You Raise Me Up

My niece Rachael, was on a TV program this past Monday night called the Generation Project. The premise of the program is connecting with the past to help the person on the program in whatever challenge you are facing today.   

Rachael's father died when she was twelve years old and has longed to have that father-daughter relation, which was taken from her.  As I sat watching it over the Internet, I pictured my family  sitting there in Utah...then my thoughts turned, as they usually do, to those who have gone on and experienced what Rachael experienced, of losing a parent so early in their childhood. My paternal Grandfather, Edmund P. Galbraith, Little Grandma, Mary Elma Haynie, Susan Ellen Johnson among others. Her story brought a new freshness, a voice to those who have gone on.

As a Family Historian, I have always felt a closeness to those of the past, they have never been names on a pedigree chart for me, but rather real people, people whom I wanted to know. So it was fun to see Rachael to get to do this on TV.  It also put a little fire underneath me to finish the editing and writing of my family History so that my daughter, nephews and nieces and their children and their children will have something to read and to hold on to, so they might find strength in their past to face the challenges which lay before them.

A few years back, the singer Josh Groban, recorded a song which became very popular - "You Raise Me Up" - while I know that it is a song is towards Jesus Christ, for me it as always been about my Ancestors. The song opens with: "When I am down and, oh so weary;  when troubles come and my heart burdened be; then, I am still and wait here in the silence, until you come to me." 

I have been still and waited in silence many times and they, my ancestors, have came and sat  awhile with me. "For behold I will send you Elijah the prophet...and he will turn the heart of the fathers to the children.." Then they have and do "Raise me up, so I can stand on mountains; they raise me up to to walk on Stormy seas; I am strong when I  upon their shoulders; they raise me up to more than I can be."

Perhaps, the one I seek the most to come, like Rachael, is my Dad, the sorrow felt twenty-eight years ago today has mellowed, however the longing, missing, the emptiness has not. I feel his love, my memories brings me  happiness, but they don't bring back his touch. I can see his smile, hear his voice, but how I long for the day when we can embrace in a loving hug! To stand face to face and tell each other "I Love you."  Yes, his spirit comes to me, and I know if I stand on his shoulders of love and example I can be more than I can be.

In the book "How Green was my Valley" There is a quote which not only applies to my Dad, but to all my Ancestors.

"Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever."

To Rachael, and to all of us; I hope we will be still and wait in silence for those who are beyond the veil to come and set  awhile with us, for they will come and raise us up to be strong so we can be more than we can be. 

                        Dad and I at the airport before leaving for France.

Voice from the Past Points Towards Tomorrow

Over the last few months my mother's voice came to me. It started just as one small remembrance then over the past weeks it begun to grow until I knew I had to follow her example and trust in myself....and change career paths.

In the spring of 1981, I had just returned from my mission, I witness the wisdom of my mom. Since moving to Orem, Utah in 1969, Mom had worked at the Wasatch Medical Center, first as a Nurse then by 1981 she was the Office Manger. One morning, I believe it was a Wednesday, I answered the phone and it the Clinic asking if they could speak to Mom. I told them she was at work, the person on the other end said OK and hung up later that afternoon I received another phone call asking to talk to mom and I replied that she was work, they then said that she had not been there all day, and were wondering if I knew were she was. Of course I had no idea. I begun to worry and wonder where she would be.

Mom arrived at home, later that afternoon, carrying a painting into the house. I asked her "Where she had been all day, that the Clinic had been calling for her." She replied "I had to take a personal day to think and went to Provo Craft and Novelty to take an art class." The result was the painting. She had not painted since leaving Blanding. She then turned to me, and said "I have made a decision. I am working way too hard for someone else, not to be working for myself." Shortly thereafter she quit the Clinic and her "second" job of teaching sewing became her full time focus. Over the next few years Distinctive Designs by Glen Dora was the sole income for our family.

It was that one small phrase that kept echoing in my heart and mind..."I am working way too hard for someone else, not be working for myself." Finally I could not fight it any more. I too, realized that after seventeen years, working for Gap, Inc. That I too was working way too hard, not to be working for myself.

But what can I do, what do I have a passion about? I thought and thought and could not come up with answer. However like most things in life, what is right in front of you is the thing that you can not see...Genealogy, Family History. So I begun to research what it would entail to be come a Professional Genealogist. The more I looked the stronger the idea became. When doubt came I heard my mom's voice...with a leap of faith and trust in myself I made the decision, a calm then came to me and all fell into place, I have plan, I see a future....so "Unlocking your Past with Rue Lynn" is born.

'Little Grandma' and Discourgament

From time to time all of us will be come discourage or a little down or maybe resentful. So I thought I would post this thought from Grandfather James H. Martineau as it was related to Little Grandma, Mary Ann Thurston, his daughter in -law.

Little Grandma, was so called because of her size, just five feet tall. This size was even more emphasized when she and her husband Joel Hills Martineau who was six feet and some stood side by side. Mary Ann Thurston Martineau, was the maternal Grandma of my Mom. When she and her sisters spoke of Little Grandma, it was always done in hushed and reverent tones, even when relating humorous events. There was always sense of deep love and devotion for her.

Little Grandma was known to be an excellent cook, baker, and seamstress, these gift were passed on to my Mom, who was also known to be a great cook and seamstress. I grew up hearing how "Little Grandma taught me this." or "This is how Little Grandma would do it."

Little Grandma was just sixteen when she married Grandpa Martineau, in 1891, but she was very mature for her age. She was eleven years old when her father was killed by Indians, she was called on to help her mother provide for the family, as her two older sisters where hired out for room and board, therefore out of necessity she matured quickly as she took care of home and her younger siblings as her mother was away.


Shortly after there marriage, Grandpa had to leave her in the care of his parents, James H. and Susan Ellen Johnson Martineau. The following is the story she tells from this time.

"I was a young married woman living Colonia Juarez with my husband's parents, James Henry and Susan Ellen Martineau. my Husband Joel, was gone most of the time since his work was freighting with a team and wagon. while I loved my in-laws for being kind to me, I was home sick for my mother and Sisters who lived in Arizona. I had been very sad for days as I went about doing house work.

My father in-law was a patriarch who gave patriarchal blessings. When he did, I acted as scribe and enjoyed doing so.

One day he said to me: 'Annie will you write something for me?'

'Yes' I replied and brought pen and ink and seated myself at the table.

This is what he dictated:

"The spirit of discouragement never comes from the Lord; neither does the spirit of contention or resentment. The spirit of the Lord is a spirit of faith, love, humility and patience."

After I had written, he said 'Now, take this with you and when you feel down hearted read it and ask the Lord to give his spirit.' "

Little grandma took this to heart; she found solace in the words of her father in-law. Throughout her life she would turn to this words to turn away any negative feelings she might have, in turn she is remembered by her daughter, Aula Martineau Haynie, as a "person without guile. She accepted life and what it offered, always doing her part and extra. She never complained but made the best of what there was or tired to improve it, which she usually did."


If from time to time we feel down hearted, my we turn to those word also.

Robert Baskin Haynie

One Hundred Fifty years have passed since the beginning of the War between the States, more commonly known as the American Civil War. Since my early years I have have had a fondness for this period of United States History...beginning first with Abraham Lincoln, by the ens of 5th Grade I had read every book in the Library at Cherry Hill Elementary School. Then, being memorized by Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind" ...her words of hope or delusion of "I can't think about today, I'll think about it tomorrow for tomorrow is another day!" Her finding strength in the red earth of Tara. She has been a Heroine.

The South has been calling to me since my youth, in a small town of Moultire, Georgia I found home for a season. It is there were my ties to the South strengthen...as is my life, I find myself torn between being for the Blue and the Grey. I would walk by the memorial "To our Glorious Dead", honoring those confederate soldiers who had died during the war, and would stop and think of Robert Baskin Haynie, my great great grandfather, who has a true Southern joined the Confederate Army and fought to save his 'country'.

Robert was born in Flat Rock, Anderson county in South Carolina, 12 May 1827, Married Emily Jane Hall, 9 December 1848, Great Grandfather Patrick Calhoun was their fourth child and was five when his father went of to war.

Robert enlisted 14 July 1861 into the Confederate Army as private into the Franklin County Tugalo Blues, Company B, in the Georgia Fifteenth Infantry Regiment; know during the war as the “Fighting Fifteenth”.

This regiment served throughout the war in the Army of Northern Virginia, which was under the command of General Robert E. Lee. The Fighting Fifteenth fought in many of the major battles of the war including, the second Bull Run or the Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Spotslvania Court House and members of the regiment were there at the end at Appomattox. (Rigdon) From 13 June 1864 to 29 June 1864, he was in the Jackson Hospital in Richmond Virgiania, due to illness, measles. Family tradition states this broke his health, and was not well enough to return to the battle flied and sleep in the cold rain. The final record of his regiment was that he was AWOL. The last prove of payment or "muster roll" that I have found was in January 1865, three months before Lee's surrender. The question remains, was he too ill to go on and fell behind, or seeing the war's end went home to find his wife and children?

During the war the family moved to Alabama where it was thought to be safer than Georgia. At war’s end the family stayed in Alabama then moved to Georgia and settled in Floyd County near Rome. There on 31 October 1876 Robert Baskin Haynie died at the age of 49. The following year his family heard the Mormon Missionary Elder John Morgan, were baptized and soon moved to Colorado and help settled the Mormon settlement Manassa.

I am sure it is this southern blood which runs through my veins, which causes my soul to stir in pride as see the rebel flag...again I am torn between what it once stood for that of honor, love for country and what it stands for today as a symbol of hate and intolerance. Because of Robert Baskin Haynie, the War between the States is REAL - I honor him, he might have been of the wrong side of history, yet like most, if not all Confederate Soldiers he fought for freedom, for a way of life, and prayed to the same God as the Union soldiers did. Both fought for what they thought was right.

May we remember the words of President Lincoln..."It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain..."

As a one who sees the war not between good and evil, but as one to preserve a Nation, with good and evil on both sides...my heart goes out to the Men and Women of the Blue AND the Grey for each prayed to God and saw Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps, and built Him an alter in the evening dews and damps.