It was a simple small, worn, pocket record book, bound in fine brown leather, that contained the diary of Charles Alfred Harper's journey with Brigham Young and the first migration of pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley from April 7 to July 24 in 1847. Today that diary resides in the Church Historian's Office in Salt Lake City and descendants are given the opportunity to view it.
In the beginning, there are a few notes of his travels in and around surrounding states of Ohio and Pennsylvania in the latter part of the 1830's or early part of the 1840's. He does not mention what his traveling was for, whether business or personal, but his entries are interesting. You can read them and find geological references of the land and water he traveled on and then locate information about those places as they are today. What is most interesting though are his entries about the travel conditions of the day, whether by carriage, horses, 'cars', or steamships.
Entries in the diary itself are frustratingly short and yet a few are very descriptive of the happenings on a particular day. We wish he would have written more; however, his descendants are thankful as a family for what he DID write and grateful that he took the time in his very busy life to write anything down. Those times were difficult. Writing implements such as paper and pen were crude and typewriters and computers were a long time to come. I marvel at what he did write and stand in awe of the accomplishment that he made for his family, though he probably never dreamed his little brown leather diary would ever go anywhere except for his own personal use and remembrances. And now look at it. . . for it is now available online all over the world.
So where did the diary rest all of those years?
On February 2, 1971, grandchildren of Charles Alfred Harper living in Idaho received the diary from Dona Sanders Johnson, a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who moved from Riverside, California to Idaho Falls, Idaho in 1967. Mrs. Johnson related what is known of the whereabouts of the journal during the intervening years and how it came into her possession.
She had seen and read it as a child in the home of her grandmother, Maude Mae Sanders, who in 1915 moved from Salt Lake City to San Francisco and lived in the Bay Area there until her death at age 92. How her grandmother acquired the journal is not known. She was neither a relative of the Harper family nor a member of the Church.
Dona, as a young girl, appreciated the value of the journal which she read apparently before age 14 when she moved from Oakland, which was her birthplace, to San Jose, California. Her father, Ansel George Sanders, died in 1963 and after the subsequent death of his mother, Dona persuaded her mother, who possessed the diary at that time, to let her have it. She had always hoped to be able to find descendants of Charles Alfred Harper to be able to return it to them. As a result of searching in the branch library of The Genealogical Society in Idaho Falls for his descendants, she identified a grandson, Chester Edwin Harper of Moore, Idaho, and informed him by mail that she had the diary and wished to turn it over to the Harper family. He in turn notified Ruth Harper Bright who was then living in Rigby, Idaho which was 15 miles from Idaho Falls, Idaho. She and her husband went to Mrs. Johnson’s home in the evening of February 2, 1971 and received the journal.
Descendants of Charles Alfred Harper express their deep appreciation to Dona Sanders Johnson for her recognition of the value of the diary and her perseverance in gaining possession of it and locating family members to give it to them.
This photo shows the adobe home in Holladay, Utah of Charles Alfred Harper and was located at 45th South and Highland Drive in Cottonwood/Holladay area of Salt Lake. The house was still there in 2001, but has since been pushed aside for a large shopping mall. Charles died in this home. His daughter-in-law came over one morning to check on him and found that he had died in the night. The large pine tree was brought down from Big Cottonwood Canyon and planted by Charles and his sons, Edwin and George.
