A point-in-time reference for religious heritage was pegged at the religion practiced in the generation of our great-grandparents. At that time 75% of Barbara’s ancestry was Roman Catholic and 25% was Methodist. At the same point 50% of Toni’s ancestry was Church of Christ, 25% was Evangelical Lutheran and 25% was Methodist.
Toni and Barbara and their sons joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) in 1969 as converts. The following narrative identifies the steps toward their conversion.
My first encounter with a Mormon was in the spring of 1962. I was a Russian linguist attached to a detachment of linguists assigned to the 319th USASA Battalion, Headquarters – located at Rothwesten Air Base near Kassel, Germany. One of our NCOs was a Mormon, which had no special meaning for me. The entire section was preparing for a “spy” flight. I and one other were not included, because we had not yet gone through flight physicals. Instead we were detached to Helmstedt for duty. While there I saw a German newspaper headline that announced that a spy plane had crashed - all aboard died. I remember being impressed that the Mormon Church sent a couple of Elders to assist the new widow and her children to return to the States. At the time I thought the Elders came from the States for that task. Now I understand they were probably a couple of the Elders I had observed teaching on the streets of Kassel.
I left active duty in May 1963 to begin school in the fall at Midwestern University. In my first semester I was assigned a project to develop a family history. Both my wife and I were reared in the military – separated from family ties and extended relationships. At that point I had only met my father’s mother once in my life. Family was something about which I knew very little; however, the project awakened a lifelong quest.
Early on in my research effort, I learned that approximately one out of four of my ancestors were appearing in the LDS genealogical archives. When I requested records, I asked for the full record set, which included TIB (Temple Index Bureau) cards, on which I noted that some work had been done at the instances of Joseph Smith the Prophet and Brigham Young.
Parallel to my university studies I began to suspect that I was addicted to cigarettes. I had started smoking at age fourteen. In Basic Training the Army encouraged smoking. The Surgeon General had not yet determined that it was harmful. In spite of eight years of heavy smoking and solely on the principle that I did not want to be addicted, I made the decision to quit. I did so by carrying a pack of cigarettes in my shirt pocket. Whenever the urge to smoke would strike, I placed my hand on the pack of cigarettes and held it there, realizing that it was available - if I needed it. After a year of such resistance, I realized I no longer needed them and threw them away. I have since learned that Brigham Young carried a plug of tobacco with him his entire life. I wonder if it was for a similar reason.
During the years of my baccalaureate studies our house was tracted-out by two LDS Elders just as we were getting in our car to leave. The Elders asked if they could return, and I encouraged them to do so. Regrettably they never returned.
I graduated in the spring of 1966 and went to work with the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, DC. My duties were such that I couldn’t share them with my family. That fall our eldest son began kindergarten where one of his assignments was to draw a picture of his daddy at work. He drew a picture of me in a cemetery. At parent conference his teacher asked us about it. I mentioned that my hobby was genealogy and that I spent a lot of my free time with my family looking at headstones. She mentioned that her Church did genealogy. Again without fully comprehending things I had met my second Mormon (not counting random encounters with missionaries).
A decision was made to leave the intelligence field and to return to Texas and become a teacher. The students in my history class were given a similar assignment to the one that had engrossed me. One of these was a young man surnamed Pratt. He returned with the report of an ancestor named Parley P. Pratt. This young man had not been reared in an active LDS home, but I asked him to do a little research and make a report to class about why Mormons do genealogy – which he did.
My interests in genealogy began more and more to include an inquiry into Mormonism. Essentially this was limited to reading encyclopedic references. There I learned that Mormons followed something called a “Word of Wisdom.” I processed this against my own life. I had given up cigarettes. Having been reared in an alcoholic home I had revulsion for alcohol. I had never gained a taste for coffee, but living in Texas I drank copious quantities of iced tea. As a non-Mormon with an encyclopedic article to direct me I made a personal decision to give up tea. When I did so a problem that I had suffered with for five years appeared to clear up. I went to my doctor and asked about it and he proclaimed there was no connection. Nonetheless, I didn’t return to tea and my medical problem remained diminished.
After exhausting available print resources I decided to see if there was a local LDS Church in Wichita Falls where I could find out more. On a Sunday afternoon I called the number in the phone book and got what I initially thought was the minister in his parsonage. Actually it was a Bishop in a missionary correlation meeting. He handed the phone to the missionaries and my formal study began, which later was broadened to include the whole family. Barbara, Robert and I were baptized April 5, 1969. After our baptism the Elders mentioned that they had knocked on doors on our street the day before they took my call in the Bishop’s office. The reception on that street had been so bad that they had marked it off for any future return. Hearing that, we remembered seeing salesmen across the street when we arrived home with groceries. We quickly put our groceries in the house and left to avoid them.
Because of a combination of factors: my background in the Russian language, my involvement in genealogy and I suppose the unusualness of my route to conversion, Church authorities became aware of me and I was recruited to Church employment to head up a new effort in the Slavic regions. I arrived in Utah the day President David O. McKay died. I had barely been a member of the Church for nine months. In April Conference I ushered at the Tabernacle when Joseph Fielding Smith was sustained as Prophet, Seer and Revelator. The week following, my family and I were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple – one year and five days after our convert baptisms.
Thirty-five years after our baptism we discovered the primary document detailing our family’s early affiliation with the Church that had been lost to the family due to the Kirtland Apostasy. Upon that discovery it was manifested to me that I had been being guided from the other side of the veil by William Riley Hine for the purpose of gathering his posterity to the Restored Gospel. I have come to refer to him as my “Regretful Apostate.”
There have been other visitations from beyond the veil. A couple of those encounters can be seen in my journal entries:
[June 22, 1990 (Friday)] - Barbara received a vision of my dad during the night. She awakened me to describe it. She had put his name on the prayer rolls of the Mesa Arizona Temple on Tuesday. Her account follows:
“I saw a white haired man, and I said ‘Bob, is that you?’ He replied that it was. I asked how he was – for his face was no longer moon-shaped and he was no longer using oxygen. He was standing without assistance and he was strong and healthy in appearance. I asked how he was and why he had physically changed so much. I also inquired about his bedsores and he said that there was no problem with them. He told me that he was fine now and that everything was good for him. He said that we didn’t need to worry”.
This morning started with an early phone call informing us that my dad died at 4:46 AM in the hospital in Mineral Wells. The call informing us of his death came about an hour and a half after Barbara’s vision. (source: journal).
[March 22, 1996 (Friday)] – Thursday evening (March 21) was spent in Limerick, Ireland. Since March 17, we had traveled all around the Emerald Isle exhausting all research leads in the search for Barbara’s SHEA ancestry. Everything came up blank. We went to bed planning to spend Friday driving around the Ring of Kerry (the deep ancestral home of the O’SHEA family). During the night Barbara’s grandfather Shea, who had died in 1971, appeared to me and instructed me to go to Tipperary where I would find the sought records. In the morning I announced to Barbara that research plans had changed. We proceeded to the Tipperary Heritage Centre and at noon on the 22nd we were presented with the elusive records. (source: journal).
CHURCH EMISSARY
In 1970 Toni was a part of the second official contact between the LDS Church and the Soviet Union. He negotiated with the chief archivists of the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in behalf of the Church for the microfilming of genealogical records.
CHURCH SERVICE
Altogether Toni served ten years as either a Bishop or a Branch President. He was Branch President in Sweetwater and Port Lavaca, TX, and Bishop in Roswell, NM.
MISSIONARY WORK
Our family joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1969 as converts. It wasn't until 2004 that we learned that we had early Latter-day Saint ancestors who joined the Church in 1830 in the Colesville Branch. We encourage family members to serve missions. The following have served in the indicated missions:
Sons
Grandsons
