Caleb Summerhays and his wife, Margaret, joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Chelsea Branch of London, England in 1850. Lacking sufficient means to emigrate to “Zion,” they hoped and prayed for that blessing for their children. Joseph, their son, recalled, “Father seemed to think that a good deal of his future depended upon me, and he used to watch over me very carefully and take me with him when he went to hunt work, which was quite often…One night as we were returning home after one of our trips, I was walking by the side of my father and he had hold of my hand. I was then about six years old. As we were passing the old Chelsea Church he said to me, ‘Joe, you will gather to Zion, I may not. You will marry and have a family and I want you to call your first born Caleb Ephraim, – Caleb after me and Ephraim after the tribe he belongs to.
“Will you promise me you will do this?’ And I promised him…” (Joseph William Summerhays, January 25, 1919)
By 1866, the family had enough money to send one person to “Zion”. Joseph was that person. At 17 years of age, he left his family and sailed to New York, went across the eastern United States in a boxcar and then hired on to drive a team of oxen across the plains. It takes faith to cross the plains and it takes faith to let your child make that journey without you. Caleb and Margaret did not know if they would ever see him again.
Six years later in 1872, through Joseph’s and his family’s efforts, Caleb, Margaret and their two daughters arrived by train in the Salt Lake Valley where Joseph introduced Caleb to his first grandchild born the year before, Caleb Ephraim. He was witnessing with his own eyes the dream for his family he had voiced two decades earlier. “He who notes the fall of a sparrow surely hears the pleadings of our hearts…To those within the sound of my voice who are struggling with challenges and difficulties large and small, prayer is the provider of spiritual strength; it is the passport of peace. Prayer is the means by which we approach our Father in Heaven, who loves us. Speak to Him in prayer and then listen for the answer. Miracles are wrought through prayer.” (President Thomas S. Monson, April 2009). The Lord will hear the spoken and unspoken prayers of our hearts. Some we may see fulfilled, some we may not, but all will be heard, noticed, and healed.