Please excuse any grammatical errors and I did some ad libbing. But this is basically what I said:
Good morning brothers and sisters. Bill and I are stake family history consultant trainers. It sounds strange to me to have the words, “family history”, “consultant”, and “trainer” tagged onto the end of my name. I feel like I should be “family history learner”. Instead I am expected to “train” the experts. I pretty much left family history work up to my great aunt Naoma. She had all the legal size family history group sheets and books of remembrance. But now that she is not around anymore, I am realizing it is up to me. In fact, family history has become a lot more accessible and fun. And as you know one of our stake goals for the year is to bring at least one family name to the temple. Elder Bradley D. Foster speaks about looking at the headstones of your relatives. He says that when we look at their headstones we see a birth date, a dash, and a death date. That is your genealogy. He says that it's the dash that makes us who we are. That's our family history and that's what we want to discover. So today I would like to tell you about a couple of dashes in my family history. I pray that the spirit of Elijah may touch your hearts so that you will feel inspired to learn more about the dashes in your family history and be able to find and take some family names to the temple.
I grew up with an unusual last name, so unusual that I knew no other people with my last name other than my immediate family. My dad had two sisters and his dad died when he was 7. My last name was so unusual that unless you knew French, you would have a difficult time knowing how to pronounce it. In fact, not only that, but the French spelling was changed when my ancestors came to this country. Several letters from the end of my last name just disappeared. I think that was a common practice when immigrants came to this country. I dreaded every first day of class when the teacher would call each name on the roll. I would wait in nervous anticipation until the teacher got close to the G’s. More than anything I think I just wanted to save the teacher some embarrassment and me from becoming the center of attention. Inevitably the teacher would say Lisa ah. . . and quickly I would raise my hand and say “Here”. Sometimes the teacher would be brave enough to actually try to pronounce my name but I only recall one or two teachers namely my French teachers who could master it. Okay so I know you're all just dying to know what my last name is so I think I will spell it for you first. It is G U I P R E Can you think how you might pronounce my last name. Now imagine you are a kid. You can probably think up a few funny kid names to call me. If you thought of guppy, you are not alone. That was a pretty common one. I think to make it easier for the English speakers to pronounce our last name my ancestors told them to pronounce it as Gippree. in French it's actually pronounced Geepray with the French “R” sound. You can see the problem here. When I was younger, I thought, “Who in the world is this family who saddled me with this unfortunate last name. I mean, couldn’t I be a Smith or Nelson or something like that? “As I grew older, I started to become more interested in where my name came from and who these ancestors were who had the same last name as me.
Here are some pictures of Grandpa Charles Richard Guipre:
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| Grandma Ruth and Grandpa "Dick" |
To understand someone I believe it helps to have an understanding of their ancestry. Ancestors help to mold a person in the way he is raised, the values he incorporates into his life, and his expectations for what he hopes to achieve or do during his lifetime. This is most easily observable with parents and children. While children don't necessarily follow all of their parents teachings and values, their actions and behaviors are definitely influenced by them. While these influences are more subdued the further you go back in a person's ancestry, they can be observed in families that continually have material success or talents in certain areas. Anyway you look at it; I believe that it can help you understand a person more fully if you understand some of their background and ancestry. Researchers have shown that you can tell a lot about a person and their potential from their ancestry.
Understanding your family history can be rewarding in finding out why and how your ancestors came to this country and how they affected your life and future prospects. What if your ancestors had opted to stay in a country that didn't offer the opportunities available in this country? What would you have been able to do with your life if you lived somewhere else? What sacrifices did your ancestors make so you could have the economic and religious freedoms that we enjoy today?
Researchers from Emory University tested the hypothesis that children who know a lot about their families tend to do better when they face challenges. They asked about their parents, terrible things that happened in their families, the stories of their own birth, in all there were 20 questions. Questions like “Do you know how your Mother and Father met?” “Do you know what went on when you were being born?” “Do you know of a relative whose face froze in a grumpy position because he/she did not smile enough?” Yes, that was an actual question. These were followed up with taped conversations and a battery of tests. They then compared the children's results to a battery of psychological tests the children had taken, and reached an overwhelming conclusion. The more children knew about their family history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believe their families function. The “What do you know? Scale” turned out to be the best single predictor of children's emotional health and happiness. “We were blown away,” Dr. Duke said. “The biggest benefit is knowing that you will be passing on to your children the knowledge of who they are, where they came from, that they can overcome obstacles, become successful, and can make meaningful contributions to their family, society and the world”.
Now for the first dash. I want to tell you a little bit about my Great Great Great Grandpa Andre Guipre. Andre was born in Lyon France March 11th 1824. Andre was born to a single house maid and as both her parents had already died she could not take care of Andre and he grew up in an orphanage. After he left the orphanage, he found work on a farm in France. At the age of 26 he came to America and worked on the Nashville Tennessee Capitol building for 2 years. He heard about the California Gold Rush and in 1852 he took a vessel down the Atlantic and landed at the Isthmus of Panama. He walked across Panama and then took a vessel for San Francisco. I don't know how successful he was at making his fortune but he made enough to return to France. So he traveled back down the Pacific coast across Panama and up the Atlantic and then back to France to marry his sweetheart Gabriela Dumorre in 1856. Gabriella was also an orphan, so I can only imagine that they grew up together in the orphanage. In 1860 Andre and Gabriella traveled back across the Atlantic to America with their young son and settled in Ohio. While there they suffered a tragedy when their young son was drowned. They went on to have four more sons and eventually settled in Kansas. Andre was a farmer and stone mason. So, Andre made a lot of sacrifices to make a better life for his family. He crossed the Atlantic three times! Obviously he was not content in France.
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| Standing in back left to right: Joseph Guipre, Lewis Guipre, John "Jack" Guipre (Our Grandpa) Seated: Andre Guipre, Fred Guipre, Gabriella (Dumorre) Guipre |
For the second dash, Drusilla Dorris was born On February 8th 1810 In Sumner County Tennessee. Even as a child she was very religiously oriented . She learn to read by studying the Bible. When she was 18 years old she married James Hendricks. They met the Mormon missionaries in 1834 and Drusilla Immediately knew that what they were teaching was right and recognized the teachings as the answers to what she was missing in her life. She and James were both baptized in March 1835. Drusilla and her family experienced many persecutions along with other early saints. In the Battle of The Crooked River the mob shot James in the neck and he was paralyzed. Her son William left with the Mormon Battalion when he was just 16 years old. They struggled many times to have enough to feed their family. Through all her trials and challenges Drusilla never lost her faith. She lived by the motto, “The Lord will provide for his own”. She and her family made it safely to the Salt Lake Valley On October 4th 1847. While there she served as Relief Society president and her husband James served as Bishop of the Salt Lake City 19th ward. They eventually relocated to Richmond Utah where they spent the rest of their lives. One thing that has always impressed me about Drusilla is that no matter what happened in her life, she may have struggled in the beginning, but she always saw the hand of the Lord in everything that happened to her and her family. She had great faith that everything would work out. And she kept very good records of her life and that's why we know so much about her and her family.
So in the spirit of Drusilla, I choose to see the coming together of these two families (my Father’s ancestors and my Mother’s ancestors) as divine providence. Because these two families united I was able to have the gospel in my life, my most prized possession. I was able to be the first one baptized in my father’s line (I was baptized before he was), marry in the temple, teach my family the gospel, witness our two missionaries go to Pennsylvania and the Philippines and introduce the blessings of the gospel to others, and enjoy see my grandchildren have the gospel in their lives. And so it continues. The very least that I can do is to help to introduce the gospel to my ancestors who didn't have the opportunity when they were living on this earth. I was able to do the temple work for my great grandma Florence Woodward Guipre. She lived in the early 19th century and was captain of her girls high school basketball team in the days when very few women played basketball let alone any other sport. She died at the very young age of 32 from an illness leaving behind her 5 year old son. I'm looking forward to meeting her someday and getting to know her.
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| Florence Woodward Guipre |
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| Florence (the oldest) and her sister Grace |
It is no coincidence that we now have the internet, Facebook, and other social media so that we can search for our cousins and relatives across the globe. We have computers that can store thousands of pictures and memories so we share them with others. In 1999 at the launch of FamilySearch President Hinckley stated, “The Lord has inspired skilled men and women in developing new technologies which we can use to our great advantage in moving forward the sacred work.” May I suggest that if you've been frustrated in the past or if you have not tried family history, to try again. Family Search is more user friendly now. I would encourage you that if you have a lot of church history in your genealogy or have not had much success in the past with finding names to take to the temple, to look sideways instead of backwards I've found the greatest success in finding names to take to the temple by searching for cousins. Puzzilla.org is a site that has given me names that I could not find before.
Elder Quentin L. Cook states, “Our Father’s plan is about families. Several of our most poignant scriptures use the concept of the tree with its roots and branches as an analogy.
In the closing chapter of the Old Testament, Malachi, states,
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
“And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”5
Elder Cook goes on to say, “Family commitments and expectations should be at the top of our priorities to protect our divine destiny.Our young people are excited to learn about the lives of family members—where they came from and how they lived. Many have had their hearts turned to the fathers. They love the stories and photos, and they have the technological expertise to scan and upload these stories and photos to Family Tree and connect source documents with ancestors to preserve these for all time. Of course, the main objective is to determine what ordinances still need to be done and make assignments for the essential temple work.”
I testify that I my heart has turned toward my ancestors and I know that the small steps I have taken toward getting to know them leads me to a greater desire to bring the gospel to them through temple work. I pray that you may feel the same desire.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
