Why I Begin Here

My father commented recently that the big twelve room house is more work than he can keep up with. As we try to make it easier for him we thin out a file here, a box there. From one I was given an envelope addressed to him from his father in 1971, with such distinctive penmanship, noting "Printed Matter". Another notation, also in a distinctive hand: "Family Pedigree/ Story of Gudmun Gudmundsen" is that of my dad's.

My paternal grandmother, dad's mother, Sylvia Ucilla Gudmundsen Kirkham was known as Gene after a part from a play. She married into a family that would become known for genealogy research and study. So there is paper stapled to paper to tell me where I come from. However, while I enjoy this I want to know more: what have we done since we got here?

Believe me, we have done much!

This story will reflect my knowledge and understanding of Marie Jacobsen's sons and their families. With her two husbands, she is the pioneer ancestor we have in common and her sons the sources of her posterity. Marie had a daughter, buried now for more than 150 years in a grave, perhaps no longer discernible along the trail the Christensen handcart company used in 1857 coming to the Great Basin, to the valleys of the mountains. Other children, including another daughter died before the family left Denmark.

Let me start my story there:

"Among his converts in Denmark was a family by the name of Garff, well-to-do people and highly respected," the historian refers to Gudmund Gudmundsen of Iceland, at that point a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons, "but as soon as they joined the church they became objects of special hatred on the part of their nearest relatives and their neighbors generally. The Garffs decided to leave for Utah in 1857 on the same ship as Elder Gudmundsen. Sister Garff went to bid her parents goodbye, but none of her relatives, of whom there were many, would have anything to do with her, except her mother, who came to the wharf and bade her daughter farewell with all the feelings of a loving mother. Sister Garff was at the time in a delicate condition. In embarking the family took with them a nurse and a mid-wife. Sister Garff gave birth to a baby boy in mid-ocean, May 3, 1857, and by request of the Captain of the ship, the infant was given the name Deacon Westmorland Garff, the given names of the Captain and of the ship."

After landing in America the immigrants started across the continent. On the way Brother Garff became ill, and loving his family, called Elder Gudmundsen to his death bed where he asked Gudmund to care for his wife, Marie, and his children, consisting of four boys and a daughter. He was determined that the family go on "to Zion and be with God's people." Brother Garff was buried along the pioneer trail, and just a few days later Sister Garff would bury also her only daughter, Josephine Patrine Garff.

After arriving in Utah, Gudmund Gudmundsen married Marie Jacobsen Garff, and the family was increased with three more sons. The preceding came to me from my grandfather James Arno Kirkham, and has also been attributed to the research and writhing of Ralph Abraham Trane, in the biography Peter Niels Garff published 1983 by the family of George Peter and Tryphena B. Garff. [FHL us/can 921.73 - G18g]

I do not suggest that I am an authority on any aspect of this story I hope to relate. Indeed I have only that knowledge that comes from reading and studying what others have recorded. I may cause you, reader and kin, to develop more questions. Before I put any information before you I hope I have faithful sources for it. Nordic peoples, as we are have the great history of recounting the family story. I shall stay as true to it as I can.

Today I have a deeper affection and honor for this family and feel a great sense of pride in it. Such commodities I hope I can foster in you as well.