Bridging the Gap

10 August 2018

Change is one of those complicated English words that can serve as either a noun or verb.  To those who are learning English as a second language, I am sure it makes no sense.   Even in the form of a noun or a verb it can bring much confusion.  

I recall in elementary school having to play “cash register” in front of the whole class.    My palms were sweaty and my mind was muddled with the pressure to not cheat the customer nor cost the company even though it was just paper money.   There were no digital cash register computers subtracting for you nor were there even a hand-held calculator to insure your “customer” was getting the correct change.   It was nerve racking!  Obviously, others felt the same pressure.  Through the next decades the minds of the fixers of the world solved this “change” (noun) problem with digital cash registers.  Change as a verb is not so easily resolved. 

 

CHANGE: (CHanj)  verb   1. Make or become different; to alter, adjust, adapt, amend, modify, 

                                                 revise, or refine.

Change is a two-sided coin but to many, change, is a two-headed monster.   Is it a  friend or is it a foe?  Change always involves choice.  You have to decide.  (Therein lies some of the problems).  

Change can bring fear, uncertainty, confusion, challenges.   In the same breath, change can also bring delight, confidence, wisdom, strength, faith and growth.    Either way, change makes you delve into the unknown.   Some people tip-toe into change and some, like myself, just close their eyes and jump in with both feet!  

Change has been a part of my family’s history for many years.   By now, I think I can consider it to be a friend.    We often look back to family or ancestral experiences in hope that we will glean enough wisdom to move forward in the future.  All that wisdom and experience just sits there until someone bridges the gap between the past and the present and tells the story.   My grandmother, Helene Brooks Green, was that bridge for me.  And now …..

Helene Brooks 1920

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW…

Hearsay and family folklore are a part of every family.   Mine is no different.   We continue to tell and re-tell those stories that fascinate one another.   Most of those stories never get documented.   This would be my attempt to have this particular story in written form. (I think I have written it before but I’m telling it again …. just to make sure!)   What makes it even more fascinating is that this story that began in 1836 never surfaced until 1973.  It was told to me by my grandmother, Helene Brooks Green, and it was told to her by her father, George Warren Brooks.   

George W. Brooks 1956

 By the time I knew him, George was affectionately referred to by all his descendants as “Pa”.   I lived with my grandparents, Helene and Wilbur Green, in the beginnings of my life from the time I was 2 years old until I was 6 years old.   Pa lived in the same household but this was at the close of his life.   Four generations of people lived in that household with Pa and I as the bookends.   Gratefully, our lives overlapped even though it was for a very short time.   Pa died when I was 4 years old, but I still have some vivid memories of him.   Still I was far too young to ask the important questions and then sit and listen to the answers!

George was born and raised in Brushy Creek, Iowa the sixth of eight children to Henry and Phoebe (Corless) Brooks.  He was the third generation of the family to be faithfully devout to the Re-organized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in his youth.    Most of his siblings and both his parents ended their days in Lamoni, Iowa, the headquarters for the Re-organized Church. 

This story begins in 1836 in Malahide, Elgin Co., Ontario, Canada with George’s grandmother, Nancy Brooks Corless.   Nancy and her sister, Phoebe, had listened to the newly arrived missionaries and converted to their church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.   Nancy and Phoebe had done everything together.  The two Brooks sisters had even married the two Corless brothers, Hiram and Philander.  The two girls had convinced their husbands that they needed to leave Canada in order to live in “Zion” in Jackson Co., Missouri.   Hiram and Philander never joined The Church but they loved their wives so much that they would be willing to leave their well-established home and farms in Ontario in order to help Nancy and Phoebe find their “Zion”.
 

The next year they each loaded up a wagon and their families and off they went toward Zion.   They had 10 children between the two families with Nancy having a babe-in-arms.   After several months they wintered in Quincy, Branch Co., Michigan.    While in Michigan they had heard of the mobs and persecution of the Latter-day Saints in Missouri.  The two families discussed their situation and decided to stay in Branch County.   Nancy and Phoebe remained as faithful as they could with no other church members around.   A few years later after the Prophet Joseph Smith had died several of the dissidents of The Church came to Quincy.   Nancy and Phoebe saw no harm in joining with them since they still believed in the Book of Mormon.   They became members of the Re-organized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS).  

By 1844, Missouri’s Zion would have to wait for not only Nancy and Phoebe but the entire church.   The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had moved from Missouri into Nauvoo, Illinois in 1840.  After the death of the prophet, Joseph Smith, they were soon forced out of their homes again.   By then the Corlesses had lived in Michigan for seven years.   Their farms were well established and profitable.  Nancy and Hiram had three more children in Michigan which now totaled seven children in the family.  Life in Michigan was safe and the Church was similar!  I am sure it seemed like the smart choice to make.  Change had met its match and they were staying in Michigan.

 Many of Nancy and Hiram’s descendants stayed in the RLDS Church and in Branch County, Michigan.   But for many others a migration toward Lamoni, Iowa seemed natural since that was the headquarters for the RLDS Church.   Nancy’s grandson, my great-grandfather, George Warren Brooks

George W. Brooks and Jennie June Taylor (wedding day)

raised his family in and around Independence, Missouri that very “Zion” that Nancy and Phoebe sought after in the beginning. 

Ironically, this is where religious change for Nancy and Phoebe was intended to end but now Independence, Missouri was going to be a new religious beginning for many of their descendants in years to come.

George by profession was a sheep broker.   He would buy and sell herds of sheep, market and distribute them throughout the country.   This seemed to keep him on the road a lot.   

 His wife, Jennie, and their oldest daughter, Helene, seemed to manage the household responsibilities quite well.   Helene seemed to take on the role of “assistant mother” to her four younger sisters with no hesitations. 

Helene (at the top), (clockwise) Thelma, Nelle, Peg, Dorothy

 Sundays were no different.   Jennie and Helene would dress the girls and march off to church together while Pa was out of town.  They attended the RLDS Church until one day everything fell apart! 

Jennie had taken the girls to church.   While there she heard some man say some chauvinistic remark that just did not sit right with her.   I am sure that this was not the first one that she had heard but for some reason this one comment just stuck in her craw and she just couldn’t swallow it down!   Immediate change was in order!   She stood, picked up her belongings and marched she and her little girls out the door and across the street to the Episcopal Church and there they stayed for the next four generations!   Helene chuckled as she recalled this day witnessing her mother’s fury and determination. 

Jennie June (Taylor) Brooks

Hearing this story for the first time in 1973 I was amazed.   I had never heard of any affiliation with The Latter-day Saints or the RLDS church.   I guess she felt I needed to know it because I had recently joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   

I asked, “What did Pa think about leaving the church that his mother and grandmother were so devoted to?” 

Then Helene out of thin air told this matter-of-fact story.   She began, “You know Pa was very good friends with Joseph Smith III, the son of the founder of the Mormons.   I remember him coming to our home often.   He lived nearby.   I remember seeing him.   He was very tall and thin.  He had a long white beard and he often dressed in a white linen suit.   I remember thinking to myself in my young mind…. If I was ever going to see God, this is what He would look like.”  

Joseph Smith, III

Grandmother then relayed the most remarkable story to me, she explained, “Pa once told me a conversation between he and Mr. Smith.   Mr. Smith told Pa that he knew he did not have the same power that his father had.   He knew he did not have the same gifts.   He knew that he could not do the same things that his father, Joseph Smith, Jr., could do but he, Joseph Smith III, did what he did (meaning leading the RLDS Church) because of his great love and respect of his mother.”  

She continued, “I think this story brought indifference to Pa about the RLDS Church and when his friend, Mr. Smith, died Pa felt no obligation to stay and certainly would support Jennie in her decision.” 

So, I grew up in the Episcopal Church. We changed to the Methodist Church because there was no Episcopal Church in the little community that we had moved to.  And now here I am back to where Nancy and Phoebe started in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and on top of that I live in Canada!  I wonder what they think of that?

THIS IS WHAT I HAVE LEARNED……

I am the bridge or link between the generations before me and the generations following me.   I need to tell the stories.   I am the only one that can connect my grandchildren to my parents, grandparents, and even my great-grandparents.   I am the common denominator.   I connect the generations on either side of me.   I need to talk about the changes and choices that they had to make and the changes and choices that I have had to make.  With those stories, comes all the growth, faith, and strength that has made us the citizens, Saints, and family members we are today.  
  

Tell your stories that bridge the gap!