As we celebrate Labor Day and the gains attained by American workers, we also celebrate the achievements of those who worked long hours at back breaking work, in dangerous conditions, believing in something better for their children.

Born in 1810, James Nibley worked in the coal mines of Scotland which earned him a permanent stoop in his lower back. When he married in 1836, his wife, Jean, joined him in the mine carrying the mined coal in a basket on her back from the bottom of the mine up the incline to the top of the mine.  Her career in the mine was ended by the passage of the MInes and Collieries Bill in Parliament in 1842 prohibiting the underground work for women, girls and boys under the age of 10.  Jean found occasional work picking and packing fruit and began to supplement their income by purchasing pins, needles and other common household goods, selling them from the window of their small home.  Her work did not pay for extra activities for the children or for vacations but to maintain the steady diet of porridge and sour milk with meat once a week, usually on a Sunday.

In 1844, James and Jean joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and began to plan for a way to follow a prophets call to gather to Zion.  Though they had scrimped, after eleven years of saving they were far from their goal.  When Jean’s sister, who had emigrated to Rhode Island, sent enough money for Jean’s two oldest children to come and work with her in the textile mills, they decided half way was something.  Borrowing the additional money needed from a local merchant, James and Jean emigrated with their children and joined her sister in Rhode Island where James, their oldest son and two oldest daughters traded the coal mines for the textile mill where they were later joined by their nine year old son who worked as a bobbin boy.   Every spare dollar earned went to pay the debt they had incurred to make the journey and once it was paid every dollar was saved to make the trip west to the Salt Lake valley.  By 1860, they made the journey west by rail and then by wagon arriving with only what they carried to start an unaccustomed life of farming.

The Nibleys put their hope, vision and persistence to what seemed to be an impossible task of following the prophet.  For sixteen years they sacrificed with small gains to follow the counsel to gather to Zion.  It took them so long, yet the determined faith of James and Jean brought not just religious opportunity but economic and educational possibilities to generations of their posterity.  As we follow their example, giving our best efforts to follow the calls of the prophet of God, though the results may be slow, even imperceptible and seemingly impossible, God’s plan to bless our posterity will be worked for generations to come.