William Sevey has been using ward minutes archived at the Church History Library. Sometimes a line or two from an account spurs him to look more carefully at a Latter-day Saint’s life, and he has agreed to share those stories with us from time to time or, in other cases, to turn over his research and let me write the story. This is one he has written himself.

It was a cold January day in the year 1910 when Bishop Alma Keyes stood at the meeting house pulpit of Uintah Ward to conduct a funeral.

Although never an easy thing, shepherding the grief of others was an assignment he knew well. Having served as bishop of the ward for over two decades, Bishop Keyes would have presided at the funerals of most ward members who died since 1889. Customarily he gave the closing eulogy, as did Mormon bishops everywhere.

This funeral was different.

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