The Convert

Across the mountains, visions beckon,

Dastard he who costs would reckon.

When the tired soul seeks salvation,

What are seas and stark privation?

What are trials and hazardous ways

To the Saints of the Latter Days.

–Song of the Saints

 

“‘Tis no imaginary thing. I tell you that he saw the Golden Plates with his own eyes. And Brother Pratt knew him for a truthful man. It isn’t a made up story. And the Prophet was martyred and his spirit watches over the Church.”

The speaker, a thin faced man, slightly stooped from long years at his bench, spoke with all the fervor of the newly converted.

His friend sadly shook his head.

“Nay, John, think it over.” he urged.

“I’ll let you off the bargain. Give me back my money and take back your shop and house. It is flying in the face of Providence to go chasing off after false prophets.”

John Threlkeld shook his head decidedly.

“If you only would come to hear him speak. He is no prophet, nor claims to be one. But he knew the Prophet Joseph and he was with the Prophet when revelations were given to him. He knows whereof he speaks.

“Thanks for your offer. You mean it kindly like. You just don’t understand. I tell you Brother Pratt has made all the arrangements. The Indians are friendly and it’s better to have irrigation than the uncertainty of our rains. The land isn’t worn out like this north England country.”

“It isn’t as if there were twenty-five years ago when the Prophet Joseph was just getting the revelations about the gatherings in Zion. Then there were real persecutions and the early saints were stoned and mobbed and many lost their lives. 

“Nor it isn’t as though it were only a dozen years ago when President Young first led the chosen people into the wilderness to the land god has shown him in a vision. Those were days to try men’s souls indeed.

“We go to a settled land, ten years this fall ’twill be since the land was first plowed. We go by steam cars to Liverpool. Then a swift packet boat to Boston. “Tis nothing at all. Just a little ways to Iowa City by steam cars. There we can purchase our outfits for the short drive across the flat country to Great Salt Lake City, where the glory of God has been made manifest to his Saints in these Latter Days.”

Threlkeld had spoken with deepest conviction. In his eagerness to win another convert, he had laid his hand upon his friend’s arm. That one shook it off a bit impatiently.

“Well, well,” he replied.

“Have it your own way. I’m glad to buy the place at such a low price. I wish ye luck.”

The speaker closed the door of the neat little factory, leaving John Threlkeld to make his way soberly through the chill March fog to his dismantled home, there to be greeted by his lively brood.

“O Father, everything is ready. We began to be afraid you would miss the train,” called his eldest daughter, sixteen year old Margaret, a well built girl with a great wealth of fair hair wound in a long braid coronet-wise about her head, who was hurrying about while her clear blue eyes danced with excitement.

“See, mother is waiting. Jane, do you hold the baby. Let’s count everything again. Are all seven of you children here? One, two, three, four, five, six-Why-where-what? Oh dear. I forgot to count me! So we are all seven here.

“And all the luggage. How can you keep so quiet? No more winding whips or making horrid tips. No more slaving in the factory every day. We are going to the Promised Land and praise God all our days.”

One of the boys interrupted her with a cry.

“Here is the wagon for us now.”

The irrepressible Margaret threw her arms happily about her gentle other’s neck.

“Come, Mother,” she cried.

“Come, everyone of you. Let’s go. Good bye to Carlisle and all its unbelievers. We go to join the faithful in Zion.”

So fared forth the Threlkelds on their long journey from their native Carlisle.

Photographs!

 

 

Thanks to Cousin Joel (Helquist), I have a few pics of Zeke I’d like to add to the blog.

 

If any of you know when or where these were taken, I’d love to add the info as captions.

kbe

The Background

There is an old saying that, in order to change the nature of a man it would be necessary to have his ancestors, for the preceding two hundred years, born over again and born under different circumstances.

To study a people we look for their origins. To study the character of a man we look for the personalities of his progenitors.

A continuous picture may obscure by the multiplicity of its details the salient points of the story. So does the film cutter become and important man in the production force. With this in mind, let the reel begin to spin.

Introduction

Out of the spiritual unrest of the early decades of the nineteenth century there sprang many variations of the religion known as Christians, running the gamut of human passions and longings, some quaint, some even bizarre. With the innate selfishness of mankind, each individual centered his belief in his own salvation, his own glorification in the world to come. The salvation of others, their Celestial happiness, was on the periphery of his circle of interest.

From complicated ritual of neglect of all forms, from celibacy to promiscuity, from priestly control of property to communism, every known modulation of belief had its cult. Every perfect enthusiasts held nearest to his heart a deep rooted conviction that only through adherence to his favorite creed could happiness after death be attained.

Among the heterogenous faiths and revelations announced in this period, one stood unique, being based on the avowal of a divinely ordered discovery of a written testament inspired by God. The Book of Mormon appeared to take its place beside the Bible, the Koran and other important documents of religious faiths.

In the welter of conflicting dogmas, the maelstrom of changing creeds, of the restless thirties and forties, none other promised to devotees so great reward in the hereafter, none other sent its emissaries so far into distant Christian lands, none other led its converts through so harassing trials to the founding of new settlements in arid, inhospitable lands, none other was so widely diffused as Mormonism.

Claiming for himself direct personal communication with the messengers of God, Joseph Smith sought to develop in a modern American setting a truly patriarchal state, including as the years went by, the practice of the most common accompaniment of patriarchy–polygamy.

In a country where, so long as it had been dominated by Caucasians both patriarchy and polygamy had been taboo, such efforts led inevitably to persecution. While such persecutions as ensued were contrary to the theory of democracy, nevertheless they were in complete agreement with the conduct of the human race through out its recorded history.

Slain by a foolish, vicious mob, Smith was metamorphosed for his adherents into the Martyred Prophet, and by that token, so long as Mormonism shall persist, the undisputed spiritual leader of his people.

It was  a man of different mold from the gentle Joseph, a man of experience in many states and lands, who hastened back from the mission fields in England to pick up the mantle of the Martyred Prophet, to win the devotion of a distraught people so entirely that within two years they would follow, without protest, withersoever he chose to lead them.

It required the vision, determination and inflexibility of purpose which were combined in Brigham Young to successfully lead thousands of men, women and children, in that unparalleled trek across the treeless plains, through perilous mountain defiles into the forbidding unexplored semi-arid intermountain country. It required bulldog tenacity, at times the ruthlessness of a dominant autocrat to establish, beyond the confines of the United States, far from the reach of the nominal control of Mexico, a theocratic state which would populate and conquer the desert, would bring it far on the long road from savagery before, absorbed in the expanding Union, the Land of Deseret, no longer a theocracy clinging to the legends of a pastoral Old Testament, should become that very modern commonwealth, foremost in development of all its natural resources, the state of Utah.

The great influx of recruits to Mormonism from most of the eastern states and from the nations of northern Europe, carried forward the preliminary ventures with the irresistible zest and zeal of enthusiasts newly embed with visions of limitless celestial rewards for their sufferings. 

To the pioneer is ever granted the uplift of new experience, of working eagerly toward an ideal. The novelty of strange surroundings, serves to minimize the sense of privations. Always there remains the memory of the community left behind which furnishes a standard to be achieved, in this case the background was the colorful mid-nineteenth century American and European culture.

The children, born in the new land–what of them? If the land be separated by mountains or customs or seas from the land of their fathers, these children will be of a race apart. True it is, the pioneers lay the foundations of a country, but the development, the beauty or defect of the superstructure lies in the hands of the native born. The land is theirs by birth and inheritance, however, only at a price, the price paid by the children for their parents’ liberty.

It is the purpose of this book, through the life of a son of those earliest pioneers, to gauge that price and to show the faith in God, the recognition of responsibility and the rugged self reliance in the face of adversity which characterize the sons of the great, unique State of Utah.

Experiences of Zeke Johnson

I have been requested to relate an experience I had in 1908 or 1909 in San Juan County. I was just making a home in Blanding and the whole county there was covered with trees and sage brush. I was working hard to clear the ground to plant a few acres of corn. We had five acres cleared and started to plant the corn. My little boy Roy, 7 or 8 years old, was there to help me plant the corn. I’d plow around the piece and then he would plant the furrow with corn. Then I’d cover it and plow again. While I was plowing on that piece of ground, I discovered there were ancient houses there, that is, the remnants of them.

As I was plowing around I noticed that my plow had turned out the skeleton of a small child. The skull and the backbone, most of the bones of course were decayed and gone. Part of the skeleton was there, so I stopped immediately as my plow had passed it a little. I turned and looked back against the bar of the plow between the handles. As I was looking at that little skeleton that I had plowed out and wondering, all of a sudden to my surprise I saw the bones begin to wiggle and they began to change position and to take on different colors and within a minute there lay a beautiful little skeleton. It was a perfect little skeleton.

Then I saw the inner parts of the natural body coming in–the entrails, etc. I saw the flesh coming on and I saw the skin come on the body when the inner parts of the body were complete. A beautiful head of hair adorned the top of the head and in about a half a minute after the hair was on the head, it had a beautiful crystal decoration in the hair. It was combed beautifully and parted on one side. In about half a minute after the hair was on the head, the child raised upon her feet. She was lying a little on her left side with her back toward me. Because of this I wasn’t able to discern the sex of the child, but as she raised up, a beautiful robe came down over her left shoulder and I saw it must be a girl.

She looked at me and I looked at her and for a quarter of minute we just looked at each other smiling. Then in my ambition to get hold her I said, “Oh you beautiful child!” and I reached out as if I would embrace her and she disappeared.

That was all I saw and I stood there and I wondered and I thought for a few minutes. My little boy was wondering why I was there because he was down at the other end of the row anxious to come and plant corn. Now, I couldn’t tell that story to anyone because it was so mysterious to me and such. Why should I have such a miraculous experience? I couldn’t feature a human being in such a condition as to accidentally plow that little body out and see it come alive. A body of a child about five to seven years old, I’d say.

I couldn’t tell that story to anyone until finally one day I met a dear friend of mine, Stake Patriarch, Wayne H. Redd of Blanding. He stopped me on the street and said, “Zeke, you have had an experience on this mesa you won’t tell. I want to you to tell it to me.” Well, I told it to him. Then he had me tell it to other friends, and since then I have told it in four temples in the United States and meeting houses and many socials, fast meetings and at conference time. 

I wondered, and it worried me for years as to why I was allowed to see it, a common man like me, uneducated. Why was I, just a common man allowed to see such a marvelous manifestation of God’s power?

One day as I was walking alone with my hoe on my shoulder going to hoe some corn, something said, “Stop under the shade of that tree for a few minutes and rest.” This  just came to me and I thought I would, so I stopped there and this was given to me.

It was in answer to my prayer. I prayed incessantly for an answer as to why I was privileged to see that resurrection. I was told why. When the child was buried there it was either in time of war with the different tribes of Indians, or it was winter time when the ground was frozen and they had no tools to dig deep graves. If it were during time of war they couldn’t possibly take time to dig a deep grave. They just planted that little body as deep as they could under the circumstances. When it was done the sorrowing mother knew that it was such a little shallow grave, that in her sorrow she cried out to the little group that was present, “That little shallow grave, the first beast that comes along will smell her body and will dig her up and scatter her to the four winds. Her bones will be scattered all over these flats.” There just happened to be a man present holding the Priesthood, a Nephite or Jaredite, I don’t know which because they had both been in this country. I’ve been in their houses and know it. This man said, “Sister, calm your sorrows. Whenever that little body is disturbed or uncovered, the Lord will call her up and she will live.” Since that time, I have taken great comfort, great cheer and consolation and satisfaction, with praise in my heart and soul, until I haven’t the words to express it, that it was I that uncovered that little body.

Thank you for listening to me. I just can’t tell this without crying.

                        Zeke Johnson, Son of Joel Hills Johnson

kbe

The Beginning

Hi Family!

I’ve had this project in the back of my mind and in the works for about 10 years. Growing up I heard the stories about Grandpa Zeke and my mom always had a Xerox copy of stories of his life that he wrote. As a Young Women’s project when I was a Beehive, I thought it would be nice if each of my sisters had a copy of these stories.

At the time, the paper copies my mom had were on legal sized paper. So, after school and armed with my own reams of letter sized paper, I headed to the photocopier at school, (sshhhh!! Don’t tell anyone!) and laid each page on the glass scanner. Auto feeders were something dairy cows had. I reduced each page from legal to letter sized and made I think 10 copies. Then I collated them and punched holes for three ring binders.

To finish my YW project, I also had mom help me create a fabric covered folder with batting and denim. You have to remember the padded folders of the early 80s. I got credit for my project and forgot about it for years.

About 10 years ago I attempted to convert the entire thing into a digital format and have it printed book style and give it as a Christmas gift to my mom and sisters. I spent a lot of time typing the stories and was nearly finished with it.

I won’t go in to the reasons, but at that time I became really disillusioned with the whole project. I was angry. I let my Barton roots through and held a grudge. I’ve come to realize that it’s not my place to judge. It’s not fair for me to spite the idea of this project and it’s purpose for deep, dark demons that are mine to deal with.

In an effort to try to exorcize some of these demons, I’ve decided that this is really a worthwhile project and I want to share it with you. I will be posting a small bit of the story each week or so until they’re all here. I also plan on having a Pages (Apple’s Word) document so that if anyone so desires, they can print and distribute the story as they see fit.

Now family, I’m asking for your opinion. Is this ok with you that I share these stories? Do any of you have any objections to this project? If so, could I still post the stories, but restrict access to the blog to family members only? Please tell me your thoughts. Also, if any of you ever have anything you wish to add, or if you have stories I don’t, please let me know. I’d love for this to be as complete a history as it can be. I can be contacted at karlaeberling@me.com 

I love you all and have so much to repay my forebears for. They gave me a foundation to build my life. I’d like to extend that foundation into future generations.

kbe