Pioneer Heritage

My cousin Ashlee is working on some kind of ancestor book for her dad and invited us along to see Daniel Garn's gravestone.  We joined up with her and her brother and sister and their families, and my aunt Kris, in the Salt Lake Cemetery, which was really pretty interesting.  This large, 20-acre cemetery was established just two years after the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1849 and is full of familiar names from church history.

Daniel Garn was an early convert to the church, was one of Joseph Smith's bodyguards at one point, established the church in Germany as a missionary, crossed the plains several times leading many companies of early converts to Salt Lake, and then was the first prison warden in Salt Lake.  He had several wives, which was common in the early church, and we are the descendents of Wilhelmina, his third wife.

I don't know much about Wilhelmina, that is someone for us to explore.  From what I do know she married Daniel when she was in her early 20s and he was in his early 50s.  How did that come about?  Was she happy about it?  A third wife, and 30 years younger?  I'd like to interview young Wilhelmina to find out.

Holding up five for five greats (great, great, great, great, great grandfather)

Here are the gravestones for two of Daniel Garn's wives, both young.  Wilhelmina lived to be 104!

We went to lunch, the kids splashed around in the splash pad at City Creek Mall, and then we came to our place to swim.  Fun day.