Viola and Dewey Stout Wedding

 

My great grandmother Viola Allred became engaged in 1920 to Commodore Dewey Stout. In her journal she wrote, "I ACCEPTED THE ENGAGEMENT IN GOOD FAITH. Dewey seemed to be all any girl could want in stability, charm, he was a truly "happy" personality."

 

June 22, 1921 they arrived at the temple and there was no sign of Dewey. Viola realized that the temple grounds were filling up with other "June Brides" Dewey finally arrived late. Dewey liked to joke that Viola drug him to the alter. 

 

I read in Dewey's journal that he knew Viola was the one. Especially after they were engaged and he went to call on her. She was in a nightgown and curlers in her hair. She said, "Well when we are married you are going to see me like this, so you better get used to it."  I didn't know my Great Grandpa Dewey, but Great Grandma Viola lived until I was 18 years old. That is exactly something she would have said. She sure was a fireball. I have read their journals several times and love it. Each time I learn something new about them. I am thankful for amazing Great Grandparents and true examples of love, faith and enduring until the end.



 

 

 

Power of Journals

Record keeping has been around since the beginning of time. The word journal comes from the French word Jour, which means daily book or log book. People keep records for many reasons.  Without journals we wouldn’t have so much information about the past, from important historical figures like George Washington to wars that our ancestors fought.

Thousands found strength from a simple diary of a girl during tumultuous times. Anne Frank captured our hearts as she wrote during World War II. She wrote her feelings about her new journal on June 20, 1942 shortly after receiving it for her birthday. Little did she know her words changed the world.  “Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old school girl. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I feel like writing, and I have an even greater need to get all kinds of things off my chest.” She later added, “Paper has more patience than people.”

I’ve found strength in the words and trials as I’ve read journals from my ancestors. One in particular my Great Grandmother Viola Stout. When she got older she had her journal made into books for her family. I've read it several times and learned so much from her writings. I never knew that as a young girl she wanted to be a writer and she had a teacher who believed in her so much that she would tutor her after school every day. Viola had many trials, after losing two daughters within months of each other she wrote, "Times like these bring a realization of our Elder Brother's suffering, far beyond our abilities to endure and live. This makes us aware our suffering is much less, can be endured. This was a year my doubts and beliefs fought the battle of faith and despair... Thanks to that special Gift the Lord gave us, Faith won, I became comforted. I reached the depths in 1929. By 1930, a new light led the way." With her words of endurance and faith I have learned that I can make it through hard times. Because she kept a journal we can learn from her experiences for many generations to come.

Spencer W. Kimball said, “Those who keep a personal journal are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives.”

The Story

Why do we tell stories? What is the purpose? I feel that everyone tells stories for their own reasons. Just as we all need to hear stories for different reasons, some people for inspiration and there are those who need to learn something. I love the song by Brandi Carlile called The Story.

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true... I was made for you

Genealogy, to me, is the same. I fell in love with finding other people’s stories, their trials, their joy and their inspiring moments. I have found so many untold stories of unsung heroes. Stories are hidden in journals, documents and pictures waiting to be shared.

I read a book by Jodi Picoult called The Storyteller. It’s about a woman who learns about a Nazi Soldier and Jewish girl and how their story comes together. I love this quote in the story by the young Jewish girl. “If I had to die in this hellhole, and the odds were very good that would happen, then maybe someone else would survive, and tell their children the story a girl had told them at night in the block. Fiction is like that, once it is released into the world: contagious, persistent. Like the contents of Pandora’s Box, a story that’s freely given can’t be contained anymore. It becomes infectious, spreading from the person who created it, to the person who listens, and passes it on.”

I just love that quote. Family History holds stories that are waiting to be told. My great grandmother Viola Stout wrote in her journal about why she writes. “My children and grandchildren might ask, ‘Why hash over all these things, just the facts are sufficient.’ Not for me. The unknown or heretofore untold parts of my life are the moving forces that motivated my actions and my thinking; made me what I am. We are all products of our background and our thoughts. To write my true story many things must be written that probably would be best left buried, but without which no one would really know my story nor me.”

Someday, somewhere in time, someone is waiting for the story that will help them in their life.