For more than 25 years, Robert Parrott, a naturalist and forestry manager, worked to preserve and maintain the Church’s Sacred Grove in Palmyra, New York, a holy place where God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ appeared to the boy Joseph Smith in answer to his prayer.
Sporting a white beard and dressed in a flannel shirt, Parrot explained in a 2020 rare on-camera interview why the wooded area not far from the Smith family farm is one of the most sacred places on earth.
“It’s my belief that it’s a sacred forest and that the Lord had some good reasons for preserving it,” he told KSL TV. “It is my belief that it was already a sacred forest when the Smiths arrived here. That may have been what drew Father Smith to choose this property out of thousands of acres of frontier property that he could have selected. Joseph, perhaps just exploring the property, went into that forest and felt that sacredness. And that’s why he chose that forest to pray in.
“What really makes it special is the Spirit that is always there,” he continued. “And that Spirit is always there, if you are receptive to it.”
Parrott died of cancer on Monday, May 15. He was 75.
A self-described “scruffy gentile,” Parrott was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but was thought of as a true gentleman who held deep spiritual convictions about the sacred nature of the Church’s historic sites in New York and Pennsylvania, said Elder Marlin K. Jensen, a friend and emeritus general authority who previously served as Church historian and recorder.
“Bob was a self-taught forestry genius, a true tree whisperer,” said Elder Jensen, who paid tribute to Parrott in his 2012 Church Educational System devotional, “Stand in the Sacred Grove,” by sharing lessons learned from Parrott and the ecosystem of the Sacred Grove.
“He introduced practices of forestry management and care that revived and revolutionized the growth and vitality of the flora and fauna of the Sacred Grove, the Hill Cumorah and the Priesthood Restoration Site. His is a gift that will keep on giving for generations. He is irreplaceable.”
Parrott, said to be a quiet, humble and private person, considered himself the “Shepherd of the Grove,” said Jack R. Christianson, a friend who served as president of the Church’s New York Rochester Mission from 2010 to 2013.
Parrott genuinely loved these historic sites, said Benjamin Pykles, the Church’s Historic Sites Division director.
“He leaves a huge hole and a huge legacy,” Pykles said. “He was a great man, and we will miss him dearly.”
Right person, right time
Parrott was born on Feb. 12, 1948, according to an oral history conducted by Gary Boatright Jr., operations manager for Church history sites.
That same year, Parrott’s family bought the farm across the street from the Sacred Grove on Stafford Road. Outside of an eight-year period during his youth when his family moved a short distance away, Parrott has lived near the Sacred Grove his entire life. He first started walking in the Sacred Grove when he was about 14 years old, he told Boatright.
In 1997, the Church hired Parrott to harvest timber from a nearby section of forest to reconstruct the Smith family’s original log cabin.
The next year, the Church asked Parrott to implement a new forestry management plan to conserve and revitalize the Sacred Grove for generations to come.
“Frankly, we weren’t doing a good job at that time,” Boatright said. “Some of the things that we were doing were harming the grove more than helping.”
Pykles noted that in previous years, the Church had maintained the Sacred Grove much like a park, keeping it manicured, raking leaves, trimming branches and more, which led to the deterioration of the health of the forest.
Parrott believed in a naturalistic approach. In his words, “He would mix the ingredients and let Mother Nature do all the cooking,” Boatright said.
“He believed that Mother Nature knew how to care for herself, and if we got out of the way, nature would do it better than humans,” Pykles said. “The grove today is healthier and more robust than it has ever been since the Church first purchased it. All of that has to do with the way that Bob Parrott cared for it.”
Quietly going about his work for more than two decades, Parrott and his work have led to a dramatic increase in the health and vitality of the Sacred Grove.
One of Parrott’s last major contributions was to help guide reforesting the Hill Cumorah. The Church hopes to continue, with the same care, love and spirit, what Parrott started.
“Bob’s story is one of the Lord placing the right person in the right place at the right time,” Boatright said.
Don’t forget to pray
Boatright, Pykles and John Rutkowski, a facilities manager for the Church in the Northeast, all told the same memorable story about being “appropriately chastised” by Parrott while visiting the Sacred Grove on business.
Each one recalled different occasions when they entered the Sacred Grove focused on different tasks to be accomplished only to be interrupted by Parrott.
“Back in Salt Lake I know you start most of your meetings with prayer. Then you come to one of the holiest places on earth and you don’t even stop to pray before we start our work today?” Pykles said. “I was appropriately chastised. I was grateful for that correction.”
Boatright said: “It was a kind but needed rebuke. He’s done that to several people, but you know, he was right. It is a tremendously sacred place, and we need God’s help in caring for it. So from that gentle but firm rebuke, Bob and I would always take turns praying.”
Rutkowski added, “Since he said that, we made sure to have a prayer. That’s the most popular Bob story, I think, and you can tell the effect it had on us.”
Loyal friend and writer
Along with being passionate about his work, Parrott was also a kind and loyal friend — once you got to know him, said President Thomas Coburn and his wife, Sister Ana Coburn, who currently preside over the Church’s New York and Pennsylvania Historic Sites.
“He was not overly sociable, he tended to stick to himself, but once you got to know him, he was very kind and friendly,” President Coburn said. “He was an intelligent man — an encyclopedia of information, not only on trees and flora, but also on people. We are really going to miss him.”
Over the years, Parrott appropriately befriended many of the full-time sister missionaries who served at the historic sites. One was Whitney Butters Wilde, who served in the New York Rochester Mission from June 2012 to December 2013. She said Parrott epitomized what it meant to be a true friend, never failing to call and wish her happy birthday until his health declined.
“He was fiercely loyal to his friends, and he was fiercely loyal to the Smith family and the Sacred Grove,” Wilde said. “His testimony shone through in the care he gave to the grove and in the light in his eyes.”
Parrott was also a writer. He wrote numerous essays about the forests and his experiences, which he shared with the sister missionaries and senior couples.
In one essay, Parrott had finished his rounds in the Sacred Grove and was returning home when he felt a strong prompting to return. He was inclined to go home but the feeling persisted, so he went back. He found an older woman who had fallen to the ground and was left behind by her group. She needed help. Parrott located a wheelchair and reunited her with her group.
“She thanked me profusely and kept calling me her ‘angel of mercy,’ a description rarely given me,” Parrott wrote. “I am so grateful that, despite my temptation to disregard it and go on about my day, I had heeded the prompting.”
What his friends will remember most
Rutkowski spoke to Parrott almost every day about caring for the grove in his friend’s final months.
“He wanted the grove to be a special place for everybody that came,” Rutkowski said. “The thing I will probably miss the most about Bob is just his willingness to teach me about caring for the grove.”
What Christianson will remember most about Parrott is his testimony of the Restoration.
“He wasn’t a member of our faith, but he had one of the greatest testimonies of the Restoration of anyone I have known,” he said.
It was difficult for Parrott when people were disrespectful in the grove, carving in the trees or leaving the trail, said Melanie Christianson, Jack Christianson’s wife.
“He loved that grove so much,” she said. “And though he didn’t share a lot of his deep feelings with many people, we felt like we were his students as he would teach us about all he had learned and felt. He was such a gifted arborist.”
