Ada and Joseph Morrell holding a great-grandchild.

A Woman’s Calling

As the matriarch, Ada and other mothers assumed their role as the caretaker, including taking care of family history. Ada felt the need and pressure from society and her family to accurately preserve documents and histories that reflected her family’s life. Ada was the oldest girl in her family, and much of the pressure to preserve family history fell on her back.  Ada, as her family’s stewardess of history, collected and preserved the documents she thought would be of the most use to future generations. 

Much of the family history revolves around religion because Ada and her family belonged to the LDS church. In the LDS religion, members have a solemn and sacred duty or calling to preserve their family records.

An LDS temple recommend that granted Ada Morrell permission to enter LDS temples to do work for the dead.

A Higher Calling

Ada’s detailed record keeping was heavily influenced by the LDS community.  Much of the family history revolves around religion because Ada and her family belonged to the LDS church. In the LDS religion, members have a solemn and sacred duty or calling to preserve their family records. Ada, apart from her calling as a mother to preserve history, had another, more sacred calling from her belief to track history.

The LDS church, commonly known as the Mormon church, centers their record-keeping around their temples and work for the dead. Members believe that recording their family history allows them to help their ancestors get into heaven by performing saving ordinances in the temple. Ada, like other church members, went to the temple with a special recommend, as seen to the left, which gave them special permission to enter and perform the saving work. Ada felt a higher calling and dedication to her ancestors and their salvation.

Ada England Morrell as a young adult.

Ada Morrell exemplified the dedicated history-keeper role for her family. The documents that she collected did not necessarily have great historical impact on society at large, but were important to her family’s story in history.