LDSW #21 - How I Got My First Computer
In the early 1980s while I was working as a secretary at Clark College, I had a sick day off work when I sprained an ankle, so I spent the whole day reading a book I had recently purchased on doing family history by computer.
I had drawers full of family group sheets, pedigree charts and hand written notes hastily scribbled on various sizes and colors of notebook paper. The collection, all too often, spilled out on the floor every time I tried to access a particular item. I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could organize these things so I could access them quickly? Then I read the book. It had long been a goal of mine to do a thorough preliminary survey to determine which of my ancestors still needed their temple work done. Computer genealogy seemed to be the answer I needed.
I was also spurred on by a passage in the Doctrine and Covenants Section 128:24 which was imbedded deep in my mind, “Let us, therefore, as a church and a people, and as Latter-day Saints, offer unto he Lord an offering in righeousness; and let us present in His holy temple, when it is finished, a book containing the records of our dead which shall be worthy of all acceptation.” How was this even possible?
A few of my prayers had been answered from time to time, so I began praying for how I could purchase a computer. It didn’t seem possible at the time. All our regular income was dedicated to other obligations. Desktop computers in the homes were just becoming a reality, and costs were somewhere around $2,000, which was too much for our budget. Then came the miracle.
We had invested in a limited partnership, which owned and operated apartments and condominiums, several years earlier. So far we had seen very little return on our investment. But this year the company sent us a dividend of $900 dollars. It came at the same time as a local retail store was offering new, affordable home computers with 64k memory for only $800. We jumped into the car and headed for the store. I got there in time to buy one of the computers. Within a few days, a man my husband worked with, mentioned that he had one of the rachet type printers he wanted to sell so he could upgrade to a newer model, and he was asking just $100 for his old printer. We bought it!
I was then able to purchase a copy of Personal Ancestral File (PAF) software from our church bookstore, and began entering family names into my own database. It had been only a few weeks since I had read that book. I was convinced that the Lord does hear and answer our prayers! [And we never got another large dividend from that investment!]
