More Than One Road to Walmart

One of the perks of being a Senior Missionary is that we are allowed visitors.  Two of my sisters flew to Terre Haute for a few days to see what their little sister was up to.  One afternoon, I was feeling proud of the fact that I knew my way around town as I showed them the sites.  I was maneuvering out of the Vigo County Courthouse on the way to Fairbanks Park and made a right hand turn onto Cherry Street.  I saw two cars heading my direction and immediately I knew.  I had turned wrong onto a one-way street.  I jerked the steering wheel to the right and got back into a parking lot before any damage was done (except heart failure for my sisters).

Which way am I supposed to go?

Several thoughts emerged from this experience.  The first is that I can testify of the influence of the Holy Ghost in our everyday lives.  I truly believe it was the Spirit that instantaneously alerted me to the danger and the error I had made.  I was able to "repent" and navigate to safety.

Secondly, there are some roads in life that need to be traveled in the right direction, at the right time, and in the right vehicle.  Jesus taught, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."  (John 14:6)  The gospel of Jesus Christ is the right way to happiness now and eternally.  We put ourselves in danger if we venture in the opposite direction.

At the open house for the Indianapolis Temple

A third thought, there are times in our lives when we encounter multiple, acceptable routes to a destination.  I could have chosen from several different options to get to Fairbanks Park: over to Ohio and south on 3rd Street; down to 1st Street and straight on; meander through several parking lots and there I am.  We could have even walked to the park.  Agency includes learning to choose between many good things as well as between right and wrong.

A few weeks into our mission, our field supervisor, Chuck Titus, reminded us that there is "more than one road to Walmart," implying that we have the freedom to choose whether we use a tight crop on our probate image or a large crop.  We can use a pointer or a weight to hold down curled paper edges.  We can limit our folder size to 103 images or expand to 947.  He didn't really care.  As long as we achieved the desired results, we could choose our "road to Walmart."

Mortality, with very few exceptions, is a one-way street.  Everyone is required to eventually leave this earth, yet, no one's journey through life is quite like another's.

One man's documents...whew, what a task.

Several weeks ago we found records...and more records...and even more records for a man named Levi G. Warren. In total we captured approximately 3,000 documents related to the guardianship of his children. We were able to learn a little about the Warren family and their personal road to Walmart.

The L. G. Warren Mausoleum in the Woodlawn Cemetery
Terre Haute, Indiana

Levi was born in New York in 1816. When he was just four years old, he and his family moved to Vigo County, Indiana. He was a bachelor until the age of 38 when he married Martha Ellen Clark in 1854. Levi had his hands in several ventures. He owned a dry goods business and engaged in pork packing. He was active in community affairs and was among the organizers of the City's first Hook and Ladder Company. He and Martha bought a large farm south of town which was called Warren Park and is now the site of the Honey Creek Mall. A director of the State Bank of Indiana, Warren was elected president of the Terre Haute branch and also the president of the First National Bank of Terre Haute.  In the 1860 United States Census, Mr. Warren's real estate holdings were valued at $58,000, with personal property valued at $79,000.  In today's dollars, he was a millionaire. Three daughters — Sallie, Jessie and Mary Alice — were born to the couple, but Martha died in 1863 at age 35, when the youngest daughter was a little over a year old. In 1865, Levi became suddenly ill and died at age 49. The children were all under 10 years old and were raised by an aunt and uncle. The oldest daughter, Sallie, married and prospered in the community. Jessie passed away in 1882 at the age of 22. Mary Alice lived 75 years but never married.

Final resting place for Levi, Martha,
Jessie and Mary Alice

Compare the road the Warrens traveled to that of Florence M. Doll, daughter of J. & V. Doll, who was 3 years old in 1866 when she died.  She is buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery just a few feet away from the resting place of the Warren family.

"Though hard to you, this journey may appear..."

Our journey through life is unique to each of us.  Sometimes we get detoured, take a wrong turn, or get stalled.  We may reach that eternal destination quickly, or it may take us many decades to arrive.  We do not judge another's road, but teach, encourage, serve and love each other along our way.

The temple has given us a clearer vision of our ultimate destination.

"...You have a responsibility to remain firmly focused on your eternal destination. Yes, life's journey can have many ups and downs. Yes, there will be days when you will feel the going is tough. But as you stay on the right path, the reward at the end of life's journey is well worth the moments of adversity you experience along the way."

                                                                      Elder Ben Banks 

                                                                      General Conference April 2002

To This End Was I Called

Many of us pause on New Years Day to make an assessment of the old year and to set resolutions for the next.  Birthdays and anniversaries of any kind prompt the same reflection for me.  Ann and I have now been on our mission for a full year, and I'm doing an internal audit.  What have been the results of that year of service?  Am I "filling the measure of [my] creation"?  Am I magnifying my calling?

A week's worth of work ready to go back to the stacks

First I looked at the hard data regarding our "primary assignment" as "records preservation specialists":

• Work Ethic--We've been at our post to the extent that the counties' hours allowed us, taking minimal breaks for lunch or rest, and only a handful of days off for mission conferences or gatherings.
• Productivity--We have sent 447,529 images to FamilySearch to be added to its online resources
• Quality Management--Just one of those images has been sent back to us for "rework," and that was because we failed to rotate it 90 degrees to make it "right reading."
• Team Involvement--Volunteers have supported the projects.  In Crawfordsville, the documents were all prepared for us to image before we ever arrived--3 weeks of 8-hour days by dozens of church and community members.  Here in Terre Haute, Ann has organized a pool of fifty-eight individuals to come a few at a time to help at the warehouse.  These fine folks have clocked 442 hours of service, with a few of them coming regularly each week to do a shift.
• Developing New Procedures--Volunteers across the globe, friends and family members, have been extracting the data from the large index book of the probate records to make our work of identifying the images easier.  That project is 70% complete, with 10,881 names so far in the database.

The missionaries always bring the Spirit to the warehouse when they drop in for a minute.

Hard data, though, is not a totally accurate measure of success.  We pray each day that the Spirit of the Lord will be there to guide us and to touch the hearts of those coming to help us.  How can that spiritual influence be quantified, other than to say that it is real.  There is a peace there, a reassurance that the work is meaningful and needful to building up the Kingdom of God.

I learned to love this book a few years ago.  Now I can share it with others.

Our call included an additional open-ended phrase, "Your assignment may be modified according to the needs of the mission president."  He as approved our being "group leaders" in the Addiction Recovery Program sponsored by LDS Family Services.  Since April we have met every Thursday night with folks seeking that support here in Terre Haute.  Attendance has ranged from 4 to 10, with 8 being pretty regular.  There again, numbers may not reflect the value of that program, for if just one soul is aided in his or her recovery from addiction, then it is a success.

We've learned to Pull Together with the members of our Indiana wards

We've enjoyed being members of three different wards during the past year.  "We'd be glad to serve in any way you would need us, Bishop," and they put us to work.  How our lives have been enriched by the good saints with whom we've labored.  We are grateful that they've given us opportunities to share our love of music, to teach, and to fellowship.

There is a paragraph in our call that puzzled me at the time, and causes me now to ponder on its meaning and if I am measuring up:  "Your purpose will be to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."  That's straight from Preach My Gospel's introduction.  Ann sees our imaging as making that conversion and ordinance work possible for those in the Spirit World, and I agree.  But we have also been blessed to help in the teaching and fellowshipping of wonderful folks here in Indiana.  I'm sure that there is MUCH more I could do to magnify this part of our calling.

Salvador Ponce, our newest brother in the Family of Christ

Looking at the past year in a broader sense, I see that there have been some outcomes promised by the closing paragraph of our call:  "Greater blessings and more happiness than you have yet experienced await you as you humbly and prayerfully serve the Lord."  Being here has been a growth experience for me.  I've learned humility doing the imaging because it is often so routine and repetitive.  My faith in the Lord has been reaffirmed.  My testimony of the divinity of this work and of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been strengthened.  All of this has brought the blessings and happiness that were promised.

Four years and holding

Ann and I are still married!  We actually celebrated our 4th anniversary just a couple of days ago.  She had serious concerns about the prospects of being together 24/7.  Despite the curves I continually pitch her, she chooses to stay in the game.  I'm so blessed for that faith she has in our marriage and in the inspiration we received to make such serious and eternal covenants with each other and before the Lord.  This mission experience is proving to be the refining fire to weld us together.  I love her more each day.

Celebrating a year of blessings

I have six months left to accomplish the purposes of my call.  The imaging will go on--that much I can do.  It's "between the lines" that I need to focus on now, bringing myself and others closer to the Lord.

Do-It-Yourself Time Machine

The year was 1875.  Ulysses S. Grant was the president of the United States.  Thomas A. Hendricks was the governor of Indiana and Utah was still a territory.  The United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act (later invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1883), which prohibited racial discrimination in public accommodations and jury duty.  Ten sophomores from Rutgers College stole a one-ton cannon from the campus of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton)  and started the Rutgers-Princeton Cannon War.  Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.  Brigham Young University was founded in Provo, Utah.  The electric dental drill was patented by George F. Green.  The first baseball shutout was recorded, Chicago 1, St Louis 0.  Jesse James robbed a train in Otterville, Missouri.  The first newspaper cartoon strip appeared.

Life is much different in 2015 than it was 140 years ago.  Elder Packham and I have imagined what it would be like to engage a time machine to transport us back to the streets of Terre Haute in 1875. Thanks to the documents we are now preserving from that era, we don't need H. G. Wells.  Receipts, advertisements, and letterhead have been a fun way of getting a glimpse of what life was like so many years ago.  We thought you might enjoy a journey back in time, as well.

Isaac Ball was the best known undertaker in Terre Haute.
This decent "burial box" was $53.

An advertisement like this would be
censored in the Deseret News today.

Federal Express and UPS

No logos or embroidered stitching...just plain black.

Mr. Mac's for missionaries

Help Wanted ads

Jiffy Lube

Xerox, Kinkos or your
PC Printer

Gucci's for women

Mass Transit

Nike and Adidas

Home Depot

Ferrari

In another 140 years it will be June, 2155.  We will be faces on a pedigree sheet.  The little children in our lives today will be someone's great great grandparents.  What will future generations know about us?

"One hundred or two hundred years from now, your descendants can know who you are. And they may find their lives forever changed for the better because of the legacy of uplifting, faith-promoting strength you left them. You should record your life history and experiences for your children and grandchildren, and beyond. In this way, they can benefit and learn from your life. Even if they have never met you, they can come to love you and “turn their hearts” to you. Through keeping journals and writing personal and family histories, you can give your posterity the opportunity to turn their hearts toward you.

"Include news events that were happening at that time in your life which not only help set it against the circumstances of the times, but also make your story more interesting. You may also find that by remembering historical events, you will be stimulating more of your personal memories. Memorabilia can also help bring back memories, such as: music, photos, letters, talking with family or friends, even familiar smells and sounds.

"Have fun creating your memoirs and most likely others will enjoy reading it. You can include interesting things like photos, maps, news articles, receipts, favorite quotations and jokes, cards, etc.  Your journals and records will be a great source of inspiration to your children, your grandchildren, and others through many generations." (https://www.easyfamilyhistory.com/learning-center/leaving-your-enduring-legacy)

I love to write in my journals during my morning study time.

Elder Packham has different journals for different purposes.

We were called to be Record Preservation Specialists.  We believe in making and preserving records of our lives.  Through our journals, books, histories, photographs, and recordings, some day, Elder Packham's descendants will read his testimony, try his favorite recipe, appreciate his humor, and learn from his challenges.  Quite possible, they may also look at the ads in the newspaper from June 14, 2015 and exclaim, "what old fashioned cars they had...they didn't even fly!"

All Work and No Play . . .

In our letter from the First Presidency our call was "as a records preservation specialist."  We've written a lot about our work in that regard, but our life here has been more than that 8-to-4 schedule at the county's document warehouse.  Being official full-time missionaries has brought us some added opportunities.  We have a closer connection with the young Elders and Sisters as they do their proselyting work.  We've joined them in lessons.  We meet their investigators and share in the joy as they accept the gospel and are baptized.

One of Terre Haute's newest members--Otto Ghrist in the center

We are included in the Zone and Mission training sessions and conferences, allowing us to "feel" like missionaries spreading the gospel to God's children.

At the All-Mission Conference at Christmas, 2014

Our call also included this catch-all phrase: "Your assignment may be modified according to the needs of the mission president."  And so it has been.  For a month now we have been the "group leaders" for the LDS Family Services Addiction Recovery Program meetings here in Terre Haute.  This is usually done by part-time church service missionaries from the area, but the local leaders had not been able to find "the right couple."  Thursday nights at 7pm we change badges and meet at the church with wonderful men and women seeking support recovering from addictions.  Our roll is to bear witness of the power of the Lord's atonement.  We love this opportunity.

My three "hats"

Being members of the local ward has been a blessing to us as well.  As called on, we teach lessons, play the organ or piano, sing in the choir, talk in meetings, and generally be stalwart members in the ward.  We are enriched by the new friendships and by sharing in their lives and feeling their testimonies.

What do we do with the rest of our day?  Most of the time we come home to our comfortable duplex apartment and crash, exhausted from the stresses and physical exertion of our FamilySearch work.  We enjoy emailing family and friends, Facebook-socializing, and some simple hobbies,

What better hobby than Family History!  Time seems to fly by for both of us when we sit down to "find our cousins."  Ann sees it as the best of puzzles.  For me it is like solving the most obscure of Miss Marple mysteries.  For us there is no better way to spend an evening than "digging about, pruning, and dunging" the Family Tree.  And we've enjoyed the fruits of our labors as we spend a day at the temple each month offering those cousins the ordinances of salvation.

Our "Day at the Temple" for May--St. Louis

Ann has taken up card-stock embroidery, creating beautiful greeting cards.  Each one is a mini-masterpiece, unique and tailor-made for the lucky recipient.

Hand stitched for a granddaughter

I cook for pleasure, keeping up my reputation of never following a recipe, which results in some pretty "interesting" creations of my own.  Trying to meet the goals of gluten-free, low-fat, high-protein, low-GI carbohydrates, etc. can make for some strange concoctions.

It's usually eatable, and once in a while, even good

We both love our music.  Ann has missed having a piano to practice.  The Lord loves her so much that things "fell into place" this last week.  We are now "storing" a piano for a sister who just didn't have room for it in her new apartment.

Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Delibes in the background as I fix supper.  

I enjoy my organ and French horn playing

We play games--Rummykub, Bananagrams, Monopoly Deal, Farkle, and Dominos.  We watch an occasional Redbox movie.  We indulge in Kroger's "death by chocolate" ice cream (yes, I realize it falls short on every point of my healthful food requirement list).  And we exercise--I lift and swim and Ann walks.  She has enjoyed photographing flowers and trees in the neighborhood while she is out.

My grandma used to say, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."  These little diversities in our lives are helping us recuperate and rejuvenate ourselves for the main work of our ministry, doing our small part in linking families together through the generations of time.

Camelot

It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clear.

The climate must be perfect all the year.

A law was made a distant moon ago here: 

July and August cannot be too hot. 

And there's a legal limit to the snow here 

In Camelot. 

Springtime in Indiana

     Terre Haute isn't Camelot, although I had to post this picture to show how much better our new town looks now that spring has arrived. Right now the weather is almost like Camelot. The flowering trees have been absolutely beautiful. The day time temperature is a sunny 70 degrees.  Everyone promised we would be thrilled living here in the spring.  They were right.

     As I thought about the possibility of a Camelot setting, I realized there may be one place that can boast of the perfect climate 365 days of the year.  Its location is tucked safely in the mountains east of Salt Lake City, Utah.  The place is known as the Granite Mountain Record Vault.  

Granite Mountain Record Vault

     The vault is operated by the Family History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Construction began in 1960.  Five years later, in 1965, the project was complete. Carved deep into a mountain of solid quartz monzonite, the vault protects microfilm and digital images from the elements outside.  It is an ideal environment for preserving historical records.

     The images we captured in Crawfordsville, and now in Terre Haute are joining the millions of other data stored at the vault.  A few weeks ago, as we were preparing a presentation to the Wabash Valley Genealogical Society, we opened up the Wiki menu on FamilySearch and found a description of our project.  It showed examples of documents we had captured when we first arrived in Vigo County three months ago.  We will be excited when the entire project is eventually searchable online.  But for now, we know they are safe, secure, and in good hands.

Aren't our images lovely?

     I found some interesting facts about the vault.  There are three conditions that are required to maintain the perfect climate:

• a constant temperature of fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit
• a relative humidity of 30 percent
• a computer-controlled ventilation and air filtration system, ensuring air is scrubbed of dust and other particles."  (Ouimette, David S., “The Vault: A Mountain of Granite and Gold,” Ancestry Magazine, Vol. 23, No. 2, March/April 2005.)

     Why would these conditions be so critical?  The cool temperature slows any decay of the film and emulsion.  Maintaining the relative humidity under 50 percent is optimal; if the relative humidity were below 10 or 15 percent the microfilms may become brittle; if it were above 50 percent, fungus could actually grow.  The removal of particles from the air helps keep the surface of the microfilm clean and scratch-free.  It all seems so reasonable and makes sense. 

         

Stock certificates from the Wabash and Erie Canal Company

     Several weeks ago we captured our biggest set of individual images. Mr. John W. Wines gets the distinct honor of having approximately 1,150 images attached to his estate folder. Included in his documents were hundreds of stock certificates from the Wabash and Erie Canal Company dated in the 1840's. The paper was so fragile. We knew that trying to handle them would take valuable time and possibly harm the documents. We wondered what the next 150 years would do to these pieces of history.

     Under the right conditions, records can be preserved for hundreds of years.  Of course, just like "45's", "78's", 8-track, cassettes, CD's, etc., preservation procedures will evolve necessitating constant technology updates.  Thankfully, the Family History Department is on top of that. 

Michael entering the Probate Index into a database.
A big thank you to those who have volunteered to help.

     No blog would be complete without an analogy.  Unlike Camelot, it WILL rain before sundown.  It WILL snow in June.  July 24th WILL be unbearably hot.  But my analogy is not about the jet stream or El Nino effects.  I am more concerned about the climate in my home. Often my temperature soars depending on the crisis of the day.  My relative "humidity" varies depending on my relative "humility".  Harmful particles of sin and discouragement settle in all too often.  

     The Granite Mountain Records Vault has found a perfect balance to preserve its precious content.  I must do the same.  I am challenging myself to check my thermostat and barometer periodically.  In fact, every Sunday during the sacrament might be a good time to do that.  I will commit to filtering what is heard and seen through the criteria of what is "virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy".  Camelot may be a fictional place, but I can still strive for the ideal climate at home.  I just need to remember the formula: a "cool" head, "relative" humility, and an effective "air filtration system" for my words and thoughts.  

   

     

I Once Was Lost, But Now I'm Found

I can personally relate to the line from John Newton's hymn, Amazing Grace.  Every day I am grateful for the miracle the Lord has performed in allowing me to be His disciple.  "I once was lost, but now I'm found."  Our work here as record preservation volunteers has become a metaphor of sorts--seeing the disarray in the "lives" of these documents, and patiently working with them, as Christ does with me, organizing and preparing them for an "eternal life."

We've been working on Vigo County's probate records now for 2 months, nibbling away "one bite at a time" on the "elephant" that is in our room at the warehouse.  There are 1,041 boxes of probate packets.  We've done 41.  Yup, that's about a box per day--two years to go.  I hope Daddy doesn't make me eat everything on my plate before I can go out to play.

We open a box and most of the time find a hodge-podge of papers, some loose, some tied in bundles.

Each box is a surprise, some neat and tidy, others a jumble of random papers

Ann is good at getting them into stacks of documents according to the testator, the deceased person for whom the probate hearing was held.

Each pile, documents that were generated by the death of an individual

The county's record of all of these probate cases is contained in two large index books that were made in the mid-1900's.  After getting the stacks organized, we have to verify that the packets are each in the right box so that our "tagging" of the images will agree with the county's information.  Often we find documents that belong somewhere else and have just been stored incorrectly, like a librarian finding a book about snakes in with the biographies.  

The Probate Index Books--Would you help extract the data?

These two books have become so invaluable that we've taken it upon ourselves to extract the information from them so that we can search it digitally, and so that we can correct and add information that we are finding as we work with the documents.

I've "unofficially" digitized both books.  They are not part of our FamilySearch project, and FamilySearch doesn't want the extraction data, but the county clerks do.  It will save them handling the fragile books, and make it easier for them to locate specific images for their purposes.  I've got the images on my personal computer, so we work on it at home each night.  It takes about 20 minutes per page.  There are nearly 400 pages in each book, however, and it's becoming pretty obvious that we can't keep up.

A page from the Index Books like I would send to you 

Would any of you like to help?  I'd send to you, via email, a few "tif" format images and a blank Excel spreadsheet into which you would enter what you read on the image.  You'd email me back the completed spreadsheet.  I'm sure that it would bring the spirit of this Family History work into your life more fully, and you can be assured that it would be helping us in our small corner of the Lord's Vineyard to produce some good fruit.  Let me know of your willingness to help:  PackhamMichael@gmail.com

The next step in the journey for that jumble of documents is getting unfolded, flattened, uncreased, and uncovered so that we can lay it quickly on the capture table and image it without a lot of fuss and fiddling.  The goal is to keep that camera clicking.  I can almost prep the documents as fast as Ann can capture them, but with all the organizing and verifying to do, we just can't do it all on our own.

Thank goodness for volunteers from the local LDS congregations, the Wabash Valley Genealogical Society (of which we are now members), and the Terre Haute community.  We've had 2 or 3 people for a couple of hours most mornings during the last month, which has nearly doubled our daily productivity count.

Community and church volunteers preparing documents for the camera

Each document then gets its turn in the bright lights, probably its first appearance on stage since it's debut nearly 200 years ago.  It is then stored in a folder and returned to its original box, ready to be restacked in a dark corner of the warehouse, more than likely never again to see the light of day.

A box of documents organized and ready to return to the stacks,
a little better than we found it.

It's fate is to crumble to dust or to face the eventual paper shredder, but its spirit will live on.  The image we took of it will be available for millions to view, and the man or woman of whom it bears record can guide us to it as we turn our hearts to our fathers. (Malachi 4:5-6)

Be A Part of the Picture

I'm grateful for the daily reminder that no matter how crumpled or torn my life is, God will find me, lift me, heal me, and perfect me if I am willing, ready to live with him forever--not in some dark corner, but in his eternal light.