This is why I love history:
The Gate
This story I share in commemoration of the anniversary of the organization of the Relief Society.
It was early summer, 1916, near Tabiona in eastern Utah. The ward relief society president, Esther Wagstaff, decided she wanted to pay a visit to those sisters who lived across the River who had been shut in by winter snows and bad roads. She asked one of her counselors to go with her, Elena Dorothy Lambert Michie. The two of them climbed in the wagon and began their ministering journey of love and duty.
As the day progressed, they traveled from sister to sister making their visits. Each time they came to a gate to someones property, Sister Michie would climb down, open it, wait for Sister Wagstaff to drive the wagon through, and then she would close it and climb back up in the wagon. Now, for a pioneer woman in her sixties that’s a chore, especially for one suffering from severe vericose veins. Elena or ‘Grandma Lena’ as her family referred to her, said,
Well, we turned homeward, and of course, there were the gates to go through again, but we didn’t talk of that. I just climbed out of the wagon and opened each gate as we came to it, and when Sister Wagstaff had driven through I closed the gate again and got back into the wagon. As we neared the last gate Sister Wagstaff said, “Hasn’t this been a satisfying day? It has been so good to visit these sisters.”
I said, “Yes, it’s been a wonderful day. Now if we just didn’t have to open anymore gates!”
To our amazement, the gate just ahead of us opened by itself. The heavy piece of two by four that went from the gate into the gate posts moved by itself and the gate swung open. I had dragged it open a few hours before. Sister Wagstaff drove through. One of us said in a whisper, “Let’s watch and see if it closes.” We both turned around and watched as the gate swung shut and was fastened.
I just can’t tell you how we felt. I guess it was a miracle right before our eyes. Those gates were heavy. You know how they were made, poles and two by fours and barbed wire. Well, we had done the best we could to do our duty. Maybe our guardian angels were there to help. I just don’t know.
The Lord once said, “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you to bear you up.” (Doctrine and Covenants 84:88) And so they are!
Source: : https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWCF-4V5
In my youth, I worked for a rural electric association in the engineering department and occasionally with a surveying crew. We were surveying a transmission line and we had to go through so many of those gates, through farmers properties, it is exhausting because your energy level goes up then down when getting in and out of the truck, dealing with the same kind of gates and going to the next one. Very different from a constant labor activity. I can empathize.
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