A simple family story that my son Robb and his wife Kim shared with me recently sparked a flood of warm feelings in my heart about the importance of remembering and passing down family stories that provide little insights into the lives and personalities of those who came before us. In Robb’s own words he remembers his grandmother (my mother): “In her 21-year widowhood, my energetic 5’1” grandmother Ruth Kapp crocheted hundreds, if not thousands, of baby booties for new grandchildren or new babies in her neighborhood. She was always working on a pair and had a soft rocking recliner where she would sit to crochet. One day when she needed her little scissors, they were no longer in her lap even though she had just been using them. The scissors weren’t on the seat of the chair or on the floor under the chair-they were nowhere to be seen.
She never did find them. In 1991, at age 81, she passed away. Later, when her things were shared around the family, my wife and I received a few of her things: her manual juicer, a biscuit cutter, some metal measuring spoons and her soft recliner chair. It was well-built and we have had it for 21 years now. It’s a great place for reading or taking a nap. I’m glad we have these old things, not to just hang them on the wall but to use them. The juicer is a bit hard to use, but I have cut hundreds of biscuits with her biscuit cutter, measured many spoonfuls of ingredients into our food with her measuring spoons, and taken many a nap in the recliner. Just the other day my wife Kim was studying in the chair and reached for her pencil but could not find it.”
In Kim’s words: “Yesterday I was sitting in Grandma Kapp’s old recliner working on something.
I couldn’t find my pencil and thought it may have dropped in the crack between the arm and the seat. I felt down in the left side and came up with a child’s toothbrush that belonged either to Ava [their granddaughter] or to one of our kids when they were small. I reached down in the right side and first found a bench pin for the Soloflex that had been missing for years (Robb had called and ordered a new one). I reached in again and found some old sewing scissors that had to be Grandma’s. I’ll bet she wondered where they had disappeared to! When Robb came home I told him what I had found and he said, Wow, you found things from three or four generations’.”
Linking Generations
I hope mother was watching when the scissors were found-things that linked generations together were very important to her. Because she was widowed very early, she knew that in all likelihood she would not be reunited with my father for twenty years or so. She said, “Well, I can either sit around and mourn, or I can see how much I can accomplish in those years, and I choose the latter.” She dedicated herself to family research back in a time when things were not at our fingertips. Year-round she would put her papers in a leather briefcase and take the bus to Salt Lake City each week where she would pour over Dutch films (my father’s line) all day long, extracting names for temple work. She swore the time passed twice as fast when she was at the library as it would on a normal day. During the decade or so after Dad passed away she researched and entered over forty thousand names for temple work!
During these years she also traveled Utah playing the old time songs with the Senior CitizenFun Band, played piano in a dance band at the Orem Senior Center every Saturday night, and then at 70 served a full-time proselyting mission to Mississippi Jackson. Back home again, she concentrated on writing a full pictorial account of her life from birth to death, and completed six full volumes.She never liked to leave anything undone so she made my sister Ann and I promise that we would complete her life story after she was gone, ending with a picture of her in her casket on the last page! These volumes of her life history are priceless to our family, and our son John is scanning each volume so they will be available on line to all of her descendants. Our son
Steve had these volumes of family photos and history in mind when he wrote and recorded his song, “Grandma’s Book of Memories.”
Grandma’s Book of Memories
Listen to the song here
(Words, music and vocals by Steven Kapp Perry)
Grandma’s got a book and it’s got pictures of relations,
It shows her when she was a little girl.
And ev’ry single page is filled with photographs and faces
Of people who were born before I came into the world.
And ev’ry faded picture has a story it could tell,
And I know I would have loved them if I could have known them well.
Chorus:
When Grandma opens up her book of memories
These strangers all begin to look like friends to me.
I can see where I’ve come from and where I belong,
And where I got the color of my hair.
And I won’t be afraid when I follow them home,
Cause I’ve got friends already there.
Ev’ry now and then I sit and wonder if they’re watching,
I wonder if they like the things they see,
And I hope Grandpa knows that his music is still living.
I hope someday he’s gonna get to hear me sing.
Does he know that I can’t whistle, that I stand just like my Dad?
And how I hope he’s proud of me when I see him at last,
(Repeat chorus)
No I won’t be afraid when I follow them home,
Cause it looks like I’ve got friends already there.
Trying to Carry on Mother’s Work
A phrase from my patriarchal blessing often passed through my mind during the years mother was so dedicated to family research: “You will experience a great desire to do genealogical work.” I knew well what my responsibility was but I just never felt that desire during mother’s lifetime. When I knew her time was short we had a heart to heart talk on this subject in which I apologized to her that I had not been more involved with her in this important work and thus had not learned how to carry it forward. She was kind in her response and said, “Not everyone needs to do the research. Usually someone in every generation comes forward to do that part. When they do, you should support their work financially, do the temple work for the names they find, and be sure to write your own personal history.” I knew that I could do that, and I felt a little more hopeful.
About six months after Mother’s death one person did come forth who wanted to help and I hired the same Dutch researcher that mother had worked with (Tonia Muir) to work with him. Sister Muir and Mother had hit some serious roadblocks in their research a couple of years before Mother had become ill, and they were not able to continue.
But after her death,when we continued this research, the way opened up and we experienced remarkable success. At one point I askedSister Muir how she had been able to get past the roadblocks that had shut down their work previously. She answered matter-of-factly: “Oh, your mother is helping me! She promised me she would, if she were permitted to, and she is definitely guiding me and prompting me as to where I need to look to find the missing information.” Knowing my mother, I had no doubt it was as she said, and our whole family got involved in doing temple work for many many more of our Dutch ancestors for years. It gave me great joy to know Mother was helping from the other side while we were doing our part on this side of the veil to perform temple ordinances for so many loved ones. Our daughter, Lynne PerryChristofferson has written a song that expresses these feelings so well in her song “Family Ties That Bind” when she says, “And ev’ryone who comes before, and ev’ryone who follows after is bound together with a common thread that’s woven through our love and laughter.”
Family Ties That Bind
Listen to the song here
(Words and music by Lynne Perry Christofferson)
Oh we have lived within the same four walls
And though we’ve seen each other change,
We have a wealth of shared experience.
Thosemem’ries will remain.
Chorus:
For we have family ties that bind us,
And family love to remind us
That God did not intend for us to be alone
And so He placed each one of us
In a family of our own.
Oh, how He hopes that we will come to find
Joy in the family ties that bind.
Oh we have stood together in the sun
And we have faced our share of rain,
And we have shared a bond that only comes
From sharing joy and pain.
(Repeat chorus)
And ev’ryone who came before,
And ev’ryone who follows after
Is bound together with a common thread
That’s woven through our love and laughter.
(Repeat chorus)
A Brief Hiatus
During a new season of our life my husband Doug and I left to serve a full-time mission to Santiago Chile and wanted to put our full energy and resources into that important work, so the family history work was set aside for a time. But after we returned I knew we must take it back up again. I called the researcher that my mother and I had worked with previously to see if we could work together again. She was older now and referred me to her daughter Lesa Pringle who had become a family history expert like her mother and was also acquainted with all the latest methods of family research and was also computer-wise, which I am not. Lesa has been a great blessing in our lives, just as her mother was, and has researched and corrected records and kept our family in temple ordinance cards now for years. She has entered all of my mother’s records into the computer so we will know exactly where we stand. She is an angel to our family.
The Work Goes On . . .
One of Mother’s last instructions was that I write my own personal history. Before our mission I completed it in great detail up to 1991. I have written in my journal every day since then and now need to complete my story to date to fulfill that commission. I realized how important it is to write about our lives for our posterity when one day I unexpectedly found eight typed pages that my Dutch grandmother Pieterke (Nellie) AlbertsKapp had written toward the end of her life. I didn’t think she had written anything about her life, and those eight pages were as gold to me as she gave a brief overview of her life and how her family joined the church when she was a teenager in Holland, and came to Zion (Ogden, Utah) where she met and married my grandfather Jacob Kapp who had come from Holland in similar circumstances. I sat on the floor by my “genealogy drawer” and read those eight pages with tears running down my cheeks, and vowed to leave my complete history for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren-for those who would not know my story any other way.
It is a very special feeling to do temple work for one’s ancestors. Seeing our children and grandchildren in the baptismal font standing proxy for ancestors who had no chance to hear the restored gospel is one of the sweetest experiences of my life. And I am motivated to go to the temple much more often to participate in the other ordinances that will complete this work for our loved ones. Finally, I can truthfully say that “I have experienced a great desire to do genealogy work” as my patriarchal blessing said I would, sixty years ago.
We Are Your Family
Listen to the song here
(Words and Music by Janice Kapp Perry)
We’ve watched you closely through the years,
We’ve heard your laughter, seen your tears,
You taught us how to work and how to play.
We’ve watched you serve with dignity,
And humbly meet adversity,
You’ve given us the priceless gift of faith.
Chorus:
We are your family, your proud posterity,
We love and honor you with thankful hearts each day.
We are your family for all eternity,
And we say thanks to you for showing us the way.
In measuring your life’s success,
We number those you’ve helped and blessed,
For all you’ve done, we thank the Lord above.
Now we can do as you have done,
There’s nothing we cannot become,
For most of all you’ve taught us how to love.
(Repeat chorus)
Thanks for ev’ry good gift, for ev’ry loving deed.
Trusting you, loving you, we follow where you lead.
(Repeat chorus)
And may the Lord watch over you, we pray.
Janice Kapp Perry: Composer, lecturer, author
“Grandma’s Book of Memories” from Sing the Song of the Lord (sheet music from songbook Message in Motion)
“Family Ties That Bind” from When I Feel His Love
“We Are Your Family” from A Woman’s Heart
ALL ORDERS ON JANICEKAPPPERRY.COM RECEIVE AN AUTOMATIC 15% DISCOUNT (all Prime Recordings products)
_____________________________________________________________________________
