Discovering the Beehive House & Little Roots

 On our mother-daughter trip to Utah last week,

Dara and I made it a point to visit

The Beehive House.

I'd been here just once before,

a long, long time ago.

A former residence of Brigham Young,

we had heard years ago

that a certain rocking chair

which my ex's family had inherited

through family lines,

and 

which I myself, had rocked

my firstborn son in,

had been donated to 

this home-

now-museum.

So we were on the look-out for it:

 This is a main floor receiving room.

One of many paintings of Brigham Young:

note the beehive carved into the frame--

that little hive is in many details of the house.

He chose the beehive as a symbol

of industriousness and common consecration of 

the early pioneers' faith and work.

 In our house, this would be called "The Home Teachers' Room".

A painting of a harvest:

That is some chandelier...

 The tour guide/ sister missionary shared that the room below was actually designed by one of Brigham's sons...added onto the house years later:

 Kinda fancy, hunh?

This is actually the bedroom of one of Brigham's daughters...Clarissa, I think.

That was an actual dress of hers.

One thing I noticed is that all of those people

were really small in stature...

dare I say, "hobitt-ish"?

 her bed:

 Things on her dressing table:

 A son's room,minus the featherbed:

 Ok, I don't know whose room this is, because I was lagging behind the tour:

 This was a child's learning/play room:

 Look at those little tea sets...how cute, hunh?

 A small dining room:

 A storage of sorts...fabric, grains, shoes, just lots of things for a home.

A picture in the hallway:

China dishes:

Another painting of the man of the house:

 The formal dining hall--

with it's original hand-stenciled walls. 

I imagine a great many dignitaries spent time here:

We were thinking that we'd reached the end of the tour,

with no rocking chair in sight...

at last we came to this room

right by the exit door:

And there it was.

The little rocking chair.

I believe it had belonged to 

Zina D. Huntington Young...

a great great great Aunt to my children:

Physical proof that somehow,

we are all connected.