Appreciating Your Roots

Dear Family, Your mother and I prepared the attached material for a presentation which she will make tomorrow to the Fukuoka Ward Relief Society on our pioneer heritage. We hope that our children and grandchildren have an understanding of their roots and an appreciation for the blessings that we enjoy because of the courage and accomplishments of their ancestors. love, Mom and Dad

PS. In preparation, I ran across a picture of the John J. Boyd, the ship which brought Michael and Marianne and family to America in 1856.

Milo and Jane

Milo Andrus was born in New York State, USA, in 1814.  At age 15 he chose to leave his home and strike out on his own.  Little is known about his childhood or family.  I’ve been given to understand that he didn’t have a happy childhood and chose to never look back.  He managed to support himself and at age 19 found himself in Ohio and joined the LDS church.  He became very involved in the church and helped to build the Kirtland Temple.  Milo knew and loved the Prophet, Joseph Smith and many of the church leaders.  He was a member of Zions Camp and in the course of his life would assist in the building of the Nauvoo, Salt Lake, and St. George, Utah temples. He assisted in road and canal building in Utah and operated a hotel and a Pony Express Station.    He served as a Bishop in Nauvoo, a Stake President in St. Louis, Missouri, and was a Stake Patriarch at the time of his death.  He led 3 wagon trains across the plains from Missouri to Salt Lake City.  He oversaw the building and operation  of “Mormon Grove Outfitters”, a perpetual emigration farm which provided much needed help for many “pioneers” getting ready for the trek west. 

Many wagons were built there and supplies were stockpiled to help outfit travelers.  A tent city was built which provided temporary shelter for travelers, and a 40 acre garden was planted and tended which supplied much needed food.  He was very active in missionary work and preaching the Gospel.  Milo was called to help build up the church through polygamy.  He would eventually have 11 wives and 56 children.

Jane Munday was born in Coventry, England in 1832.  Very little is known about her childhood but she joined the LDS Church at age 11.  She was ridiculed and criticized  but remained faithful.  She became skilled as a seamstress, especially at tailoring men and boys clothes.  At age 19 she decided to immigrate to America and was joined by her mother and her step-father.  They sailed from England on Feb1, 1851 and landed in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 6.  3 days later the traveled by steamboat to St. Louis, Missouri and arrived on April 16.  Two years later she married Samuel Brown and the next year had a baby boy on Aug 2, 1854.  By Aug 4, a devastating cholera outbreak had swept through and claimed the lives of her mother, her stepfather, her husband and her baby. “Battling against the cruel grief and loneliness…of her life, (she) turned her face toward the west.  Jane met Milo Andrus who was preparing to lead a company of Saints west from St. Louis.  She made arrangements to come to Utah in his company.  To pay for her journey she was to drive a team, care for them, and help cook for the company.  They left in the spring (1855) and arrived in SLC, Utah on Oct. 24”.  One account reads: “Jane Munday drove a team of mules and she took her own bread to feed one of the Mules…so that he would have strength to pull the load.”  Little do we realize the dust, privation, fear and discouragement that filled her days-and yet, the hymns of gratitude, she sang each evening.

Jane arrived in SLC without money or close friends; but a true friend she found in Milo.  She accepted his offer of marriage and on Nov22, 1855,  just short of one month since arriving in Utah, they were married in the endowment house by Brigham Young.  Their marriage was witnessed by Heber C. Kimball and Newell K. Whitney.  She became his 8^th wife and they had 7 children.  My grandfather, Robert Andrus, was their 7^th child.  

                        Sister Patricia Andrus Beus,  4 March 2013  -   Fukuoka, Japan  

My Beux Ancestors

My father's family,  Michael and Marianne Beux joined the Church in in Italy in 1851.  They were part of a protestant group from the 12th Century who had been driven into the mountains by the Inquisition, but who held fast to their faith there for 700 years.

            Michael and Marianne Beus and their nine children contracted with the Perpetual Emigration Fund of the Church for their journey to Zion in 1855. They traveled by coach, sled and rail across the Alps and through France in winter. In London, they paused long enough to bury their three-month old son, who died of exposure as they arrived.

 They embarked from Liverpool on December 12, 1855 on the ship "John J. Boyd." A passenger's letter reports 512 saints on board who "...were called to prayer morning and evening by the sound of a trumpet; meetings were held in Danish, Italian and English during the trip. On the evening of 15th February we were anchored safely off Sandy Hook [NY] having been 66 days out of Liverpool. Our supply of water was almost exhausted- we had on arrival only one day's water on board. Mrs. M. Beus and son James were sick most of the way over."  -Millennial Star, 18:209.

            By rail and steamboat they journeyed to Florence, Nebraska where the father and son hired themselves out building wagons to pay their debt to the Perpetual Emigration Fund. The previous year it had been decided that the poorest of saints could be further assisted by the formation of handcart companies, thus avoiding the expense of wagons. The first of these handcart companies had left Iowa City on June 9, 1856, with 274 souls, who were even then on their way to Florence. There in Florence, Nebraska, my ancestral family of 10 souls joined that first company of handcart pioneers.

I have tried to picture them as they shouldered that handcart burden on July 17, 1856, and began their journey, walking 1700 km across the wilderness. Michael and Marianne were 45 and 43 years of age respectively. Their oldest daughter, Anne, was 19, their oldest son, Jacques, my great grandfather, was 16. Eight children made the trek with them, ranging in age from 19 down to three.

            A typical handcart was built almost exclusively of wood for light weight, their wheel span was just wide enough to fit into the wagon wheel ruts on the trail. The carts were made of oak or hickory, the axle of a single hickory pole. The bed of the cart was a box roughly 4x4 feet and 8 inches deep. The wheels were large in diameter and sometimes hooped with thin iron tires. Many of the carts, made in a hurry and of unseasoned wood, shrank, warped and cracked as they were drawn across the dry plains in the summer heat. "Two persons were assigned to the pulling of each open cart and where a father and son of age and strength were found in the family, with smaller children, they were allotted a covered cart, but in many instances the father had to pull the ... cart alone. " The typical cart weighed in at about 28 kg and was loaded with up to 55 kg of personal belongings. Each person was allotted 8 kg for the trip. Other supplies, including tents and food were carried in two or three wagons drawn by oxen that accompanied each handcart company.

            The Ellsworth Company left Florence on July 20 for a journey of 1700 kilometers. The handcart companies made good time, better time than most of the wagon trains. That first company started out with 6, 8, 16 and 20-km days across Iowa. But by the time they got into their stride they were routinely making 30 km a day. On September 13 as they neared the salt Lake Valley, one day they covered 44 km. Their course was generally not steep, but in their journal accounts, one reads of fording many streams and a few rivers, and of pushing through deep sand. Each day seemed to be an endurance contest, leaving them exhausted as they camped for the evening.

            All in all, some 653 handcarts in 10 companies brought the belongings of about 3000 people to the Salt Lake Valley. Generally casualties were less than with wagon trains. However two of the companies in that first handcart year got a late start and were caught in an early deep snow in the highlands of Wyoming, where 237 of their 1076 souls perished, before the balance were rescued be wagon teams hurrying out from the Salt Lake Valley to their assistance.

            The Michael and Marianne Beus family kept no journal, they spoke no English, and so we know little of their passage, their feelings, their trials, their joys or their fears. We do know that they settled in the Ogden area where in time they prospered modestly and that their progeny in the Church today number in the thousands. What was the legacy of these pioneer forebears?

Though they were called to wade through adversity, in time bounteous blessing were poured out upon their heads.  Though they were human like us, the demands of the times called forth from them greater strength and endurance than they knew they had.  In the refiner's fire, they were tested and proved faithful.  Their reliance upon the Lord and his chosen leaders was well placed and in time brought them great benefits, learning that after much tribulation cometh the blessings.

            Surely it was great faith that uprooted these people from their homelands half a world away and drew them across the miles to join the saints. Integrity, thrift and industry characterized their struggle to carve out a living in the wilderness.  Their legacy of their commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ and their utter and complete devotion to him at all costs is an inspiration to future generations.

            The pictures we have of Michael and Marianne were taken as they sat for a portrait in later years.  They are those grim, mirthless portraits typical of the late 18th century.  They both look very severe and not at all happy. I like to think it's because of the way photographs were taken in those days. And as I look more closely, I see in the face of Marianne a quiet warmth that speaks much of love. And I think I see behind the great mass of whiskers in the face of Michael a face that has known joy and had occasion to smile. As I look at them and ponder their history, Oh, how I love them! How grateful I am for their legacy. What great joy I have in the knowledge that I am sealed to them down through the generations through an eternal bond that cannot be broken save through disobedience. I am grateful that they left me without excuse.

-Elder Stephen G. Beus, 4 March 2013 – Fukuoka, Japan