Transcript

William Asper had married Mary Ahlstrom in 1863. Only half the children survived to maturity. By 1898, one daughter was married, and the two sons were of missionary age. Albert Elias Asper, or Bert, served in the Australian Mission; he left in January of 1896, to return in May of 1899. In 1898, George Ernest Asper, or Ern, had been serving in the Eastern States Mission, which included the areas in Pennsylvania where the relatives of William Asper lived. Ern was set to be released in mid-1898. Sarah was the "old maid" of the family. She was 32 years old. She worked as an accountant in a store downtown.

Ever since his conversion in 1861, William had been gathering family names for temple work. He had part in finishing the Manti and the Logan temples, but the completion of the Salt Lake Temple affected him the most. He had done some temple work when the Salt Lake temple had opened in 1893, but he kept gathering data, and in 1898, William had a number of temple names to do. On May 17th, he took his third wife, Becky, and her children to do baptisms. As there were so many women's names, he also invited Sarah, and she helped that day. This little group did baptisms for 200 ancestors that day. Sarah went back and was baptized for 58 more ladies on May 24th. (Becky's children were three boys, 17, 14 & 6, & two girls, 10 & 9; so Sarah was a good help.)

Ern had only token encounters with his relatives during his mission. William still hungered for genealogical information from his relatives. Then on Saturday, July 2nd (of 1898), William got word of Ern's impending release on July 15th. He immediately had an idea that would help break the ice with distant relatives back east -- Sarah could be Ern's companion in approaching people for family information. So the next day, Sunday July 3rd, William approached George Reynolds and W. Spence about a mission and tickets for Sarah. The next day, he took Sarah with him to the President's Office and firmed up the arrangements. That was Monday. Wednesday, July 6th, he and Sarah went to the "annex to the President's Office" and got Sarah set apart as a missionary in the Eastern States Mission, by George Teasdale. Right after that, William telegraphed Ern about Sarah. Then on Friday, William hired a carriage and took Sarah to the train depot and saw her off for Washington, DC. The train left at 6:25 p.m. and had with her two other lady members and three young men (possibly missionaries for that mission). Sarah mailed little notes to her father at stops in Omaha and Chicago.