Unearthing the Stories of Our Quiet Heroes: Vally Mulford's Story - Latter-Day Lights

What can we discover about ourselves when we take the time to uncover the stories of those who came before us?

In this week’s episode of Latter-Day Lights, Scott and Darla sit down with author Vally Mulford, who shares how a simple desire to preserve his parents’ story grew into a remarkable journey through generations of family history.

 While researching his book, “40 Miles to Happy,” Vally uncovered stories of sacrifice, resilience, and faith—from an orphaned girl crossing the Atlantic alone, to pioneer women enduring loss, displacement, and the hardships of frontier life.

Through these discoveries, Vally developed a deep connection with the quiet heroes in his family tree, particularly the women whose strength and devotion often went unrecorded. His experience offers a powerful reminder that every life holds a story worth preserving, and that learning about our ancestors can deepen our appreciation for the faith, courage, and sacrifices that shaped who we are today.

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To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/tk3_3WFMlqg

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To READ Vally’s book, “40 Miles to Happy,” visit: https://vallymulford.com/books/40-miles-to-happy-the-love-story-of-a-rancher-and-his-wife

To LEARN MORE about Vally’s work, visit: https://vallymulford.com/

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To READ Scott’s new book “Faith to Stay” for free, visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/

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Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/latterdaylights

Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.

Transcript

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“Faith to Stay” by Scott Brandley

Scott Brandley 0:00

Hey there, as a Latter Day Lights listener, I want to give you a very special gift today. My brand new book, Faith to Stay. This book is filled with inspiring stories, powerful discoveries, and even fresh insights to help strengthen your faith during the storms of life. So if you're looking to be inspired, uplifted, and spiritually recharged, just visit faithtostay.com. Now, let's get back to the show. Hey everyone,

Intro

Scott Brandley 0:30

I'm Scott Brandley.

Darla Brandley 0:31

And I'm Darla Brandley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite hope, and inspire others.

Scott Brandley 0:39

On today's episode, we're going to hear how an author writing a memoir about his parents' lives of love and sacrifice discovered remarkable, quiet heroes from his family history. Welcome to Latter Day Lights.

Welcoming Vally Mulford to the show

Scott Brandley 1:12

Valley, how are you doing? I'm doing great today. How about yourselves? Doing awesome. Yeah, so where are you located?

Vally Mulford 1:19

I'm just a little bit south of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Scott Brandley 1:23

Okay. Nice. I've never been down there.

Vally Mulford 1:26

Well, it's hot today, so you don't want to come right now. Right, right. Yeah.

Darla Brandley 1:31

Give it a few months.

Vally Mulford 1:32

Give it a few months. Yeah. Come for the Bloom Festival in October. That'd be a lot better.

Darla Brandley 1:37

Yeah.

Scott Brandley 1:37

Oh, that sounds fun. All right. Well, um, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, my friend? Sure.

Vally Mulford 1:44

Well,

Vally in a nutshell

Vally Mulford 1:45

my name is Valley Mulford. Uh, my first name, Valley. Um, I was probably around, I don't know, 10 or 11 years old. And I began to realize that I was the only person I knew that had the name Valley. All my friends were Paul and Sam. Uh, so I finally asked my mother, how was it that you came up with a name like Valley? And what she told me was at some point she was reading a book, and in the book was a character named Valley. And she fell so in love with this character that she decided that that was going to be the name of her next child, no matter what. And so that was how I got my name. My wife and I have five children, and when we were expecting our first child, um, I remember we were driving a car one day and we were talking about a name for our upcoming baby. And my wife said, Well, your name is Valley, so why don't we just stick with geography names? And I was all right with that. So we named our first daughter Canyon, and then we have a son, and his name is Ridge. We have a daughter, her name is Ravine, and then we have a son named Desert, and our youngest daughter is Mesa. So I'm sort of from the geography family, you could say. Cool.

Darla Brandley 2:53

I love that. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Scott Brandley 2:56

We have a friend that named all of his kids after exotic cars. Oh.

Vally Mulford 3:03

I'd love to meet Lamborghini.

Scott Brandley 3:06

He doesn't have a Lamborghini, he's got a Bentley.

Vally Mulford 3:09

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's a good name. That's yeah, that's perfect.

Scott Brandley 3:13

Yeah, but that, yeah, that's cool. Awesome. Well, um, we're excited to have you tell your story today. Um, has to do with some family history and things, which is kind of fun. So why don't we just kind of jump into that and you can tell us where your story begins, my friend.

Vally Mulford 3:29

Yeah, well,

Vally getting the idea to write the story of his parents’ lives

Vally Mulford 3:30

um, like a lot of children, um uh my siblings and myself, we thought we had wonderful parents. And a couple of years ago, I was on a business trip. Uh, happened to be the small town where my sister lived. So we met together for lunch, and and we were kind of lamenting the fact that, you know, the stories we had of our parents uh and how special we thought they were. Our children would know a little bit less than we knew, and then our grandchildren would know less than that. And over time, those stories would eventually seem to be lost and die out. And as we talked about that, uh, just right there over lunch, I made this commitment that I would go ahead and write this story of our parents' lives. I didn't realize what an undertaking I'd committed myself to because when you start to tell someone's story, I realized that there was a lot of my parents' lives that happened before I came along and knew what was going on. And so I had to get involved in a lot of research that I really hadn't anticipated finding out about my parents' lives. And so I kind of took the first couple of chapters to a reunion with my children and I was telling them about this project. And they said, Dad, don't just write a history uh because, you know, we don't know if we'll read it, and we don't know if our kids will read it. You need to make it more like a story and more engaging. So I kind of took the first few chapters and set those aside and I started over. And I realized that this story that I would tell would not be just about my parents, but I have to talk about their parents. And then

Vally’s parents’ love story in a nutshell

Vally Mulford 5:00

the further it reached back, I realized this was actually going to become a bit of a family saga with stories from different generations. But my parents' story began in a small town in South Central Utah called Tory, Utah. And in 1947, one of the big events on the calendar was the Golden Green Ball. It used to be kind of a thing in Utah history where everybody in town came out to this youth event called the Golden Green Ball. And uh there at this golden green ball, uh, my parents met and fell in love. And um, my father had graduated from high school, and my mother had a year yet to go, but they spent this magical summer together, uh, you know, new love and spent a lot of time together. But at the end of the summer, my dad had to leave and go up to Salt Lake City, and he was attending uh a trade school up there, and my mother still had to finish her senior year of high school, and it was rural enough, but uh telephones weren't readily available. So, really, their main way to keep in touch with each other was just by letters. As good luck would have it, we have most of the copies of those letters, and I could tell that my dad, especially, was so in love with this beautiful young woman that he'd met, and he missed her a lot and couldn't wait to see her again. So much so that when his school ended, got back down the next year, uh, he proposed to her right away. Her parents were not really excited about this kind of rushed wedding, and they didn't really give their approval. But, you know, the way young love sometimes happens when you face opposition, they came up with another plan. So they got together with some friends of theirs and said, Well, let's don't agree, so let's just run away to Las Vegas. And about uh a week after my mom's 18th birthday, that's exactly what they did. They ran away to Las Vegas

Vally’s parents’ newlywed life in Fruda + starting a family ranch in Grover

Vally Mulford 6:45

and got married. The beginning of their newlywed life was very humble. They moved in with my father's parents who lived in this really magical place. It's called Fruda, Utah. And uh it's located in the middle of these tall, towering sandstone cliffs and wild and crazy shapes. Geographically, it's known as the Water Pocket Fold. Um, and this little town of Fruta is situated there, and it's named Fruda because almost everyone that lived there had orchards, and the valley floor was lined with all these beautiful orchards. It's just a magical little village. So they moved in with his parents and uh helped out in the orchards, helped with the harvest, and my grandfather was also a rancher, so they helped with ranching. And so the years started to pass, and over time they have a couple of daughters, my two older sisters. But they realized that they share this passion of ranching. They both wanted to have a family ranch, and their means were very meager, of course, but they started to scrimp and save every dollar they could, and uh they had an opportunity to purchase a ranch in a mountain village a ways away called Grover, Utah. And uh so they bought this tiny little farm there, and uh, it really wasn't enough to provide much of a living, but they did their best and they they tried to get by on a very strict budget. They had sheep. And I'm doing all this research, in my mind I start to wonder well, how did they end up in this place called Fruta, which now uh it's right in the middle of one of Utah's national parks called Capitol Reef National Park. And at the time it had just been made a national monument. Uh, this was back just right after the depression. So really nobody came and it wasn't a big deal, but over time its unique beauty kind of became discovered, it became a national park. So I began to wonder, well, how did they end up living there? Which kind of ended up in me doing some research. I discovered that

The story of Martha Adams

Vally Mulford 8:45

through my father's father's line, uh, there was a young girl, her name was Martha Adams, and when she was 10 years old, she aboard a ship just outside Ireland and set sail for America by herself. Her parents had both passed away. This is during the um Irish potato famine, and and so I don't know if they passed away from the famine or what, but within a few years of each other, both of her parents had passed away. She's now an orphan, and she's on this ship by herself, sailing to America. Her older brother had uh gone to America earlier, and there he met missionaries for the church and uh joined the church and uh wanted to be with the saints, so he moved to Nauvoo, became a stonemason for the Nau temple. This was in March, and his timing was really incredible because in June of that year the prophet Joseph Smith was martyred. But uh, knowing that his little sister was now an orphan, he sent for her to come and join him in America. Uh the saints are driven out of Nauvoo, and she actually makes the trip with a few saints from Ireland and joins her brother in winter quarters. They make the trip into Salt Lake. They're some of the very first ones there. And uh, when she was 11 years old, after a few months in Salt Lake City, she was baptized and official member of the church. So the years go by when she's 19 years old. She uh gets married, she really wants to have a happy life, and uh she marries uh a gentleman uh and becoming in the process his wife, and for her, it was her first marriage. She became a polygamy wife, and they were sent to settle the town that's now Fillmore, Utah, kind of in the central part of the state. And conditions were just very difficult. This was a tough area to settle. The Native Americans they had some hostilities with them. Uh the mountains with lumber to build houses and schools were a long ways away. They had to build roads uh up to there. There was very little water for them to irrigate, and they just struggled a lot. In fact, they lived in their wagons for the first year or two before they could really get things going there. And in the midst of all this, while she's expecting her first baby, she realizes she's not happy and she asked for a divorce from her husband, which at the time and place I believe would have been a difficult thing to do. Uh but the divorce is granted. Shortly thereafter, she marries another gentleman named Furman Mulford, my namesake. And uh when she married him, she had a son from her previous husband, and they struggle, and and this is when the leaders of the church offered the United Order, which was kind of a way to live uh without really owning uh major property like homes and ranches and stuff. They all kind of deed their property to the church, but you know, it so happens with human nature sometimes. The whole thing kind of fell apart. So now here they are, really with nothing, and they they end up moving around Utah a bit just to try to survive in these conditions, and they ended up down near St. George, a little town there, and um, her husband suddenly one day passes away. So Martha Mulford now finds herself as a young mother with four little boys, and she is not sure what she's gonna do, how she's gonna provide for them. She moves back up to central Utah there and spends a lot of time there, rejoins the United Order when church leaders kind of refresh that uh to try to give it another try, and it ended up dissolved in the same way. Uh, this is back during the time when uh gold was discovered in the mountains of Colorado, and all these gold uh mining boomtowns spring up, and and her boys kind of tired of the hard-scrabble life of these Utah valleys, they head for the mountains. Some of them, my great-great-grandfather uh he wanted to be a rancher, so he didn't, but all of his brothers did went to Colorado. So Martha, one of her sons, his wife died, and one of her children. So she moved up there to take care of her grandchildren in the mountain town, and it's tough living. The winters were long and brutal. The the mudslides would come down and wipe out the road, and they were isolated and cut off for weeks and months at a time. Uh, but she became dearly loved by the townspeople. She would help deliver babies, and she was just really well loved. After another one of her sons there was killed in a mining accident, she passed away there and is buried in the mountains there by the town of Silverton, Colorado. I've been to her grave site.

Vally growing up in Grover

Vally Mulford 13:10

So back to my parents, they're in this little town called Grover, Utah. That's where I came into the family. I remember growing up in Grover, trying to make this ranch work. And um, I would go to school at the end of the summer, and my friends would say, Well, you know, what did you do for the summer? And they would say, Oh, we went to Disneyland and we went camping and fishing, we did this and that. What did you do? And I would say, Well, I fixed fence, I irrigated, I branded. That was just always a lot of work. We just grew up with a lot of hard work on the ranch. And as I researched my father's mother's side, I learned about another one of my ancestors who lived in Denmark, and uh, she was there with her family. They were peasants and poor. They lived in a two-room house with about eight kids and parents. They had a thatched roof. And the brother, oh, of the farm owner who they rented from, had become converted to the gospel. So he came back to convert his brother who wanted nothing to do with it. But then he found the tenant farmers there and he started teaching them, and they believed. And there was some tension between the two brothers, but finally they managed to get baptized. And they, like so many saints in Europe, wanted to migrate to be with the saints in the American continent, but they were basically destitute. They had no means to make a trip like that. And uh through the missionaries, she became aware of uh an availability where certain worthy men uh would pay for the trip over for uh a worthy young woman uh with the understanding that he could propose marriage. And so I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision to get on a ship and travel to a foreign country uh where they don't speak the language that you know, and meet and then marry a man that you've basically only corresponded with maybe once or twice. What courage that must have been to undertake a thing like that. They were married in the St. George Temple, and then I don't know if of his own accord or

More stories of Vally’s ancestors

Vally Mulford 15:05

if they were sent by church leaders, but after they were married, uh, and they were a polygamy family. This was his first time at polygamy, and of course hers as well. They went down to the Mormon colony settlements in Mexico, and um there she'd been just there a couple of years, had a couple of children, and her husband died. So now here's another one of my ancestors, finds herself as a young widow trying to figure out how to survive with young children, and uh she gleaned fields and somehow she does get by. Somebody gave him a shed to live in, and uh eventually she met another man there from Denmark, and they married and have children of their own, and then found themselves in the middle of a civil war uh where different factions in Mexico were vying to be a president, and the rebels' armies discovered these Mormon colonies there with all these supplies and grain and nice stores and homes, and it was almost too good to let all this just pass by. So the leaders of the colonies tried to negotiate in good faith with them, but it those broke down, it didn't take long, and pretty soon these colonists found themselves surrounded by rebel armies with their cannons pointed at them and bayonets and guns, and it kind of went on for a few days, but finally they realized they're really serious. And so the leaders gave uh orders for the colonies to be abandoned, and uh, so they all left. Uh, and some of them thought it would just be a temporary thing, we'll come right back. So they buried their fruit in the cellar, you know, left their homemade uh rocking chair and stuff, but they thought they'd be back, but a lot of them never made it back. And uh this particular person, her name was Annie Peterson, they ended up near Capitol Reef, where the two eventually met, and and my grandfather's parents met and married there. So that was kind of that side of the family. My mother's side, there was a guy, he was a hunt from Kentucky, had joined the church, and they lived near St. George, and um he had a wife and they had four or five kids. When she was 33 years old, suddenly she passed away. So Jonathan Hunt, a hardworking sheep rancher, farmer, and he doesn't really know how to take care of a house full of young kids and also do his other stuff. So he really needs a wife and a and a mother for these children. And um, he ends up marrying uh a 16-year-old uh young woman named Mary Ann, and they get married in the temple. And uh at 16 years old, she becomes an instant mother to this house full of young children. She has to grow the garden, take care of them when they're sick, mend clothes and uh help them get to school and all this stuff, and try to be their mother when they're missing their biological mother. So I'm sure that was a huge undertaking for her. A couple years later, he decides he wants to be a polygamist and marries her cousin, who happens to be really good friends. So these two wives are friends, they're not only wives in the same family, but they become just really close and very good friends. And life on the frontier, they move around quite a bit. Life on them is very difficult. Many of their pregnancies and uh with their young child dying as an infant, or maybe after a couple years old, diseases just kind of came and went. And uh they would kind of rely on each other uh just to get through these hard times. They moved to a place uh called Blue Valley, Utah. It's along this river called the Fremont River, and the the way this little uh place existed was they would dam up the river and divert water out for fields and for their homes, and in this desert, all contradictions, sometimes there would be uh monsoon rainstorms from miles away. They would accumulate into this river, and this placid little tiny stream would convert into this raging brown river, rolling rocks and logs, and it would take out their dam, and now their crops are gonna fail, they gotta start all over, build a new dam. So this family is here kind of surviving year after year. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Meanwhile, because of some of the acts that Congress passed outlawing polygamy at the time, they sent uh federal agents down to arrest the husband, Jonathan Hunt, and he really had this uncanny way to know when they were looking for him. I don't know all the reasons why, but he always knew when they were coming. Uh maybe the hair on the back was next to it up, I don't know. But he had a way to hide and kind of trick them. And the story, lore, goes that one day they knocked on the door, the two wives were there, and I guess they could have arrested them or forced them in to uh testify against their husband, but they basically told the agents, if you're gonna arrest one, you're gonna arrest both, because we are not gonna be separated. Mary at uh 33 years of age went to bear her eighth child and passed away at childbirth. Her child passed away too. A couple of years later, the second wife passed away under the exact same circumstances. And then not long after that, Jonathan Hunt was accused of some horrible crimes and sent away from prison. So now these children are home alone in this little dugout house, kind of in the middle of nowhere under these very difficult conditions, by themselves. They have no parents to take care of them. The older ones kind of assumed the role of helping them out. And after a few years, it was kind of discovered that the trial for this dad was kind of a sham. And so he was released. By now, a lot of his kids had kind of gone to live with other families and got married, but he did his best to get his family back together. So then, meanwhile, my parents had been there in Grover, Utah, ranching for about 20 years. Uh, I left on my mission from there, and then they decided their ranch was too small, and so they bought other ranches around and they were spread out all over. Uh, they decided they needed to retool and just put get one ranch with everything in one place. They ended up finding such a place in uh Eureka, Nevada, out in the middle of nowhere, and um moved there while I was serving my mission. And uh this is really where the last of these four women that I discovered in my research. Her name was Ruth Franklin. She was a relative of Benjamin Franklin. She was alive when the Constitution was ratified. They lived in Pennsylvania. They moved there to help the westward push of America. They ended up in Pennsylvania. A neighbor of theirs named Alpheus heard rumors of this guy with gold plates and crazy things, and he was just curious enough about truth that he said, I'm gonna go check that out. So he went up to find Joseph Smith, only to discover that he'd moved back to New York. So he said, Well, I'm gonna still go. So he went up to New York, met the Smith family, and was baptized. Uh, he came back and told his friend, uh Ruth Franklin's husband, Enos Curtis, and uh they went up to uh New York, got baptized, and they were sent on a mission. And he comes back, tells his wife, guess what? I'm a member of the church, and Ruth and their children all get baptized. So then Enos and his neighbor Alpheus, and a handful of them, decide to go on their mission. Back up to New York. They meet with this guy named Phineas, and he's interested. He's had the Book of Mormon before, and they have a meeting at his home, and his brother Brigham comes, and he's already had the Book of Mormon. He's not interested. But when these humble missionaries bore their testimony, Brigham Young felt something and was baptized as a result of this ragtag group of humble, uncapped missionaries who were just trying to fulfill this mission as new members of the church. So they decide to go to Kirtland and be with the saints there. They get there kind of in the midst of all the Kirtland difficulties. So they're sent onto Missouri, and they happen to get into Missouri right in the middle of all the trouble there in Missouri and in Jackson County, and they're driven from one place to the next. And uh there's one well told story in the book about uh their sons who are out cutting hay for their farm animals, and Ruth had this sense that they were in danger, so she sent her husband out, and they're riding back, and the mob is chasing them, but they get back just in time, the nick of time. But uh, they move on to Nauvoo uh with the saints, and they happen to live in a place where mobs were active. And in the cold winter months, they were driven from their home and they were among the very first saints to cross the Mississippi River into Iowa and kind of sheltered there in the trees along the riverbank and made their way to winter quarters where Ruth passed away. And then they, of course, went on to Utah. And the interesting story behind that is their neighbor, Alpheus, his last name was Gifford and Enos Curtis. And uh, so they're in Fruta. My dad and his family, the Mulfords, lived next door to the Gifford family. And so uh the Gifford son had fallen in love with a girl from Tory. So in the end, these two families got back together because Giffords and Curtisses married, and you can go to the Gifford House. It's one of the few restored homes from the Mormon settlement era there, and you can see and read a lot about this beautiful little town of Fruta and the people that live there. Uh so my parents uh are meanwhile on their ranch in Nevada. They're about 20 years, their children are all gone and living their lives and kind of scattered all over. And they come to the realization that, well, we're probably not going to be able to get them to root up their lives and come over here and take over the ranch. So they decided to move to Colorado to be closer to their kids and buy just a small little place and kind of take it easy. But one thing I discovered about ranchers is they really don't know how to retire. So they've been there a few years on their small ranch, but just kind of antsy and they ended up buying another place and more cattle here and more cattle there. And before you know it, they're back in the cattle business. Uh, but that's where the story ends. My father

About Vally’s book, “40 Miles to Happy”

Vally Mulford 24:45

has a battle with uh a major stroke. The book is called 40 Miles to Happy. The name comes from their ranch in Nevada, it was 40 miles from the nearest town. But once you got to their ranch, it just felt like you'd arrived at the place where Happy was. This is where Happy's been hiding, and that's where the title of the book comes from. So basically, that's uh just a really rough overview of my parents' lives and kind of the family saga that kind of they were their lives are wrapped up in. Um

Vally’s takeaway from writing his book

Vally Mulford 25:15

of the things I discovered, though, about researching and telling this story, we kind of tend to think that it's only famous people from well-known incidents whose lives deserve to be told. But I discovered the quiet, ordinary decisions, the the hard times, the good times, the moments of devotion, the moments of forgiveness, resilience, and faith and family, those are real stories of real heroes. They may be quiet heroes, but they are what I came to appreciate, they are heroes very much so. And it was an honor for me to kind of recount these historical events in church history, but also the people and the relationships that kind of pass through those events, and so that my children, hopefully, and grandchildren and others can

On writing strong women + sacrifices

Vally Mulford 26:00

get a sense of what that was like uh to live through those events. Yeah.

Darla Brandley 26:04

And I find that so fascinating how all those people um the decisions that they make and everything come down to where you are today, you know? I love that. I love those interconnections, and I find that so fascinating.

Vally Mulford 26:16

I know that uh this the book focuses on four women, and I think sometimes the stories of women are not always really told as well. And for me, that there is so much strength in their lives. They were these quiet heroes who valiantly raised children in this midst of uh remarkable and difficult circumstances, but they were true and faithful and patient and able to overcome tragic loss and moving time and time again and facing armies and mobs and being burned out of homes. But they just remained these quiet, remarkable symbols of strength and stability. And I just think it's a wonderful story that needs to be told so that those quiet heroes can have a place for their story to be told.

Darla Brandley 27:00

Yes, I love that. That's awesome.

Scott Brandley 27:02

Yeah, the thing that stuck out to me was the sacrifices, you know. Like you think in the world we live in today, it feels hard. We have our challenges, right? But when you think life is hard sometimes, but then you hear stories like some of the stories you shared about your ancestors, and you're like, wow, they had some serious battles and real hardship, you know. When you're like you said, like if a flood comes and your farm gets wiped out, like you're surviving, you you don't even know how you're gonna find food.

Vally Mulford 27:34

Yes.

Scott Brandley 27:35

And you know, or you get on a ship when you're 10 years old, yes, and you're sailing to a country you you don't know anything about and you don't speak the language, like yeah, wow.

Vally Mulford 27:45

Yes, they were truly remarkable. And um I think the reason I felt so connected, um, you know, I've heard people talk about the spirit of Elijah and the hearts of children uh connected and children to fathers. And and I guess maybe I didn't always totally understand that. And maybe what I felt wasn't that, but something happened to me when I studied these lives. And the more I studied, the more I realized I had this feeling that I wanted to just hug them. I think I actually felt and do feel love. I don't know if the feeling of love has a way to transcend and pass through the veil, but I felt a connection. Like uh I'm telling their story, and I felt the power and the beauty of their lives kind of seep into my own. And I know my parents were very protective and honored of their posterity. And that's one of the reasons I felt like I had to make this more of a family saga rather than just this couple that falls in love and this is what their life was like. But they were there because of the lives and the people that came before them. And uh so it was kind of an eye-opener to me. I I don't know if that is the spirit of Elijah, but I did feel a personal loving connection to these women. And you know, one thing that struck me was in their day, not only in the church, but I see outside the church, women didn't have the stature that they do in our society now. They were more quiet. The thing I discovered was that's not the case. They may have been quiet and not heard of in history, but they were strength. And our society could not have flourished, could not have succeeded, could not have overcome without these quiet women of strength. Their example that kind of got passed along, maybe not always intentionally, but just the structure of their lives and the beauty of their lives, it just absorbed generation to generation that strength and the beauty of their lives. Uh so I just felt that was another reason why, especially the stories of women in my family history are heroes, and I just wanted to tell those stories.

Darla Brandley 29:45

Yeah, I love that.

Vally Mulford 29:46

That's awesome.

Darla Brandley 29:47

Yeah, I always feel like I came from a very long line of strong women, right? And I appreciate that, like thinking back to the past and all the sacrifices they made to get me here, all those women. Yeah.

Scott Brandley 29:58

Well, and you don't get to hear a lot of the women's stories. So I think that's cool that you took the time to really dive into that side of your history.

Vally Mulford 30:08

And I became a big cheerleader for Family Search. Uh, that's where I got a lot of the information from there. So it's kind of convinced me that uh I need to encourage my family to be sure to record events because it's so easy for a person's life to just kind of dissolve with time and feel like it wasn't really there or wasn't really important. But the beauty of what I learned is every single life has a story to tell. And every single story is worth telling, whether it gets told or not, is not always gonna happen, but it's worth being told. And I think family search is a great way to at least make sure some of those things are told and preserved. And, you know, you think about different ways to try to say that. Well, we have photos and we have stories, but technology is always changing. But the one place that the technology is always gonna be up to date and accessible is family search. So I've got a new, fresh uh love for family search and its ability to tell the human story of our ancestors and what they were like and what they did. And my job is to to document some of those things for someone later on to wonder who's this guy on my family tree? I don't know anything about him. So uh I am a new cheerleader

Final thoughts + where to find Vally’s work

Vally Mulford 31:20

for Family Search.

Darla Brandley 31:21

Yeah, I think it's awesome. It's a great opportunity.

Vally Mulford 31:24

Yes, definitely.

Scott Brandley 31:25

So as you've written this book, you know, and as we kind of wrap up this episode, maybe share some of your thoughts about this journey and any final thoughts you'd like to share with those that are listening.

Vally Mulford 31:38

Well, it was not a journey I planned on. I I never said, you know, I'm gonna write a book about my parents and my history, but I ended up doing that, and it was a real wonderful experience. I found a new love for my parents and their lives and the things I I learned from them, and I also gained a great appreciation for my pioneer heritage, for the real heroes that were there and the lives they lived, and and I found a love and admiration for them that I would not have discovered otherwise. And for that I'm I'm really grateful.

Scott Brandley 32:11

That's awesome. Well, I think by sharing your story, you're helping to inspire other people to find out about their ancestors and find out what their story is.

Vally Mulford 32:22

Well, I I hope so. It's a wonderful journey.

Scott Brandley 32:26

Okay, yeah. Well, thanks so much, Valley, for coming and sharing it with us. So, is your book available to purchase?

Vally Mulford 32:33

It is, it's on Amazon. Uh, just type in 40 miles to happy and and you'll see it there.

Scott Brandley 32:38

Awesome. Well, that's great. And we'll put the link in the notes for anyone that wants to go check it out.

Outro

Vally Mulford 32:45

Thank you.

Scott Brandley 32:45

So, Valley, thank you so much for coming on and sharing this story. We really appreciate it.

Vally Mulford 32:50

Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Scott Brandley 32:53

And uh thanks everyone for tuning in to another episode of Latter Day Lights. Um, let's help Valley get his story out there. Um, any type of stories about family history or ancestors, those are stories that we need to share because we don't want to forget those. And you know, it gives us a renewed appreciation for those that came before us. So go hit that share button. Let's do our five-second missionary work and let's get Valley's story out there so that we can share some of his light and some of his ancestors' light with the world. So go hit that button. Um, and if you have a story that you'd like to share, like Valley, go to latterdaylights.com and let us know about it. And we'll have you share your story on the show. And thanks everyone for tuning in for another episode, and we'll see you next week with a new episode of Latterday Lights. Till then, take care. Bye bye.