In August, 1958 at the age of fourteen years (4), I was given the opportunity to spend a few days in Salt Lake City, Utah with my grandmother Thiessens, affectionately nicknamed "Mumpsy".  This was to be a special outing, just Mumpsy and me.

As we walked along Main Street, I remember the distinct smell of roasting nuts at the Morrow's Nut House!  The aroma wafted along the sidewalk as we passed by.  The smell enticed us, several times during that few days, to enter and purchase freshly roasted nuts--almonds, cashews, spanish peanuts, etc.  This was definitely a new experience for a northern Utah farm boy who had never been acustomed to visit the "big city".

On the corner of Main and South Temple Streets, the distinguished Hotel Utah and the Hotel Utah Coffee Shop was a favorite place to eat.  Across the street to the south was ZCMI, the large department store that had been established there in the late 1800s.  The Tiffany Room was an elegant place to eat, and one of the Dutch friends of Mumpsy worked in the LDS Church Office Building just east of Hotel Utah and across the street from Tiffany's.  We had been invited to lunch with this friend (I believe her name was Swendiman).  This, in itself, was a unique experience--dining in a swanky place like Tiffany's.

One of the places that we visited was the Utah Genealogical Society Library located just north of Hotel Utah and east of Temple Square.  The LDS Business College was also located there--stately red brick buildings that looked quite old to me.  In the basement of the Genealogical Society was a reading room filled with microfilm readers. It was dark and dingy. The films were kept in a backroom with a dutch door and bars situated where patrons could request one microfilm at a time.  An attendant would then go get the film.  Mumpsy and I ordered a film from Groningen, The Netherlands.  As we looked at the images, page by page (this was way before indexing!) I was intrigued with the handwriting and the strange language showing up on the images.  I remember that on one particular film that Mumpsy was reading, with me watching along her side, we came to the end of the film and she excitedly asked me to take the order form to the window for the next roll of microfilm covering years just later than what we were viewing.

As I returned with the next film (by this time I think we had established some level of trust so that we actually had two films at the same time!) Mumpsy said that the last frame was a note indicating that the next series of records were not available--that they had been destroyed.  This was a crushing blow because both of her parents had lost their parents when they were young, so they were orphans and records had not been available because she said that the orphanage burned, as did the records.  This would have been the record series that covered the years that would given birth information on her grandparents.

On August 13, we had an appointment to meet with Eldred G. Smith, Patriarch to the Church.  There were other General Authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that I had an opportunity to meet, as well. This was a fantastic feeling for a fourteen year old Mormon boy to meet these leaders.  Because of the connection that Mumpsy had with her Dutch friend, this became a very memorable occasion.

During this time in my life, I came to know that my mission here on Earth was to work in genealogy, and although it was a couple of years later that I would actually become interested enough to write letters and obtain informaiton on some of my forebears, the excitement that I felt, and the feelings that accompanied the experience of Mumpsy and me in the basement of the genealogical library revealed to me that there was something very special about the involvement that would occur in my life as I developed the passion I have experienced in tracing ancestry, not only for my own family but also as a part-time avocation during the years I attended university, microfilming and negotiating records later as a young father, and throughout my teaching career.  The few days that I spent in Salt Lake City literally changed my life and set me on a path that has continued through these many years.

My early accreditation as an Accredited Genealogist as one of the first when it was made available, my employment at the Brigham Young University Genealogical Research Center, and my experiences in teaching various classes on research methods through the years have been blessings to me and to my family, and I trust to many others whose paths have crossed mine.  Through these and other experiences I learned what my mission was here on Earth, at least in part, and I hope to fulfill it with the years I have remaining here, as well.