Perpetual Education Fund
Family Gathers to Repay PEF
Courtesy of Church Magazines
October 10, 2008
By Abbey Olsen
In 1856, John Griffiths set out from Liverpool, England, with his family and headed to Salt Lake City in the Martin Handcart Company with the help of the Perpetual Emigration Fund. By the end of the journey, however, all but two of his children, Margaret Ann and Jane Ellenor, had died, and he died upon arriving in Salt Lake City. 150 years later, descendants of these two pioneers gathered in Provo, Utah, to pay a unique tribute to their Martin Handcart Company ancestors—a settlement of a 150-year-old debt.
When President Gordon B. Hinckley announced the Perpetual Education Fund in April 2001, he said it was to be modeled after the Perpetual Emigration Fund, which allowed early pioneers like the John Griffiths family to get funding to travel to Salt Lake City.
President Hinckley said: “When the Perpetual Emigration Fund was no longer needed, it was dissolved. I believe that many within the sound of my voice are descendants of those who were blessed by reason of this fund. You are today prosperous and secure because of what was done for your forebears” (“The Perpetual Education Fund,” Ensign, May 2001, 51).
This statement rings true for what descendant Matt Misbach, a member of the Orem Utah Canyon View Stake, estimates is about 3,000 to 5,000 descendants of Margaret Ann and Jane Ellenor Griffiths.
Brother Misbach's aunt, Georgia Dawn Clegg, learned that the Griffiths were beneficiaries of the Perpetual Emigration Fund and that there is no record of their debt being paid.
“I just got to thinking that that money should be paid back, even though I knew that the Church had forgiven the debt long ago,” Sister Clegg said. In 1880, John Taylor, then president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, proclaimed a Jubilee Year for the 50th anniversary of the Church, forgiving one half of debts owed by the Saints to the Perpetual Emigration Fund. “I thought because we no longer have the Perpetual Emigration Fund, but we do have the Perpetual Education Fund—if we could raise money and pay something toward that, that would honor our ancestors and truly solve that debt that the family owed,” Sister Clegg added.
Brother Misbach organized the effort into a gathering for descendants at a stake center in Provo. About 150 descendants attended, and in the course of the day's events donations were collected in a large envelope and presented to Elder Richard E. Cook, finance director of the Perpetual Education Fund and former member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy.
“We had families with children who had earned some money specifically for this cause, and the children gave donations of $2 or whatever it was,” Brother Misbach said. “It was really a neat experience for everyone who participated, and the families turned it into a memorable one.”
Sister Clegg said it was a deeply spiritual family experience. She and her husband, Dennis, served a temple mission in Nauvoo and walked where the pioneers walked. She said she hopes that those who attended felt of the sacrifice and testimony of the handcart pioneers.
“They persevered, they stayed with it, and they completed the journey—their lives were forever different because of it,” she said. “Because we have that in our background, our lives need to be more dedicated to that principle as well.”
After the program, participants mingled with each other, making new acquaintances. People brought old photographs and other descendants identified individuals in the photographs.
One descendant lived across the street from the location of the event. She walked across the street with her old photo album, and it contained pictures of the family that other members of the family had never seen. Brother Misbach said they are working on scanning the photographs and sending them out to descendants.
“She is also the only one we know of who personally remembers interacting with Margaret Griffiths,” Brother Misbach said. “She remembers stories and can tell us first hand from someone who suffered in the Martin Handcart Company.”
Jeff Hochstrasser, a descendant of Jane Ellenor, said, “It's exciting to meet people who have the same heritage.” He said until about a few months ago, he had never met a descendant of Margaret Ann.
“I didn't even know she had a written biography,” he said. “She was 8 years older than my great-great grandmother, so she had a whole different perspective on things, being 16 years old versus 8 years old at the time.”
