Today marks the 161st anniversary of the arrival in the Salt Lake Valley of the first contingent of the Mormon pioneers. The advance party had been in the valley for a couple of days and the main company, lead by a fairly ill Brigham Young, drove into the valley on the 24th of July, 1847. The 24th of July is an official State of Utah holiday.

Each year the 24th celebration starts with a Sunrise Service at the Mormon Tabernacle on Temple Square put on by the Salt Lake Chapter of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers. This year’s program featured a 200-voice choir made up of members of the Church in the Davis County area. Our oldest daughter Heather was singing in the choir, so Nina and I decided to be there for the program. We were well rewarded for our small effort!

I’ve not been inside the Tabernacle for several years and not since all of the renovations and remodeling were completed. The building itself is beautiful and a monument to the faith and dedication of those pioneers who were forced out of Nauvoo, Illinois and came to the Salt Lake Valley seeking refuge. I have ancestors who were part of that movement.

William P Smith is my direct Smith ancestor who joined the Church in England in 1840. He immigrated to Nauvoo, Illinois and was forced to leave there in 1847, impoverished and with a large family including a 6-day-old baby girl. William then spent several years operating a ferry across the Missouri River near present-day Omaha, Nebraska and made the journey from Nebraska to the Salt Lake Valley in 1852.

Milo Andrus is another ancestor on my mothers side who joined the Church in 1833 in Florence, Ohio (near Kirtland, Ohio) and was party to all of the mobocracy and persecution that drove the Church from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois and finally to Utah. Milo and his family arrived in the Valley in 1850 after he finished serving a mission to England from 1848 -1850 in the same area where William P Smith had joined the Church a few years earlier. Milo was a polygamist, having 11 wives and 57 children. The Milo Andrus Family Organization is organized by wives and I descend from his fifth wife, Mary Ann Webster.

There were others as well. Josiah Guile Hardy, Samuel Gillett, John Sant, and others I’m sure I’ve forgotten to mention.

I thought about these men and their wives as I sat in the Tabernacle this morning. I was moved by the music and by Elder Tingey’s remarks. I have a remarkable heritage and I definitely bask in the fruits of their service and sacrifice. It’s good to have a day each year to remember them and honor them.