I was interested in Samuel Benson's article on the mixed motives for LDS converts to make the journey to Utah. My own grandparents came separately from Norway in 1905 and 1906, via Liverpool, and both of them were primarily motivated by a fervent desire to seal their extended families in the temple. I have his handwritten Temple Record Book. My grandfather had been a typesetter in Norway and found work in Salt Lake City, but it was never ever enough to raise his nine children on. My father, the oldest, left school after 8th grade to work, as did some of his brothers, and he served a mission to Norway during the depression where he put newspapers inside his coat to keep warm. If temporal improvement was also a motive for my grandparents' emigration, it never materialized, but they remained committed to the gospel and to the church. Their endurance astounds me.
I was interested in Samuel Benson's article on the mixed motives for LDS converts to make the journey to Utah. My own grandparents came separately from Norway in 1905 and 1906, via Liverpool, and both of them were primarily motivated by a fervent desire to seal their extended families in the temple. I have his handwritten Temple Record Book. My grandfather had been a typesetter in Norway and found work in Salt Lake City, but it was never ever enough to raise his nine children on. My father, the oldest, left school after 8th grade to work, as did some of his brothers, and he served a mission to Norway during the depression where he put newspapers inside his coat to keep warm. If temporal improvement was also a motive for my grandparents' emigration, it never materialized, but they remained committed to the gospel and to the church. Their endurance astounds me.