that you don’t have a job or a man,” but it was true. Brigitte had time on her hands, and she was feeling restless, while she waited to hear about a job.
She started to say no and then thought about it. There was no reason for her not to go, and from what she’d just read in the
“Maybe. I’ll see,” she said noncommittally, not wanting to promise to do it, but she also realized that it was a great way to avoid the book that she was suddenly so disenchanted with. And she thought about it again on Sunday when they were having breakfast in the kitchen and sharing the rest of the Sunday
“Maybe I could go out to Salt Lake for you for a couple of days,” Brigitte said thoughtfully. “I have a friend from school there, or at least I used to. She has about ten kids and is married to a Mormon. I could look them up and do research for you. It might be fun.” Brigitte smiled at her mother, and Marguerite’s face lit up at the prospect.
“I’d be so grateful if you did. I can’t do another thing until I trace them back through Brittany. The Mormons have incredible records on microfiche and disks, with assistants to help you find it.” She was selling hard, and Brigitte laughed.
“Okay, okay, Mom,” Brigitte answered, and a few minutes later she called the airline and booked a flight to Salt Lake for later that afternoon. It felt good to help her mother, and it was beginning to sound like a more intriguing project. Brigitte was suddenly fascinated to see the Mormon library in Salt Lake, and she wondered if she’d find something there she could use for her book too, although it was unlikely.
Her mother thanked her profusely when she left, and Brigitte promised to call and report her findings. She had booked a reservation at the Carlton Hotel and Suites, which she saw on the Internet was within walking distance of Temple Square where the Family History Library was located. Now that she had agreed to go, Brigitte could hardly wait to see it. She was vastly impressed by what she had seen on the Internet about it. They apparently had hundreds of volunteers to help, and all their records and resources were without charge, except for photocopying documents and photos. It was a remarkable service to the public that they had been providing for decades. The Mormons had a gigantic organization and the most thorough research operation in the world.
Brigitte was thinking about it when she boarded the flight to Salt Lake, and hoped she’d find something of interest to her mother. She didn’t really expect to find anything exceptional in her family history. Everything her mother had come up with so far was both circumspect and benign. They were respectable aristocrats who, for some reason, had chosen to come to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, long after the reign of Napoleon. Perhaps they had come to purchase land, or discover new territories-and they stayed. But Brigitte wondered now too what they had done in France before they’d come to America, what had happened to them during the Napoleonic reign, and the French Revolution fifteen years before that. She was on a mission of discovery now that suddenly seemed a lot more interesting than chronicling women’s rights to vote around the world. Maybe her mother was right after all, and the subject she was researching now was far more worthwhile than what she had been doing for the last seven years. Brigitte was about to find out in Salt Lake.
The flight to Salt Lake City took five and a half hours, and she went straight to the hotel from the airport. It was a European-style inn built in the 1920s, and was a short walk to Temple Square, which was her destination the next day. To orient herself and get some air, she went for a walk before dinner. She found Temple Square easily, a few blocks away, and immediately spotted the enormous Family History Library on the west side of the square, on the same side as the history museum of the Church, and Osmyn Deuel’s cabin, which had been preserved since 1847 and was the oldest in the city. She walked past the Mormon Temple with its impressive six spires, and the domed Tabernacle next to it, which was open to the public for rehearsals and concerts of the famed Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Both structures were impressive to see, even from the outside. She saw the capitol, and walked past the Beehive House and the Lion House, both built in the mid-1850s, which had been the official residences of Brigham Young, who had been the president of the Church and the first governor of Utah.
Brigitte was startled to see how many people were walking around the square, despite the chilly weather, and all of them were looking at the buildings with both awe and interest, which suggested that they weren’t locals but tourists. There seemed to be a huge number of people in town, many of them congregated around the square. And people looked pleasant and happy, and were obviously excited to be there. The atmosphere was contagious, and Brigitte was in good spirits when she went back to her room at the hotel. She was beginning to enjoy her mother’s project more than she ever had before. With the time to explore it now, it was adding a new dimension to her life.
She called her mother from her room, after she ordered dinner, and reported on everything she’d seen so far, and she was sorry her mother hadn’t come with her. Marguerite was grateful that Brigitte had made the trip on her behalf.
“I couldn’t have gone anyway,” Marguerite said practically. “I have a bridge tournament tomorrow.” For a woman who had worked hard for twenty-five years and had never expected to before that, she enjoyed her leisure days, and Brigitte was glad she did. She had earned them. And if their genealogy was so important to her, Brigitte was happy to use her own research skills to help the project along. She had a feeling the Mormons were going to advance the project considerably. With two billion names in databases, two and a half million rolls of microfilm, and 300,000 books with information gathered from all over the world, Brigitte was sure that she would find records of some of their relatives in France. Her mother wanted to go back as far as she could. It would have been a thrill for her if the de Margeracs turned out to be important players in the history of France. She had been a history buff since college. There was certainly no harm in that, and it was coming to mean more to Brigitte than women’s suffrage, which had seemed so vital to her before. This was far more personal, and she felt as though she was just blocks away now from where the history of her family lay.
She ate dinner in her room, and wished she could share what she was doing with Ted. She knew he hadn’t left Boston yet, and thought about calling him, but she realized that hearing his voice when he was already lost to her would upset her too much. He would be leaving for Egypt soon, for the excavation that had replaced her.
She tried to look up her old friend from school that night, and discovered that finding her was hopeless. Her husband was a direct descendant of Brigham Young, she had said, and Brigitte found page after page of Youngs in the telephone book. His first name was John, and there were hundreds of those too. She was sorry not to see her, and wished she had kept track of her over the years. All she knew of her before they lost sight of each other was that her friend had ten kids. It was hard for Brigitte to imagine, but it seemed to be a fairly normal occurrence here, where large families were common.
Brigitte slept well that night in the big comfortable bed. She had asked to be woken at eight o’clock, and when they called her, she was dreaming of Ted. He was still much on her mind, and it was hard to believe he had left her life forever, but it was obvious that he had. Six years gone up in smoke, and now she had hundreds of years of her family history to pursue for her mother. She was suddenly grateful for the distraction. She felt the thrill of the hunt as she got up, showered and dressed, and ate a quick breakfast of oatmeal, tea, and toast before she left the room.
She knew the way to Temple Square now after her reconnaissance mission the night before. She saw the familiar buildings, and walked into the Family History Library, and then followed the signs to the orientation that would help her find her way around. There were hundreds of library assistants throughout the building, just waiting to offer their expertise and help. After seeing the brief presentation, Brigitte knew exactly where to go, and went upstairs to a desk, where she knew she could find records for Europe. She explained to the young woman at the desk that she was looking for a family in France.
“Paris?” the young woman asked her, grabbing a notepad.
“No, Brittany, I think.” Brigitte wrote down her mother’s maiden name, de Margerac, which was her own middle name. “They came to New Orleans sometime around 1850.” It had already been an American territory by then, having been sold by Napoleon to the Americans sometime during his reign, for fifteen million dollars. “I don’t know anything before that. That’s why I’m here.” She smiled at the librarian, who was helpful and pleasant. She was wearing a name tag that said her name was Margaret Smith. She introduced herself as “Meg.”
“And that’s why we’re here, to help you,” the woman said warmly. “Let’s see what we have in our records. Give
