I live in Moab, where occasionally I meet someone who's a descendant of some of the Hole in the rock Mormon pioneers. They always seem very proud of this fact, whereas I want to tell them their ancestors were insane.

I mean, who in their right mind would leave newly established homes and farms (and I mean tons of hard work) and venture off on such an escapade, following ill-gotten advice when it was common and documented knowledge even back then that there was a ford in Green River and also in Moab and it would've been smooth sailing on down to Bluff. Instead, they chose the most torturous route imaginable.

I think they were all nuts, victims of the cult.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2011 09:49PM by lostinutah.

They're nuts, I'm nuts, you're nuts... nothing new here.

Ron

ExMormonRon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They're nuts, I'm nuts, you're nuts... nothing new
> here.
>
> Ron


ah, thank you so much, that was a relief to hear - that I'm not the only one.... :-)

They weren't as crazy as you think. First of all, millions of people left the East Coast and Europe and moved west between 1840 and 1900. The East was crowded and land was expensive. If you dreamed of your own farm, you went west.

Utah wasn't a terrible choice. It was arid and had harsh winters, but there weren't many Indians and no other settlers.

My ancestors came from Norway and Denmark. Norway was under Swedish rule and had no true democracy. Denmark suffered a crushing defeat to Germany in the 1960s, and the King of Denmark refused to grant liberties to the people. Scandinavia didn't industrialize until the early 1900s, so the people were poor farmers who eked out a living in the cold climate.

It's not like the pioneers were living at Tara and gave it all up to live with BY. They were largely poor and had lived in expensive, crowded areas where the land was overfarmed and factory jobs were harsh. A new life in a new land was promising to them.

Maybe they weren't so happy when they got to Utah, but they were pretty much stuck there. At least there they had their own farms on virgin soil with like-minded people around them.

I'm not talking about pioneers in general, I'm fifth generation Coloradoan, so I have pioneer ancestors. I'm talking specifically about the Hole in the Rock bunch.

I read the authoritative faith promoting history of this trek. It is a basic story of some foolish mistakes that were perpetuated by group think. By the time they realized their mistakes they just had to keep on keeping on. It is a story of a difficult trip with significant hardship, that they didn't have to go through. They thought that it was a short cut. The faith part, well maybe that helps promote the myth, but people should realize that there were a lot of pioneers that trekked across the plains and elsewhere that suffered significant hardship, death by cholera, accident and foolishness and it had nothing to do with Joseph's myths being true.

noncompete... your words hit home

I was down near Hole in the Rock takin in a MO history tour about how the Lord guided them and provided the way through,faith, prayer blah, blah.

I raised my hand and asked what would have happened if they turned back?..

long silence.... well they had no where to go so they couldn't.
Turned to my wife and TBM friends and said So in other words WHY did they go on? " THEY HAD NO CHOICE!"

"EXACTLY"

My relatives in southern Utah are still insane. I cringe every time I have to go down there for a wedding or a funeral. The twilight zone music plays in my head every time I travel there.

ROTFLMAO

I'm glad none of my ancestors had joined the church. I was a 1st generation convert.

Most of my relatives in Utah are Jack Mormons. Some of them are nutty in their own ways, but they pretty much figured out that Mormonism is a joke. They are all baptized members, but none of them have been to church in at least 20 years.

If I had a dime for every time I heard the phrase "what would my pioneer ancestors think if I left"...

Well ... they clearly didn't think, because if they did they perhaps would never have thrown their lot in with a promiscuous mountebank. Sheesh - just because some of them walked from Illinois to Utah doesn't make a faith any more (or less) true.