My missionary grandfather with his companion, other missionaries and members swimming at Coney Island – 1926

In 2017, I started a journey to learn more about my father’s father, Clair Pingree. My grandpa Pingree died in 1966, at age 61, when I was eight years old. My memories are the memories of a child. He seemed very old to me and I had never heard him talk about his youth. I really knew very little about him.

When I was older, I learned that my grandpa served a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York State. Nobody seemed to know any details about his experience. I was surprised to learn he served as a missionary since I never knew him to attend church meetings and my dad and his two sisters didn’t attend church. In fact, his youngest daughter was never baptized.

My parents were not religious and we did not have religious discussions in our home. At the invitation of my friends I began attending Primary when I was 11 years old. The teachings about the purpose of this mortal life on earth, teachings about being a spirt child of a Heavenly Father and living with him before I was born on earth, and teachings about what happens to us after death made sense to me. I felt a spiritual feeling of peace and a feeling of inner joy that I had never felt before.

After attending Primary for a few months, I began attending the Sunday meetings. I attended Sunday Meetings for about a year before Bishop James Hegessy asked me to be baptized. I was taught by the stake missionaries and baptized at age 12. At age 19, I chose to serve as a full-time missionary for two years and I was assigned to the California Oakland (Spanish-speaking) mission. This experience changed my life. It heightened my desire to learn more about my grandpa, and especially about his missionary service. However, I never could figure out how to learn more.

In 2017, after receiving the church calling as Ward Temple and Family History Consultant Lead, I started again on a journey to learn more about him. The thought came to my mind, “Who is still living who would have known him?” The only person I knew for sure who knew about him was his youngest daughter, who was not a member of the church. She is my oldest living relative at age 87. My dad and mom are not living, my dad’s oldest sister is not living. I realized that my dad’s youngest sister is the only person I know, who is living, that might know anything about his missionary experience.

Wow! I hadn’t realized that my aunt had become the curator of family history for her ancestors. She had gathered pictures, documents, newspaper articles and other memories of her ancestors. She had written a brief history of my grandfather and other ancestors.

After this discovery, I made a commitment to visit with her every Sunday evening, if possible. My almost weekly visits over the past few years have been a delightful journey into my family’s history. She shared with me several pictures that survived a fire in her childhood home in 1950. A few of those pictures were from my grandpa’s mission service. I also found two log books that detailed every day of his two-year mission. It showed every missionary companion, every address where he lived, as well as what types of things he did every day.

My search also led me to the online Church History Library where I found the documented history of the mission where my grandpa served, the “Eastern States Mission.” This document had an almost monthly report from each area of service, called a “Conference,” and contained many references about, and pictures of, my grandfather. In addition, we found two letters he wrote home to his girlfriend, and future wife, Geneve Whitmore. We also found a multi-page description Clair wrote about conducting a street meeting in downtown Manhattan, which was intensely interesting.

I have been able to use our amazing technology to scan, enhance and upload hundreds of documents into FamilySearch or into a digital online storage for others to enjoy.

The amount of information about his missionary service became large enough that I decided to separate it from the biography I am writing about his life and make it a separate book about his missionary service.

I am so grateful to my aunt. Our visits have been a real treat for both of us. She has made my grandpa come alive to me. I know him so much better now. I wish I could talk with him about his mission and other experiences. But it is too late.

It is amazing to me to know that all of that information about my grandfather has existed for years. What a tragedy it would have been if I had not followed the prompting to go talk with my oldest living relative!–Duffy Pingree – Family History Consultant