Author Archives: Rebekah Richards

About Rebekah Richards

Born before the internet age, I recall reading my way through the set of encyclopedias in my parents home. In addition to non fiction, I also enjoy a good novel and love the written word. Music was a staple in my childhood home, I love to sing and often sing too loud. When I was 11 years old I went with my grandma and dad to visit Grandma's family in West Virginia where they had lived for generations. I fell in love with "my" people and have spent a lifetime learning their stories. I graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA in History and am passionate about people and their stories, those who have paved the way for the life we live, those who impact our lives daily and those whose lives our decisions will affect. I am the sister to six wonderful siblings, the wife of my best friend and the mother to four very above average children. Most of all I find deep hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ and want to follow Him.

No Endings

A now deteriorating cemetery in Ripley, Oklahoma is the final resting place of many of the family of Richard and Elizabeth (Patton) May.  The younger sister of my great great grandpa, Elizabeth was born in 1853 in western Virginia on a prosperous farm to a large family.  Her childhood was interrupted by the Civil War and family members enlisted, fought and died, some just miles from her home.  Likely, however, the most difficult loss occurred when she was eleven years old and her mother passed away after delivering a baby girl who lived a month and then died as well.
 
Married in 1869, Elizabeth and her new husband followed the migration of many neighbors and family including her two brothers first to Kansas and then further west to Payne County, Oklahoma where they put down roots creating their own successful farm. While economically stable, Elizabeth’s losses continued.
Bend Cemetery
The mother of six children, three had died by 1900 and a year later another son, Lewis, succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of twenty.   Perhaps it was the death of her oldest son in 1908 that broke her, for when her husband’s will was probated in 1909 he left everything to her in the event that she was cured and released from the state mental hospital where she was currently residing.  Her last surviving daughter passed away in 1913 and in the 1920 Census, Elizabeth is living on the family farm with her single brother.  She had outlived her husband and all six of her children.  So many endings, so much loss.
 

On Friday, I was privileged to be in a sealing room of the Bountiful Temple with a lifelong friend who five years earlier had faced the crushing pain of the sudden death of her husband. Now she and her sons knelt at the altar of the temple, a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and were sealed to their husband and father.  Afterwards she stood with her sons in front of the mirrors that go on forever and shared her witness that her family could go on forever and there never had to be an enduring end.  Because of Jesus Christ, everything that is broken can be healed, everything that is wrong can be made right and everything that is good can go on forever and ever.  Because of Him, no end, no loss, no sorrow needs to be permanent but can be replaced with joy. “I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains.

 Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.” (Alma 36:21).  Jesus Christ can and will “wipe away all tears from [our] eyes” and turn our pain to joy as we come unto Him.

Link to Generations

Charles William O’Brien, age 80, passed from this life to the next on November 15, 2023, though I didn’t hear of it until this week.  Charles is my dad’s cousin, the son of my grandma’s sister, Myrtle, and for as long as I can remember, he has been the owner of the “home place” of our family in West Virginia.  A long haul truck driver and veteran of the Vietnam War, Charlie wasn’t a man of many words, but he did love the land and home of our ancestors and along with his brother, Rodney, who lives down the lane, has cared for that piece of our history. 

I was eleven years old when my dad and grandma took me to visit her family in West Virginia.  It was dark as we drove up the winding road from the Greenbrier River to Aunt Myrtle’s house that sat in the bend of the road that led to the “home place”. 

It wasn’t until the next morning that I saw the land and the hollow where my family had lived for generations.  It was the home where my great great grandparents raised their only child, Charles.  It was the home where he brought his new bride, Gracie, and where their oldest child, my grandma and her eight siblings were born and raised.  I recall standing in front of it while my grandma and her sisters laughed about how often my grandma, a tomboy, used the towering tree growing next to their second story bedroom window to descend to the yard below.  I could see them in my mind as they described the long walk up to Aunt Willie’s house or to the crest of the ridge to work for Aunt Sally. The hollow where Myrtle and her sons lived was like a beacon of my family pulling me in and each time I crossed the Greenbrier River and turned right on River Road, I had the feeling that though I had never lived there, I was home. 

Grandma died my freshman year of college and Myrtle passed away ten days before I got married, but the home still beckoned and when I went, it still looked the same thanks to his meticulous care.  With the generation before gone, Charles started to share stories of helping with the chores, of how many biscuits Grandpa Patton could eat for breakfast and the full pie he would eat for Sunday dessert.  He told me about the wind storm that finally brought the aging barn down and the story of Grandpa Patton’s closest cousin, Ira, who before Grandpa and Grandma Patton were married, proposed to Grandma Gracie and was never quite forgiven. 

I was not a big piece of Charles life, but he played a vital part in mine.  In so many ways, he was a link to the generations that went before me attaching me to them and helping our past to live.  “Each of us is a link in the chain of our generations. You, each of you, are a link to the past and a link to generations yet to come….” (Elder David A. Bednar, Twitter, October 28, 2019)

She Was There

As a child, my husband lived within walking distance of his grandparents. As the oldest in a large family, my husband’s favorite place to be was reading in a sitting area of his grandma’s kitchen. Knowing that Grandma was a wonderful cook, I thought he might have been drawn by the food she most likely fed him but when I asked why it was his favorite, he responded simply, “Because she was there.” Her presence brought safety, security, peace and love.

The Savior invites us to ‘Come, follow me’ and ‘walk with me.’  He entreats us to abide in Him and He will abide in us. Our desire to feel His love draws us, like my husband was drawn to his grandma’s kitchen, to be where He is. 

 “Come with conviction and endurance…Christ is everything to us and we are to ‘abide’ in Him permanently, unyieldingly, steadfastly, forever.” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, April 2004) With all the presents we buy this year, our efforts to be in His presence will bring the safety, security, peace and love we long for and will be the gift that will matter most for generations to come.

Give What You Have

My great grandma, Gracie Mae Caldwell Patton, lived a quiet life rarely leaving the hollow where she and her husband farmed and raised their family.  Her granddaughters recalled at her home, “we always got up early to do the chores that had to be done- but always, Grandma was already up preparing for the day.  We started by bringing in wood and coal for the cook stove…because grandma started cooking early…She baked her own bread 2 to 3 times a week and biscuits daily….then she would always bathe Uncle Harry [her son who was born with special needs] and change his sheets every day and give him a good shaving….We fed Uncle Harry if Grandma was busy then we would go out to the chicken coop and gather fresh eggs for breakfast and for cooking later….

“Then we would go down to the sulfur spring and tote back two large pails of ice cold sulphur water that was placed on the back porch to stay cold for everyone who came in the back door from working outside…it had a dipper that everyone drank out of.  I guess the good Lord looked out for us cause no one got sick….Grandma and her daughters worked together to preserve the garden harvest…putting up tomatoes, green beans, pickles, beets, relish, and apple butter in the fall in a big kettle over an open fire- stirred for hours with a long handled wooden stirrer-I do recall fall Hog Butchering- Big Pigs strung up to be butchered.  Grandma used all parts of the pig- no waste…

“On Sunday morning she would be sitting in HER CHAIR by the window listening to the preachers on the radio all morning.  Grandma never went to church with all of us in the hollow- her responsibility to Uncle Harry, to be there always for him, kept her at home.” (Memories of Anita Shaver and Nancy Brown)

Grandma Gracie lived in what might be called a limited sphere yet she used that opportunity to teach her children an oft quoted line, “If you don’t give what you have, you’ll never have anything to give.” What she had, she gave. She gave the gift of hard work, teaching her children and grandchildren to contribute. She gave the gift of her steady presence that helped create security and peace for her family. She gave the gift of preparation in the fall that brought meals in the winter. She gave the gift of caring for her family. She gave the gift of happy memories to children and grandchildren who worked and played under her watchful eye. She gave the gift of faith, worshipping even as she stayed at home to care for her vulnerable son. Those gifts have rippled out through her posterity far from the hollow where she lived her life.  What she had, she gave.

In our efforts to give, there are days when we feel empty, that we have nothing left to give. This season allows us to pause and reminds us that at all times we can give thanks. Give thanks for the opportunity to work and grow. Give thanks for the gifts of life, breath and thought. Give thanks for our Creator who made all things “for the benefit and use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart;” (D&C 59:18). Give thanks for the opportunity to learn to see as He sees and to love His children. Give thanks for the gift of His Son, who enables and redeems us. Give thanks!

When I look at the Savior

For nearly fifty years, Elder M. Russell Ballard has served as a general authority in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  In August of 2013, he visited our stake conference.  During one of his talks, he stood at the pulpit, opened his scriptures, paused, and then shared that just like everyone else in the congregation, he had days when the demands of his life were overwhelming and he wondered if he could do it.  Then he pulled a small picture of the Savior from the pages of his scriptures, observed it for a moment and related that when he felt overwhelmed, he stopped, looked at the Savior and found the strength to continue. 

While I have forgotten the topic of the remainder of his talk, I have remembered his tender and personal witness that strength is gained when we “Look at the Savior.”  His life was a witness of the power of Jesus Christ in the lives of the children of God.  “Wherever you are in this world, may God bless you…I leave you my witness and testimony that I know that Jesus is the Christ.  He is our Savior, our Redeemer.  He is our best friend.” (President M. Russell Ballard, October 2023)

 

A Name

Twenty one years ago today, my husband and I gazed at the face of our newborn son and knew that the name we had intended to give him was not his name.  We didn’t have a backup name so that was the topic for the days following his birth.  We combed over our family trees, suggested our favorite people and places and were surprised to find ourselves coming back to a name we had not considered.  
 
Willard Richards is my husband’s fourth great grandfather.  We were newly engaged and at a Richards family event when someone asked great grandfather if he had anything to say.  He did.  In his deep, powerful voice, he said he wanted to bear his testimony and the testimony of his great grandfather, Willard Richards, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, he translated the Book of Mormon and restored the Church of Jesus Christ and it was true.
 
At great grandfather’s funeral, President Gordon B. Hinckley gave this charge, “The greatest responsibility resting upon the posterity of Lynn Richards is fidelity to the testimony of their illustrious ancestor, Dr. Willard Richards, who was with the Prophet at Carthage Jail that sultry afternoon of June 27, 1844 when Dr. Richards offered to give his life in place of the Prophet.  His knowledge, his conviction, his certainty concerning the validity of the Prophet’s calling as a man of God, as a leader brought forth in this last dispensation was the hallmark of his life.  It guided everything which happened to him for the remainder of his life.  And he has passed that inheritance down to his family.” (June 1, 2001).  Though the name of Willard Richards carried so much weight and expectation, it seemed to us that this little boy wanted that name.  
 
There is another name far more illustrious that we are given, an inheritance passed to us from our Father.  “I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ…And I would that ye should remember also, that this is the name that I said I should give unto you that never should be blotted out, except it be through transgression; therefore, take heed that ye do not transgress, that the name be not blotted out of your hearts” (Mosiah 5:8, 11).  

“Do we realize how blessed we are to take upon us the name of God’s Beloved and Only Begotten Son? Do we understand how significant that is? The Savior’s name is the only name under heaven by which man can be saved.”  (Elder M. Russell Ballard, October 2011). He wants to save us, reedem us, and enable us as we choose to be called by His name and carry it in our hearts.  

Send Me

Just days after my great grandfather, Lyman Holmes Rich, returned from serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Northwest States Mission, the United States of America declared war on Germany and entered WWI.  After a few months on his father’s ranch in Paris, Idaho, Lyman decided his place was in the service of his country.

Not waiting to be drafted, Lyman traveled to Salt Lake City and enlisted in the 145th Field Artillery at Fort Douglas.  He was sent to Camp Kearney, just outside of San Diego, California where his unit trained and trained and trained for almost a year before they received orders to travel to Camp Mills in New York to prepare to move overseas.   The soldiers were loaded onto a former Canadian mail ship, sailed for England with a naval convoy and after a few days in Liverpool, were transported to Le Havre, France.  

While the fighting raged in the northwest, Lyman’s unit was sent south, near Bordeaux, to train with French guns and artillery.  They completed their six week course on November 9, 1918 and were ordered to the Western Front to assist in the assault on the city of Metz.  The armistice that ended the fighting was signed two days later.  

Many were disappointed that they had spent so much time honing their skills and never had a chance to use them.  I believe their mothers, wives and families felt differently. Of the 1400 men serving in the 145th, thirteen were lost to influenza, the rest returned home.

The 145th Field Artillery put away their guns and began working at the docks near Bordeaux, unloading supplies from the United States and preparing for and assisting troops, those from the army hospital near Bordeaux and those from the front, embarking home.  On December 24th, the 145th  began their return, docking in New York on January 4, 1919.

The soldiers spent two weeks in New Jersey being “re-Americanized”.  They were deloused, all their clothing steamed to kill any germs that might have tagged along and cleared of illness.  After a year and a half in the army, Lyman was discharged in Logan, Utah. 

Three quarters of the men serving in the 145th were from Utah and in spite of a pandemic, they were met by large crowds.  Though they never fought a battle, Chaplain B.H. Roberts defined their service, “The heroism of the soldier consists in the fact that he offers his life to his country, with full interest to meet whatever fate may befall him….He does his part when in response to his country’s call for service he says, “Here am I, send me.”

Like He who first offered to stand in our defense, we gratefully honor those who have stood in our defense at home and abroad in any capacity.  

Perfect

Last week we watched our daughter play in a golf tournament at Stonebridge Golf Club in Rome, Georgia.  The ninth hole of the golf course is a par 5 where a water hazard protects a peninsula green.  After a layup drive, the shortest distance to the green is a direct carry over the water.  The yardage to the point of the peninsula is tempting.  Many of the golfers have carried the ball that distance before.  They have all seen it done and some have done it.  However, the water is also on both sides of the green so it leaves a very narrow window to place the perfect shot, a couple of yards to the left or right of the target leaves the ball in the water.  

There is another alternative that doesn’t require a perfect shot.  Instead of going straight for the green, there is a large landing area to the right of the green that requires two good shots to get to the green.  Both shots will have to carry a part of the water, but with more manageable distance and accuracy requirements.  As we watched, those who were able to exercise the restraint to take the longer route to the green found more opportunities for birdie than those who attempted the shot over the water.

We can often find ourselves zooming in on one perfect option, blinding us to other possibilities available to us. We may feel that only perfect shots will suffice but perhaps our good efforts may be more perfect than we think.  As a child, I remember my mother having “bad days” when she was not the mother or person she wanted to be.  Though I know those days were discouraging for her, with resolve and faith she tried again the next day.  

None of us are who we want to be all the time and as I grew and began to increasingly feel my own weakness, I realized that her efforts in striving and repenting and coming back to try again were the lessons I needed most.  While she wanted to be “perfect”, the best option for teaching me about the grace of Jesus Christ and how to grow myself came from her more imperfect days.

“Ours is not a religion of perfectionism but a religion of redemption- redemption through Jesus Christ.  If we are among the penitent, with His Atonement our sins are nailed to His cross and ‘with His stripes we are healed.’” (Elder D. Todd Christofferson, October 2021)  We don’t need to make perfect shots.  We don’t need perfect days.  We need striving, repenting and coming back to try again, relying on the grace and merits of our Savior.  We need to be redeemed.  That is His perfect plan.  

Ordinary Days

I am grateful for angels, those who walk among us as mortal angels strengthening and helping us and those who we cannot see but who love us nonetheless.  “From the beginning down through the dispensations, God has used angels as His emissaries in conveying love and concern for His children… In the course of life all of us spend time in ‘dark and dreary’ places, wildernesses, circumstances of sorrow or fear or discouragement… Even the Son of God, a God Himself had need for heavenly comfort during his sojourn in mortality…” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, October 2008)

A few years ago on an early spring bike ride, a friend and I collided resulting in a broken left collarbone for me and a broken right collarbone for her, a matched pair.  Seven screws and a plate put it back together.  One night I awoke in pain.  I went to the bathroom for the prescription ibuprofen but soon found that it is very difficult to open “child proof” lids with one hand.  I didn’t want to wake anyone to open the bottle but didn’t know how to do it myself.  Then a faint memory came into my mind.

I was a little girl, sitting in my grandma’s kitchen.  Grandma had broken her arm and was showing me how she took the lid off the jam jar by sitting on a chair, holding it between her knees and twisting with her good arm.  I sat down, put the ibuprofen bottle between my knees and twisted with my good arm.  The lid came off, I got the ibuprofen and even more, I felt the love of my grandma and her nearness wash over me.  Her presence brought more peace perhaps than her help. There is no way as we sat in her kitchen so many years ago that she could have known that she was sharing wisdom that could be brought back to me in the middle of a dark night.  She was simply spending time with her granddaughter, making me a peanut butter sandwich, an ordinary moment, an ordinary day.
 
Life is full of ordinary moments, ordinary days and ordinary time spent with those we love and those we simply come in contact with who are unknown to us.  These moments, days, and time may not be as ordinary as we think.  For every kind word, listening ear, gentle touch, hopeful encouragement, meal served, heart lifted and need met, the love of God is conveyed to His children, the impact of which we may never know.  Your ordinary days are the days of  “emissaries sent from God”. 

Always in Heaven

Years ago, as residents of Farmington, we had the benefit of entering through the back gate of Lagoon free of charge.   We held our annual ward Pioneer Day breakfast there and enjoyed the evening entertainment on summer nights.  Now, however, decades later, I regularly use the walking trail that has been built on the exterior of the fence of Lagoon.  There is no back gate entrance and I would be hard pressed to identify the location of the old back gate or what it looked like exactly.  With the fragility of human memory, it seems as if it has always appeared as it does now.

A home in our neighborhood was bought last year and we have all watched its transformation marveling at the possibilities the new owner sees that we had never seen. The interior was gutted, exterior walls were knocked out to expand doorways, the brick has been painted, a new driveway and basketball court poured.  Landscaping has been ripped out, rocks brought in and we await the finished product.  Though the home has been there for more than thirty years, I am already beginning to forget its previous appearance.  It is a new house created from the old one.

 
Just like our physical surroundings change and the new becomes familiar, the Lord promises that covenants kept and nurtured with the atonement of Jesus Christ will change and heal our hearts, our lives and our families.  “God, in His infinite capacity, seals and heals individuals and families despite tragedy, loss, and hardship….. ‘[Mortals] say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.… The Blessed will say, ‘We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven.’  God will strengthen, help, and uphold us; and He will sanctify to us our deepest distress.” (Elder Dale G. Renlund also quoting C.S. Lewis, April 2018).  
 
In the messy, sometimes excruciating renovation phase, we may feel that we will never be whole again, but He who makes “beauty from ashes” is the Builder here.  Like a house made new, we will find that “we have never lived anywhere except in Heaven.”