Following the call of a prophet, William Lyman Rich was eleven years old when he arrived with his parents, in 1864, with the first group of settlers to the Bear Lake Valley. The first winter came early, the frost killed their vegetable gardens before they could be harvested, the wheat did not ripen and snow soon blocked the pass to Cache Valley. It was a dismal start for the new settlement.
Eventually, the community of Paris, Idaho began to grow as did William. In 1877, he married Ella Pomeroy and they worked and saved for the opportunity to build their “dream home”. That dream became a reality in 1886 when they moved with their four young children into a new two story home, nicely furnished with the help of an interior decorator from Salt Lake City.
After two weeks in their lovely home, William received a call to be the bishop of Montpelier, Idaho which would necessitate an immediate move to the town where two competing factions would make his calling even more difficult. In the middle of the winter, William and Ella “prayed for strength as they moved their family into the only house available, the
worst one I ever saw–a ricky, leaky, dirt-roofed tiny one, where Mother and baby Mabel were sick most of the time.” (daughter, Zula Rich Cole)
The winter ended, William’s farm implement business thrived and they obtained better housing while William served as bishop of Montpelier. While the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of joy it is also a gospel of sacrifice. It is the sacrifice He made for us and the joy our redemption brings and it is the real, though token, sacrifices we make to follow HIm, receive His redemption and become like Him.
William and Ella did return to Paris but never did live in their “dream home” again. Yet when there is a family reunion or the family goes to Paris to visit old sites and grave yards, a stop is invariable made to take a picture of their “dream home”. The home and the choice they made to leave it stand as a monument and testament of their faith for generations of their posterity. It is a legacy they could have never forseen in their moment of decision. Whether now or later and often both, sacrifice “brings forth the blessings of heaven.”