When I read about Lygia in my Family Tree, she was the daughter of Joseph and Mary Sessions, the granddaughter of Perrigrine and Sarah Sessions and the first cousin and friend to my grandmother Norma Sessions Jackson through the marriage of Perrigrine and Sarah.  The only other information I know about her are the few memories my mother has of her.  Lygia died when my mom was quite young.  We know that she had two siblings none of them marrying except a brother later in life.  There is no posterity to tell their family story.

Two years ago, a gentleman named Berwyn, reached out to me through FamilySearch.  He had seen that I had uploaded a picture of Lygia on Family Tree.  He was thrilled to see a picture of his elementary school teacher!  She had meant so much to him as his teacher.  He informed our family that she had been buried in the Bountiful cemetery next to her parents but because there were no close relatives, she did not receive a grave marker.  He was very concerned about this.  As a family, we discussed the message from Berwyn but we were going through some of our own challenges with my father’s illness and nothing more was done about the situation.

Now two years later, I received another message from Berwyn.  He said he had had a dream and felt compelled to ask the family again if we would grant him permission to place a headstone on Lygia’s grave.  We were a little puzzled at his insistence so we arranged a meeting with him, his wife, and my mom. 

At 92 years old, he shared with my mom that “Miss Sessions” had changed the course of his life when he was a child.  He had grown up in a rural town and did not begin school until he was six, missing kindergarten and first grade.  When his family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, he was placed in Miss Sessions’ class for children who were behind in their learning.  His mother had taught him to read and he read at a third-grade level.  Because of his reading skills, Miss Sessions thought he should be placed in his appropriate grade level.  But being behind in all the other subjects, he said, “It was a disaster as I had no social skills and wondered why the plus signs were tipped on their side and why the minus signs had dots above and below the line.”  He was sent back to Miss Sessions. 

She took him under her wing and gave him carefully prepared assignments to catch him up, even through the summer!  At that age, he was not pleased about that but by the end of the summer and through her nurturing, he more than caught up, advancing him into the third grade where he belonged at his age.  He regards Miss Sessions as one of the dearest people in his life.

“The Dash” that will now be engraved on Lygia’s new headstone, thanks to one of her indebted and adoring students, will take on more meaning for us.  As Linda Ellis’s poem so aptly says, “For that dash represents all the time they spent alive on earth and now only those who loved them know what that little line is worth.”

These kinds of experiences are just waiting for us to discover when we do our family history work.  By simply adding a picture to Family Tree, we understand a little more what “the dash” means in Lygia’s life and the lives of those that loved her.

 Janet Helland – Patron Services and Training- GFHC