My mother died in a car accident when I was two years old.  She was the youngest of eight children born to my grandmother.  By 1955, my grandmother had buried her husband, three babies, and two adult children, one of them being my mother. As a little girl, I would go to the nearby cemetery with Grandma to put flowers on the graves which were all near each other.  Sometimes she would talk about her children, and she always acknowledged each of them individually.

Grandma and Grandpa did not actively participate in the church, but they both came from early pioneer families and had been baptized as children. Grandma passed away in the fall of 1980.

In the early 1980’s Family Group records were filled out by hand and we didn’t all have our own computers.  I was a young mother, I had not yet been to the temple, and my focus was on taking care of my children.

One night I had a dream.  Grandma came to me and told me that very important “work” needed to be done.  She kept emphasizing how important the “work” was and that I needed to be sure that the “work” got done.  I knew that she was talking about “temple work” and in the dream I pointed out that I had not been to the temple and couldn’t do it.  I even went so far as to tell her that she should talk to my cousin Lainie, her only grandchild who had been to the temple, and tell her to do it.  She didn’t acknowledge what I had said but repeated, “You need to make sure that this very important work gets done and DON’T FORGET THE BABIES!” She was very emphatic about that. I must have agreed because I do remember telling her that I would not forget her babies.

I never forgot that dream or Grandma’s command, “Don’t forget the babies!”

Two or three years later when I had been to the temple, I began the process to be sure that I didn’t let Grandma down, and we went to the temple and sealed Grandma and Grandpa together along with their five children who had passed away.  I remembered all of her babies!

The Spirit of Elijah entered my life and I had a burning desire to provide saving ordinances for my ancestors.  As I researched Swedish records, on microfilm, I learned how to read the important words, I would find the names in census records and then verify the information in the birth, death, and marriage records.  I had learned that if there was a gap of more than two years between children in the census, there was a likely possibility that a child had died and that I should check the birth and death records.

One time, I found a family with five or six children, with no time gaps.  I made notes about the names and dates and then went to the birth records to verify the information.  As I got to the third child, there were some Swedish words that I was not familiar with.  I took the film to the desk where the translators were, she read it and she said, “This is a record of the birth of twins and one of them has died.”

Right then, I heard Grandma’s voice as though she was standing next to me saying, “DON’T FORGET THE BABIES!!!” If I had not made it a habit to double-check the records, that little girl would have been lost to her family a second time.

I’ll always remember the joy I felt that I had found a baby who might have been forgotten AND the exhilaration at learning the deeper meaning of Grandma’s admonition.   –Rhonda Westenskow