Walking through This Is the Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City in 2019, Julie Thompson instructed her young grandson to pose for a photo with a bronze pioneer statue pulling a handcart.
“Go pretend like you’re helping him pull his handcart,” she told him, thinking of pioneer Francis Webster’s account of feeling angels assist him when he felt he could pull no further. “Act like you’re one of those angels.”
Later examining the photograph, Thompson said she thought to herself, “Well, wait, who’s helping who?”
Was her grandson helping the pioneer, or did the pioneer “have his arms around (her) grandson, helping him on his trail?”
For Thompson and thousands of other members of Daughters of Utah Pioneers, this moment captures part of the purpose that fuels their participation in this international society — a society in which they see themselves not only as preservers of history, but as part of the “continuum” that will help them and future generations learn and find strength in the lives of their ancestors.
“If you walk through the museum and you see all of the portraits, I feel like they’re all just watching us to say, ‘Don’t forget us, … please tell my story,’” said Thompson, who serves as a lesson committee member and fourth vice president of the society.
“For me, the driving force is I feel like I get help from them. I need their help, and I fully intend to meet them someday and thank them for what they did.”
A legacy in the building
First organized in 1901 by Annie Taylor Hyde and a number of her friends, Daughters of Utah Pioneers has welcomed more than 100,000 members throughout its 124-year history. This Pioneer Day, the society will be celebrating exactly 75 years in its international headquarters building: the Pioneer Memorial Museum in Salt Lake City.
Yet, attaining all the society has today — more than 100,000 pioneer histories; 50,000 artifacts; 40,000 photographs; 600 historic markers; 90 published lesson books; and 120 other museums located across Utah and the Western United States — has not come without effort.
In fact, simply landing a permanent location to house their growing collection was a process that took the society at least 5 relocations.
According to society president Ellen Jeppson, the society’s initial collection — inherited from the “house of relics” put on for the 1897 Pioneer Jubilee semi-centennial celebration — was first housed in a 12-by-14-foot room located in the basement of what was then the Church of Jesus Christ’s tithing office.
The society quickly outgrew that location, and in 1905, arranged to move their collection into the Lion House — Brigham Young’s family home.
“That collection continued to grow exponentially,” Jeppson said. However, when the society’s collection had to move yet again in 1910, this time into the Deseret Museum, the society’s members decided they needed to begin fundraising for their own permanent museum.
“We can’t keep packing up all these artifacts and carting them around,” Jeppson said members thought.
“So, they began a building fund,” Jeppson continued. “One of the ladies there gave a $5 gold piece and the fundraising began.”
But the journey from there wasn’t smooth. In 1919, the society moved into the basement of the Utah State Capitol. And after “years of debate,” it was finally able to secure a triangular piece of land in 1936, whereon it could have a permanent home.
Jeppson explained the society’s hope was that the building’s completion would coincide with the pioneer centennial in 1947. But a lawsuit over taxpayer funds delayed the project for three years. Once that was resolved, work continued and the building was dedicated July 24, 1950.
“We finally had our own home for the artifacts,” Jeppson said, adding that the museum was built as a replica of the old Salt Lake Theatre, which was demolished in the 1920s.
“That’s why this building has the beautiful spiral staircase in the front and the balconies,” she said. “If you look at a picture of the old Salt Lake Theatre, that’s where you think you’re standing.”
Why the work matters
The determination that early members of Daughters of Utah Pioneers had to preserve their ancestral history is evident in their work and the building’s history. But what drives the more than 20,000 living members of the society to continue that legacy of preservation today? What motivates an average of 100 people a month, according to Jeppson, to join the “growing organization”?
For some the answer is connection.
Thompson, who joined the society exactly 20 years ago, shared that participating and volunteering hours of her time serving as a lesson committee member and 4th vice president of the society has strengthened her ability to both connect with others and the stories of pioneers.
“I have the best job in the whole organization to immerse myself in the stories of the pioneers and write about them,” she said.
Every year, the society’s lesson committee publishes a 9-chapter lesson book that groups of members — called camps and companies — gather each month to study, except during the summer months.
“Hundreds of hours go into each chapter,” Thompson said. “And we’re volunteers.”
Thompson explained that each chapter undergoes much fact-checking and correlation to ensure the published product is as accurate as possible.
“You go line by line, page by page,” she said, “(and) it could feel very personal when your lesson is completely dismantled, … but we want to tell the truth.”
Still, immersing herself in history is not the only reason Thompson enjoys her work. Connecting with the story is what adds meaning, she said.
“It’s great to review history, but to me, it’s really only meaningful if you pull a message out of it that’s relatable and helpful now. I think that’s what they would want us to do.”
Thompson advised those looking for similar connections to not engage in comparison, but rather seek “unification.”
“Though the experiences are wildly different, so many of the key characteristics that are necessary to triumph over those things are the same.”
Similarly, Jeppson explained that what drives her is the strength and inspiration she gains in learning and preserving who her ancestors were.
“I counted one time and I had 45 pioneer ancestors that came across the plains,” she said. “I’ve read their stories, and I feel very, very motivated by what they did.”
Many of them and others who she is not directly related to exemplified virtue and faith, she continued. “And that’s why we want to save everything, because it’s so beautiful. … They weren’t perfect people, but they were certainly driven by faith and love.
“It’s just very inspiring work.”
Expressing a similar admiration for Utah pioneers, but also the women who have worked to establish historic markers throughout the society’s 124 years, marker chairman Marguerite Mower said: “I love those women who worked so hard to get those markers placed.”
It was at the height of the Great Depression when these women began placing markers, she explained. But, in her words, they said: “Yes, we can do this. We want to mark history.”
Looking forward, Mower said she hopes her work and that of the society gives future generations a “sense of place and purpose.”
“We have a lot of people who like knowing their family history,” she said. “And we have lots of people who could care less. But I do think when you know it, you feel a little more grounded in life and can see that there’s more to life than just the life you’re living.
“You are affected by choices other people have made. I am a product of people choosing to move across the country and live here, … and I love what they created for me.”
