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Samantha Hayes Reporting A Salt Lake City man attending the Olympics is also retracing the footsteps of his ancestors.
More than a 150 years ago, his family converted to the LDS Church, leaving their home high in the hills above Torino. The home is still there.
Mike Homer has visited the San Chisone Valley many times before, when he was researching his family's pilgrimage from Italy to Utah. Every time he returns, he learns more about how his ancestors lived hundreds of years ago.
The way to get there is a walk up a narrow mountain road that curves around buildings hundreds of years old. Then a steep trek through the woods, a path Mike Homer has traveled many times.
And we are guided by Senora Ivone Long, who owns the property and has lived in the valley all of her life. She is the only one not out of breath when we reach our destination. It is small inside, just a kitchen and a bedroom where everyone slept.
Daylight peaks through slate slabs placed perfectly to keep water from dripping inside. They didn't have to change the roof every 20 years here.
Everything Homer's family needed to get by was on the land terraced for farming and growing grapes. Their cattle stayed below the house.
One hundred 50 years ago his family left this house overlooking the San Chisone valley for Salt Lake City. There were five children in the home at the time that move to Utah was made. Three of them died on the way, which was not uncommon.
The survivors settled on Antelope Island, where they tended Brigham Young's cattle.
