A Little Family History

My great-great grandfather, Francis (Frank) M. Young, served a mission for the LDS Church to the islands of Samoa in the early 1900's. He took his family with him - his wife and their two children. Their daughter, who is my great-grandmother, was 3, and their son was an infant. Neither of them knew the Samoan language. Frank knew German from serving a mission there as a young man, and Samoa was under German influence, so I think the German helped him a little. But otherwise, both he & his wife had a crash course in Samoan. His wife taught school and took care of their children while he traveled around to other villages to preach the gospel.

He kept a very meticulous journal during his Samoan mission. It's several hundred pages handwritten. Over time, my grandmother ended up with the journal. While visiting my grandma 10 years ago, I first saw the journal, and had the naive idea that I would transcribe it so that my family could enjoy reading about Frank's mission. Little did I know what I was taking on! It was a much bigger job than I imagined. His handwriting was somewhat difficult to read, but what was more difficult was trying to decipher the Samoan words he used, and the work was just plain slow. I came to realize that this was more than I could do on my own.

I got the idea a year or so ago that maybe BYU might be interested in the journal and they would be able to transcribe it for us. I got the okay from my grandma and in January, I contacted the Religion Dept. at BYU. My first message was to the department secretary since I had no idea which professor might be interested. She forwarded my email on to a professor who is very interested in the Church in Samoa. In fact, when I first contacted him, he had just returned from a trip to Samoa! He was very excited to learn of the journal and in time, secured a research grant to hire help for transcription & translation. I told him I was willing to send him the journal & donate it to BYU for proper preservation, and that my family just wanted an unedited copy of the transcription for our own family history. He even thinks there may even be interest to publish the journal, so after the transcription is completed, he will meet with some publishers.

All of this has been so exciting to watch it unfold. I know I have been prompted by the Spirit all along the way. So, this week, I FedEx'd the journal to the professor at BYU - it was like sending off a member of my family! Before I sent it off, I snapped a few pictures of Frank's original handwriting and a little pencil sketch he had drawn in the journal.


And for anyone who thinks it's not important to keep a journal, I hope this is a strong argument to the contrary!