Our Australian Legacy
In 1852, my great-great grandparents,
Henry and Sarah Wills Gale, were among the first join the Church in
Australia. Within a year, they departed with their four
children and other Church members to America.
The oldest child, Elizabeth, my great-grandmother, was eight years
old.
After nine weeks on the Pacific
Ocean, they arrived in Los Angeles where Church leaders met and took them to
San Bernardino. On the second day of
travel, one of the women took the children out to gather wildflowers while
others prepared the evening meal. After
the meal, someone said, “Where is Jim Gale?”
They realized he had not returned to camp with the other children. The search, with torches and lanterns, continued
all night and until mid-morning the next day but they couldn’t find him. They thought that he had been eaten by wild
animals. The water supply was very low and the decision was made for the wagons
to move on.
Jim’s mother, Sarah, said she
wouldn’t go on without her son. Trying
to persuade her, they unloaded her trunk and moved on. Later, some of the company returned to try
and persuade her once more that it was no use to hunt longer. They saw her kneeling in prayer by the
trunk. She arose with confidence and
asked the brethren to go out once again up a gully a short distance where they
would find him. With an unwilling
attitude, they went. There they found
six-year old, dirty, tear-stained and sunburned Jim still holding a wilted
bunch of flowers in his hand. They took
him back to his mother where they all knelt in a prayer of thanksgiving then
hurriedly moved forward catch up with the rest of the party.
The Gale’s stayed in San Bernardino
until 1857 then moved to Beaver, Utah.
Henry and Sarah remained in Beaver for the rest of their lives until he
died in 1891 and she in 1905. When the
St. George Temple was dedicated in 1877, they went by team and wagon camping
out nearby until they could do the work for all their ancestors for whom they
had the information to do so. Their son
Jim wrote, “They were always true and faithful to their religious convictions
going through the trials and persecutions that were required of them in those
days.”
Their daughter, Elizabeth, married
William Decatur Kartchner and were among the first pioneers in northern
Arizona. Their daughter, Minnie
Kartchner Stratton, was my grandmother, and mother to Irene Stratton Flake.
Our family legacy ties back more than
160 years ago to Australia, to Henry and Sarah Gale that had the courage to
hear the truth, withstand persecution, join the Church, and move halfway around
the world to be with the Saints where they faithfully kept their covenants for
the rest of their lives. Surely the Lord
will bless us, as their posterity, as we strive to keep the commandments.
Garry R. Flake
June 2014
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