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It’s been hard to avoid the impression that official Salt Lake has wished to ignore our Grandpa Isaac Decker.

His son and namesake Isaac Perry Decker, then aged seven, was the “senior child” (of two) in the famous pioneer company of 1847. The “junior child” was Perry’s stepbrother, Lorenzo Sobieski Young. At the “This Is The Place” monument, and again in Pioneer Park, both boys’ names appear in durable bronze. Together with those of Sobieski’s father and mother, despite their divorce. Perry, on the other hand, is credited with one parent: his mother Harriet Page Wheeler Decker Young. No mention of Perry’s father, Isaac Decker, in either location.

Isaac’s burial place (Plat E, Block 13, Lot 12) in the Salt Lake City Cemetery, moreover, looked like this when I first saw it in the spring of 2001. Shocked and saddened, I quickly posted this appeal on the (then relatively new) Internet:
Family and friends--
I plan to give my Great-Great-Great-Grandpa Isaac Decker a gravestone.

If you share my desire to acknowledge Isaac’s memory and would like to be part of the project, I’ll welcome contributions. Non-deductible, alas. A suitable stone and its placement will cost about $2000. Barre granite, from Vermont. Pretty close to a symbolically-correct origin in upstate New York.

I can’t figure out why this job remains to be done, even today. Not only is this man our kin, but he was arguably a significant hero of the “Mormon” Pioneer era. He served with distinction through the foundational years in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. He raised and supported family members who played central roles in the settlement of the Mountain West. By all accounts, he was a man of great charm, patience, faithfulness, diligence, and perseverance. I look forward to swapping yarns with him in the hereafter.

He’s been in the ground, uncelebrated, for 127 years.

I can’t imagine that this is right or proper. If you know differently, please enlighten me.
--Andy
Richard B. “Andy” Anderson
CoMMensa@Alum.MIT.edu
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