My name is Erin Hills and I’m a senior research assistant for the Wilford Woodruff papers. Today I am visiting the West Avon Cemetery in Avon Connecticut. This is a sacred and important place for Wilford Woodruff because it is here that his mother and many of his ancestors are buried.  On July 6 1837, Wilford Woodruff took a walk through Avon, Connecticut to visit the place of his birth. It had been about five years since he was last in Avon. On this walk, he visited the house where he was born and many of his relatives. He wrote:

“During [my] walk I passed the school house in which I had spent many of my youthful days I gazed upon it and also upon the grave yard in which lay the bones of many of my progenitors & friends-- my Mother not [excepted]… I read the following inscription upon the TOMB stone of my Mother BULAH WOODRUFF the daughter of Lot Thompson

A pleasing form a generous gentle heart
A good companion Just without art
Just in her dealings faithful to her friend
Beloved through life lamented in the end”

Wilford Woodruff was about fifteen months old when his mother died--And I imagine he visited this graveyard often. Today I visit it with my family. I have not walked with the people who are buried here, but because of my research with the papers, I know their names- and I love them because Wilford loved them.