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 15th in the series.
Lucy Pearl Leavitt had one deathbed request to her husband, Bert Davis Randall: to keep the children together so they could grow as a family in the gospel.
Bert, the first white male born in Pine, Arizona, was my great-great-grandfather.
At age 10, he started herding cattle and eventually became so skilled, some said, he could guide a cow up a tree if he wanted. When the Leavitt family moved to town, Bert knew he’d marry one of their daughters. And in 1905, he did.
Lucy later caught pneumonia and passed away in 1922, at the early age of 35. She left a heartbroken family of seven children.
Effie Laverne Randall, the oldest, was left to comfort her younger siblings just as confused about the death as she was. One day, she asked her father, “Why did Mama have to die?”
After a brief silence, Bert responded, “Laverne, I don’t know why she had to die, but she did, and it’s just up to us to make the best of it.”
A few months after Lucy’s passing, Bert had a vivid dream of walking down a hallway with rooms on either side. In one room was his late sweetheart teaching children who were singing and dressed in white.
Lucy said to Bert, “Just look at all these little children here that I have to teach.”
The dream felt real to Bert, and after waking, he had more peace of mind. He still missed her, but from then on, he set out to provide for their seven children the best he could.
Bert kept his promise to keep the family together, and to this day, most of the family on my dad’s side lives in Arizona. To my ancestors, family meant the world. Losing a relative shatters that world, but we can push forward with the peace that they’re in the Savior’s arms now. And I can’t imagine any better care to be in.
As an Arizona native, I’m still new to the Utah festivities of Pioneer Day — but recognizing how the legacy of our ancestors lives on is kind of a Randall tradition.
