Description

The Red Shawl

Parents, I know that sometimes it’s hard for you to communicate the love and concern you feel for their children. What begins oft times as the tenderest of anxious feelings often comes out all wrong.

Well, for those of you who have such a hard time showing and expressing the love you feel, and especially for you children who sometimes wonder if Mom and Dad really do care about you – well, may I share a favorite story of mine from pioneer times?

Six-year-old Arthur, the next youngest son of Robert and Ann Parker, was lost. When the McArthur handcart company made camp in the face of a sudden thunderstorm, it was then that the lad was discovered missing. Someone thought they remembered him lying down under some brush to rest earlier in the day when the company had stopped.

For two days, the company camped, remained, and searched for the boy. They couldn’t find him. Finally, on July 2nd, with no alternatives left, the company moved on toward the west.

Can you imagine the terror and anxiety of those parents as they contemplated their little boy at the mercy of the wilderness? They were not going to leave him behind. Robert Parker determined to go back and search for his son. As he left camp, Ann Parker pinned a bright red shawl about his thin shoulders and spoke words such as these:

“If you find him dead, wrap him in the shawl to bury him. If you find him alive, you could use this to signal us.”

And then with the remaining children, Ann Parker picked up the handcart, pointed her face to the west and walked on. Robert Parker went back, retraced the miles of forest trail calling, searching, and praying for his helpless little son.

Each night, when the company made camp Ann Parker kept a vigilant watch. Finally, at sundown on the evening of July 5th, someone could be seen approaching the camp from the east. There in the last rays of the setting sun – Ann Parker saw the glimmer of the brightly colored shawl.

According to one account: “The brave little mother sank in a pitiful heap in the sand,” and that night for the first time in six nights, she slept. (Hafen and Hafen, Handcarts to Zion, P. 64.)

Oh, my dear young people, your parents love you, just as the Parkers loved their little boy. And what the Parkers did for their boy, they would do for you. Please be patient with their weaknesses, and the Lord will be more patient with yours. Honor thy father and mother, or as we would say today, respect them, value them. (Exodus 20:12) After all, they’re trying too. It’s only fair to expect as much perfection out of them as you are willing to expect from yourself.

Adapted from Boyd K. Packer, Conference Report, Oct. 1974, p. 128; Hafen and Hafen, Handcarts to Zion, p. 61.