2 after this one today).  Thomas Biesinger and Anne Hodereine are great tales.

btw: if anyone knows how to contact me and can tell me, in simple terms like step-by-step, how to read the "Comments" that have been posted, I'd appreciate hearing from you.



Elizabeth Esther Massey Simper
Thomas Simper

Elizabeth Simper

Life was good as the young couple started their family.  As an expert game keeper (animal husbandry specialist and hunt master), Thomas had comfortable lodgings in the "big house" and a potentially good income (mostly from tips received for leading hunts on the large estate he called home).  Elizabeth was from a well-to-do family and would have brought a reasonable dowry.  They were comfortable, with plenty to eat and with a growing family.

Always interested in religion, Elizabeth was caught up in the new Mormon movement and started attending the cottage meetings being held in the area.  She was soon convinced of the truthfulness of the restored gospel and sought baptism.  The rest of the immediate family soon followed her example.  Neither her parents nor his were very happy with this change from their traditional faith, but the feelings of love in the homes prevailed, and when son-in-law John Birch Fagg served his mission in England several years later he was welcomed into their homes and treated with kindness and respect.

The call to "Gather to Zion" had gone out, so in 1865 Thomas and Elizabeth sold most of their worldly goods and headed for the Salt Lake Valley.  In New York they purchased oxen and wagon, outfitted themselves well, and were promptly robbed of everything.  It was about this time also that their infant daughter, Dorcas, died.

I can't find a record of how they made it to Salt Lake, but with the American Civil War just over there was a lot of trade starting up again.  Thomas was an accomplished hunter.  Perhaps he was able to use that skill in earning his passage across the continent.

In any case, they arrived in Salt Lake in a destitute condition.  Employment opportunities for game keepers were non-existent.  Nearly twenty years of unregulated hunting in the mountains around the valley had seriously depleted the natural wild-life. About all that was left was for Thomas to set up as a farmer to try to provide for his rather large family.  Farming and game-keeping aren't all that compatible, and hunger became a familiar visitor for the once-prosperous family.  The children wanted to "go home", and Thomas longed for his old life in England.  Elizabeth wanted to stay in Zion.  To Thomas's credit he held on with his wife and family and supported them to the best of his ability throughout his life.

And here we see how trials can affect people totally differently.  Elizabeth came out of the experience with a "broken heart" - one open to the sufferings of others, with love and empathy for them, and accepting of the influences of the Holy Spirit.  She held on faithful and at peace within herself.  Thomas, on the other hand, came out with a "broken spirit".   The endless hours of farming, the cries of the children from hunger, the harsh dry climate, and the additional struggles of the new homesteader were more than he could bear.  His faith was broken.  He died in his daughter's (Caroline) home, a sad, lost man.  But can we judge him?  I think not.  He did his duty.  He loved and was loved.  He was honorable and dependable.  I'm quite content to let the Lord do the judging, confident that He knows the heart of each of us and will judge us with love and compassion.

So that I can end this on a happier note, his daughter Caroline has an interesting story behind her names.  When it came time to christen her, Elizabeth was very ill and couldn't leave the house.  So the baby was sent to the church in the care of three aunts.  Unable to settle on a name for the child, each aunt gave one of her own names to the little girl.  That's how we get the name Caroline Esther Elizabeth Simper.  At least, that' the story I've been told.