This Pioneer Day, you may be up at 3 a.m. to watch the announcement about Utah being the host site for the 2034 Olympics and Paralympics. Or maybe you’ll watch the Days of ‘47 parade in person, under a blazing sun. Or run a marathon. Or maybe you’ll sleep in and catch parade highlights on TV.
However you observe it, Pioneer Day is the day we mark the entrance of the Latter-day Saint pioneers who made it into the Salt Lake Valley. Seriously, kudos to them for staying, because Utah in July is not the most welcoming place, especially coming from the much-greener East. I’m pretty sure I would have cried, and not tears of joy. But they dug in and made the desert blossom as a rose.
Like many who live in Utah, I come from pioneer ancestry, in my case, through my dad’s side. I have a fourth-great-grandmother who gave birth while crossing the plains. Her ride in the wagon while she was recovering was so rough that the jolting actually broke her shoulder. It was never set and she remained unable to fully use that arm for the rest of her life. I have relatives who settled the Park City area and a great uncle some generations back who was president of the Logan temple.
On my mom’s side, however, she was the pioneer when it came to joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As LDS scholar and historian Melissa Inouye put it shortly before her death, “It’s always 1820 somewhere,” referencing the First Vision of church founder Joseph Smith.
My husband’s parents were also converts, although they have ancestors who lived in Missouri and Illinois during the mid-1800s. It’s not unlikely they were on the mob side of things, chasing those “darned Mormons” out of their state.
Pioneering did not end in 1847, and for that, I am grateful. Since my husband and I largely grew our family via international adoption, I think it’s fair to call our children pioneers as well, in a variety of ways.
So much of what I take for granted in my everyday life is, in fact, new in my lifetime, or my parent’s lifetimes. The internet, cellphones, personal computers, personal calculators, disposable diapers, microwave ovens, Velcro, McDonald’s, Disney parks, video games, overnight mail, email, social media, the James Webb telescope, space travel and so much more were invented, created and discovered by pioneers in their various fields in the last few decades.
The whole concept of being a pioneer disproves, at least in part, the adage that you can’t be what you can’t see. There had to be a first somewhere who could at least see in their imagination what could be.
When I was a young nursing student, I remember sitting in an auditorium in LDS Hospital listening to Barney Clark and Dr. William DeVries talk about the first artificial heart surgery. Pioneering. Many additional pioneering breakthroughs in organ transplants have taken place since then, including the use of special genetically modified pig organs.
Thousands of first-generation college students are navigating admissions, financing, textbooks and academic papers as pioneers in their families. Pioneers of today are breaking cycles of intergenerational dysfunction and abuse. Today’s pioneers are blazing new trails in everything from technology and medicine to politics and nonprofits, and from newspapers to streaming content.
Still, there remain lessons from the pioneers of the 1840s. Grit, determination, sacrifice, a strong work ethic and a powerful sense of community are just a few. My colleague Sam Benson wrote this week that Pioneer Day is a celebration of immigration and that “Latter-day Saint theology is a theology of immigration” and gathering.
There is also the foundational lesson of religious freedom. Pioneers of 1847 came to Utah, a Mexican territory at the time, seeking to practice their religion free from fear — the fear of discrimination, of ostracism and of violence. Today, Utah has new pioneers seeking a future free from the fear of discrimination, ostracism and violence. Many also bring with them religious beliefs that are often different from Utah’s predominant religion, from Muslim and Hindu to Buddhist and those with no religion at all. Utahns today still embrace religious freedom, allowing all to worship how, where or what they may.
We are all pioneers in some way, and this week I hope you take a minute to ponder and share with those close to you some of your important pioneering stories. I know I will.