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Our Family Genealogy Pages

John Walsh letter

128 New Bank Rd.
Blackburn,
England
March 31st 1924

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My Dear Mother,


You will please find enclosed the pictures I had taken at Darwin near Blackburn, the elderly man taken with me by the buildings is Michael Fish the son of Mary Fish your own cousin. The pictures are all numbered and I will explain each one so you will know the exact spot, No. 1, is the old home of Michael Fish they were living in this house when we left these parts; No, 2 is the home we were living in when we left Darwen; No. 3 is the location of the house in which I was born, the house has long since been gone but a pile of rocks mark the spot where it once stood, looking over the lower country of Darwen; No. 4, is the location of the old meeting place of the Saints back in 1848, the entrance, to the building was in the rear but is now closed; No. 5, the old mill where you used to work 87 years ago, I went in the mill and the old timbers are still in place that held it up years ago, it is now used as a dye works; No. 6, is a close view of the old Sunday School you used to worship in before you joined the Church; No. 7 is the rear of the home of your grandmother Fish; No. 8 is the front view of the same house, they are making a few additions to the old home now, and rebuilding parts of the house that have fallen in; No. 9 is the same as 6 only taken at a distance; No. 10 and 11 wore taken by Elder Burton in Birkenhead across the river from Liverpool.


I trust you will be able to remember these historic buildings and bring to you many fond memories of your youthful days in old England, I have looked on these ancient places of your girlhood days with much pleasure and every time I go over and look upon those old scenes, I think of what a wonderful part the Elders of the Church played in bringing you the Gospel and you getting the spirit of gathering , what a blessing has come to you and your children in planting our feet in the tops of the everlasting hills where the true Church of God is established. What a happy thought it must be to you to know that your children for three generations are in the Church and have homes of there own, in the Church about 75%, of the people own their own homes while here there is only about 5%. I know of the hardships you passed through in the early days when all the water we used was carried over eight rods. We used wood for fuel, you did all your cooking on the hearth with pot kettle frying-pan, and bake kettle and took the wool from the sheep, scoured, carded, spun, and weaved it into cloth, all done by hand, what a difference in your life and labors compared with your grand children, when they can go to the store and buy every thing they need for life and comfort: from a needle to a thrashing machine. What a difference we now find in crossing the thousand miles of country between Omaha and Salt Lake in a Pulman Sleeper with every comfort, a colored porter to make your bed and black your shoes while you are asleep. When this is contrasted with your crossing in early days with handcarts ones mind goes to the suffering of cold and hunger you passed through. We think of you losing your husband and son to the suffering, and of you leaving them in the cold ground by the wayside. You not only had yourself to care for but a child at your breast and one about 3 years old. During all this suffering, privation and hardship, your greatest comfort yuou had was the knowledge you had of the Gospel--its divinity and saving principles of the true doctrines that were brought to earth by the Prophet Joseph Smith and this knowledge of these truths were sufficient to repay your loses and suffering you might be called to bear as it can be said to you it is better to work for eternal life than to work and put all your life toward the goal of wealth of the this world.

I have been well treated by your kinfolk. Some of them own their own homes, and those I have visited are clean, sober and industrious. That is a blessing in a country where so many are feeble, unsound, epileptic, and blind. Every year people in England spend about 2 billion five hundred million dollars on the “drink.”

I trust that you are well for the coming 95th birthday on April 16th.
Your loving missionary son,
John Walsh
P.S. Going to London next Saturday, will be transferred from the Liverpool Conference as President McKay informed me he has work in three more conferences for me and informs me I can have a month more with our kindred before I return home. I have been able to do but very little in this line in this conference.