Some Latter-day Saints have pioneer ancestors going back almost 200 years. Other Church members are themselves the pioneers in their families. In the weeks surrounding Pioneer Day July 24 — the annual celebration of the first wagon company entering the Salt Lake Valley — Church News staff members share stories of pioneers in their families, some from the 1800s and some from the 1900s. This is the 10th in the series.
I have many “traditional” pioneer ancestors — people who joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during its early days and crossed the plains to Utah. But when asked to write about a pioneer in my family, I thought of Genevieve “Jenny” Pettit Francom, my great-grandmother on my maternal grandfather’s side.
Jenny was born Jan. 1, 1923, in Salt Lake City. As a child, she experienced the Great Depression and an older sister dying of rheumatic fever. Later, World War II broke out just weeks after she married her sweetheart, Myron LeGrande Francom.
Jenny and Myron eventually raised nine children together. They were deeply committed to the Church and served in numerous callings, including as temple president and matron of the Manila Philippines Temple.
In May 2002, Myron died of glioblastoma, a highly aggressive brain cancer. I was barely 5 years old and have only several foggy memories of him.
Nearly two decades later, I began visiting Jenny on my Friday lunch breaks. She was almost 100 years old by then and suffering from a bad hip that couldn’t be operated on due to her age. During what turned out to be the last year of her life, I learned how lonely her nearly 20 years of widowhood had been — more than once she told me, “I don’t know why I’m still here.”
But she also told me, every week, that, “We have to count our many blessings.” She regularly shared her love for the Savior, and told me often how important the gospel is.
My great-grandmother knew what resilience was, and she modeled it for me every Friday in her tiny kitchen. Her cross was heavy, and she never pretended otherwise; but she held her pain in the same space as her faith, allowing Jesus Christ to share her burdens. To me, that remarkable ability — to press forward on the plains of her trials — is what makes my great-grandmother a pioneer.
