Kennington and Weber Families

Maurer in Schmiedrued

2011-12-23T13:26:00.000-08:00

Strohhaus in Schmiedrued, aus Ein Bauart aus alter Zeit einem Kalender fur das Jahr 1918.
Im Strohhaus wohnte die Familie Maurer Sigwarte.
Es wurde ca 1917/1918 abgebrochen.
Am rechten Bildrand im Hintergrund der Giebel des alten Restaurant Sternen.

Rough translation: Thatch house in Schmiedrued, out from Ein Barat, out from an older time
Calendar for the year 1918.
In thatch house resided the family Maurer, Sigwarte His rank/title about 1917 hand in/deliver to broken.
In the right hand pictured in background the gable of old restaurant Sternen.

Maurer is the family name of 4th & 5th great grandmothers: Anna Mauer 1743 who married Sigmund Bolliger and Margaretha Maurer 1681 who married Heinrich Wirz.

It's interesting to think that several generations back folks would have been living in homes just like this. All the wood stacked and ready for winter makes me think it must have been very cozy this time of year. Imagine it with a coating of snow.
Merry Christmas!

Schmiedrued - from the air

2011-12-17T08:22:00.000-08:00

Flugaufnahme von Schmiedrued mir Lohren, Eggschwill und Obereggschwil, im Hintergrund der Benkel.

Translated caption: Arial view of Schmiedrued with Lohren, Eggschwil and Obereggschwil in background der Benkel.

Bemerkenswert sind die vielen Obstbaumgarten.
Remarkable great fruit tree growing garden/region.

Die neue Strasse Dorf-Kehracker ist noch nicht gebaut.
Something about the new road between villages is still not improved.

Schmiedrued is in the foreground - note the position of the larger buildings. This shows a great view of the Rueder Valley. Compare with google maps or the previous postcard to get your bearings.

Webers - Kirchrued

2011-12-13T21:33:00.000-08:00

Caption: Postcard of Kirchrued with post office mark 4 June 1910.
At right is picturesque old parish house in background different straw roofed (thatched) houses.

Kirch translates to Church. This small hamlet seemed to be centered around the church which also served Schmiedrued. The small cemetery is in back of the church. This is where the Webers and Goldenbergers attended their meetings, were baptized, married and buried. It replaced an older church which burned - so this is known to locals as the new church. It was built about 300 years ago. A stone plaque from the original church can be seen in the chapel.

Webers and Schmiedrued

2011-12-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

Rough translation of caption on the back of this card:
"Colored postcard from Schmiedrued with post mark 17 Aug 1929".

George's wife, Martha was born to Swiss Immigrants, Samuel and Verena Weber. After a series of events which forced Samuel and Verena from Schmiedrued to find work, they met the LDS Missionaries and through another series of events, eventually made their way to the United States. Martha was born a few years after their arrival.

Pull out your genealogy and read up on their story. They were very courageous in a strange country. I regret that we lost the German - maybe some of the older children's families learned some, but I feel that Martha's family didn't have that exposure. Luckily for us Google has the translator option.

This postcard shows the hometown they left. It is a beautiful - as in Star Valley in the spring - place. It nestles in the bottom of a valley with green fields surrounding it. The buildings are well cared for. The homes look large, but usually held 2-3 families. The weaving mill has been converted to a museum. I believe it may be the 3 story building just right of center. The postcards came from the Museum.

Esther's Photos

2011-12-04T13:50:00.000-08:00

Well, those are a small part of Esther's collection.

Esther Matthews occupies a special position in the George Kennington Family. She is the daughter of George's oldest sister. Her grandmother, George's mother Annie Rebecca, raised her and when Annie Rebecca passed away, Esther lived with George and Martha.

So she is unique: a niece to George and Martha and an older cousin to all their children. To me she seemed like an aunt, but I was the only one who thought she should be called "Aunt" Esther.

I know she taught school for years and had a nice library.

Hopefully we can locate more photos from her wonderful collection in the near future.

Gwen and Bev with Dolls

2011-12-01T04:57:00.000-08:00

Gwen and Bev Kennington
photo by Esther Matthews Crook
about 1926

Beverly with Rocking Horse

2011-11-30T05:07:00.000-08:00

Beverly Kennington
Photo taken by Esther Matthews Crook
Abt. 1923

On the rocking horse

2011-11-29T05:03:00.000-08:00

Beverly Kennington and older sister Berniece or Clarissa Kennington.
Photo taken by Esther Matthews Crook
abt. 1923

Hard for me to tell the twins apart, but I think this girl has Berniece's look more than Cliss's. Someone who knows for sure, please send me an email.

Spring 1921 at the Kennington house

2011-11-28T04:58:00.000-08:00

Gordon, Gwen and Garth Kennington
Photo by Esther Matthews Crook
abt. 1921
Notice the log pile (far left) with lots of wood chips on the new grass.

By the log pile

2011-11-27T06:50:00.000-08:00

Garth and Gwen Kennington
photo by Esther Matthews Crook
abt. 1919

Early Photographs of George Kennington Children

2011-11-26T08:55:00.000-08:00

Version 1 Caption:
Back Row: Cousins, older girls unknown, maybe Nora Low and ? holding baby ?, Cliss and Berniece (or visa versa)
Front Row: Garth, Gwen or a cousin, Gordon or Gwen? or some cousin mixed in with the group.
About 1918 - 20?

Version 2
Back row: cousin 1, baby - Perhaps Gordon?, cousin 2, Cliss & Berniece (about school age)
Front row: Garth (about 4), cousin 3, maybe Nora Low?, Gwen (abt 2)
About end of summer, 1919?

Options for older cousins might include: Wanda Low (1902), Nora Low (1905), Irene Kennington (1903), Annie W. Kennington (1903), Annie Oda Jensen (1907), Melba Jean Kennington (1910), Ada Berlin Kennington (1912) and probably others for whom I don't have records.

I think Annie Oda looks like Cousin #2 and Nora could be #1. The little girl by Garth looks like Martha Jensen (1915). Baby is still a mystery.

Version 3
(The most accurate)

Back row: Nora Low, baby likely Gordon Kennington, Annie Oda Jensen, Clarissa and Berniece Kennington (or reverse order).
Front row: Garth Kennington, Martha Jensen, Gwen Kennington.

Location is almost identical and summer cotton clothes match with women's picture in the post,"A fine Spring Day" Sept. 2010. So the cousins likely belong to those aunts: Molly Lowe and Ida Jensen. Anyone have suggestions? It seems more like late July after the first crop has been cut and you can get out into the fields. They weren't big on lawn mowers back then were they? A picnic for the 24th? Apparently there is a photo from this series of the men too.

You can almost imagine the call for the kids' picture first, then get all the women for a shot. My mother Dorothy, remembers Dad(Forrest) mentioning that Esther Matthews had the camera, but George's family didn't, so these photos came through Esther's efforts.

Source: Found this series of photos in the "Family History" box at Mom and Dad's. Esther Matthews Crook, niece to George, apparently took these pictures.
You may all ready be familiar with the images. They're done on heavy paper and are slightly blurry. They show George's first 6 children. Please let me know if I mis-label anyone. I'm guessing on this first photo. Your input would be welcomed!

Page 15. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-13T06:04:00.000-08:00

...and so can Frosty.

The End

Page 14. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

Frosty's big brothers can tell you....

Page 13. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-13T05:58:00.000-08:00

Yep!
Those bears with the glowing red eyes really do live in Uncle Dick's Cave in the dark woods!

Page 12. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-12T07:05:00.000-08:00

By the time Frosty's big brothers were tip-toeing up to Uncle Dick's Cave,
Frosty and his squeaky wooden wagon were hidden in the shadows on top of the hill.
As he ate his sandwich he quietly waited and watched.

Now Frosty's big brothers would see if the tale of the bears with glowing red eyes who lived in Uncle Dick's cave was really true.

Page 11. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-11T07:54:00.000-08:00

By the time his big brothers were awake,
Frosty was tip-toeing to the mouth of Uncle Dick's Cave.

He was a little nervous and his toes twiddled inside his shoes.
He listened closely....

You know what?
All those bears with glowing red eyes who lived in Uncle Dick's Cave were scared away by his squeaky wooden wagon - just like Frosty's big brothers had said!

Frosty grabbed his hammer and set to work.

Page 10. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-10T04:58:00.001-08:00

The next morning, before his big brothers were awake,
Frosty quietly packed a sandwich, a hammer and a flashlight into his squeaky wooden wagon.

He took a deep breath and headed out on his own great adventure in the dark woods.

Page 9. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-09T05:03:00.000-08:00

Frosty planned his own great adventure in the dark woods.
He forgot about his supper. He forgot about his brothers.
And he forgot to twiddle his toes, because he he wasn't nervous,
not even a little bit.

Page 8. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-07T20:34:00.001-08:00

He was still mad when he brought up the milk for supper
in his squeaky wooden wagon with the big red reflectors.

Then Frosty had an idea...

Page 7. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

Frosty's big brothers made him sad. Then he became mad.
He stayed mad all afternoon, even when he read to his mother.

Page 6. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-03T16:15:00.001-07:00

Oh No!

Frosty's big brothers said he had to stay home
because he would ruin their great adventure in the dark woods!

They said his legs were too short to keep up with famous explorers.

They even said his squeaky wooden wagon was so noisy it would scare away all the bears with glowing red eyes who lived in Uncle Dick's cave in the dark woods!

Page 5. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-11-01T16:29:00.001-07:00

Frosty thought about the great adventure while he did his chores the next morning.

His squeaky wooden wagon would carry all the stuff for their great adventure.

He would be the bravest of all the famous explorers!

He would protect his big brothers from the bears with glowing red eyes
who lived in Uncle Dick's Cave, even if he was a little nervous.

His toes twiddled.

Page 4. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-10-31T21:27:00.000-07:00

Frosty dreamed about becoming a famous explorer and
going on a great adventure day after tomorrow.

He twiddled his toes under the blanket because the thought of
going on a great adventure in the dark woods made Frosty just a little nervous.

Page 3. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-10-31T04:57:00.000-07:00

Frosty's big brothers told him a tale of bears with glowing red eyes
who lived in Uncle Dick's Cave in the dark woods.

Frosty's big brothers were going to become famous explorers
and go on a great adventure day after tomorrow.

They would search for the bears with glowing red eyes
who lived in Uncle Dick's Cave in the dark woods.

Page 2. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-10-29T10:35:00.001-07:00

Frosty's Great Uncle Dick had been a gold prospector a long time ago.
He dug a cave in the dark woods, but Uncle Dick didn't find any gold.
Now the cave was empty...or was it?

Page 1. The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-10-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

There was once a boy named Frosty who lived at the edge of the dark woods.
The dark woods made Frosty just a little nervous.
The dark woods made Frosty twiddle his toes, which he always did,
even when he was just a little nervous.

The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave

2011-10-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

We've been pretty serious for several posts and I'm getting tired of black and white photographs. So with your kind indulgence, we're going to hear a little story.

You all remember Uncle Dick, the bachelor brother of William Henry. I get the impression he might have been a colorful character. He was a prospector. One of his mines was up Swift Creek Canyon. In fact, I believe the cave still existed in the 1990's when it was finally blasted shut because teenagers were up to mischief. It was on the south of the canyon and dug into the north side of the hill, near the camp ground if I'm not mistaken.

Many of you older cousins and grandchildren probably know more about him than our family did, but I do know one story.

When my daughter Andrea was in middle school, she did a report on her grandfather's (Forrest's) experience with Uncle Dick's Cave. He may have embellished the experience a bit - and when I took the report years ago and turned it into a kid's story, I certainly embellished it a bit more. So, just for fun, and because it is in color, relax and enjoy The Tale of Uncle Dick's Cave (copyright kkhamblin) which will follow.

Freighting on Crow Creek

2011-10-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

Freighters on Crow Creek
Date: Unknown
Photographer: Unknown

Pulling into the shade, freighters pause for the photographer. Bringing in supplies via Crow Creek from Montpelier and the railroad was an important fall enterprise because snow storms could quickly close the road, isolating the valley. These freighters were probably looking forward to a break at the Half Way House to rest their teams. How many fellows do you count? I believe there are seven.

Land Commissioner

2011-10-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

During the early years of the last century,
William Henry Kennington was a United States Land Commissioner for Wyoming at Afton.
Above is one of the documents he filled out.

A grand son, Forrest Kennington related the following: "In 1952, Carl Cook, a lawyer practicing in Afton, filled out deed papers for me and told me this story: He, Carl Cook, visited the land office in Afton and filled out papers for people settling in the Etna area. (Carl Cook was one of the men who selected the name of Etna for the town...). He said he wondered why William Henry wrote so slow.
With a smile Carl started writing and said that when you are old, you just write slow."

This document gives us a good look at William Henry's penmanship as an older man (he died in 1916 at the age of 74); the letters are still firm and the script even and flowing.

Temple Announced for Star Valley

2011-10-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

A shot of the major buildings in Afton with Star Hill in the background.
The high school (below) was built to the east of the public school.

The Tabernacle

What a great day for Star Valley - a temple announced by Pres. Monson at the Sat. Conference session. I would bet tears were shed by everyone who has a tie to the valley. What a great convenience it will be for the western side of Wyoming and I would imagine eastern Idaho.

Speculation would be fruitless because the behind the scene work has been done and the site is chosen. But it's still fun to wonder - there's the Temple Bench tradition (flat plateau behind the High School at the mouth of Swift Creek Canyon), the Tabernacle has lots of room to the east and maybe to the south (if that land reverted to the church after the high school was torn down), or maybe someplace high (but snow removal is a real concern several months of the year) or some beautiful spot in the Lower Valley (which has grown so much in the past 30 years).

We'll just wait and see. In any event, wonderful changes will be coming to Star Valley.

George Kennington's growing family about 1922

2011-09-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

L-R Front: Garth's shoulder, Gordon, Bev, Gwen.
Back: Cliss and Berniece

Afton in December

2011-08-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

Afton's Main street in December in the 1930's
looking south possibly from the Valleon Hotel

This photo should cool off anyone sweltering in the late August heat. Just past the Christmas Tree is the show house marquee, so I'm guessing the Elk Horn Arch crosswalk would be just past that. The corner gas station on the right is now part of the city offices. On the left, a Maverick gas station now sits where the Sinclair station was.

Dad and I were preparing another book on the valley when he passed away. This photo is from that file. I'm guessing on the decade but the woman on the far right looks a little more like the 1940's.

It is certainly a bleak winter day. Sleigh riding and a little skiing were the only winter relief in those days, and the winters did seem to stretch out.

One piece of sage advice was to never go up the canyons after Christmas. The danger for avalanches was too great by then.

Snow machines came along in the '70's and changed the way we viewed winter. Overnight it became something to be anticipated rather than dreaded. Snow machines, or sleds as they are now called, also entice folks to ignore the old advice for safety in the canyons.

What do Rustlers, the British Army and Tasmania have in Common?

2011-07-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

Summer time came with a whole different set of expectations for the generations past in Star Valley. They were worried about crops - too much rain, not enough rain, early frosts, late frosts and getting that all important hay in before the weather turned. Their economic success hinged upon it!
We tend to forget how dependent farmers were on horse power (literally) for getting that hay in. The bond between horse and man is evident in this copy of a hand written account I found in the Kennington file today. I believe it came from Forrest Kennington whose cousin, Scott Gardner, is the writer; perhaps it was something to do with the historical society. Wherever it came from, it is too good to pass up:

"August 1993

"This is a story told to me by Harve Crook of Smoot, -91 years old-

"In 1914 his brother Ray Crook had a fine team, one black and one brown. They were well matched and the envy of the whole community. One day they came up missing. They had been stolen.

"Late in the summer Harve crossed the mountain to the Green River Country to work in the hay fields. This was the custom for Star Valley men to do this each summer after their own hay was stacked.

"There was talk of a fine team in the area, one black and one brown. Harve started looking for the team He was told they had been sold to the British Army Horse Buyers. World War I was raging in Europe.

"In 1924 Harve was on an L.D.S. Church mission in Hobart, Tasmania. One day a team and wagon came down the street, one black and one brown. He stopped the driver and examined the horses. They wore his father's brand and the British Army Brand."

[signed] Scott Gardner

Richard Kennington's Baptism 1804

2011-07-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

Richard Kennington

North Thoresby, Lincolnshire Baptismal Record for 1804.
FHL Film # 1542352

Thanks again to Jenny, we now see conclusive proof of Richard Kennington's entry into the world. It reads: Richd. Son of Sarah Kennington illegitimate Oct. 30th [1804].

This parish entry seems to blow the theory that Sarah was married to Richard's father, but still leaves the door open a bit that perhaps the father was someone she intended to marry. Napoleon was stirring things up in Europe. Britain and France had been at war for a year. We might be looking at a soldier who didn't come back...

I have been musing on the reasons why Sarah or her parents would choose to have the baby baptized/christened at North Thoresby rather than Louth, the parish where all the family's blessings, marriages and deaths had been recorded for at least three generations. If anyone has some insights, please volunteer your point of view.

Some angles to consider: The Parish was the welfare agent for folks in need and orphans, etc. So they were very careful about single mothers and illegitimate children because odds were the parish would end up helping support them. Consequently there are stories about forcing the mother to reveal the father's identity during the delivery or ordering the mother across parish boundaries to avoid financial burdens.
Perhaps Sarah:
1. Went there to work at North Thoresby while awaiting the baby.
2. Was North Thoresby the father's home parish and since he was libel for the support of the baby it would be logical to have the baby there?
3. Sarah stayed with family or friends while there.
4. The Parish in Louth was not accepting of unwed mothers or the family would be discraced
5. Perhaps the family was working in that area or had moved there for a time...we wouldn't know from the parish register unless someone married or died....
And the list could go on....

So far as my current records show, Sarah was Thomas and Ann's only surviving child. Thinking in terms of family support systems, I went looking for Sarah's aunts and uncles - much to my surprise there aren't a whole lot. I expected many from Michael's big family, but infant mortality was high. In fact, we only have record of one aunt - Mary Kennington about 10 years Sarah's senior, who married John Leaning from Killingholme (north Lincolnshire along the coast). Until we know more about Sarah's mother's family (the Smiths), Mary is all we have to go on. She was raising a large family in Killingholme and was having her 8th child when Sarah at 25 was expecting Richard. If Sarah desired to get away from Louth, why didn't she go up there?

The Leaning cousins had a few surprises. Two of the boys emigrated to New York and became farmers in the 1830's. They are on the census's, in the historical accounts and we can even see where they are buried thanks to the internet. So Richard had cousins in America before he ever set sail. Had any of you ever heard that from family traditions?

Two other Leaning sons stayed in the Killingholme area and in the 1851 census I believe their mother, Mary is a widow living with Joseph. She reported her birth place (not her baptism place) as Glanford Brigg just northwest of Caistor. Mary was 85 at the time. If that is a true statement, then Michael's family moved around a bit - or it was important for them to travel back to the home parish of Louth for their church records. Can anyone shed a little light on that?

Well, I hope some of you can think through this situation better than I can. I think I'll take a look at Brigg's records. We may get lucky.

Glossop-Sharp Marriage, 1771

2011-06-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

Marriages 1771-

Banns of Marriage Between Francis Glossop-
and Sarah Sharp, both of this parish were an---
published the twentieth day of October the third-
and Seventh day of November----

This Marriage was solemnized between
us by Banns in this Parish Church this
twenty fifth Day of November 1771 by me

Jno Mounsey

Francis Glossop
her
Sarah x Sharp
mark

In the presence of
Francis Pratt
E. Diggery [ ] Ch.W.

Jn'o Mounsey Curate
E. Diggery [] Ch'h Warden

(Thoresway, Lincolnshire Parish Register FHL Film # 933208)

This marriage is the strongest contender for Jane Glossop's parents so far. Francis Glossop is a unique name - haven't found many in the area.
Thoresway is just outside of Caistor. It is the only marriage in 1771; some years there were no marriages, births or deaths recorded at all. Probably most church rites were performed in Caistor.

This document could possibly point us in a couple of directions. First, it is interesting that they are in Thoresway in the late fall. So were they or Sarah's family working at some agricultural job which required them to be perhaps wrapping up harvests, feeding livestock or butchering?

Second, the witnesses also have possibilities. Francis Pratt: same first name as Francis Glossop - Godfather? Uncle? E. Diggery has quite the signature. There must be some history about him somewhere, otherwise that's a lot of fancy penmanship wasted.

Francis and Sarah have their children baptized at Caistor. There is Elizabeth in 1772, then a gap of 10 years. Robert in 1783, his mother is listed as Sarah. He is buried in 1784 and his mother is Mary. Sarah is baptized in 1784 at Caistor. Jane is baptized in 1785 and then Mary in 1787. Their mothers are listed as Sarah. So I'm hoping that "Mary" listed on Robert's burial was a slip by the recorder.

Mary Ann Davison's baptismal entry

2011-05-31T13:57:00.000-07:00

Mary Ann Davison
Wife of Richard Kennington

Baptismal Entry for Mary Ann Davison

Caistor, Lincolnshire, England Parish Record
1810
FHC Film # 1450424
Courtesy of Jenny Kennington Wagstaff

The Caistor Parish Record (6th entry down) reads:
Davison, Mary D.[daughter] of Thomas and Jane, April 8th.
The year, 1810, is listed at the top of the page.

Well folks, I believe Jenny's research has put the Mary Ann Davison question to rest. Combined with the marriage entry for Thomas and Jane the year before, we have a pretty clear picture of a newly married couple having their first child, a daughter, on April 1st, 1810 (according to family records) and having her baptized at the parish church when she was a week old.

By the way, the parents were married by Banns in the parish church. That indicates that for 3 weeks prior to their marriage, their intent to marry was announced at the church - giving anyone who objected the opportunity to do so. This was the normal way to marry. But If couples were in a hurry to marry, were enroute to another town, etc. they could buy a license and be married without the waiting period in another parish. So it seems to me that Thomas Davison and Jane Glossop were comfortable where they were and likely had family around to support them. They may have been agricultural laborers. The Glossop name has the double s. At that time the first s was written like our cursive f. So to our eye, the name might look like Glofsop, but it's Glossop.

In case you haven't consulted your maps yet, Caistor is about 16 miles north west from Louth as the crow flies. North Thoresby, where her future husband, Richard, was born is to the east of Caistor about 8 miles. Louth is to the south east of both towns.

A few notes on Caistor:
Pigot's Directory of 1828 describes it as a "small market town in parish of the same name...157 miles from London, 23 from Lincoln, 8 miles from Brigg...Parish Church dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul...grammar school founded in 1630...population in 1821 was 1,388 inhabitants...a fire in 1681 left 45 families in poverty and consumed over 1/2 the town's buildings..."

The 1841 Census of Caistor has a Sarah Davidson 25, with several children. There is also a Benjamin Davison or Dawson, 40, Blacksmith and family. Several Kennington families are also there: Thomas, 55 Wheelwright and family, a Richard 65 or 45, Carpenter with wife,, Mary 60 or 40 and Sarah, 10 ... (I know, that sounds like them doesn't it?, but the names don't line up, we need to do more research)

We need to go 2 directions now:
1. Back in time to find and document Thomas Davison and Jane Glossop and their families.
2. Forward in time to untangle the Progressive Men of Wyoming quote: "His parents were Richard and Mary (Davidson) [sic] Kennington, who came with their young family to the United States in 1856 and settled in Utah...The family consisted of of thirteen children, seven of whom died in infancy." PMW, pg. 855. The missing children need to be accounted for and added to the family record and we need a marriage date for Richard & Mary Ann.

Thanks again Jenny.

Mary Ann Davison's Parents Discovered?

2011-05-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

Marriage Certificate for
Thomas Davison and Jane Glossop
1809
Caistor, Lincolnshire, England
FHC film # 1450424
Courtesy of Jenny Kennington Wagstaff, great granddaughter of Henry Kennington (Uncle Hen)

The search for Mary Ann Davison's parents has been a long one with several false leads, but I think this may be the real deal.

Let's review the family traditions:

Name: Mary Ann Davison or Davidson (confusion has always been present on the last name) but she named her son Richard Davison Kennington.
Birth Date: 1 April 1810 - Date never varied in any of the family records.
Location: Family tradition held that she was from Durham, England. This tradition of coming from Durham may be a partial truth. Mary Ann's father may have come from Durham, or her family may have moved to Durham for part of her youth, etc. There are many Davison families in that area. The History of the County Palentine of Durham England is loaded with references to Gentlemen, Knights, Vicars, Merchants, Soldiers, etc. named Davison.
Parents & Family: None mentioned as far as I've been aware of in the older family group sheets.
Aunt Gwen in 1988: "...I did find Richard and Mary Ann in a record (as I recall Caistor) that I can't recall or find now..." They would have needed a reason to be living there.
Valentine Davison in Sedgefield, Durham, England and Mary Bales were good candidates for Mary Ann's parents - they did have a Mary Ann (8 May 1811 St. Giles, Durham, Durham). They were the best option yet discovered in the 1980's and are presented in the Kennington History Book, We follow Great Pioneers, Ruth Miller Kennington, 1996. One red flag with Valentine Davison is the obvious fact that his unusual surname did not continue with his Kennington descendents.

Jenny shared her information just this week. What a pleasure to connect with cousins who also have the same goals and interests in family history. We appreciate her willingness to offer up new discoveries with the blog.

A few points in favor of Thomas Davison and Jane Glossop as Mary Ann's parents are:

The record of Mary Davison's birth to Thomas and Jane Davison 1 April 1810 recorded in the Caistor Parish Register (Copy to follow in a later blog) The date is dead on accurate.

2. 1851 Census recording Mary Ann's birth place as Caistor (see earlier entry for census)

3. Jane's name carried on through grand daughter, Sarah Jane Kennington (1839). Though one wonders why we don't have more Thomas's and Glossops...

Take a good look at the family and the Caistor connection. Let us know if there are any red flags we should discuss. It would be fantastic to finally extend the Davison line. We'll get into Mary Ann's birth records and Caistor a bit more in the near future.

Please feel free to leave your comments or email me at kkhamblin@gmail.com

Reunion Time rolling around again...

2011-05-11T17:36:00.000-07:00

The Kennington Family about 1930
L-R Bert, George, Ida, Lon, Molly, Henry, Hyrum

A couple good shots of the Kennington family enjoying reunions. We should all try to snap a group shot for our grandchildren this summer. They'll want something to look back on in 50 years.

Kennington Family 1940’s or early 50's (?)

Back: Osborn Low, Harv Matthews, Ira Kennington, Henry Kennington, Alonzo Kennington, Bert Kennington. Front: Adolph Jensen, Ida Kennington Jensen, Bell Blanchard Kennington , Stella Call Kennington.

Annie Rebecca Seward Kennington and home

2011-04-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

We may have seen this before, but let's take another look. It's from Maude's album. Annie Rebecca was her grandmother and Esther her first cousin. I was under the impression they (Maude and Esther) were around the same age. So this photo may have been taken by someone older. Anyone know?

Did Annie Rebecca stop teaching school when Esther came to live with them?

A little bit about the Sewards and Covers

2011-03-06T17:57:00.000-08:00

William Henry's wife, Annie Rebecca Seward, intrigues me. So I've been digging into her family a bit. Her grandmother Seward, Ann Cover Seward, has been a hard one to trace.

Last night I stumbled on to the Cover/Gover research on Ancestry.com. A kind gentleman from England emailed me back this morning with a great site: http://startx.co.uk/Kingsclere/contents.html.

It's a collection of materials which include the Sewards. I'm still working through the Cover/Gover material and am thinking there's either a second marriage or some "creative blending" of children.
At the moment I'll stick by my guns and say Annie Rebecca's grandmother is Ann Cover from Tunworth.

Enjoy!

Our "Richard Hemington"

2011-02-13T19:39:00.000-08:00

In case you're as lost as I was about finding Richard Kennington (William Henry's father) in the Louth, Lincolnshire 1851 Census, here's a photo. For some reason he's been transcribed as Richd Hemington. The family is there and everything matches.

Anyone know where they are on the 1841 Census? They should have some children - at least Henry who died in 1853. Anyone know how he died? And what's the deal about having 13 children with 7 of them being buried in England? Anyone have a lead on that they'd like to share?

Richard's half brothers, William and John Onn are easy to find on every census. William (1818) was a brick and tile maker and a farmer on the side. John (1810) was a joiner and carpenter. Both had large families. They lived good long lives.

The old Kennington Barn

2011-01-16T20:57:00.000-08:00

Found this on the SV Historical Society Site. It's the most complete label I 've seen for the barn.
There are so many things I think I know, and remember talking to Dad about, but when it comes to actually putting them down on paper now, I don't trust my memory. The lesson is to label things now while they're fresh on your mind. Lucky for us Dad did that.

I believe in August of 2010 we also ran a photo of the barn. You can get a close up on that one and see a little more detail.

How would you feel about preparing some material on your parents? I think we could benefit from seeing and learning about each aunt and uncle. All we'd need is a childhood, adolescent wedding or, mid life and mature adult photos. I have Uncle Garth's trunk - have been going to write something for about the last - hmmm- 7 years or so. We could also get Aunt Ruth's photos out and scan them again.

I know you folks are a little shy about admitting you're out there - but think about it seriously.

Mission photo upgrade

2010-12-20T09:57:00.000-08:00

George Seward Kennington

Dorothy had this in her family history box.
Details are always better from the original.
Thanks for sharing it Mom.

Mississippi Mission Conference, 1906

2010-12-20T07:48:00.000-08:00

Close-up of George sporting a handle bar mustache.

Elders Mississippi Conference May 28, 1906

Back Row - W.H. Hopkins, D. Gourley, R.M. Jyppson, W.N. Wignall, D. Powell, W. G. Hopkins,
O.R. Williams, C. Jenks, W.A.H. Hatch, L.W. Woolsey,
Middle Row - B.M. Crump, J.E.Gurler, D. Rowley, L.R. Baker, Pres. E.D. Buchanan, G.S. Kennington, G. Berry
Front Row - D. Smith, C. Lilyinquist, J. Jepsen

According to Wickipedia, there were 1018 members in the Mississippi Conference in 1906. Anyone know of a mission journal or other surviving artifacts from this period of George's life?

George Seward Kennington and Martha Emma Weber

2010-11-19T16:08:00.001-08:00

George Seward Kennington and Ada Caroline Kimball

2010-11-19T16:06:00.001-08:00

The Charles Weber Family

2010-11-07T06:21:00.000-08:00

Charles and Johanna Weber and their family
In birth order: Elvera, Herbert, Elaine, Ardyth and Myrna, not shown, born in 1930.

Martha Weber Kennington wrote of her older brother:

"Charles Samuel, the brother who did so much to help me through the years. It was wonderful, the easy manner of his death. But it made the void all the more deep and lasting.
How I enjoyed him and Aunt Joan, his lovely wife, and family. Naturally since death is inevitable for all of us, one day all of us will be called to answer the final summons. May we all be as ready as he was. He chafed at inactivity. Unless he could accomplish something with his hands, life did not seem worthwhile to him. Even though he was aware of the happiness he shared with his family and sisters- work and lots of it seemed the only thing that made life seem worthwhile.
So even though there is happiness in the sweet memories of places and events we went with him, we miss him.
It was wonderful how rich and full he made his life and unselfishly did all he could to help others. Aunt Lena and I are witnesses and recipients to his out giving generosity and kindness..."
Martha Kennington 1959

Star Valley Historical Society

2010-10-21T08:36:00.000-07:00

Take a look at the Star Valley Historical Society site. It's fantastic with lots of labeled photos and histories etc.

Many of Kennington and Weber photos are there too. But more little treasures are tucked in old envelopes, drawers and files.

It wouldn't hurt us all to look in our own family collections and donate electronic copies pertaining to Star Valley. It's a great resource literally at our finger-tips.

South Afton Sunday School 1929

2010-10-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

"Compliments to Mothers
South Afton Sunday School
Mother's Day 1929"

What a great photo! Another slice of life for the Kennington family. You'll want to pull your magnifying glass out for this one.

George, who was serving as Bishop, is second from the left with Garth next to him in a striped tie.
Audine and Forrest are on the front row right above the "SOU" in "South". She has her hands clasped and he is in a dark sweater with a white shirt.
Gwen is directly above Forrest 4 rows with her head cocked to our right.
Cliss and Berniece are to her right - same row (on the left of the pillar).
Bev is right below them and looks just like Audine, only bigger.
Is that Gordon on the left of Garth - dark hair parted in the middle? If not, how about the boy over the top of the little boy in the bow tie on the front row - barely forehead and eyes showing.The little boy above Forrest in the checked sweater is dressed in a simular way to Forrest ; could that be Gordon? Any one able to help with that? Maybe Jeri can look?
I couldn't find Martha, then it dawned on me that she would have been home with the new baby, Craig, just a few weeks old.

George Seward Kennington in his younger years

2010-10-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

George Seward Kennington at the time of his mission to the Southern States. The caption on the lower photo says that it was taken after a bout of malaria and when his mother saw how gaunt and thin he looked, she cried. He seems thinner in the upper photo to me...anyone have an idea?

Update, Nov 6: Talked with Dorothy (Mom) this weekend and she remembered the pre-malaria picture to be below (leaning on his hand) and the post-malaria photo to be in the oval frame above where he is so much thinner.

Date unknown, but he seems in his 30's or 40's.
The hair has changed a little, from Missionary times, and his face looks older.
Anyone know more?

George S. Kennington farming

2010-10-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

From Maude R.'s photo album with her caption. Forrest had reproduced this photo.

"George Kennington Farm" written in Aunt Cliss's hand.
In Forrest's hand below, "North of Afton about 1935"

Burton Store & Afton reunion

2010-09-26T16:13:00.000-07:00

George Kennington "tending store" at the Burton Store Branch at Freedom. There he met Ada Kimball, his first wife, standing to the left.

Back row l-r: Dorothy, Forrest, Art, Gordon, Craig, Gene. Seated l-r: Gwen, Cliss, Carol. Audine, Helen, Colleen.

Children of George, Ada, and Martha with their spouses gather in Afton during the 1990's at a Reunion.

A Fine Spring Day

2010-09-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Standing left to right : Molly K. Lowe, Jen L. Gardner, Ida K. Jensen, Martha W. Kennington. Seated: Mary C. Lowe.

At family get together - two sisters, a sister in law, and two nieces - perhaps somewhere on the west side of the valley? My guess on the date is sometime around 1918 when Jen became a Gardner and Mary Call became a Lowe. Martha would have been married about 5 years.

I have a cute story on Jen. When she was elderly and in the care facility in Afton, we visited. She was questioning why she was still there, why she couldn't pass on. I patted her hand and said, "Well Jen, it's probably your genes." She gave me a look and said, "Jeans? Jeans? I can still fit in my Jeans!"
Jen was quite the character. Von told me about her sitting on her porch shooting the coyotes off the hill behind her house as an old woman. That's spunk!

Brigham City Reunion

2010-09-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the great reunion! The setting was beautiful; Peach Days were fun. We enjoyed getting together with cousins and Gene, Colleen, and Dorothy - missed those who couldn't make it and hope to see them next time. Little kids keep growing up!

Mike and I tallied up a rough estimate on the way home and believe there were about 75 folks there.

The next reunion is in Star Valley in 2012.

We're building a contact file with name, phone number, email and physical addresses for all cousins. If you'd like to put your name in (and any part of the information) please email me at kkhamblin@gmail.com. It'll be kept confidential and only dispersed to family.

Thanks again for all the effort getting us together.

On the porch of the Red Brick House

2010-09-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

Front Row: Gene, Ruth Craig, Clarice, George. Back Row: Grandma Martha, Bev, Cliss, Gwen, Garth.

Family life paused for a moment on the porch of the red brick house. Here we see a slice of the Kennington world around the time their father, George passed away.

Bev was probably still in high school, Cliss was married with two kids, Gwen and Garth were attending college, and Grandma Kennington must have wondered what the future held in store for her family.

It reminds me that the houses aren't the important part of life; the family is the lasting thing.

Pres. Kimball said: "It is important for us to cultivate in our own family a sense that we belong together eternally, that whatever changes outside our home, there are fundamental aspects of our relationship which will never change." (CR October 1974, pg. 61)

By the way, does anyone know of a picture of the whole family together before George passed away? That would be neat to see.

The Old Kennington Home... Then and Now

2010-09-04T09:12:00.001-07:00

Photos courtesy of Clarissa Kennington Merritt (Top) and Grosjean Photography (Bottom)

A couple of views of the old red brick home on the north side of Swift Creek. The George Kennington family traded over to this acreage about 1930. They lived there until 1943. George's brother-in-law, Oz Low built the house and is shown with his children in the upper photo. The Valley's own Burger King now sits just next door to the south.

Reunion Reminder

2010-09-01T06:52:00.001-07:00

Peach Days are coming to Brigham City and so are the Kenningtons!

Hope you're all planning on the George Kennington Reunion on the 11th.

Our family is excited to see everyone, catch up on the news and enjoy the festivities.

A.R. Kennington Family about 60 years ago

2010-08-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

A. R. Kennington Family

2010-08-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

Alonzo Richard Kennington Family

These kids were first cousins to the George Kennington family. We thank a cousin for sending it in. There's another great photo when these kids are adults - about 1955 or so. We'll get that out next time.

Forrest Kennington

2010-08-10T05:49:00.001-07:00

Forrest Weber Kennington
1923-2000

Forrest's birthday is today. It seems fitting that we take a moment to honor his memory.

His thoughts on families: "During the depression when our parents were having a hard time providing the food, clothing and services that they wanted for their children, my dad, George Seward Kennington, and I were fixing fence to the west of the house. I made the remark that I didn't think I would get married and have a family. He listened to me and then took exception to what I said. He stated that a family was our sole purpose for being on earth; that we should raise another generation, hopefully better than we were. That was our main purpose here in life! That made a lasting impression on me."
"At the time I received the farm in Tulelake, people were going around asking the new homesteaders what they planned on raising on their farms. The expected answer was potatoes, onions, sugar beets, or some such thing. I told Mrs. Cushman that I was going to get a wife and raise children..."
"I have appreciated the opportunities to serve both in the family and out. Any that we have given out, we have been blessed many times over for having done so. The blessings that have come to me have been far more than I deserve --my wife, family and finances. I don't know what lies ahead, but it has been a ball so far and I thank my Heavenly Father for it."

A History of Star Valley 1800-1900

2010-07-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

For those of you who asked about the Star Valley Book, my mother said she shipped the last of them to Hastings Gift Store P.O. Box 1710 Afton, Wyo 83110 (307 -886- 3503).

We wrote it in 1989 and now the 3rd printing is sold out. I think there are about 3,000 books floating around. The first edition had a gray cover with red printing. On the second, we changed to the buff and brown cover. The last edition has a real nice shiny finish on the cover.

When you're looking at boxes of inventory sitting in the closet, you wonder if it will ever sell or if you will end up papering the walls with it. We are very grateful that people took an interest and seem to enjoy it.

Writing the book took a couple of years. Dad always maintained that it was important to commit the stories and events to paper while first hand accounts were available. It wasn't an easy task. He had the idea, expertise, really valued history and loved the Valley. He knew the "nuts and bolts" side of farming and ranching, machinery, geology, archaeology, etc. I did a little writing and drawing, so I said sure, I'd help. The first draft, (I thought it was the finished product) amounted to a glossary of place names and a detailed time line dealing with about 100 years of Star Valley's history and the various accounts available in other books, etc. I showed it to our cousin Ron who is now a rather famous historian. He read through and said, "It's a great outline, but where is the story?" I sighed and went back to the drawing board.

We must thank Mom who always supported us in the project. She has been the accountant for the past 20 years. Dad and I were lucky she kept such accurate records.

By the way, the high school taught Star Valley history from our book a few years back. The instructor told me that more copies of the book seemed to get "lost" at the end of the semester than any book she'd ever seen. I take that as a compliment.

Joseph/Josiah Kimber, the Mystery Man

2010-07-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

Hunted up the Joseph Kimber file, (the step father of Annie Rebecca Seward). Unfortunately the program it was written in is now just code on my Macbook - I know I could do the tech updates - but.... here is the old 1997 research in all it's glory - including cutting off Joseph Kimber's name on the title page - sorry-

Several important things to remember about this man: First, he married Esther Frewin and became Annie's step father fairly early in her life, maybe she was as young as 10 when her mother married. So apart from her Grandfather Frewin, Joseph Kimber may have had more influence on Annie than any other father figure. It's a bit of a mystery why he wasn't mentioned more, but we need to remember that he died shortly after Annie's marriage, so grandkids would only remember the Esther's 3rd husband, Henry Hancock.

Second, Joseph appears to have been serious about his testimony. He took an active part in the early church affairs in his area and was a Presiding Elder. He bore testimony of the gospel to a young man who worked on the same farm, named Henry Ballard. Ballard became one of the early settlers in Logan and a driving force for the gospel. Ballard has several well documented spiritual experiences and kept a journal (lucky for us). The book, Henry Ballard: The Story of a Courageous Pioneer, by Douglas Crookston (ISBN 0-87579-889-6) has several Kimber/Frewin connections.

Third, Joseph, Esther and Annie, emigrated together as shown on the Amazon's ship log from the Mormon Immigration Index (see 2nd document). Why he doesn't show up with them on the trail over is a bit of a mystery, but he may have been driving cattle, etc. That's an area which needs more research.

Fourth and most important, he's a bit of a mystery man in the family department. He shows up as married to Ann Frewin, Esther's sister, on the early F.G. Sheets. Anyone explanation? She was born in 1816 and appears to have died in 1836. Next we find him married to a Mary Ann Owen in 1844. They have one son, Joseph Hirum, on the 1851 census. But there may be more children. The Cold Ash Parish Burial Record has three unaccounted Kimber children buried during this time: Edwin, infant buried 14 Aug. 1844; Ann, infant, buried 9 Oct 1848 and Elizabeth, 6, buried 3 July 1851. Even if their parents were Mormons, the children still might be registered and buried in the church yard. Since more information is now available, it would be good to search out the rest of his family. He and Esther were married in 1852. So they lived another 10 years or so in the area before leaving for America. They spent more time together than with either of their other spouses.

The email came from a relative, Betty, whose Frewin ancestors landed in New Zealand. Our side of the family had to suffer cold winters for religion:)

Again, I apologize for the roughness of the scanned text, but it's just a draft and can certainly be improved upon.

If anyone has info they'd like to share on this, please leave a comment or send it to my email at kkhamblin@gmail.com.

Annie Rebecca- Schoolteacher

2010-07-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

Going through an old scrapbook or mine, I found this 1960's article about Annie Rebecca being the first woman school teacher in Star Valley. (She is William Henry Kennington's Wife)

Several facts I had forgotten about. It looks like the log school house was located on the same block where the current elementary is in Afton. Anyone know any different?

I see that the error of her coming with only her widowed mother is perpetuated here. Actually Josiah/Joseph Kimber was her stepfather at that time. It's time we had his history. I'll publish it next time.

Also interesting about Charles Dickens and Nick Wilson. The facts do check out - Dickens lived on the same street where she worked for a pawn broker. He even visited the ship she emigrated on and wrote an article about the Mormons. He had daughters about her age. Wonder if she was just a curiosity or if he actually knew her enough to have conversations, etc. Nick Wilson was an adult with a family when they and the Kenningtons all lived in Ovid. They're on the census records. If you haven't read the Little White Indian Boy by Nick Wilson and E.N. Driggs, you'd enjoy it.

Why is history always more colorful and mysterious after 100 years?

Weber Reunion

2010-07-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

The reunion was great! Lots of information shared, a great copy of the portrait of Samuel and Verena was available - I'd never seen it in color - so that's a treat.

They compiled a history in the first person about each of the original family and had a descendant present it while photos were being shown. All that material and more is on a CD or DVD. They may have more. Contact Judy: judy@legacyfundingusa.com for details.

The Webers went to a lot of work and really made a nice day for the rest of us. Thanks Gerry and Judy!

Talk turned to Schmiedrued and the subject snowballed into a trip in 2013 if anyone is interested. Don't know details or have things organized yet, but ideas are hatching. There are a few photos farther back showing the area- it'd be a fantastic trip - especially with cousins.

Address for Weber Reunion Sat.

2010-06-21T21:25:00.000-07:00

Cobble Creek Stake Center
8150 S. Grizzle Way (5410 W.)
West Jordan, Utah

Time: 10 a.m. Historical presentation in chapel with a power point presentation then to the cultural hall for lunch.

Please bring a salad, main dish or dessert, enough to feed 12-15 people. Ham and Rolls will be furnished.

CDs and other things will be available. If you have family artifacts to display there will be a place.

Hope to see some family there!

WEBER REUNION JUNE 26TH

2010-06-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

A fast heads up for all Weber cousins-

The reunion has been changed from Freedom to West Jordan - same day- just different location because of travel issues for the balance of those folks wanting to come.

Jerry and Judy W. still ask everyone to bring artifacts for the display table and copies or discs to share information you may have. They say there will be material from the 1975 Weber history book, improved photos, etc. For lunch we're also asked to bring a pot luck dish.

We'll post their email reminder as soon as it arrives. Otherwise I bet you could give them a call to get on the mailing list.

It should be a great opportunity to meet some Weber cousins and make new connections for family history work. Hope to see you there!

Richard Kennington Probate Records, 1881

2010-05-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

Before the Bear Lake and Star Valley chapters in the Kennington family, there was Richard and Mary Ann's experience in Tooele. Above is a copy of Richard's probate record as they settled his estate in 1881. He was born Oct. 18, 1804 in Louth, England and passed away Oct 12, 1879 in Tooele.

Because Richard and Mary Ann crossed the Plains as handcart pioneers in 1856, it's easy for us to see what they came with, but hard to say what all they left behind in England. Probate gives us a glimpse of what they accumulated in Utah.

Tooele was a common place for new folks to settle. In 1860 the Kenningtons had a home and lot in the old fort part of Tooele. They were with folks they knew in England such as the Atkins who had a part in the Kennington conversion. The Lee family's children were raised with the Kennington kids in Tooele, went on to the Bear Lake area together and eventually married.

Richard was a butcher in Tooele. The story told by Uncle Bert Kennington in 1953 is a gem:
"Richard continued in the trade of butchering for about 5 years [after coming to Utah], then being too old to continue longer, went back to raising vegetables for a livelihood. In his profession of butchering, he would take orders for work to be done, then travel from house to house filling his assignments. One Saturday night he lacked two orders of getting his week's work completed. Sunday morning, rather than break his promise and inconvenience a customer, he butchered the two remaining pigs. Upon his arrival home, the Ward teachers came and bluntly informed him he would have to make a public confession and ask forgiveness for breaking the Sabbath. His answer was that all he had to do was pay taxes and die. This led to his being disfranchized [sic] from the church."

Back to the probate. It shows a few things:
1. Mary Ann signed with her mark. She was either ill and unable to write or she hadn't learned and they address her as Mary, not Mary Ann.
2. Richard and Mary Ann still had their daughters and extended family in the area to help them. Sarah Jane was married to David Adamson. Eliza married John England. Mary Ann married Samuel Armatage.
3. Son William Henry and his wife, Annie Rebecca were in the Bear Lake area with their family. 4. Dick, the bachelor uncle, may have been with his mother during this time. We know he eventually ended up with William in Star Valley. Does anyone remember the story?
5. The personal estate inventory is extremely modest compared to today's standards, but it is very typical of inventories ranging back 200 years in both the United States and England.

Please feel free to leave comments or add information. I think the off button had been on. Sorry if you've tried to leave a comment. By the way, photos of Richard and Mary Ann Kennington are back a few posts.

The Afton Town Layout

2010-05-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

Again from the Star Valley book, here is our drawing of Afton's layout. It may help you get your bearings on the photos. Remember that Jenks had climbed the east hills to get a good aerial view of the new town. The cemetery wasn't in place. The William Henry Kennington homes and sheds are on the block between Jefferson and Madison along 6th Avenue. The barn would eventually be built south of 6th Avenue. I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the farm ground ran down to Washington.

Jenks' Photo of Afton from Star Hill

2010-05-16T19:16:00.000-07:00

Another Jenks' photo - this one taken from Star Hill with Gardner's Mill at the bottom of the photo. This is the road up Swift Creek. Certainly changes from then till now. I see a big difference in the trees for one thing. They don't seem so thick along the creek. Obviously the town has filled in over the past 120 years. Dirt roads must have been a mess in the spring. (I drive one to work each day and during wet weather I come home looking like I've been mud bogging). The Kennington place is just off the picture to the left. If you follow the creek to the west you can see where the red brick Kennington home would be built on the north side of the creek and the west side of the main street.

We'd love to read comments from anyone with more information or thoughts. I wonder if there isn't a box full of Jenks' glass negatives in an attic or the back of an Idaho museum somewhere. I'd love to see his work made into a book. Anyone know the Jenks family?

From Maude's photo album

2010-05-09T16:38:00.001-07:00

Here's a look at the little home of Annie Rebecca which is on the west end of the block in the Jenks' photo. Forrest photographed this from Maude Ranzenberg's album. She had everything labeled.

A story about the old house from Forrest: Apparently there was an addition between the kitchen and another room. Over time the house settled and there was a gap in the floors. One of the family members lost a silver dollar down the gap and was unable to recover it. So they told the rest of the family and when the little home was demolished a generation later, the dollar was recovered and returned to it's original owner.

Bert was Annie's youngest son. He was a tall man - especially compared with his petite mother. Esther's mother, Annie's daughter, had passed away and Esther was raised by Annie. By the way, Esther was also a school teacher, as was Maude. They followed in their grandmother's footsteps.

The Jenks Photograph of the Kennington Place

2010-05-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

Jenks was a photographer from Montpelier, Idaho. He apparently traveled around the region marketing photos of the ranches and farms. Here is his aerial view of early Afton.

This one is taken from the slope above Graveyard Canyon before the ground was broken for the Stake Tabernacle. The Kennington place is on the lower right. You can see the two homes on either end of the block. The sheds are about half way between the houses. Looks like lumber for the barn is being stockpiled across the road to the south. If you look close, you can see the original little cabin. There's more about these photos in our book, A History of Star Valley, 1800-1900. We put a drawing in there labeling the streets and buildings as far as we knew them.

This picture came courtesy of the Star Valley Historical Society, which is a great resource for old photographs. We would never wish a hospital visit on anyone, but a trip to the halls of the Star Valley Hospital is a real treat because of all the S.V.H.S. photos on display. They are building a fine collection.

William Henry Kennington barn and old cabin on Afton place

2010-04-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

William Henry Kennington moved his families to Star Valley in about 1885. He took up land at the mouth of a small canyon on the east of the Upper Valley. His history is well documented. He raised a large family and instilled a solid value system in the children. Their descendants are spread far and wide.

When one of his sons died suddenly, he buried the boy at the southeast corner of the homestead; the land became the Afton Cemetery - and Graveyard Canyon took its name. The National Guard Armory sits on the northeast portion. Homes occupy the potato patch on the east, and the old barnyard. The old fairgrounds and now the hospital and nursing home are on the south west corner.

If William Henry hadn't donated the cemetery ground, the whole land usage in that area might have been different, perhaps industrial instead of residential. Luckily we can still have a good idea of what the Kenningtons saw 100 years ago as they settled the valley.

William Henry Kennington Reunion abt. 1915

2010-04-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

Since we're getting ready for family reunions, I thought you might enjoy a look at one of the early Kennington reunions. Unfortunately there's no label on the back, but it looks like somewhere up Swift Creek or Grey's River about 1910-25. They're in a stand of thick timber, so probably up a canyon, but not so far that they would miss chores for long.... Anyone know where? Maybe the South End or West hills?
The ladies on the right were the aunts - maybe Molly and Belle? Everyone looks ready to rough it. I would guess the plucky little gal with her hands on her hips in the middle would be Maude K. Ranzenberg.

The George Kennington reunion in Brigham City and the big Weber one in South Jordan (moved from Freedom) will be outfitted a little differently. We'll all look pretty polished compared to this group, but important things will remain the same.

Getting re-acquainted with family is great. We will miss the ones who have passed on and enjoy seeing the new arrivals. The little kids will be running around laughing, the moms will be supervising the food, the dads will relax and visit, and the teenagers will be wishing they could get back to their friends - unless other cousins bring really "interesting" friends with them. Most importantly, we will reaffirm the fact that we are all part of an eternal family. See you this summer!

The George Kennington Children

2010-04-18T19:34:00.000-07:00

The day of their mother's funeral, March 24, 1960, her family gatherd at Aunt Cliss' for a family photo. It's the only photo of all George's surviving children together that I know of.

What a great group of people. They were so nurturing to all the nieces and nephews such a secure feeling to be cared about by so many aunts and uncles. I believe there are about 35 grandchildren.

From my perspective as a middle grandchild, each aunt and uncle had a speciality which could let us survive in our own little world (mine was a deserted island). Aunt Ruth could take care of the doctoring, Uncles Gene and Craig, Aunts Audine, Gwen and Berniece could make sure we were educated. Uncle Forrest (Dad) could grow the food and build the houses. Uncle Arth could cut our hair, Uncle Oz could build all the water works, and Uncle Tilman the vehicles. Aunt Bev could fix the phones, Uncle Gordon our feet, Uncle Garth our college education and Aunt Cliss could supervise us all. The other aunts and uncles were great moms and dads - important rolls in little kids' lives.

What wide diversity! It reflected the opportunities and interests of the family. They accomplished so much in the face of the Depression, the death of their father, limited economic opportunities and WWII. They set the mark. They have (and are still) giving us a wonderful legacy. Thank You!

Attention Kennington/Weber Folks

2010-03-22T07:26:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't get in on the mass emailing, here is a reunion announcement:

Dear Family Member

Many, but not all, have heard from me before. I am Gerry Weber, Jr., oldest grandson of Fred & Hazel Weber. I (with the help of many others) am organizing a family reunion for all of the descendants of Samuel & Verena that I can find. I knew that just finding as many descendents as I could would be a formidable task but I had no idea how much work it was really going to be. My best estimate is that there are over 1500 households & over 7000 living descendants.

It will be fun to get acquainted with such a large family. It will also be wonderful if everyone would bring histories, photos, and any artifacts to display. It would be wonderful if those who have computer skills would put all of their photos & histories on CDs & make extra copies to share.

We intend to present a history of Samuel & Verena, their early lives, conversion, journey to America and much of the early history of Freedom & the family. This has been gathered by Jolynn Barneck, granddaughter of Lena & Willie Jenkins.

The best option to feed the large crowd that we are anticipating is to ask everyone to bring a main dish, salad or dessert to feed 12 – 15 people. That way the cost and work can be evenly spread to everyone.

Following our family presentation, we will serve lunch in the Cultural Hall, enjoy visiting and viewing pictures etc. Tables will be set up for displays. Then we will travel the short distance to the cemetery and gather around Samuel and Verena’s gravesites for a short service.

Please bring your families and join us in beautiful Star Valley June 26, 2010. We hope it will be an enjoyable and informative event, and that we will gain a greater perspective and understanding of our Weber Family history. The younger generations may not be thoroughly aware of their heritage, and this will be a good opportunity for them to see and hear where we come from.

As you receive this email be aware that I have probably included only about 1/3 of the descendents of Samuel & Verena. Would each of you forward this email to all of your family members? It would be better for all to receive it twice than not at all. I am sure that there are typos in much of my data entering & obsolete information as well. If each family would reply to this email with correct & current information on themselves it would be appreciated. This is especially true of those who receive this from a family member rather that directly from me. I am interested in name, pedigree, address, phone # & especially email address.

If there is enough interest it would be great if we could establish a web page or blog for Samuel & Verena’s extended family. That way everyone could add to it & get other information they don’t have.

I am excited about this reunion and hope to see as many of you there as possible. I think it will be great to be together and establish connections that we may be able to maintain in the future.

Sincerely,

Your Cousin,

Gerry Weber

A Pioneer Day Celebration

2010-03-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

Update: October 10, 2010: Just found a full shot of the float photo. The back is captioned: L-R: Hary Hale [?] , ____Moffit ?, Annie Rebecca Seward Kennington, unknown, Elizabeth Lee Kennington in striped top, _____Anderson [in flowered top], unknown with baby, Eliza Ann Lee Hale, sister to Elizabeth K, in black top, ___Moffit right of curtain, unknown, unknown. Standing: Mother Hill, unknown girl, ____Cazier.
This 24th of July photo gives us a glimpse of our grandmothers' world. Annie Rebecca and Elizabeth Ann are 2nd and 4th from the left. Elizabeth's sister is second from the right. They resemble each other.

This photo is interesting on several levels:

First, it illustrates what 24th of July decorations looked like around the turn of the century: lots of fabric tacked on to a farm wagon or bowery stand of some sort. Enlarge the photo and look at the framework of rough cut lumber which has been tacked together. Annie and Elizabeth both died before 1920. Here they still look vigorous, but older, so I would guess it's taken around 1905-plus or minus a few years.
Second, the older women in the photo represent the first wave of settlers into Star Valley in the 1880's. The mix of ages may point to something to do with the Relief Society organization. The younger woman holding a baby on the front row makes it look like an presidency of some kind. Maybe someone out there could fill us in on the details.
Third, their clothing indicates that a degree of prosperity had come to the area and commodities (fabric and notions) were easier to get. They are dressed up for the occasion. I wonder how hot some of the older women were in their dark colors and several layers. July in Star Valley is the time to begin haying and harvesting the gardens. It's usually warm, dry and dusty with a wonderful scent of pine in the air.
Lastly, the body language seems to indicate that all the women are comfortable with each other. You can almost hear the photographer telling them to get closer so he can get everyone in.

If anyone has observations or comments on the photo or who the other ladies are in it, please contact us. We'd love to know more.

Richard Kennington (Uncle Dick)

2010-03-07T18:06:00.001-08:00

Also Elizabeth?

2010-03-07T18:04:00.001-08:00

Elizabeth Ann Lee Bracken Kennington

2010-03-07T18:02:00.001-08:00

Ann(Annie) Rebecca Seward Kennington

2010-03-07T17:51:00.001-08:00

William Henry Kennington

2010-03-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

Richard and Mary Ann Davison Kennington

2010-03-07T17:30:00.000-08:00

Had a request for photos, so I dug through the file.
These pictures are courtesy of Uncle Ira, who was the youngest son of William Henry and Elizabeth Lee Bracken Kennington. If I remember the story right he had them colored and framed. They were passed on to his son Emenson and now are with a grand-daughter. Apparently Richard's picture was damaged and taken from the frame. Or the more I look at it, I wonder if it isn't a different photo? Mary Ann's picture is still matted and framed. I cropped the frame off because only parts showed.

Looking for Census Records in England

2010-01-10T20:31:00.000-08:00

The Kenningtons seemed to be missing from the 1851 Census Records - couldn't find them anywhere and tried several variations until I happened upon "Hennington." And there they were!

Seems that either the informant had a heavy accent" 'ennington" or the recorder was a little hard of hearing. Maybe Mary Ann, who was likely the informant, had a thick accent. Would it be Scottish or English??

Annie Rebecca Seward and Elizabeth Ann Lee Bracken

2008-09-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

Photo: William Henry Kennington and wife, Annie Rebecca Seward Kennington. Date unknown.
Source: One of the Bracken grandsons found this photo in his mother's things. He was a retired railroader when we (Kathy) met him in Green River, Wyo. in the 1970's and then again in Utah a few years later where we were in the same ward. He gave us the photo in about 1980. He assumed it had been given to his parents by the Kenningtons.
I enhanced the color a bit when downloading it for this blog but did not photoshop the marks out of it.
While not the most flattering photo of Annie Rebecca, it does show her petite size, her hair slicked back with the perfumed chicken oil and a certain weariness which comes from everyday life. Their clothes reflect their situation in life - homesteading in a new area without the luxury of stores, etc.
The fact that Mr. Bracken's parents had the photo in their things indicates to me a cordial relationship within the family (William Henry Kennington was their step father ).

Note: Take the following article with a note of caution. It's written from the viewpoint of grandaughters recalling what they remembered of their grandmother's life.
Actually, Annie's mother married Joseph or Josiah Kimber in England and they all emigrated. Unfortunately Kimber does not show up on the Emigrant Schedule with Annie and her mother. To complicate the picture further, her mother is not listed as Kimber on the schedule but as Seward. Further research needs to be done to find out why. Maybe he was herding cattle across or driving oxen with another unrecorded group.
Joseph died of asthma in Tooele shortly after Annie and William were married in 1865. His death notice is in the Millenial Star.
He was a widower before he married Annie's mother and more work needs done for his wife and children. Joseph served as a branch president in England and introduced Melvin J. Ballard's father to the gospel when he was a young man working on the same farm. He needs far more credit than has been given him. We'll put his history out there soon.

There is also an Annie Rebecca Seward history supposedly written by her located in the DUP Archives. Take that with a grain of salt. I believe it was written for some play or program in the first person, but by one of the granddaughters. The wording seems uncharacteristically casual for her. Perhaps someone knows a little about the article and could fill us in.
Thanks - Kathy

A HISTORY OF ANNIE REBECCA KENNINGTON,
According to her children, her daughters-in-law Isabell and Ida, and granddaughters Esther Crook and Jenny Gardner

Annie Rebecca Seward was born August 22, 1841, at Newberry, Berkshire, England. She was the only child of George and Esther Sarah Frewin Seward.

Her father was a “Wheel Wright,” whose occupation is to make or repair wheels and wheeled vehicles. He died when Annie was very young.

While Annie’s mother went out to work as a governess, Annie stayed with her rich aunts Gussie and Rebecca. They taught Annie music lessons on the piano, and for one term at least she was sent to a girl’s school in France. When she started school she went continually for 14 years and then she was through.

When Annie was a young lady some LDS missionaries converted her and her mother to the Mormon Church and they decided to come to America.

The rich aunts gave a little farewell party for them. Annie’s friends gave her 17 little tea aprons and two sets of salt shakers. (Maud K. Ranzenberg, a granddaughter, is the proud possessor of said salt shakers now.) These aprons weren’t much protection coming across the plains, but they were used to trim many hats in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming later on.

After a long ocean voyage Annie and her mother landed in Halifax, Canada, and then took a train to Council Bluffs, Iowa (this was during the Civil War). Here they met William Henry Kennington and rode to Utah in his wagon which was pulled by an ox team. They were in the Rosel Hyde Company and got to Utah October 13, 1863.

They settled in Tooele, Utah, where Annie went to work for Bishop Roeberry as a hired girl. It wasn’t too pleasant here because Mrs. Roeberry was very suspicious of Annie. She thought maybe her husband wanted Annie for his second wife.

On April 1, 1865, Annie married William Henry Kennington in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. (See her husband’s history for story of her family life.)

On October 26, 1879, the first Primary in Liberty, Idaho, was organized. Annie Seward Kennington was made President and served until January 11, 1889. Her mother was her first counselor.’’ Sara Austin of Liberty, Idaho, says of Annie, “She was a very humble, kind, unassuming woman who would not knowingly injure the character of any person. She always tried to learn the motives that prompted a misdeed. If she thought a person had any ill will toward her, she couldn’t rest until she talked with that person and everything was understood and peace again reigned.
“When her finances were low (which was often) she refrained from complaining and being resourceful would find a remedy. Many times she made shoes from heavy duck or canvas for her children.
“She had a keen sense of humor which may be verified by the following incident: She and her husband-to-be were coming to Utah with other emigrants. They were fording the Green River when the stream swerved their team and wagon out of the regular path and they were going down stream. William jumped from the wagon and swam ashore (possibly to get help). Another young man, seeing the young bride-to-be going rapidly down stream plunged in on his horse and rescued her. When they reached the bank, she laughingly remarked that “Will tried to get rid of me but couldn’t.”

She was a good penman and thorough in her secretarial work in the Liberty Relief Society.

William and the boys built a house for Annie before she moved to Star Valley. It consisted of two rooms and still stands in Afton. The boys hauled shingles from Montpelier for it.

Annie was the first Star Valley Stake Primary President. Alice J. Call was her first counselor. When Alice J. Call was called to the Star Valley Stake Relief Society Board, she chose Annie to be counselor to her.

Annie had a little black buggy and a nice horse called Nell to take her visiting around the stake. In winter she traveled by team and sleigh and usually one of the boys drove for her.

Jenny Gardner says: “Grandmother wasn’t much of a horsewoman. If Old Nell hadn’t gone along the way she was supposed to, like as not Grandmother wouldn’t have got to all her meetings. One time she went somewhere with the team and wagon. She couldn’t turn around so she cramped the wagon, tied the lines to the spring seat and walked home.”

Alonzo says: “Once George and I had to use the good harnesses for work in the canyon so we put the old harness on the team for mother, Alice Call and Mary Gardner. They were going to visit the Relief Society in Dry Creek or somewhere. There was only one line on the old harness so Gov and I got a long piece of bed cord and tied it on for the other line. We tied the team to the fence and slipped off to the canyon.

“When we got home I don’t believe I ever saw mother so mad. She said, ‘That old harness, and to think that Alice and Mary were riding with me, too.’”

Annie, Mary Gardner, and Johanna Cook were very good friends. They spent one afternoon a week with each other. This afternoon they visited Wilhelmina Limberg Cook, daughter-in-law of Johanna Cook. This day they were served home-made root beer with a raisin in each bottle. That afternoon Annie, Mary and Johanna didn’t remember getting home. Jenny and Esther laughed and laughed and kept it a secret for 40 years.

During the first Uinta County Fair held in Star Valley (1908), Annie fell down the stairs in the old school house and broke several ribs. She had been upstairs to see the art exhibit.

She felt very badly when William married again. She didn’t dislike Elizabeth Ann---she just hated to share him with another woman. But Annie and Elizabeth Ann got along very well. They took care of each other in times of sickness.

William had supper, breakfast and dinner with one family, and spent the night. Then he had the next three meals and spent the night with the other family. The best food was always saved to eat when William was with them.

Annie was small. Her average weight was 100 pounds. She was sociable and always visited her neighbors and the sick. She parted her hair in the middle and kept it in place with perfumed chicken oil.

When she milked the family cow, she took a pie tin with salt in it. Then she just had to call the cow, who came a’bucking to get the salt and be milked. She didn’t take to sewing. If she was making an apron and it had any little extra fancy pieces she would say, “Well, we don’t need that,” and she would throw it away.

When her oldest daughter, Annie Esther Kennington Matthews, died and left a new baby, she took it and raised it. The baby is Sarah Esther Matthews Crook of Fairview, Wyoming.

William’s brother Richard lived with William and Annie for many years.

Annie taught school in Ovid, Idaho and Afton, Wyoming. She taught during the summer with Martha Barrus in a two-room log school house in Afton.

The following is taken from the paper when Annie died in Afton, Wyoming, November 19, 1916:

“After a long and useful life she died as she lived---honored, trusted, and loved. She reared her own monument while she lived in the hearts of all who knew her. Her life was completed, her work all done and well done, constitutes completion. Her life in her church work, was beautiful, and through all the vicissitudes and sorrows that she met on the way, her faith in God never wavered. She was very fond of children and was a great and active worker in the Primary.

A HISTORY OF ELIZABETH ANN LEE BRACKEN KENNINGTON,
Second Wife of William Henry Kennington, as told by her sons Ira and Albert Kennington

Elizabeth Ann Lee was the daughter of Isaac Lee and Julia Ann Chapman. She was born on November 20, 1848 at Nauvoo, Illinois. Her parents were moving westward toward Utah with the Saints. They had three little daughters, Maryetta, Elizabeth Ann and Eliza Ann.

Early in the summer this family started for Utah. It was 1852. They were out on the plains of Nebraska a few days travel when Julia Ann Chapman passed away. This happened on July 10, 1852, at Loup Fork Camp, which is on a branch of the Platte River.

Grandmother’s death left grandfather with three small daughters, and Elizabeth Ann was a few months less than four years old.

We are of the opinion that this group of emigrants were using mostly handcarts; probably some oxen and some mules were also used. (The organized hand cart companies came across the plains in 1856.)

They arrived in Utah in the fall of 1852 and settled in Tooele where her father operated a saw mill and a shingle mill.

Elizabeth grew up to womanhood in Tooele where she attended the schools that were available and the church organizations of the ward in which she took part.

She also learned the domestic arts and sciences as she was very skilled in cooking of all kinds, knitting and crocheting. She was very often asked to assist in nursing when new babies were born in town, also to help make clothing for the dead, etc.

Elizabeth Ann married Aaron Bracken in Tooele, Utah in 1866. Their first two children, Mariette and Aaron Franklin, were born in Tooele.

In 1870 this young couple with several other young couples moved to Liberty, Idaho, where there were more opportunities to make a good living.

Here at Liberty their next two children were born, Isaac and Hannah Bell, but sorrow came to their home as their two baby girls had to leave in death, and on July 12, 1874, her husband died from injuries received a few days previous while logging in the canyon.

It would seem that the Lord was unkind to this woman, with all the hardships of her childhood and early life and in a new and unsettled country. She was separated from her children and companion, left alone with no home and no money, with two children, but she never for one moment lost faith in the Lord or the truthfulness of the Gospel which she loved and worked so hard for.

Now she married William Henry Kennington as his second wife.

Upon the arrival of her family into Star Valley, their home was a two room log house on William’s homestead on the south side of the canal about midway between the east and west lines on the north side of the homestead.

All the furniture she had was what William had made excepting the little iron stove which had four lids and a small oven.

She and her family lived here until about 1896 when William built the new house on lot 4 of block 27 of Afton. Most of the lumber for this house was furnished by Thomas Simpson, an emigrant from England whom William helped considerably when he came to Star Valley.

It was a rule in the home of Elizabeth Ann that at no time and no matter what the conditions, should anyone go away hungry---and no one ever did. She was a wonderful cook. She had to be to prepare food when so little was to be had (sometimes) for the hungry stalwart boys she had in her family.

She was a faithful worker in the Relief Society as a counselor to Harriet Cazier, who was the first Relief Society President in Afton. She had scores of quilting bees and rag carpet-making group bees and rag carpet-making groups in her home for the benefit of those needing assistance.

Albert Kennington tells this story about little Alfred: “Alfred was a little boy running barefooted up and down the garden irrigation ditches when something stung him on the instep. Father at once sent for Connie Eggleston who said she had to have some medicine from the drug store in Montpelier. Frank Bracken, half brother to Alfred, borrowed a little wild black mare from Eggleston’s and rode to Montpelier in five hours (45 miles away), got the medicine and rode back in seven hours on the same more. Alfred died before Frank was out of sight, but there was no way of stopping him.” They never did find out what bit or stung him. He was the first one buried in Afton.

Elizabeth Ann had a most generous and loving nature, a keen sense of honor and enjoyed a good joke. “A good laugh is as beneficial as a good meal,” she always said.

Hers was a never-ending life of assistance in times of need, sickness or any other occasion. A true and faithful Latter-day Saint, one of the best mothers and grandmothers who was ever permitted to fulfill that calling.

After an illness of about three years, she passed from this life of cares and labor June 8, 1913, at Afton, Wyoming, being in her 66th year.

Life Story of Martha

2008-09-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

Note: Martha was a fabulous writer and left many different articles about her life: "Story of Two Lives, no date; "Life Story of Martha Weber Kennington", 1959, and "Martha's Personal History", 1959. The last two appear to be the same piece with some minor editing and revisions with the "Life Story" being the finished product. Helen and Alyce have typed them both and made them available to the rest of us. I have gone paragraph by paragraph looking for any differences in the two. There are a few minor editing changes such as paragraph breaks, etc. Any major additions from the "Personal History" I will show in italics in the "Life Story" below. Kathy

LIFE STORY OF MARTHA WEBER KENNINGTON

MARTHA WEBER KENNINGTON
Written in 1959

The first home I knew was a little log cabin in Freedom, Wyoming, though I was born six weeks previously in Providence, Utah, the 11th child and third daughter of Swiss migrants. The home in Freedom could not have been much different from the one in Utah—two white-washed rooms, two many-paned windows. But there was a lot of land, sufficient to provide work for my brothers and two sisters.

My parents were humble, hard-working people who were willing to devote all their time and energies toward making this venture in a new land with an unfamiliar language a success, and more than all else to live the Gospel worthily among people who believed as they did. My father had worked in a mill before emigrating. Whether a flour or lumber mill we do not know, but certain it was that it was totally unfamiliar to him when confronted with ground to be cultivated and planted. That was early in the 1890’s.

Their conversion had come almost miraculously through the long illness of an older brother, their third son and fifth child. He was afflicted with what is now known as eczema. No doctor seemed to diagnose it as anything but a surface disease. As a result his condition worsened until his entire body was one solid mass of itching, running sores, his little hands encased in soft flannel mittens so he could not further injure himself.

Then came a young Elder---Mother said he looked like a young boy---and his companion as young, an Elder Arnold Schulthess of Salt Lake City. But of the two it was Elder Schulthess who impressed them. Perturbed as the young parents were, we are not sure whether their young son’s plight was obvious at once to him, or just when he explained the principle of healing. But it must have been during one of his early visits that he explained to them that the Restored Gospel which he represented had within it the principle of healing by faith. We can imagine the scene in that household, the wide-eyed children standing about and the young elder speaking with such earnest conviction—the parents so willing to believe because to them he was their last recourse after the months and weeks when doctors had vainly tried their remedies and potions on him, all to no avail. So it is small wonder that, though they knew little about any religion and as little of God, they summoned the faith within them to heal their afflicted little son. Almost immediately mother said he sank into a restful sleep. Very soon their little son was as well as he ever was.

From that incident stemmed their conversion. The young elder explaining the principles of the Gospel resulted in their migration to the new world, while the young child whose miraculous healing had resulted in their conversion had been killed in his 7th year, the result of a school accident. He was born 25 December 1880, died 28 August 1887. Two other sons, both of them infants, died before their migration. Walter, born 9 January 1883, died 26 July 1883. Another, Erwin, born 7 October 1887, lived to migrate with his parents and family to die in the new world 5 October 1888. John William was born in Switzerland and died and was buried in Providence; he was born 9 December and died January 1889.

We can imagine the scene with all these bewildered migrants and their large families of small children shepherded through the various duties by young elders who were conversant with the languages and dialects. Almost all who came from a different Canton spoke a different tongue or idiom because Switzerland, that alpine country, has no distinctive universal tongue.

It must have been almost like being near Babel to have been aboard the ship. Mother and Father with their brood of six young children: there was Eugene, he of the fine intellect and quiet manner, father of four sons and one daughter; Lena, that friendly laughing little girl who meant so much to me, mother of six girls and one son; Robert, the roistering happy boy, father of two sons and four daughters; Ida, the one who sacrificed much for everyone’s well-being, mother of four sons and five daughters; Walter, whose happiness was children and music; Erwin, named for the boy whose miraculous healing we credit our parent’s conversion, died the fall the family arrived in the valley of the mountains.

Our father, blessed with a beautiful tenor voice and an outgoing cheerful disposition, must have enjoyed the voyage more than Mother did. She was shy and retiring and the heavy responsibility of many children could have been hard on her, and probably was. She gave birth to two more sons, the John mentioned earlier and Charles Samuel, who lived to maturity. The rest of us were born in Star Valley.

Father and Mother, unacquainted with New World conditions, found it hard to adjust. Mother, an expert seamstress, found ready market for her skill among her neighbors and the stores at Logan. She and Lena attended to a sizable garden and strawberry patch, and Father and Eugene found work on the many church projects. But they had heard of Star Valley, and besides several of their fellow emigrants had moved there. So Mother and Father decided to come here, too, where there was land and room for expansion.

So the summer of 1893 they, too, came but while most of them moved to Bedford, my Father bought a farm for $500 in Freedom. There was not much of a house. In fact, it had a two-room log cabin on it. But the farm was good and within four years a four-room house of logs was built on it. The two-room cabin was the first home my brother Fred was to know.

Our parents hated debt like the plague and sacrificing until the new home could be adequately financed seemed preferable to them; besides luxury was an unknown word to them. Four stark, bare rooms were all it had besides a small pantry which had shelves and a root cellar some distance away. Here Lawrence, the 13th and last child, was born. To my parents there must have been many hardships but I, in my blithe ignorance, noted them not at all.

I remember when Father had Typhoid Fever contracted at the Caribou mines. How ill he was for six long weeks; he was attended by elders and a Dr. Stoughton. I remember his kindly smile as I was playing outside one day. I remember, too, when my brother had appendicitis, and I remember his screams of pain and how fearful the older ones of the family were that it may be just the stupor preceding death. Because he was better or the appendix had broken—either was beyond his skill. Though Dr. Stoughton was a Christian, he couldn’t quite subscribe to the idea that our Father in Heaven could or would intervene enough to save a life. But for the rest of his life, Robert testified that it was the power of God which saved his.

I had a pleasant childhood. Even in that small town one is not lonely in a busy household, particularly when possessed of the inquisitive curiosity I had. I remember having whooping cough. That was my only childhood disease. It seemed that each time I had a cold until I was a young woman the cough would come back but, of course, not in contagious form.

Our two nearest neighbors were my childhood friends, Libbie and Sylvia Clark. They were half-sisters, each mother living. But I enjoyed them and hated it when their father took them away into Mexico where they both died.

Lena was my guide and mentor in my childhood, just as she was in later life. Strongly religious, she loved all things of a spiritual nature. I, too, enjoyed it. However, I must have been a greater nuisance than I realize for she told me in all seriousness that candidates for baptism were supposed to memorize the “Articles of Faith,” the “Decalogue,” the “Word of Wisdom,” and “The Beatitudes.” I tried to learn them all. The Beatitudes were a bit beyond my depth so she compromised by letting me learn the hymn “Oh My Father”. I loved that, especially when she sang it. She had a lovely soprano voice and when she and my sister Ida would sing duets, I loved it.

I am sure I was a nuisance, forever in their way when they had romance on their minds, so that must have been the easiest way to get rid of me—to set me to memorizing something. It was rather easy for me to memorize and the things I learned then remained with me into maturity, which I believe is characteristic of all children. But that I was naïve enough to believe that they were required before a candidate could be baptized seems stupid of me, but anything Lena said seemed right.

Of all the dear friends I ever had, Minnie Luthi was the closest. Her father and mother had immigrated to America with my own. They had come to Star Valley a little while before we did, but had located in Bedford. The rocky surface and gravelly soil did not long attract them and a few years following our parents’ arrival, they, too, moved to Freedom. Minnie was always a lovely girl with abundant beautiful hair, though she bemoaned the fact that she did not share the curly hair of most of her brothers and sisters. Mine was thin and straggly, though strangely I can never remember being envious of her serene lovely face, almost classic in its regular features. That I wasn’t envious of her could have been the fact that Mother was such a good seamstress and that most of the girls were kind enough to express envy.

School was held in a small one-room school house. Not until I was in the 8th grade did the school trustees deign to add another room. Spelling matches were the rule of each week, Friday preferably. We enjoyed them. The older boys pretended that they were beneath them and so would not participate.

The teacher always fed Minnie and my vanity by saying the words were too easy for us. Then we would continue spelling harder words until I had emerged the champion. Though I was the better speller, I am sure Minnie was the better all-around student and we continued to be fast friends all our lives.

I remember a swing up by our home composed of two large poles supported by cross arm from which hung a swing. I became quite adept at “working myself up” where there was no one to give me hand, as did the other young people and children who came to enjoy it.

I remember one Sunday our parents were away at Bedford attending a German meeting. The Luthi girls were responsible for herding their cows out of the grain so we all went there, the Haderlie girls as well as I. They were expert riders and I think Minnie was better than I. But, because I was more obvious about my fear, the Haderlie girls preceded to bait me. Lula was to take the reins and I was to get up behind her. I clung tightly and Lula fell off and I fell on top of her, knocking myself unconscious. When I came to, my dress, a pretty new pink one, was drenched with blood and my front tooth was gone. I was terrified for fear of my father. Those kind sweet girls washed out the dress for me, but not being colorfast, it lost much of its brightness in that first laundering. I remember one of the Haderlie sisters saying, “I wouldn’t care about the tooth but look at the dress!”

To my father, accidents didn’t just happen. They were always someone’s fault. The accident happened soon after my second teeth had come in and how I prayed for some miracle to restore my lost front tooth, though a new one never did come in. The remaining teeth did seem to close and make the gap less noticeable. My family and friends were kind in that they never made me conscious of the dental defect.

When I was a child, I would find choice little rocks and they became a community I could manage all by myself. And I drew endless crayon figures supposed to resemble something, I knew not what except they were supposed to be men and women going and coming from church.

The only contact I had with friends was at Sunday School and Primary. We loved our Primary president, Sister Lizzie Warren. The counselor, Mrs. Amelie Bracken, would not conduct when left there alone but always asked us to do it. We of course thought it was because she was possibly a little queer, but since I have wondered if she knew we eager beavers well enough to know that we wanted to conduct, too, as tell as teach.

How we enjoyed all the activities! Children’s dances were held on holidays and the children were not allowed to go to grown-up dances. But I liked reading and to me there was no fascination like a book. A salesman had come to the house and when Father refused to accept payment for his horses care, the salesman gave me a book of fairy tales. In it were all the lurid stepmother tales and other stores. Minnie and I would spend Sunday afternoons reveling in it. I wish now that our reading had been guided and had not consisted so much of romantic light fiction of the Mary J. Holmes and Augusta J. Evans variety.

Mother, who all her life had been so busy and worked so hard, now found pleasure in reading the books I brought home to read. A Mrs. Emma Ames and I would exchange books and she would always read them before they were returned. To my knowledge her contemporary migrants learned to read, but did not enjoy it as Mother did. Father had little patience with light fiction. He could read English well enough to enjoy the newspaper and books on doctrine but had no patience with anything light. Therefore, Mother never read much until after he died.

Father died the evening of October 10, 1906, in my 13th year. On a Sunday I had spent the day with my good friend Minnie and was supposed to milk cows, but was just learning and was frightened of the creatures. He had spent a pleasant leisurely day at his favorite pastime, singing, with two of his daughter and with his son-in-law at the organ. Lena and Ida joined him in song. He was not feeling well so had not gone to church. He had scolded me for not being home in time to milk but had retired early to bed. In slept in the same room on a couch and when a fearful gurgling sound issued from his throat, I rushed to the kitchen calling our, “Ma, there is something wrong with Pa.” I had spoken to him two or three times. Mother came hurriedly in and tried to rouse him and the rest of the family were called but it was too late. He was dead.

They were bleak and sorrowful days that followed. Ida came to stay with her three children, and I remember the severest earthquake while she was there, which caused milk to be spilled that she was proffering to one of her children.

Four of us---Minnie, Chlomania and Olive Robinson and I---constituted the first graduating class ever to emerge from the Freedom Grade School. Olive and Chlomania had a year in Richmond High School. Minnie and I talked endlessly about the possibility of our attending also. Mother was not at all intrigued with the idea. Besides, people kept reminding me that it was my duty as an only daughter at home to forget it.

I did have a chance to go to Fielding High School. My sister-in-law, Sister Amy Cook, when her own young daughter had died, would have liked me to live with her and go to school. Eugene, who was married to her daughter, tried to persuade Mother that it would be a wonderful opportunity for an education for me. Mother countered with the statement that from her observation I seemed to be as well educated as those who had higher learning. Eugene said if I had more capacity I would improve that much faster. But Mother thought a man should be educated but a girl’s need for it was limited. Anyway, they felt I was needed at home since Walter had received a mission call.

Minnie and I were Freedom’s correspondents for the Independent. I had once told Mother that I believed I could write. Possibly that was because I had written a successful theme or composition. My Mother’s cryptic smile told me that she did not think much of the idea, so the little community of Freedom continued to be my world.

My first and only venture into radio was a fiasco. A delegation enroute to Laramie stopped in Rock Springs. Phyllis Richards, then our County Home Demonstration agent, was acquainted with the man in charge of the Rock Springs radio station. She promised him she would have a story for him on our return. I had no idea it would involve me and had completely disregarded the promise. Nothing was said while we were in Laramie. I wrote a talk for a delegate from Uinta County to give over the radio. I loved doing such things and it was no hardship, mental or physical.

As we were on our way home, Phyllis again mentioned it and urged me to write something suitable which would in a measure outline Extension work for the listeners. I wrote it in the form of a discussion, intending that the man in charge of the station would M.C. the program and interrogate the co-delegates, leaving myself entirely out of it. But, to my consternation, he insisted on my doing what I had planned for him with the rest of the women obediently reading the lines I had written for them. I never have had much poise in such circumstances. The element of surprise was too obvious but somehow we got through it. I was thoroughly annoyed because Phyllis laughed at my discomfiture. I was annoyed, too, that I was taken in so easily, though I do believe Phyllis intended that the M.C. read that part of the program.

I stayed with Lena the whole time her husband was on his mission, enjoying her and her three small children immensely. Since Walter had returned from his mission, there wasn’t as much need for me at home and Mother could spare me better than her sons who always had much work to do. We had moved to the newly acquired farm on the east side of the river. I did what I could to help her. We cleaned barns, pitched hay and milked cows.

My family was truly religious. Father never did one unessential thing on the Sabbath, but they were far from pious. Father, under Lena’s surveillance, succeeded in quitting the use of coffee but Mother never quit though she seemed the stronger character of the two.

Every morning and every evening we had family prayer and were expected as a matter of course to have our secret prayers. Mother enjoyed going to church and I am sure Father did, though they never participated in class discussions. Mother would say when a discussion interested her she wished she had command of the language and how she would have enjoyed to participate.

Mother was a superb manager and under her stewardship a new house was built on the original farm. The boys willingly cooperated and were never late to do chores nor shirked their duties. No matter how a competitive baseball or horseshoe games might have interested them, work and duty came first and I never recall a serious disagreement nor one of the boys being unfair.

We moved to the new house in about 1910. Though it was well built, it was not modern with hot and cold running water or with bathroom and all its facilities, though they were rather common then. We had gas lights but no electricity. It seemed very nice to us who had been accustomed to less.

The house was sturdy and well built. It was made of logs and later covered with clapboard. The families were expected to and did work. The young people spent their summers in Glen milking cows and even made cheese. Their market was Montpelier.

I remember well when George entered the picture. I was living with Lena while her husband was on a mission to the Central States. He seemed old to me because young as he was his hair was already gray over the temples. He took Lena to see his bachelor quarters which adjoined the store. He had a sign over the door reading, “Welcome to Bachelor’s Hall”.

George Seward Kennington was born in Ovid, Idaho, the son of William H. and Annie Rebecca Seward Kennington, September 29, 1879. His father had two wives and found their lives constantly harassed by officials. They possibly found more security under Wyoming laws and its Governor Moonlight than in Utah or Idaho. Grandfather Kennington was a school teacher, itinerate perhaps, but nevertheless taught school, as did Grandma Annie. Grandmother came to Star Valley a little while after Aunt Elizabeth did, approximately in 1886.

Both families were kind to each other and the father spent his nights alternately at the two homes. There was never any serious contention; grandmother was charitable and kind. So the years passed and the families matured and married.

George had been sent down to be manager of the Burton Store, a branch of the Afton store. His friendly genial personality endeared him to everyone. Young and old would go there to shop and exchange ideas and maybe gossip. Lena asked him why he didn’t get married. He replied he was waiting for an Apostle’s daughter. That statement spoken in jest may have said more of his high ideals than he realized.

George and Sam herded cows for the L.D.S. Church in Bedford near the vicinity of Forrest’s present farm.

School was of the sporadic variety; extreme cold or threatening weather seemed excuse enough to dismiss it. Leisure time was spent hunting and fishing. George’s good friends were Ern and Carl Roberts and Pat Yeamens. They enjoyed dancing and theatricals and there was culture of a sort.

In 1905 George was called on a two-year mission. Before his mission he had done a good deal of freighting for the Burton Creamery and Mercantile Company, and after his return they asked him if he would consider being manager of the Freedom store. Obediently he went down and here romance found him.

Miss Ada Kimball went to Freedom to care for a patient of the Budge doctors. A Mrs. Granwell McNiel called the doctor for a registered nurse, and almost like a stroke of fate, Ada was called to go down. Ada told her father-in-law the moment she heard George’s voice she felt he was the one she was to marry. It must have been love at first sight, for there were only two weeks of companionship and the rest was correspondence. They were married in the Logan Temple 24 June 1908, and made their home in the apartment adjoining the store. They were active in the Church at Freedom. George served in the Sunday School and M.I.A. and Ada in the Relief Society and M.I.A.

It was the custom to send delegates as representatives to the annual conventions, and most of the organizations collected money to defray expenses. By coincidence Ada and I were assigned to go together to Glen to collect money. George drove us as far as the George Rainey home and since neither of us dared to take care of a horse our self, we trudged all over Glen on foot. Though reared on a farm, I had never enjoyed horses and was as inept about their care as the city slicker.

Their son, George Winston, was born October 30 and died November 3, 1910. Ada had never enjoyed good health and when she again became pregnant they decided better medical care was available in Thatcher, Arizona, and where she could be with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Kimball. When the news came that George and Ada had a set of twin girls, everyone was happy for them. Lena in particular was interested since Ada was still her second counselor in Relief Society. Women in those days were not released at once because of pregnancy. Then news came that everything was not well. George left immediately for Thatcher but arrived too late to see his wife alive. She died 12 April 1912, surviving just nine days the birth of her babies, who were born 3 April 1912. Their mother was born 4 January 1886, and was buried in Thatcher, Arizona.

Everyone sorrowed for George. He was so popular and well liked and his sad gray face struck a note of sympathy in every breast.

When the transition came that changed his liking to love for me, I have no idea. I always enjoyed talking with older people. He was easy to talk to, so kind and congenially fine and good that I never knew when he singled me out. Except one time when he and my brother-in-law William E. came to Stake Priesthood Meeting he told William that he was interested in me but had not the faintest notice that I would reciprocate since he was so much older. But deep regard can change to affection. I was never in the least flirtatious but awfully sensitive to being teased by my contemporaries. So, though he would come to see me twice a week, I would go to dances and parties with other boys, secure in the love of a good man whom they knew nothing about only as a much older figure.

I lived in Providence the summer before we were married and took a course in the Kiester School of Dressmaking. I lived with a family of girls and their parents whose habits and way of life were far from what I thought ideal. Their idea of fun left me sick; however, I will concede that my ideals were too puritan and strict for most young people, even though I was just 20. I told them that to me the stories they told were not funny but crude and smutty. Another custom the girls of the Logan community indulged in which I, a bumpkin, thought reprehensible was that of girls sauntering along streets and boys hooted and stopped to invite them to ride. I asked them, horrified, if they knew boys they accepted rides from. Airily, they replied that they wished they had a dime for every boy they had never seen before. This was in the horse and buggy era.

That fall, 23 October 1913, George and I were married in the Logan Temple. I was home for six weeks before we were married. George was as dear as ever. We had no honeymoon. People rarely did in those days and one of the twins, Clarissa, was not recovering from her bout of whooping cough satisfactorily. I was of a mature turn of mind and probably would have been unconcerned with anything gay and lighthearted anyway. George had brought me up to see the house we were to live in. There were no conveniences but we did have electric lights.

I remember the fun my brother Fred poked at the disconsolate rig George brought to carry me away. To tell the truth, I was a little taken back when I saw it, too. His reason was that the one-seated rig would not carry my trunk.

As Clarissa was still recuperating from her illness, it was thought best that she remain at Aunt Mollie’s who had cared for the twins so tenderly since their grandmother had brought them from Arizona the July after they were born. After a short visit in Freedom, George came to get me and I immediately became a housewife. Jennie Gardner was there to help me over the first months. I loved the children and enjoyed taking care of them. In six weeks time Clarissa was considered well enough to entrust into my tender care but Jennie stayed with us the entire winter. George was so kind and affectionate and I loved him devotedly.

My mother said once, “Martha, have you considered well what it will be like to be a second wife? Are you sure you won’t mind?” I thought the idea somewhat preposterous but I reckoned without knowing myself. Though never in my life was I ever jealous for a single instant of the love their father gave the twins, there were times when I felt not quite big enough for the role of second wife. Had our roles been reversed and had we lived in pioneer times, I was sure I could have measured up to any sacrifice required of me but even that would have remained to be seen. But I could not do anything but love the little girls George entrusted to my care. He had faith in me and I never consciously betrayed his trust.

There were electric lights but heat and power had not come into being yet. Our heat came from a new cook stove and a Wilson heater. I wasn’t a cook, and one of the first things I asked George was what he liked to eat. His reply was, “If I ever drown, I hope it is in soup.” I experimented and tried all kinds of new innovations and was rewarded with lavish praise. Though inexperienced, I must have learned a good deal from my mother by the indirect method called osmosis and maybe I had inherited from her a talent for cooking and blending foods. There was no such thing as electric refrigeration but George bought me a new icebox affair which was highly unsatisfactory, chiefly because ice was hard to get. People used to store ice in saw dust bins to keep it from melting. In the winter the more enterprising would store enough to sell in the summer for ice cream and refrigeration. Interesting how they would get the ice---they would freeze designated pond by nature’s process, freezing a deeper area than ordinary and then with a rotary saw mark out blocks and store them in sawdust to better preserve them. Strange how many unusual things people did because science had not yet pointed a better way.

Though life and living were crude according to present day standards, I was happy. I loved my husband and I loved the children as though they were my own. I enjoyed the twins. They were lovely little girls and though my heart was fearful, they didn’t catch a single thing. They had had measles and whooping cough previously and bouts with pneumonia tends to weaken and make one more susceptible to another attack, but fortunately there were no others.

I was always public spirited and I regarded it as a means to education. As I said before, we both worked in the M.I.A., George as Superintendent and I as second counselor. George would have preferred to stay at home but he always did his duty and his duty was in serving to the best of his ability in the Church. George continued his work in the Church but I stayed home until my baby arrived the following April. When the boy finally arrived after 30 tortured hours, I think I would have died if the doctor had not announced, “It’s a boy”. It mattered not at all that his head was miss-shapen, a condition the doctor and more experienced women assured would correct itself with time. I was happy to have fulfilled my husband’s wishes on the day before my 22nd birthday.

On the day I returned from the hospital the twins came down with the only communicable disease left to them---mumps. They ran to me and I took them unhesitatingly in my arms. As a result I had them within two weeks. Contrary to medical opinion even today that nursing babies do not get communicable diseases, Garth got them. At any rate, he never did get them again, though the signs were hardly noticeable in a baby.

Garth was born 19 April 1915. He was rather cross and that was the era in which mothers were instructed to let babies cry it out. According to the books, crying was the way the babies got exercise. I think I did not cuddle him once. With a backward glance over the past, it was because I feared to show undue affection for my own baby when there were two others not my own also clamoring for affection. But I never knowingly showed any discrimination between my own children and the girls.

Garth was an apt student when he and the twins went to school in the old school house.

I regret now that there was not a more open manifestation of love and affection in the home. All my concern was to please my husband and I was not concerned with how it was achieved.

On October 11, 1916, a sweet little daughter was born to us, whom we named Guinivere. I was given to fanciful names and George indulged me in it. We had planned to name her Elaine but just at that time a movie serial was running weekly in the local theatre called the “Exploits of Elaine”. When people heard the name we planned to name her, they would say, “Oh, you are naming her for the movie thriller.” So a few days before she was to be blessed I said, “Let’s name her ‘Guinivere’”. That name is from the “Idylls of the King,” by Alfred Tennyson.

She was the only child we ever had named in Sacrament Meeting. When the Bishop inquired of the name, George forgot and had to ask me what it was. I am sure that was embarrassing to him and was probably the reason, along with the communicable diseases always in the community, and we had none of the other children blessed in Church. They were all named by Bishop Osborne Low.

Gordon was born on 26 October 1918, the month before hostilities of World War I ceased and the month when the Spanish Influenza epidemic broke out. Out popular and well-liked Dr. Lafayette Rees died as a flu casualty, one of the first. Everyone was terrified and in some instances terror was held responsible for death. I, too, was afraid but got along fine with Sister Sarah Hurd as nurse and Dr. West in charge.

Soon after Gwen was born Sister Martha E. Roberts came and asked me if I would take an extension course in Home Economics which had been offered to the Stake Relief Society. This was the first time I had ever heard of food classifications and their places in the nutritional field. I was not yet a member of the Relief Society but gladly accepted. Church work of any kind had always been a joy and an opportunity to me. I enjoyed every lesson and got thought with an A-minus.

Bertha Kennington helped care for the children after Jen Low left. Then Esther (Matthews Crook) lived with us through 1916 to 1924. In between there were Maud (Kennington) and her brother Harve and sister Annie. Harve came to help with the chores while going to school. Annie, three years younger than Maud, stayed with the family and helped us all.

I enjoyed every nurse I had and every girl who helped as a hired girl. That, I know, implies that I was not too attentive to details, not critical enough of small things as a homemaker. But I loved Church and everything that went into living the Gospel.

The Afton Ward was divided in June of 1919, with Gilbert Tayson as Bishop and George and Ben Nield as his counselors. There was so much for them to do by way of planning and division of property. All the Church buildings were in the North Ward so it was necessary for an immediate building program. Competent, well-qualified men were sent out to make a survey of possible building plans. They returned but seemed to have reckoned without the church architect, so they were one by one disregarded. The site for a new church had been selected. As the building rose to the square, many were dissatisfied with comments as to the suitability of such a structure in this climate. Still, there was no plan to disobey in word or deed the word and edict of their peers.

Bishop Taysom was a leader in every sense of the word. He organized an efficient ward out of what had been considered but 10 percent of the active membership. People rallied around him wonderfully and of course his two faithful counselors were with him.

The building was completed but not yet paid for. Everything seemed as right as could be with the architectural design. Then came the spring rains. I shall never forget the look of consternation which came over our Bishop’s face when he saw the wet walls and the water on the floor. He, too, had had little faith in the design of the building. From that time until it was torn down, it had a long history of patch and repair.

In 1921 Bishop Taysom died of a strep throat. George was called to him in the early morning and was with him frequently during his illness. He died in November 1921 and everyone grieved at his untimely passing.

The new ward needed his leadership so sorely. But as always, the ward rallied around the new bishop, who was contractor C. J. Call. He chose as his counselors the same men who served with Bishop Taysom, George and Brother Nield. During this regime the indebtedness of the Church was paid and within five years George was chosen as Bishop, serving in all for 11-1/2 years, giving to the Church all that was good and praiseworthy, doing it all willingly and conscientiously. I never remember his shirking one of his duties no matter it was a call on the sick or attending to the needs of those who were called to mourn, or administering to those who were ill. He chose to act with him Ben Nield and Joseph E. Linford. Ernest Clark was clerk.

Brother Clark had a high regard for George and admired him for the good man he was. While he was clerk, his wife, Esther Pratt Clark, who was also my very good friend, died. She had been such a good friend. We had worked together in the YWMIA and had found in each other good congenial spirits. Only in Minnie had I found a better friend. She was a gifted musician and an intelligent sincere woman. Both George and I felt that had her diagnosis been better, she need not have died. But then there is a destiny that rules our ends.

George was released as Bishop in September of 1931. He had served valiantly in a cause he knew to be true and worthy of his best. Before the bishopric, he had served in a number of auxiliary and Priesthood organizations and had been a Stake Sunday School Board member. He served as councilman in the city organization and as mayor for two or three terms, giving to everything he did his most sincere conscientious efforts.

We had moved from the original house to George’s mother’s home. We had renovated the house with the addition of a bedroom before Gwen was born and had made the room really attractive with shinning varnished floors and new rugs. Gwen was the first born in the newly renovated room.

When we were first married George continued his work in the store. But since he felt there was money in cows and land, he relinquished that effort and went to dairying exclusively. Prices were fairly good until the depression.

Beverly was born 14 April 1920. We had moved from the first house to his mother’s soon after Bev was born. The living room was lovely but there was no bathroom, and since a bathroom was a must, we turned the small impractical kitchen into one and for the first time we had plumbing and hot and cold running water.

Forrest was born 10 August 1923 and was the last one to be born while we lived in the old house, but was born at Aunt Belle’s recently established nursing home. For a short time Arling and Ruth lived in the house. That is where her son was born at 7:00 that morning and my son was born about 8:00 that night.

We bought our first electrical sewing machine shortly after Forrest was born.

Audine was born 19 December 1924. She was a good baby when small. For some reason my girls were better natured than the boys. Perhaps it was because my own health was better then, whether psychosomatic or real, I don’t know. Audine was a sweet girl and the only one of the children who ever suffered a broken limb, breaking her arm when playing with the rest of the children.

Craig was born 11 April 1929. I tried giving him sun baths and all the health rules for which that era was famous. Club work had made its impression on me and of course the clubs I belonged to received all the nutritional and health guides. Homemakers were given monthly lessons through extension service.

Eugene Seward was born 26 August 1930, after we had moved down to Uncle Oz and Aunt Mollie’s brick house. In effect we had exchanged houses. The house, though impressive to the observer, had all the undesirable features of a high-ceiling fortress. The walls were brick throughout and as implacable to possible change as any house could be, and there were no convenient features, no running hot or cold water, and no plumbing.

The depression had lowered prices and it was the worst possible time to assume new obligations. But George had a large and growing family and felt he must do something. Uncle Oz felt that n exchange of houses might be the answer. There was a large barn to house the cows—as many as we could care for. So he persuaded George to that effect. He, too, was heavily in debt and felt that an exchange would solve his problem, though he liked George. I am sure, as is natural to human nature, his concern was mostly for himself and his welfare.

Ruth was born 21 October 1934, and was a pleasant little girl. She had whooping cough before she was a year old and I am convinced would have died had it not been summer and we were able to keep her out of doors all the time. It was a strange thing about that whooping cough. I was sure Audine had contacted it at school. She whooped and, though not severe, she coughed and had all the symptoms associated with the disease. But strangely enough, Craig and Eugene did not get it. I was disturbed about it since I had hoped they might get it because I knew there would be a new baby the next year and I did not want it to catch anything—least of all whooping cough. The next summer Audine did not have the disease but Craig and Eugene did and as a consequence so did Ruth. But she survived, for which I was so grateful.

Martha was born 8 September 1936. I was ill for a month before she was born. We seldom if ever had prenatal examinations---our medicos were not that far advanced, nor were we. I had some knowledge that I had high blood pressure but was not in the least hypochondriac looking for a real or fancied ailment. Dr. West had attended me and the last thing he would have looked for was high blood pressure. And the doctor who had warned me about my HBP was now dead. Because I felt ill, I had Dr. Worthen, a new doctor in town, come. I had a urinalysis ready for him. He took it and returned to the hospital, making an appointment the following Monday. Instead he called immediately requesting my immediate presence. He told me I must stay in bed until my confinement, six weeks distant, that I had dropsy, high blood pressure and albumen. I returned home protesting that I could not go to bed and do as the doctor said, but he insisted. Events were taken entirely out of my hands. Pains real and earnest began and George returned me to the hospital where I lapsed into a coma and to all intents and purposes unconscious of all my surroundings. For three days I remained in the coma to rouse to a vague unrealistic world. Everything seemed so weird and strange. Even the flowers assumed strange forms. My little daughter was born six weeks prematurely and weighted only two one-half pounds. But she seemed to be healthy. She was a beautiful little baby, exquisite in form and feature. She lived until 21 November 1936, when she succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage. A private funeral was held with Bishop Franklin Gardner in charge and she was buried in the lot at the city cemetery November 23, 1936.

Life went along quite uneventful until George’s health began to deteriorate. We tried to urge him to consult a doctor. He did have his bad teeth removed in the vain hope that they were the cause. It was an ordeal for him in every way. After they were gone, he continued to lose weight. At our Thanksgiving dinner he had an awful spell of nausea, though I had prepared only easily digested foods for him. I called the doctor and he came down immediately. He made an appointment for him to go to the hospital for a thorough examination and consultation. Uncle William E. Jenkins accompanied him to the hospital. He was told he would require surgery but first there would be intravenous feedings to make his strength equal to the ordeal facing him.

I know he feared a malignancy, because I did. Always that fear was in the back of my mind. When he returned from the hospital, I burst into tears. He took me into his arms to comfort me and tried to believe and make me believe that he was like his brother Bert, needing only to have an ulcer removed to be alright again.

That night he went to the hospital again prepared to stay until his operation. I remember the bottles suspended above his head containing strength-giving fluids and glucose. He was operated on 27 November 1938. His brothers Henry and Lon watched the operation performed by Drs. S. H. Worthen and Spencer Wright. The brothers reported that his condition seemed identical with that of Bert’s, so that gave us the hope that he would eventually recover, and soon.

Dr. Worthen heard me utter the blithe hope to one of my friends over the telephone, so in a very short time he returned from his office with a book containing pictures of colored plates on which were the words CARCINOMA. I am not sure whether he thought I understood the term, but I did with all its dreadful implications. I asked the doctor why he told me, that I would have been as kind and good to him without the fearful knowledge he had chosen to impart. He said only that, “He thought I would like to know.” I said flatly, “Well, I didn’t.” Then he began to try to make amends. He said he could live five years and he could put on weight. And there always were drugs and opiates to relieve pain.

So I began to rationalize to believe the doctor could be wrong in his diagnosis. I asked only that he not tell anyone of his condition. I thought I could bear it without the constant expressions of sympathy well-meaning friends are so apt to pour upon troubled hearts. The doctor told Clarissa and Berniece but out of consideration they never discussed it with me. Always there was the rationalizing that he could recover if God willed it so. So it was that I mentioned the hope that consecrated oil would help him. He said submissively and sweetly, “If you think so, let’s have some consecrated.”

That night he was in more distress than he had been at all. It was as if someone had told me he could not recover. That was in the last part of June. Some say that he must have suffered more than we knew, but I am inclined to doubt that because the dreadful agony that is associated with intestinal cancer, or carcinoma, would be very hard to hid from loving and observing eyes, much as he might have wanted to hide it.

Clarissa went to the doctor to get his first medication of drugs. He said he would give her the mildest, saving stronger tablets for the future when, as the disease progressed, he would probably require them. I knew then that he was not destined to recover, when he had been so distressed after my well-meant dosage of consecrated oil. All night he complained of what he called gas pain. After the birds began twittering in the trees he fell into a restless sleep. I know, because he always wanted me to sleep by him, restless when I wasn’t there.

My dear sister Lena knew nothing of his condition because I had not told her of any of the things that worried us so, nor did my brother Charles know until near the end. I knew that some people find relief from the sympathy they get from others. All I could do was lock my worry tight within me and tell myself that he would be alright. He had a father, mother, son and daughter over there, as well as a wife, and if I felt grief it would be for myself I would be grieving. So I determined and prayed that I would not ever know too much pain or the grief that draws one within to canker and fester. He died the 20th of July 1939, after almost a week of semi-consciousness, rousing only for nourishment and then three days in a deep coma.

Never once could I acquire the courage to ask him about our financial affairs. Had they been such that he could have discussed them freely without worry to me, he would have done so. Before his operation he had me go to the bank and bring back the necessary papers for his signature. After his death were the loneliest days I ever knew. My family was a constant source of comfort. Bernice and Clarissa had been such a comfort to me and strength to their father during his illness. Arthur had shaved and cut his hair during his illness. Clarissa and Oz moved down to help manage some of the work at the farm after her father died.

It was Minnie, as if sensing my loneliness on the Sunday following the funeral which, too, had been on a Sunday, came down to ask if I would write a pageant for the 25th anniversary of the extension work in Wyoming. I had through the years written much: plays, skits, and even drama. It had always been easy for me to write. I enjoyed it and it required but a request and the inspiration seemed to come.

After George died my sweet sister Lena invited me to go with her, her husband and daughter and son-in-law, who were Mr. and Mrs. Eli Hanson, to pick up Evan, their son, who was returning from a mission in Texas. I had all sorts of misgivings and told her so. No money, the children to care for. But one by one they were all swept aside to clear the way. Gwen would give me the money to defray the expense. Clarissa would look after the children, Gordon and Beverly would be there to look after them, too. Everyone was so good and kind. The Afton Home Economics Club in which I was a charter member honored me with a going away gift and party at Minnie’s home. We left on the last day of February 1940.

It was a wonderful trip of six weeks duration. We went to Rawlins the first night, the most Wyoming territory I had ever seen. Then to Colorado, Oklahoma and into Texas to Old Mexico and Juarez where, for the first time I enjoyed bargaining with natives, having been warned by a guide not to pay the first price asked for.

We found all sorts of leather goods, textiles and linens but our cash was limited so our enjoyment was short. From there we went to Arizona and through the Temple at Mesa. We saw lovely Phoenix with its newly erected Wrigley Building, its lavish tourist attraction. Then we went to see Carlsbad Caverns. What a sight that was! Miles and miles of underground corridors to traverse, its stalagmites and stalactites formed through centuries of dripping hard water, its beauties obscured by darkness and known only to men who because curious on seeing swarms of bats enter the hole in the ground at day break to emerge at dusk or nightfall. Tons of guano fertilize the ground, proving their centuries of habitation. There but for the science of electricity and man’s ingenuity that wonder might never have been discovered. Without it or a candle light, whatever that first explorer used, it might still have been a hole in the ground.

Then we went to San Diego, visited there and saw the Balboa Zoo. Subsequently we saw other zoos but none had the strange exotic animals this had. In addition, it had such an interesting monkey colony ranging from huge gorillas to tiny spider monkeys. Perhaps what intrigued me most was that it was the first collection of strange animals and birds I had ever seen.

From San Diego we went to Los Angeles where we were guests of Myra Jenkins (Lena's daughter) in a house she rented for our use. We saw a radio cast in action. I was terribly disappointed. There was no action, only dialogue. For contract I should like to see a televised cast.

We saw Griffeth Park with its lovely flowers and sparkling water falls. Then we watched Aime Semple McPherson give her Palm Sunday sermon. Her four square church was full. Representatives form many states, even from foreign countries, were gathered there. I enjoyed it and told Lena I would rather pay her than for many shows. But when the plate reached the end of our row it was empty, and to show us up for the niggards we were, the collector turned it bottom-side up. We spent a day in lovely Forest Lawn Park. There was truly “Music in the Air”. Lovely soft music, beautiful strains, floated over the grounds and we saw the exquisitely carved statuary with its telling inscriptions. Three chapels for use at weddings or funerals were on the grounds. The main building housed the funeral parlor and its beautiful paintings of “The Last Supper”. We attended a lecture telling about the difficulties encountered when the head of Judas was cast in stained glass.

We went to Hollywood Bowl, rising at 3:00 a.m. to be sure to get there when the services began. It was a thrilling sight to see that vast panorama spread out before us, the number of people all gathered there in a worshipful service to honor the Risen Lord, knowing there were similar gatherings in other areas.

From Los Angeles we went along the coast to San Francisco, where we saw many interesting things. The two famous bridges—Golden Gate and Bay Bridge—the Fisherman’s Wharf and a zoo. The most interesting thing to me was the topography of San Francisco. I understood then why they had to have the kind of cars they did—ones that could negotiate those hills.

We saw Alcatraz, so near the shore and so far by inaccessible swirling waters. We drove around San Quentin prison and I felt pity for the men incarcerated there.

We expressed a desire to see Hoover Dam and though that meant almost a complete return to Los Angeles, Eli and Edyth obligingly took us to Las Vegas. There we wandered through the gambling casinos, which were then void of glamour. The “strip” of which we read about with its sumptuous hotels and night clubs had not yet been installed. But we did see the drab and sordid—its old men and women gambling and indulging in all forms of games of chance. I should have liked to linger, not that I found it fascinating, but it was interesting to see old people enjoy a way of life so foreign to our own.

The dam was interesting with its massive cement bulwark and the placid Lake Mead nearby.

We came home by way of St. George to see Alice and Mel Hamilton who were there employed by the Agricultural Adjustment Act. It was now annual conference time and we returned to Salt Lake City. There I learned that Craig, Eugene and Ruth all had had the measles. The family had conspired to keep the news from me. Since there were no complications, they saw no reason to worry me needlessly.

In Salt Lake City we learned of the reorganizing of our Stake Presidency. Richard R. Lyman presided over the details. Royal S. Papworth, Carl Robinson and Ralph Hyer had been sustained during the March 1940 Stake Conference.

In retrospect, I can see how selfish my pleasures have always been in respect to the family and I regret that I found so much pleasure away from them.

Soon after I returned home I was asked to be a delegate of the Extension Club to their annual convention at Laramie. Miss Richards was the Home Demonstration agent. Because I could write reasonably well, I was asked to write talks to be given by a delegate besides reporting on the work in Star Valley. I made three convention trips in all, twice for the Extension Service and once for the Farm Bureau in which I was SW representative. I am sure the contact with these women broadened my mental horizons and gave me a knowledge, that other fine women not of our Church had high ideals too for life and for their families and home as well as we who were L.D.S.

Minnie Luthi Robinson went with me on the second trip to Laramie. We did enjoy being together. This was in the spring of 1941. Later that summer she was taken ill. Since her health had never been robust we thought it not out of the ordinary when she complained of pain near the region of her heart. But Dr. Worthen thought it serious enough to warrant further diagnosis and analysis from specialists. She was taken to the L.D.S. Hospital in Salt Lake City where she stayed for three weeks submitting to X-rays and diagnostic treatment. When she returned she was no better and an attack of yellow jaundice revealed the seriousness of her condition. She was operated on and an advanced malignancy was found. She died 17 December 1941. She was the truest and most loyal friend anyone ever had and I shall always cherish her memory.

Later I went on one trip for the Farm Bureau to Themopolis. It was rather interesting as it was I who recommended the quota system for Farm Bureau membership and the establishment of a definite outlined educational program.

All of my conscious life I have been public spirited, enjoying whatever opportunities were there for participation. I know I was a gauche and awkward when young and very likely retained that quality beyond my years. I remember when a phrenologist, Dr. John R. Miller, who by reading the bumps on one’s head pretended to tell character, came to town.

But the most memorable were the troupes who would come to our little town. These were interspersed with theatrical troupes from the Stake. We usually had one from each little ward, only Fairview who had such a wealth of talent would come with a repertoire of several plays a season, a thing we always looked forward to. These are just reminiscences.

Clarissa lived down by us after her father’s death. It was she who made it possible for me to go on that extended trip. Her husband took care of the farm and milked the cows.

Because my children lived, I, too, found interest in living. Beverly had worked as dental assistant for Dr. Papworth since her high school graduation. When prices were so depressed Gordon was almost our only source of maintenance. How heartening it was to have him open the door and call out, “What’s there to eat?” He paid the grocery bill until he decided to go to school in Logan. Before that he worked at Charles Call’s hardware. We were deeply involved in World War II at this time. Wages and prices were soaring; boys were being drafted for the Army, though Forrest was not old enough to be drafted. Clarissa had gone to Salt Lake City to join Oz who worked at the Remington Arms plant. Forrest worked at a railroad tie camp one summer, and that is the summer I suffered my first and the only stroke I can associate with undue exertion.

It was late in the afternoon of a summer evening. I thought the currants, of which I had a few bushes, needed irrigating. There was no ditch so I energetically began to dig one. Before I was through numbness went down my entire right side. I recognized it for what it was—a stroke. I dropped the shovel and went to the house. I could not write and my right had did not have its usual maneuverability. The next morning the tingling numbness was gone and I prepared to do the week’s washing and then go to town, a distance of about a half-mile; this time it was not easy and I was bone weary, as the saying goes. So I relaxed and tried not to do anything over-taxing.

In several days time it wore off and aside from unusual weariness, I thought myself recovered.

On the morning of the 4th of July when I was getting the youngsters ready for the annual celebration, the same numbness returned. This time it was general but another stroke nonetheless. Berniece consulted Dr. Treloar and he told her to keep me completely idle, not so much as try to lift a pin. Because I felt so terribly tired, I was rather glad to obey him and Audine had come home to help with the work. The next summer when I felt well enough, she, too, went to the Remington Arms plant to get work.

Beverly was married and had gone with her husband when he was stationed in the South. When he was ordered overseas she returned home and after a short stay in Salt Lake City, she and Audine rented a newly constructed home for the family in Lake View in Clearfield and had us move down there with them. Beverly was wonderful—her impulses so generous and kind. I always enjoyed her. I had apparently recovered completely from my stroke now.

Eugene had an appendectomy the week that Forrest and Arth were called into the Army. I described his symptoms to Dr. Treloar on the phone and he told us to bring him up. There was no way to bring him up for the examination. I think I have never felt so alone—every male member of our family was gone to war or was away from the Valley doing war work. Then it occurred to me to call Bishop Gardner. Besides being Bishop of the ward he was a close friend. It was revealed the appendix was broken and the operation was performed immediately. The doctor charged his usual fee but the Bishop insisted that the Ward Welfare pay the hospital bill. It was my new experience accepting what I knew was charity. I tried to refuse it but the Bishop was adamant. And now later in perspective I am deeply grateful.

In August of that year I, with the children Craig, Eugene and Ruth, went to Clearfield to make a home for the duration of the war. Eugene attended Davis Junior High in Clearfield. Craig was a student at Davis High and Ruth attended an elementary school. The influx of people had left the schools poorly prepared for the students and were thus victims of a housing and teacher shortage.

Forrest, who had done so much to help me financially, returned from his overseas experience to help me move home. The war was over and things were beginning to return to normal. Clarissa and her family had moved back to Afton. Beverly’s husband had returned, too.

I had happy memories of the stay in Clearfield where, with so many Army installations, they had neglected their missionary opportunities unduly. For my family we might have stayed cloistered indefinitely had I not had the Church-going habit and encouraged my family to participate in Church activities. At first I had the idea that I would rather not take our membership down there but when I could see what it was doing to the children, my notions went glimmering. I could see that even though the idea of visiting various chapels might be all right for me, there would be no anchor for the boys who were old enough for Priesthood activities and who needed the strength and encouragement it provides. So for their sakes I sent for our recommends.

The Clearfield Ward soon took us to their hearts but I am sure that had I not taken the first step, the ward authorities would have been content to let the years go by without letting us know of the Church and the wonderful plan for education and development it offers its members.

Bishop Woods who was Bishop of the Clearfield First Ward asked me if I would give my consent for Audine to go on a mission. He and six men from the ward would provide for her maintenance. She was then just 20 years old. I was humbly grateful for the Bishop’s offer; he was kind and flattering in that he thought us worthy and desirable enough to help.

The mission might have turned out but the plan was terminated by romance that found Audine—one of those impetuous romances with a boy whom she knew too briefly. But they were so sure they could live happily forever. All thoughts of a mission fled from her mind, since the Church encourages marriage for girls in preference to a mission, career or anything else, which is as it should be. And I, since he could go to the Temple to be married, made no protests.

Then we returned home. Forrest had thoughtfully disposed of that implacable house and bought a little house near Uncle Henry. It was he who freighted our household belongings home, disposing and arranging all the details. The house had many undesirable features but at least it had hot and cold running water’ though there was not a tub, it did have a shower. Though never a good housekeeper, I did have innumerable ideas about arranging. It was a story and a half with a basement but the floor space in each was small.

I did not enjoy the good health I had been accustomed to. I tired much too quickly so I did not accept any Church assignments for the first time in my life. In Clearfield, though active, I had the reason that we would not be permanent enough to be of any use nor well enough acquainted with the people to be of any value.

In midsummer Stayner Call asked if I would come to work in his bookstore. Almost simultaneously an oil investigation was beginning—that is, oil was thought to be hidden beneath the surface of the ground. One of the accounts rented the house while I took an apartment in Call’s apartment house. Craig was graduated form high school and ready for a college or university. We really could not afford college and Gwen and Jim offered to have him stay at their house near which there was a junior college situated in Ontario, California, a fact I appreciated.

Forrest had a farm that he had acquired in a veteran’s lottery at a newly opened area, or should say a newly drained area of rich soil near Tulelake in Northern California. He had always been so generous with me and his brothers and sisters. While he had been in the service he sent his allotment check to me each month.

Arth negotiated the rental of the house to an itinerant worker and his wife. They did not stay long and Arthur was able to rent the little house for more money to a man who was in charge of drilling operations and who stayed until the work stopped and the company decided the venture would cost more than it was worth, although they were reasonable sure there was oil.

After I had had one stroke and felt reasonably well after recovery, G. W. Yeamans asked me if I would be candidate for County Representative. The idea intrigued me for an hour or so—not much longer I am sure. I called the Dr. Treloar and he said he certainly wouldn’t advise going into a campaign with all its pressures and excitement in my condition which might be worsened under stress. I had enjoyed the political field. Marrying before I came of age automatically threw me into the Republican camp which George ardently espoused. I may not have thought it through very thoroughly but to me the principles of the Republican Party were always on a higher plane than those of the Democrats. No doubt I was more fervent in my objections during the New Deal Era than at any other time. I rather detested Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) for his hypocrisy and the way he behaved toward President Herbert Hoover before he was elected. I am sincerely glad that he has been able to regain some of the public esteem lost to him by the vicious way in which FDR tried to down-grade him in every way. Though I have sense enough to know that something had to be done to help the people and ease the financial structure, I still believe that much that was done was totally un-American and done for political expediency and not because principles or policies warranted it.

I remember before World War II. It seemed that everything he did was designed to get us into the fray—warning Japan to get out of Indochina or face an ultimatum, etc. Most of all, it seemed he was courting Churchill to try to get the United States into the war. And when on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor it seemed ironic that instead of declaring war on Japan that he declared war on Germany. Of course, the world knew that Hitler was a bigger menace than was any other target.

Speaking of FDR, I had even less regard for Truman, though he did not have it within him to be as clever as was his predecessor and was much more immature in his reaction against criticism which every political figure must take in his stride.

Tillman, Beverly, Tillman’s mother, and I went to see the Yellowstone National Park during the summer of 1948. To me it seemed so wonderful with its steaming pots, gushing geyser. I was so glad to be able to see it before a stroke ended my activities.

I was clerk of the primary and general election. Though the election trend was not at all to my liking, with Truman winning unexpectedly over Dewey, I tried to take the returns as graciously as possible. Just a week after the election I had my third and crippling stroke. It seemed no worse than the previous ones. I was at work in the bookstore but immediately I recognized the familiar numbness. I said, “I believe I have had a stroke.” “Oh, No! Come quick and sit down,” he said. I did but it was not to be so quickly shrugged off. Finally I said, “If I don’t go at once I won’t be able to walk across the street to the apartment.”

As a matter of fact, I could not walk even then without help. Stayner was on one side and Lloyd Taysom on the other. I had no pain—just the familiar numbness. I had no idea it would be of long duration. Stayner phoned Beverly and she came at once, frightened and shaken, from her apartment just a few doors away. Berniece and Clarissa had gone with their husbands to the Idaho Falls Temple. When they returned I was taken to Berniece’s home. I had no idea but that I would be able to return to work within a two-week period and said as much to Arth. But he smiled and said, “You had better plan to stay for the winter.” Things happened fast then. My family was summoned. The doctor advised it because the third stroke is often fatal. They all came but Garth who called on the telephone from Wisconsin.

Berniece and Arth were so kind to me, giving up their room to me while they crowded themselves into the small room with their baby Marie.

I felt no worse than I had felt but I didn’t try to get up and perhaps would never have done so had not a naturopathic doctor visiting neighbors and who persuaded us that he had great healing powers been called in. I had small faith in him, particularly since he began trying to massage the left side of my skull. I knew that if his training hadn’t made him more knowledgeable than that, it was not for me, so we stopped any further visits. But not before he encouraged me to try to walk, which I did, haltingly of course. But at least I was on my feet and I am grateful to him for that.

The children’s visits bewildered and cheered me at the same time. To Gordon I shall be forever grateful. I thought my ability to write would be lost but he suggested the typewriter to tap out my letters and whatever I had on my mind. It seemed a discouraging prospect. Besides, I used to love to write anything on request and now I could no longer be in charge of whatever I wrote and that seemed a bleak prospect. But the children rented a typewriter for me to see how satisfactorily it solved my problem before they made a purchase of one. Though it annoys me to be so slow and inept, it has helped me to get rid of my frustrations. I feel a part of the world in that I can write and put thoughts on paper. Christmas time the children bought a typewriter for me.

I loved staying at Berniece’s. She would come and visit with me in the room and I soon learned how to adjust to a life of idleness. I had learned not to feel self pity and welcomed any constructive assignments. While I was so definitely right handed, the right hand was now useless. I think had I had therapy it might have helped. The doctor said that had the medicine and the shots been available that are now available, I would not have been the incapacitated person I am, but science is slow and painstaking. But there is no use crying over spilt milk.

In 1950 my youngest brother, Lawrence, died suddenly of a heart attack. I remember when my sister Lena and my brother Charles came up to break the news to me. They were so very kind and thoughtful and have been through the years of my invalidism. As I learned to walk better I felt more self-sufficient. The children did all that was humanly possible to make life pleasant for me. Forrest gave me a radio which has been so wonderful to while away otherwise monotonous existence. Had I been the type of self-sacrificing mother I should have been, I would feel possibly more deserving.

In 1951 Gordon asked me to come to California and stay a few months in the hope that my health would improve. Garth and Agnes took Ruth and me down in August. We stayed one night with Forrest at Tulelake and then rode down the length of the California I had never seen before. Though I had been to Sequoia Park, I had never been so near the giant redwoods. I loved the Rogue River Valley with the interesting camps situated along the way, and the beautiful Mount Shasta is unforgettable.

Ruth was so solicitous of my welfare as were Garth and Agnes. During our stay at Gordon, he and Carol gave up their bed and slept on the floor, letting Ruth and me have their bed—a gesture so characteristic of Gordon and Carol. We went to see Gwen and Jim, too. They are the souls of kindness and thoughtfulness. Now, two years after his conversion, I am forever grateful to our Heavenly Father to let him see the truth and beauty of the Gospel and its ideals and standards.

During our stay at Norwalk the State Fair at Pomona was scheduled. Jim, in his kind way, tried to persuade me to go but I just couldn’t bring myself to be driven around in the wheel chair. Foolish what pride and a feeling of independence can deprive us of. I have often regretted not accepting Jim’s sweet kind offer. So much could be added to the enrichment of my life with the scientific and technological marvels I might have seen.

Around Thanksgiving time I caught my foot in the hem of a housecoat hanging on the closet door knob and was pitched heavily to injure my knee. It hurt me so badly. Though it was my knee that was injured, it hurt as much below the knee so was sure that the paralysis had distorted the sensation. I did not know what to do except to pray. I depended on Ruth for nurse care. She was so sweet and thoughtful throughout that for the first time the thought entered my mind that she would be a fine nurse. Her touch was gentle and kind. She was already in high school at Norwalk.

Fred, my brother, and his wife Hazel had come to California to visit their son. He tried to urge us to return with them but Gordon would not listen to the idea, insisting that we stay through the colder months at least. But Fred returned to Star Valley and reported that Gordon lived in a house resembling a chicken coop. Truth was that it was one of the earlier housing units constructed at Norwalk. However unimpressive the exterior, the interior contained all the essentials to modern comfortable living.

After the Holiday Season began, I think it was on December 17, 1951, my ever-solicitous sister Lena and her husband, along with Charles and his wife, drove them to see for themselves how I was and to bring us home. I remember so vividly how incongruous it seemed to me to see ripe oranges hanging from a tree next to tinsel and glittering ornaments, all amid green foliage with none of the look of the festive Christmas Season I had been accustomed to.

It was wonderfully kind of them, but I am sure that our being with Gordon and Carol was an inconvenience. They were so kind and thoughtful to us. But the Christmas Season was out of character to what we were accustomed so we were glad to return home and so grateful for their thoughtful kindness.

We stayed the first night at Cedar City. It was either my unaccustomed thirst or because Cedar City’s water tasted so good that I drank prodigious quantities of it and made myself severely nauseated enroute to Salt Lake City. I was so glad to arrive at Edyth’s home without incident. So many miserable things might have happened. I fainted once enroute.

I remember when we arrived at Edyth and Dr. Romney’s apartment we interrupted a dinner party Edyth had arranged for her husband’s relatives. I was so impressed with the courage of his brother, Eldon Romney, who had achieved a degree of fame as a lawyer and in the political arena though he was a victim of poliomyelitis when he was three years old. He was an ardent Republican as I was and was particularly devoted to Robert A. Taft, his policies and principles. I admired him in that he had not allowed is handicap to shadow his life and because he was a useful citizen, husband and father of six children.

When I came home where previously I had been with the girls almost exclusively, I did not feel the apprehension and fear of falling. I had often accompanied Gordon to the Bellflower chapel but, despite the fact that cripples are common in the sunlit land, I nonetheless felt conspicuous. I had been moored to the girls like the “Old man and the sea.” I was welcome in the homes of the girls. Ruth stayed exclusively at Bev’s until she graduated. Summers she spent in Jackson with Audine working at drive-ins and saving enough to go to college at B.Y.U. She was so good at saving her money with the objective of school in mind.

Eugene had gone to the Southern States on a mission, though not before he spent a quarter at Ricks College to qualify himself further. Eugene was home with us but when we mentioned his going on a mission, Gwen said Craig ought to go, too; he expressed himself so well and participated in the ward and was so faithful. How I wished we could send them both, for I am firmly convinced there is nothing to develop a young man who really wants to develop as does missionary service. And since his stay at Fontana and his association with the Thorup twins and others of similar inclinations, he had developed further. Strange how one’s true nature is sometimes smothered because of adverse criticism if well-meaning parents. Failure to understand, to be tolerant and always never allowing children a free expression of their true nature were my besetting sins, particularly through adolescence when they needed love and understanding the most. With Gwen and Jim and their tolerant kindliness, Craig had developed into the intelligent, spiritually minded youth I always wanted him to be toward his full potential.

Eugene filled his mission honorably and well. For the latter part of it, he was Presiding Elder. All my sons have given military service to their country.

In 1954 I suffered two more strokes. The first of the two affected my left side and speech. For the first time I felt hysteria, not to be able to express myself and to have my left side so cruelly inescapable of serving my slightest needs made me feel that I was almost in a straight jacket. The stroke occurred in the night when I was at Beverly’s home. Though I felt no pain, I was aware early in the morning that something was wrong, particularly when I spoke to my little granddaughter Judy and found that my speech was blurred and indistinct. I had told her to run and tell her mother there was something wrong. She did, of course, and Bev came in to tell me she had called Berniece. She came at once. Arthur and Oz administered to me and Berniece called the doctor. He, of course, administered a shot in a hypodermic needle. He called twice more through the day. He said the medicine was so effective that had they had it five years before I would have recovered from my crippling paralysis and would now be normal. Rather small comfort for me but hopeful for future victims.

That evening they brought me back to Clarissa’s. Berniece was teaching school and Beverly was employed at the telephone office. A month later I suffered my fifth stroke. Again I was unaware of its stealthy approach. This one covered the same general area as the first three, a fact I was not aware of until I tried to put my foot into my shoe and found my ankle too weak to hold firm, and when I tried to walk I would have fallen had I not had a firm hold on something. I thank Clarissa who helped me to my feet and to do the few things I was still able to do. Thereafter I walked by aid of a chair propelled before me and would have fallen without it. I was so grateful to Forrest for getting it for me. With it I could go wherever I chose on one floor, of course.

My beloved sister Lena died that spring after a two-month illness followed by an operation for an intestinal obstruction. She died a week after she had submitted to the operation. I had been in Freedom at her home until her daughter Myra came. There was little I could do to help her because of my incapacitation but I loved to visit with her. She was well enough to come up once after I left there, just after I had had my fifth stroke. She was so sorry for me but was her usual cheerful self the evening she came, which was the last time I ever saw her alive.

It was as she would have wanted it, I know. Though I missed her so much, nothing would have been harder for her to bear than to be inactive, so I was reconciled. Besides that, our faith in continued never-ending existence made the pain of separation easier to bear. Her funeral was held on the 17th of March, a day so memorable to her because of her activity in the Relief Society organization. On that day in 1954 she was laid to rest beside her beloved husband.

My difficulties were far from over. I was now living with Beverly in her new home. I was left alone during the day while the children were in school, which I minded not at all since my eyes permitted my reading and writing. I tried to be as independent as possible, which was not much. But due to my speech difficulties—I had never completely recovered from my fourth stroke—I still found it difficult to enunciate clearly and when I tried I spoke more blurred than ever. So I could not read to the children as well as formerly. But I was grateful that my eyesight seemed unimpaired.

One day in late March 1957 Beverly had prepared lunch for her husband and me and called us to the table. I came with my small chair propelled before me as I usually did. I did not square myself at the table carefully enough and the wheels let the chair slide away and I fell to the floor. I knew I was hurt and Tillman carried me into the bedroom and laid me on the bed. I hoped that I was only badly bruised.

Beverly returned to work but first phoned Clarissa to come and stay with me. I had not too much pain except when I tried to move my right leg, and then it was as much below the knee as elsewhere, as it had been when I hurt it in California, so I knew the pain did not register right. I did not have Beverly call the doctor except for pain. He gave her a prescription to alleviate that so I slept fitfully through the night.

Finally I could see that the doctor would have to see it personally and Beverly called him. She stayed at home all that day to do what she could, which was not much. Finally at dusk he came bringing his wife with him, saying she was his go-between between him and the patient. He asked that they take me to the hospital for an X-ray to determine whether there was a possible fracture. The fact that I could not move my foot led him to suspect that. Berniece accompanied me over to the hospital, as did Forrest, using Lloyd Robert’s station wagon. The x-ray revealed a fracture of the femur bone. The doctor recommended that we go to the L.D.S. Hospital in Salt Lake City for immediate surgery. Within the hour we were on our way to Salt Lake City and the L.D.S. Hospital. Tillman, Beverly, Berniece and I in Lloyd Robert’s station wagon. We were there in less than three hours. I did not suffer pain enroute. Even without the pain tablets I had, I doubt that pain would have been intense.

At once after arrival Berniece went in to make negotiations for my admittance to the Orthopedic Ward. Dr. Hess, who was to be in charge of the operation, did not come to introduce himself until later than evening. I was put in a ward with three women who smoked. I did not mind it so much until the smoke became stale, then it was nauseous. The operation was slated for 10:00 Sunday morning. I am sure that those in charge would have liked to delay it until Monday but Berniece had to be back to her school, Beverly to her office, and Tillman at the automobile agency where he was employed as a mechanic. So the surgeons complied with their request.

It was so heartening to have the family gathered around me as we were taken swiftly in the elevator to the surgical ward, then they were all dismissed. There were Berniece and Beverly; my dear brother Fred and his wife Hazel; Audine had come from Layton; Craig and Helen who lived in Salt Lake City were there; and Edyth had come.

I had a spinal anesthetic. I was conscious of all the proceedings. There were several doctors assisting Dr. Hess but they all submitted to his decisions. I had no fear and would have cared little if I had died. I heard the doctor discussing where to place the pin. Instead of splint and tractions, surgeons were using the simpler method of fastening a fracture with a pin or nail.

I was returned to the ward I left. I had thought I would ask for a transfer to a ward where no one smoked but dismissed the idea thinking that surely I could endure it if they could endure themselves. Besides, I recognized that to them smoking was an innocent legitimate habit and who was I to judge them. That night one of the nurses must have sensed my disfavor of the surrounding atmosphere and moved me to another ward where I was much happier.

The children returned home but I was never lonely. The nurses were congenial and pleasant, besides my brother Charles and his wife had come down from Freedom to be with me, Ruth came from Seattle with her nurse friend Lois Abbott, Sharon Crook came every day and Craig and Helen were so attentive, too. I met so many lovely women who, like me, had broken their hips and were therefore in the Orthopedic Ward. I especially enjoyed the relatives who came to see them.

Exactly a week from the time I was operated on I was released. No one can know how deeply I appreciated Charles and Joanna’s trip down to be with me. How I loved them for all they had done for me over the years—their wonderful kind generosity.

Then Clarissa and Oz came down to bring me home in Bishop Mosers’ station wagon. I enjoyed the ride home listening to the annual Conference of the Church that was on the radio. I remember the address of Brother Sill and the address of Elder Adam S. Bennion as he told how the truths of Mormonism had enriched the world. I always enjoyed his discourses—they were so profoundly spiritual. Elder Sill was a psychological giant.

We arrived home without incident. I was told to report to the doctor every month or six weeks. When we arrived at home (I call Clarissa and Oz’s home mine), Clarissa was as proficient as a nurse as those I remember at the hospital and was as kind and attentive. I had been warned not to try to walk or stand for six months.

Clarissa even moved out of their room to give it to me, a thing I protested to no avail, but how I did appreciate it of her, or rather of them. I dared not try to walk, of course, and though ironically how I had chafed at my former incapacity to walk and now I could not even stand. In addition, I was almost in constant pain. X-ray revealed that the bone was not mending satisfactorily and the family persuaded me to return to the hospital for a check-up. That is what I thought it would be. Instead the surgery was as extensive as it had been the first time.

Forrest and Dorothy took me down. Aunt Joanna, that dear devoted sister-in-law, accompanied us. My brother Charles, who had been so kind and understanding, had died in August of a heart attack. But dear Joanna accompanied us down. She was extraordinarily brave through the ordeal. Forrest took me to the hospital and was the soul of kindness and consideration, saving me all unnecessary worry. Craig, who had kept in touch with Dr. Hess, was on hand when we arrived at the hospital.

With utmost naiveté I expected merely to spend the night there, probably be examined and nothing further. I was surprised to have to return for more X-rays and the examination must have revealed that the bone was not knitting satisfactorily and that the pain was caused by nerve damage. Consequently, they gave me this time a total anesthetic so that I was completely unconscious throughout the operation. The nurse administered two shots before I left my room and told me I would soon get drowsy.

I was dimly aware of being wheeled out of the room but was fast asleep on arrival to the operating room and stayed asleep during the removal of the nerve and a deeper driving of the pin or nail.

The first thing I heard was the voice of the nurse calling loudly, “Martha, Martha.” She told me the operation was over. I had no undue pain. But I must have looked a total wreck because the family was concerned about me. Forrest and Audine were with me though hospital rules would not allow them in the room. Sunday I insisted on returning home and Beverly and Tillman came down to get me again in Bishop Mosers’ station wagon. So kind and generous of him.

The doctor warned me not to try to walk. Another fall and another break would lead to serious consequences. Dr. Worthen repeated the warning that a paralyzed limb does not heal as a normal one does. So in view of that, I shall have to be content to remain an invalid to the end of my days. When I think, too, of the work I left undone because I enjoyed doing other things more, I realize I have been basically selfish all my life, not giving credit where credit is due, criticizing too much and not loving enough. I love my wonderful children and realize that I have not been worthy of all my blessings, but perhaps through an endless eternity I can compensate if I remember to be kinder, more patient and understanding. Whether life is long or short, no one can afford to neglect the spiritual side of their character. True, the practical and temporal side often causes us to detour from that which promises the priceless things in life.

I am the last survivor in my father’s family of ten sons and three daughters. My dear brother Fred left us only last year, October 8, 1958. I was bitter at first. It seemed while the last three brothers were suffering from heart conditions, they could enjoy life in moderation while I was not able to do one constructive thing except read and write haltingly.

But in thinking about it all, I know there is a long future ahead for us all. It depends on us whether that future is limited or one bright with promise for eternal living. We must choose. For me, I am so glad to have a testimony of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ to give me guidance and the objectivity we all need when the clouds lower on the horizon of life. I know that God lives and that His son Jesus Christ, himself a God, came to earth in the Meridian of time and atoned for Adam’s transgression, and was crucified for our transgressions, dying the death of a sinless man and gloriously rose again, living that we might live whether we live worthily or not. It is entirely man’s free choice.

The principles of the Gospel as enunciated through the Restored Gospel are of eternal value. I know that we all must render obedience to the principles and ordinances of the Church if we are to have eternal life. Though there is immortality for all—a glory for every degree of salvation, but only those in the Celestial degree are candidates for exaltation—I feel sure that there is nothing discriminatory about the plan. It is here for all to participate in. God is ready to inspire and bless His children.

When Christ, His Son, was on earth, He admonished those who believed His divine message to “Pray always, that you re not led into temptation.” Now after 2000 years we still need that admonition, seemingly less willing to be humble and obedient than men were in his day.

Perhaps Satan, that arch enemy, realizing his time is short, is stirring his poisonous brew in all corners of the world with the assistance of his emissaries.

I have said little about the happiness I have had through my Church affiliations. I was a member of the Stake YWMIA board for a number of years, being a member of the first recreation department when the MIA was first given the responsibility of caring for the recreational work of the Church. I was a member of the Stake Relief Society soon after my second baby was born, as I stated earlier, but enjoyed working in the MIA better, particularly enjoying the congeniality of its President, Sister Eliza Bagley and her counselors, Lettie D. Campbell and Maude C. Burton. When released from there in1928, was counselor in the ward Relief Society and president in the newly organized south ward YWMIA.

As if all that weren’t enough I was active in civic affairs and club work and helped organize the “Star Literary Club.” For Church service I was made an Honorary Golden Gleaner after I was incapacitated. Something ironic about being rewarded for something one has enjoyed so much, for I did love every form of Church service. The “Glory of God is intelligence”, and I believe that men are saved no faster than they get knowledge and apply it wisely.

I know I was selfish in my application of that principle, since though I loved my children, it was not with the unselfish devotion that characterizes true mothers. My children are wonderful, far beyond my deserving, giving me the tender care that I so often failed to give them. Though not of my flesh, the twins, Berniece and Clarissa, are loyal and true. Their undeviating kindness has made my ordeal easier to bear. I love them for their dear father’s sake and for their own as deeply as though they were my own, which in a sense they actually are.

Bernice has a husband and three children: husband Arthur H. Roberts and children Bruce, Marie and Carolyn. She is a housewife and school teacher and active in the Church.

Clarissa, in whose home I live and who cares for my needs as a skilled nurse would, and her husband Ozro H. Merritt, are so kind and good to me. I often fear when will they weary with well-doing and hesitate to go the second mile. They are parents of four children and two of their children are married and active in the Church.

Garth Stanford, my oldest son, has turned to the intellectual and scientific field for his greatest achievement. He has a Ph.D. in Biology and the study is closely allied with the search of radio active particles since the furor over fallout has so obsessed the scientific world. His wife is a career woman, Agnes Klein.

Guinevere is the wife of James E. Ray. She, until last year, was exclusively a housewife and mother of their two children, but then she applied for and was qualified to assist in a school for retarded children. Her husband was baptized a member of the Church two years ago and since has taken his family into the Temple for their endowment and sealing work.

Gordon is a foot specialist or podiatrist. His training as a foot specialist came after his Army service. He is married to Carol Graham and they have two children.

Beverly is the wife of Tillman Lovelace and they are the parents of two children. Besides being a housewife, she is financial clerk in the local telephone exchange.

Forrest is a farmer and construction worker. He is married to Dorothy Eckersell of Rexburg, Idaho. They were married in the Temple and have two children. For a short time he was second counselor in the Bedford Ward bishopric.

Audine is the mother of seven children including two sets of twins. They were married in the Temple but the pressures of maintaining his rather large young family was too much for him and they were divorced. Since then she has tried to make a separate life for herself and children and has enrolled as a student in Weber College where she is keeping a high standard of scholastic achievement.

Craig, his wife and child, live at Bountiful while he teaches school in that city. They were married in the St. George Temple. He has a master’s degree in education. He married Helen McMullin.

Eugene Seward is the only one of my sons who had the opportunity of going on a mission. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple and have two children. He is a member of the Air Force.

Ruth Mignon is a trained nurse now with a master’s degree. She received her training at BYU and at the LDS Hospital, and is now on a scholarship attending the University of Washington.

Here is the story of my life. Many things I am sure are omitted from the record simply because they may seem trivial to me in retrospect.

One thing which made a joyous occasion—all my life I remember beautiful Christmases. I am sure we spent more money than we could well afford. And often I would wish that I could sleep from Thanksgiving until after the New Year because we just hadn’t the money, particularly through the depression and well beyond, to satisfy longing eager eyes. But then it is good not to have all we want. Each birthday was remembered with a cake and some small gift. But at least it contains the gist of things I may have glamorized and things I did. But it is better to remember happy events than to recall the sad.

But for my faith in the principles and doctrines of the Restored Gospel my inactive existence would be intolerable and end in nothingness. Because I believe there will one day be a bright eternal tomorrow, I only pray for patience and strength to endure to the end. Because Jesus, our Savior, dispelled death and because He rose, we, too, shall live constructively eternally.

Life is one glorious eternal round. The learning process never ceases but goes on forever. I have loved and enjoyed the world God created for us, though I knew only a segment of its people and its scenery. I have said half facetiously that when I die I would like to be a ghost flitting about interesting places.

I have loved the seasons in Star Valley, even the deep snows of winter symbolizing death and burial, the gaiety and tinsel of Christmas, and above all to know that Christmas means that God sent His only Begotten Son to live on earth, to heal the blind, to make the deaf to hear, to raise the dead from their sleep and give His sinless life as a ransom for our sins that we, too, might live.

Then I love the springtime and beautiful Easter. Nowhere I have ever been is the winter with its heavy white shroud so truly typical of death with design. Frost has truly wrought on nature her wondrous holding everything within its thrall; bulbs sheathed in their worn-out garments, lying deep in the earth; trees having lost their leaves except for the evergreens standing stark and bare; then comes springtime with its gentle rains and warm sun to waken all nature to life.

Then comes summer—too short, it is true—burgeoning with life and beauty, fulfillment of all the promise of springtime, with bees lazily droning among the flowers, the fulfillment of fruits, flowers and vegetation.

Then autumn with its varied hues and gorgeous tree-covered hillsides resembling as nothing else can a Persian carpet. Truly the Lord created a beautiful world. To me, it was truly exquisite in all needs.

I have wished that I might be useful to serve my family instead of their serving me. But I have seen the need for repentance and meditation. I think we do far too little of that, particularly people of my temperament: impatient and hasty with my opinions. Maybe it was a good thing for me to be taken away from the active scene that I might be better fit to enjoy the plans and peace I will be sent to in the hereafter.

I know I wasn’t the kind of mother I should have been. Often I knew better than to do as I did but was too selfish to try to see. Forgive me for it all.

Story of Two Lives

2008-09-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

Story of Two Lives
By Martha W. Kennington

George Seward Kennington was born September 29, 1879 at Ovid Idaho, the son of William Henry Kennington and Annie Rebecca Seward.
When he was eight years old of age, his parents left the Idaho area and came to make a home in Star Valley.
He was always of an agreeable sunny disposition, an asset to anyone. His father was a polygamist with another wife and family living just a block apart—and each with a large family. Grandfather must have been a diplomat or he was fortunate enough to have married women with the disposition of angels for there was never any friction or the usual family squabbles frequent even in one family.
Grandmother Annie was the first wife, and since polygamy was the rule, gave her full consent that her husband take another wife. A widow of a friend who had with grandfather made a pact that they would enter into polygamy should one survive the other made polygamy a realization.
Grandmother loved her husband and her husband loved her—both were reluctant to enter into the relationship, but a pact was a pact and when Grandfather’s friend was killed he assumed the responsibility of caring for her two small sons and taking the widow as his wife, which was then the rule in the Church though it is said but 2% of the total membership of the church ever engaged in the practice.
George loved his mother and tried to help both his parents in whatever way possible.
Church activity took much of his time, that and roaming the hills fishing and hunting with his brothers and pals.
He was the first President of the Deacon’s Quorum. He was made an Elder likely with his call from “Box B”, as a call to missionary service was then called.
He went on his mission in 1905. His field, the Southern States. There he completed two years of valiant missionary service. On his return he was asked to be the manager of the Branch Store in Freedom, Wyoming which belonged to the Burton Mercantile Company.
He went to Freedom and there in the Freedom Ward he identified himself with various auxiliary organizations principally the Sunday School and here too, romance found him. Although in the meantime he kidded around with several others. Miss Ada Kimball of Thatcher, Arizona who was training as a nurse in the Budge Hospital in Logan, Utah was sent here to care for a patient in Freedom, a Mrs. Granwell McNiel who was seriously ill and since no trained nurse was available in Star Valley the doctor in charge of the case dispatched one of his best nurses to care for the patient.
Practically the only phones in Star Valley were owned by the stores. Miss Kimball confided to her father-in-law that the moment she heard the rich resonant voice she knew he would be her future husband. That was in January and in June the 24th 1903 they were married in the Logan Temple. Their first home was in an addition of the store. Ada was a native of Thatcher Arizona and was born January 4, 1886. Ada was not well a good portion of her married life. Their first son was born October 30, 1910. He was named Winston and lived only three days. November 3 he died.
They were both active in auxiliary organizations. There seemed no part of that small country town they were not a part of.
Ada was frequently called on in a professional capacity to diagnose ailments. I remember when my very dear friend Minnie’s mother was ill of what proved to be her last illness, she was called in to assist Dr. Groom. He was our only authentic surgeon. Dr. West who had been here thru the years was not too well accredited though we must acknowledge his yeoman service. He gave the best he knew to the valley and the community. But when there was a really serious case as with Sister Luthi that needed attention, more expert help was deemed necessary. When she died, I remembered how we sorrowed. I remember being with Minnie as I often was and the sweet way Ada took her in her arms to comfort her and we did appreciate her gentle kindness.
During the next semi-annual conference, she accompanied her parents for her confinement. The twins, Berniece and Clarissa were born the following April 3, 1912. George was enroute but not at her bedside when she died. I remember how sorry the community felt for him in his bereavement.
His mother-in-law, Mrs. Thomas Kimball brought the twins up to Star Valley to put them in their father’s care. His sister, Mollie Low took them into her care giving them devoted service and relieving their father of what could have been a great deal of worry. I remember how proud their father was of them showing them off to everyone who came to the store. I remember how friendly he was to everyone, how he won everyone’s love and confidence. Men used to congregate around the Ben Franklin stove and exchange friendly news items and gossip. I always enjoyed talking to him and hardly remember when he seemed more that ordinary to me. Just how he had ever gotten himself invited to a series of young people’s parties, I don’t know. He always had seemed so interested in what we did that no one thought or remarked that one so much older than we should be invited.
It was after one of the parties as we were all getting into a sleigh and in passing him in the sleigh he took my hand and pulled me down to sit beside him. So then after a rather long time when he was serious in his attentions he was coming to see me at least twice a week.
We were married October 23, 1913 in the Logan Temple. We lived in a small house without heat or running water and the only convience was an old fashioned refrigerator that required blocks of ice to keep things cool.
The twins survived my inexperienced hands. Berniece came to us at once after I had spent a little while in Freedom but Clarissaa was recovering from a bout with pneumonia and was convalescing.
But though I had had no experience it seemed to me so natural to take care of children. I may have seemed awkward but no one criticized or found fault with the way I did things. So I was a happy young girl not yet twenty one.
George soon after our wedding was made Superintendent of the MIA. I was chosen counselor in the Afton MIA. Going to church seemed to me as natural as breathing. George knowing that it meant so much to me never once said anything by way of criticism.
The babies were safe in the care of either Jennie Low or Bertha Kennington, both of whom George had hired, one at a time, of course, as my hired help. I think George thought the care of two babies might be too much for me alone and I enjoyed the company of girls my own age. I enjoyed people of all ages.
I had never had much experience in cooking but I loved cooking for an appreciative husband. My mother, though I was the only girl for a long time, had never given me the needed experience. She was a wonderful cook herself and such, rarely are willing to entrust more inexperienced hands.
I remember asking George what foods he enjoyed. He said, “If I ever drown I hope it will be in soup.” I thought I knew how to cook several varieties of soup so I didn’t worry too much. I had an innate sense for what constituted good cooking and under George’s warm and lavish praise, I soon learned the art of cooking new and varied dishes.
I was young and healthy and taking care of the twins was more fun than work, besides there was community and church work to be done, and I loved it.
The Stake Relief Society President asked me to take an extension course offered by the General Boards. I had never had enough of learning but I felt not in the least humbly hesitant and said “yes” at once.
My first baby was born the day after my 22nd birthday and I was so happy because it was the boy his father talked of endlessly. We named him Garth Stanford, Born April 19, 1915. He is married to Agnes Klein.
Our second child was a daughter we named Guinivere but this name was soon shortened to Gwen. She was born October 11, 1916. She married James Ray and are parents of two children.
Gordon W. was born on October 26, 1918. He married Carol Graham and they have two children. Beverly was born 20 April 1920. Beverly married Tillman W. Lovelace and they are parents of a son and a daughter.
Forrest was born August 10, 1923. He was married to Dorothy Eckersell and they have two daughters.
Audine was born December 19, 1924 and was married to Wendell Stafford. They have seven children, two sets of twins, six girls and one boy.
Craig was born April 11, 1929. He is married to Helen McMullin. They have one daughter.
Eugene S. was born August 26, 1930. He is married to Coleen Corless. They have a son and a daughter.
Ruth Mignon was born October 21, 1934. She is working on her master’s degree in nursing at the University of Washington.
Martha was born September 9, 1936 and died October 21, 1936.
All during this period we lived a full and active life. In June 1919, George was made first counselor in the newly organized South Ward at Afton, Wyoming. I remember it was Apostle James E. Talmage who was authorized to divide the original Afton Ward. I still remember some of his remarks at that conference. They were so portentious and almost prophetic on that occasion. He remarked about the trend of events as they were moving at that time. He said, “They were moving as a tremendous drama, at first slowly with measured movement then swifter and still more meaningful, then the end would come with a crashing climax.” I remember how impressed I was—but events have come with the swiftness he spoke of. But, then, there wasn’t the scientific “know how” there is now and I thought naively that it would be meted out by the hand of God but now I know that it will be men themselves who will seek to destroy each other.
In the early years of our marriage, there was usually a friend or two with us. I surely enjoyed them all. George as much as I. The twins who had had all the contagious diseases in the book now enjoyed good health and nothing at all ailed anyone. Though I remember that the day I came home with Garth the twins came down the only disease left for them to have—the mumps—and since the only thing that I had ever had was the whooping cough which I had had as a little girl. In due process, I got the mumps Even the baby caught it though it was not discernible but he never took it from the other children when they had it later. They all had the disease one by one in the course of the years.
There was a hospital of sorts in Afton, where my first baby was born. But the others were born at home.
Sister Mae Hale was the nurse when Gwen was born. I loved her. Besides we had had a new room built on and it seemed the last word in luxury, which in reality of course, it wasn’t. But the new floors were painted and shone with varnish and new rugs were on the floor. I am sure that whatever budget we had was stretched to the utmost. In those days, no such a thing as a budget was ever heard of—not at least in our house—and more had to be earned. The husband was supposed to manage and I at leas was a novice at finances. George being good and kind indulged me much more than he should have.
We had no conviences such as hot and cold water—but I didn’t mind it so much because I had never had the convience. I remember the stoves which served for heat. Each Monday was wash day. Sometimes-Infrequently the washing would be sent out to a Sister Marriette Eggleston. I know that my mother-in-law, whom I adored, must have often wondered at the stupid things I did. I cringe sometimes in memory of them. They seem almost the acts of a moron than a girl who was reasonably intelligent. But inexperience lets us do odd things. In retrospect, I can see so many reasons for happiness and so many things I might have improved, but I was obsessed with reading and participating in church activities. To me they were the lights in an otherwise rather dull existence. At least I can easily see where it would seem dull to one accustomed to a life of gaiety and pleasure.
I have always liked people and I have always enjoyed every form of church work. George, though he loved to be at home the majority of the time, enjoyed people and did have wonderful leadership ability. All during the time he served in the bishopric, he was faithful to all his duties.
A year and one half after our ward was organized the Bishop died of a strep throat. Bishop Gilbert Taysom was a fine leader. It seemed tous the bottom had fallen out of the ward when he died. I had been a counselor in the YWMIA. I was then put in as president of the organization. I enjoyed every minute of it; though we were often annoyed by the superior airs adopted by the North Ward, who called themselves the First Afton Ward, which of course, they were. But we did resent it and Bishop Taysom did too and encouraged us to excel in the many competitive programs we would have in the various auxiliaries. I knew then as I know now that a spirit of envy and malice is not a part of the Latter Day Saint ideal, uninspired by love and friendship.
I know now that it was a part of not being mature that makes one look over ones shoulder to see how a competitor is doing, instead of being intent on one’s own affairs. But with the North Ward have 90% of the workers we can be forgiven our resentment.
George was chosen as counselor to the next Bishop, C.J. Call who was the contractor of the newly built but not yet paid for chapel.
The new chapel we had hoped would meet all our needs—but with the first spring rains of 1921—leaked miserably, soaking the ceiling and walls. I remember how disappointed the bishopric was at the construction and its betrayal or it seemed like betrayal. Though it was just poor planning on the part of the architect, and perhaps poor construction by the workers. Anyway we were happy with the new chapel even though it was not all we had hoped. The fact that our bishop’s funeral was one of the first funerals held in it saddened us all.
George loved Bishop Taysom. Bishop Call seemed a different sort of man. George was a man who did not aspire to any offices. I loved the work in the MIA. I liked it much better than the work in the Relief Society. I was released from the Stake Relief Society to work in the stake MIA. Though I continued to serve in the Relief Society as class leader. There was so much that was interesting to me in the auxiliary work, Sunday School, and Relief Society. There was so much to do for every willing worker. As I looked over all there was to do, I loved every activity. Now I wish there had been more emphasis on family solidarity. I believe that even I would have sensed that I owed my first allegiance to my home and my family. Instead I was off to meetings, clubs and Auxiliary.
The first club meetings were held under the auspices of the County Extension Officers held for the purpose of learning about food classifications and the proper serving of foods, table etiquette and the little niceties. Those of us who had never had the privilege of going to high school or college were eager for those meetings. The course I had taken for the stake relief society had only whetted my desire for further knowledge. I read anything and everything.
George was so kind and sweet. There was always someone with us and we were full of the joy of living. We were seldom ill. I remember when Esther came down with a mysterious rash. There was no contagious disease and Mrs. Hale who had been my nurse at the time Gwen was born diagnosed it as prickly heat. But when the rash turned into dry flakes on her skin, I said, “I am going to call the doctor to see what on earth you have.” The doctor took one look and pronounced it Scarlet Fever. That possibility had been explored, I said, “It just couldn’t be because she has already had that, besides there is no scarlet fever in the Valley. He replied, “There is scarlet fever around all the time. Some people have it in such a mild form that a doctor isn’t called. Besides it is a fickle disease that may strike an entire family or just one member in the family.” No one else took it though we had never taken the slightest precautions to guard against contagion. I had notified the quarantine doctor and he said it was too late to guard against a possible out break. It always seemed so strange that neither George or I, the twins, Garth or Gwen took the disease. Garth in particular, had been on Esther’s lap almost continuously. He was convalescing from an operation and she was fond of Garth and he her.
I remember that it was the beginning of the time of the division of the ward and every possible means to raise money to help finance the chapel was used. Royal Papworth and Delbert Wilde was to have the twins as their two children. Delbert was to be the husband and Royal the wife. I remember the fun it was to make cute clothes for the girls and how adorable they looked in them. They carried little baskets of floweres on their arms. They were anchored to the basket and what was my humiliation to learn that they were required to throw them before the feet of the queen, Sister Martha E. Roberts. To this day, we do not know whether some of the tin that secured them did any damage.
It was not long after Uncle Dick Kennington died that we moved over to the old home. We did a good deal of renovating. We had what is now the bathroom made into a small kitchen. The front room had been repapered and soon I was going to entertain the Home Economics Club, a club I have enjoyed through the years. I remember there was so much to learn, so many friends to enjoy.
We loved the refurbished home of his mother. I never was a good housekeeper but I loved to arrange rooms. I remember when the Home Demonstration Agent said simple admiration, “This is the prettiest room I ever saw.” I too, thought it was pretty but now I realize that there were many things wrong with it. Too much blue with nothing to set it off. I can see that now but then there seemed nothing wrong with it. There was a world of new ideas to be had and I am glad to have learned that there were things wrong with it then. This is the only way in which we ever know that we have learned and developed. That is the better part of learning.
It was not long before Eugene was born that we moved down to the home Uncle Oz and Aunt Mollie built north of Afton. George thought the move would be good and he could make more money. It was a disastrous time, financially, I mean, everything was at the bottom of the cycle.
Clarissa was the first to get married. She married Ozro H. Merritt of Bedford, Wyoming. I am sure that it was partly because we were staunch Republicans that we did not rail at the Depression as “Hoover’s Depression”. We knew it was world wide thing created by no one man but by man’s stupidity and folly.
George was City Councilman and Mayor of the town of Afton on several different occasions. I remember one year he was mayor, bishop, county committeeman and the telephone company listed our telephone number as AFTON TOWN OF 34 J.
He was released as bishop of the Afton South Ward when we moved. He had served as counselor to two bishops. He was chosen as bishop to succeed Chris J. Call on his release. He chose as his counselors Ben Nield, who had served with him as a counselor to Bishop Gilbert Taysom and then as counselors to Chris Call. Joseph Linford was the other counselor.
We weathered the depression but I know George had worried much more than I had known. Financially we were in debt. That I knew but he did not disclose its true nature to me. I am sure it was to shield me. But I know now that it is never a kindness when a woman knows nothing of her husbands finances and thus is not ready to talk intelligently to her husband and try to expedite matters as best she can.
Life in the old brick house was never pleasant. I detested the high ceilings. There did not seem one advantageous thing. I tried not to show how much I disliked it. Around the first part of 1937, George was showing signs of not feeling well. We urged him to go to a doctor for a check up. He hesitated first having all his teeth removed. Someone had suggested that his teeth might be the cause of his trouble. He had Dr. Papworth pull all of his teeth. His condition seemed to worsen. Finally we prevailed on him to see Dr. Worthen. Uncle Willie went with him. That was after he had had a distressing spell of nausea when we were having Thanksgiving dinner. He had not been feeling well all morning. I fixed some soft bland food for him to eat. But after his nausea, we called the doctor and he being distressingly outspoken stated that he should have an operation and since he was so thin would require intravenous feeding to build him up.
I remember so well the anxiety we all felt. The doctor in his examination had said his body was void of acid content, intimating that could be indicative of a malignancy. We had long been fearful of that since it was not readily diagnosed.
He had to be in the hospital for two days before his operation. Both Uncle Lon and Uncle Bert were permitted to watch the operation.
After the operation, how relieved I was when Uncle Lon said, “His condition is exactly like Bert’s.” Bert had recovered from two operations and was apparently well and completely well and completely cured of his ulcers.
I felt such relief and was voicing my relief to a friend when the doctor came into the room. He asked to talk to me. I thought, of course, it was concerning George’s operation. He had a book in his hands and when he opened it, it revealed a book of brightly colored illustrations. Then he said, “This is your husband’s condition. On the caption of the picture was the word “carcinoma”. How graphically the memory of that night is etched in my mind. My first words on seeing the plated carcinoma, “You don’t mean to say he has cancer. The word “cancer” always seemed to have such fatal connotations to me, allowing no hope and seeming to preclude faith. I, of course, began to cry and asked the doctor why he told me. He answered, “I thought you would want to know”. I said, “I didn’t. I would have nursed him and would have been as good and kind as I knew how to be without that awful knowledge shutting out every prospect of hope, besides the terrible pain he will have to endure.”
Then he began rationalizing. “There are always sedatives and drugs to ease pain; as the need arises they can be made stronger and stronger. Besides he can live five years and gain weight,” He said soothingly as his brusque manner would permit.
I asked only one thing that the true nature of his illness not be heralded to everyone. I couldn’t bear the tones of sympathy and pity on every side. It would be much easier for me to bear alone.
George was a wonderful patient. He thanked us for every small favor we gave him. I know that the state of our economy was a constant worry to him, though he said nothing. Berniece and Clarissa were wonderful, a constant source of strength. He was brought home the twelfth day after the operation. I kept rationalizing that if what the doctor said was true, that his diagnosis could be in error too. A man just couldn’t put on weight and improve and still have this dreadful malignancy. But the doctor had told me the truth as he had told the girls he could not live a year. All of this time I had hope. But it was not until early in June that I said, “I believe consecrated oil would help you.” He said if you think so let’s, have some consecrated. So I had a large bottle consecrated. He obediently took two large spoons full. That night he had the worse night of all. I remember I was up and down with him all night long until I heard the birds twitter in the trees. The he slept a little while. That night I too lost all hope for eventual recovery. It was as if all efforts were destined to be in vain. Then I knew what sorrow. I felt would be sorrow for me and the loss we would feel. I knew self pity never benefited anyone. I knew and always believe in life after death. I knew that he would be infinitely better off in another world than he was in this one where he had a wife, a son, a daughter, father, mother who loved him. So much as I loved him I was willing to surrender my claims that he might have peace. Dr. Worthen, I am sure, anticipated a long siege of pain and gave Clarissa the mildest morphine tablets he had. He thought that as the pain intensified they could be made stronger. But only a few were needed because he sank into a coma and on the 21st day of July 1939, he died.
I was grateful that the end had come so peacefully. Uncle Oz and Aunt Mollie, Lena and Willie and my brother Charles had spent the night by his bedside. I love his memory. He had been a kind, dear husband, always ready to spare me. He gave the children council and advice, setting the example of a clean life obedient to all the standards and ideals of our Church. So we can be sure that if we are true and faithful we can meet him and know him as a husband and a father. He was true to all his covenants and to the Priesthood he bore. May our sons do as much since they each hold the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood as I write. The rest is entirely their own responsibility.
In retrospect I wish I had been a wiser wife and mother, that I had realized that criticism had no value unless it was kindly given and inspired by love for the one with whom one finds at fault.
Returning again to the sadness that surrounded the death of our loved one, Minnie, my sweet true friend was so wonderful to me. I remembered it was she and her husband who returned me to the cemetery to select the choicest of flowers. And through the dreary days that were in store for me, never a day passed that she did not call or come to see me. I loved her for her wonderful loyal friendship that lasted all my life. I remember that it was she who came to see me the Sunday which was unbearably lonely and asked me if I would help here in the program she was in charge of. She, Minnie, had the responsibility of arranging a program to honor the twenty fifth anniversary of the Extension Service. She came down that Sunday to ask if I would write and be in charge of a pageant memorializing that occasion. No assignment was ever more welcome. I knew I couldn’t go on grieving without harm to me and my family. .And nothing is better to take away one from themselves than to give ones thoughts to writing creatively. So I did the best I could. Mr. Bowman liked my efforts even though some people thought it would be too much for me. I had written many things and Minnie knew I would do it for I had written many things over the years and I loved it. I remember once when I was a child I had said to may mother, “I believe I could write.” She rather scorned the idea and I gave up my thought of it. She certainly had to be excused because the world to which she belonged was given over to hard practicality and not fanciful dreaming. Circumcised as it was by a large family of children, tailoring and doing the essentials.
The story of my parents conversion to the gospel was always faith promoting time even though one of my sons attempted to sort of discredit the miraculous in it, saying that the child realizing that he was the center of attention was no longer bothered.
My third brother and their fifth child was stricken with a malady, a scourge resembling leprosy, so heavy and deep were the scabs covering his whole little body. The doctors called it eczema and though doctor after doctor attempted to cure it, it seemed to worsen. Now eczema is thought of as an emotional disease.
Then there was a timid knock on the door. Whether two young men stood on the threshold or if only one announced himself as representing the Restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I never knew. This my mother never did tell me though she I am sure she had a phenomenal memory and the events I am sure was as vivid then as when they occurred. I am sure the parents told of their little son’s distress. How discouraged they were. I am sure, too, that it was not long before he explained the principle of healing as Latter Day Saints understand it. We can imagine how graphically our rather excitable father told of the child’s woes even though the young elder,, one Arnold Schulthess from Salt Lake must have sensed the distraught atmosphere of the home. He told them of how the same powers held by Jesus Christ during his mission on earth was delegated to men through the Priesthood of God.
One can visualize the scene how they watched the young rosy cheeked Elder pouring oil on the scabrous head and anointing it with oil and praying. Oh so humble that the terrible affliction might be halted and the child so afflicted might have peace. Almost instantly the skin seemed better, within a few days the scabs dried and all the pain was eased.
They had had the faith because there was no one else to turn to—and now there must be more—a full conversion that the Church of Jesus Christ was true.
About four years after they migrated to America. I often wonder why I was so careless as not to hear the account and write it as it was told by our mother. All the years yet t be were lived in the absolute faith and integrity of that single incident which opened the door of what seemed to be another world to those young people and the family which came to them. The incident was as truly miraculous as those performed by our Saviour while he was on earth.
A large company of migrants accompanied them to the new land.., the America of their dreams. And the friendships formed there will last for always.
I have always appreciated the principles of the Gospel—believing in them so far as my understanding went. Frequently, no understanding or not quite believing what speaker would say most of the time I held my doubts in abeyance until I had a cleared understanding. Cynicism or skeptical, unwilling doubt of the Gospel never should be a part of us. By and by faith clears away any doubt that may linger. So one has said that the flexibility that permits us to be adaptable to our environment is the highest intelligence. That is true up to a point—there are eternal verities that demand us stay staunch and true and that doesn’t mean we are stubborn and incapable of adjustment. There are more flexible people than those who will leave old ways and old customs for something true and eternally beautiful.
Ever since girlhood I loved reading and with that I seem to have developed a little talent for writing. None of it for financial gain—not that I had no need for –I did! It would have meant all the difference in our lives. I am a bit like Mrs. Dable expressed it, “opposed to poverty”. Who isn’t? But unless I had the stimulus of an assignment or a need the ability seemed wasted. I just couldn’t force myself to write. .In my lifetime, I have written all sorts of things, tributes, obituaries, funny papers, pageants, dramas, short stories, skits, none of which I have kept. They always were so short of what I considered my best, I thought I would do better next time. I remember winning a prize in the Stake Short story contest. This was accepted for publication.
There of course was my expectancy that I would retain the ability, never realizing or thinking incapacity would overtake me. I had had high blood pressure for a number of years without being aware of it. I know that tensions and pressures tend to build disorders of various kinds and so it was with me.
But until went to Doctor Beal for a check up was I ever aware of it. He said I had the most dangerous kind, the kind that could mean cerebral or cardiac seizure. I worried about it for days because I had little children. What could be nicer than to meet death instantly I thought.
But such was not my fate.
I suffered my first stroke when I was fifty. I knew it instantly for what it was. My entire right side was affected. It was the only stroke of five that could be attributed to heavy work. I was trying to dig an irrigation ditch in the garden. I had previously assigned the work to one of my sons but he had mistaken my instructions and directed the water in the wrong course. I had another though I apparently had recovered with the exception of an extreme weariness I couldn’t throw off. The next came a week later as I was getting ready to go the 4th of July celebration. This time it didn’t wear off. Berniece called the doctor and he old me not to do as much as lift a finger.
I rested and was rather glad to most of the summer. War was on and since I seemed well I went with the children down to Clearfield Utah where Beverly had rented a home in a housing project. I seemed to have recovered completely. I could walk without too much weariness. But I knew I wasn’t well when a Life Insurance agent came to the door and sold a policy for Ruth when he asked “What about you?” I told him that I had been rejected on several occasions by company physicians. “You look perfectly healthy to me, go see our doctor.” I did and learned that again the pressure was high. I felt like a statistic when the doctor dismissed me.
The next summer I was doing the most enjoyable work I had ever don, working in the Star Valley Book and Music Store. While there I had the stroke that permanently incapacitated me November 1948. I was not alarmed unduly because it felt much like the first one did and had no thought but that I could go back to work for Stayner.
As usual the twins were my best help. They had both gone with their husbands to the Idaho Falls Temple that day. We had rented the house and I had rented an apartment down town convenient for my work and the children’s school. Eugene and Ruth were still in the local schools. Craig had gone to California to go to Junior College at Ontario California near Gwen’s home.
All these more than 10 years I have been a burden on my family. Strange that I once could have worried about instant death. Though life has been made pleasant for me by the kindness of my family far beyond my deserving, I have longed to be able to make restitution for the mistakes I have made in my dealing with my family when I was so quick to criticize and so chary with praise. I often wonder how the family could have all grown to be so honorable when I did so little to help them by way of encouragement.
Born April 20, 1893 in Providence, Cache County, Utah. My parents, Samuel and Verena Goldenberger .Weber I was barely six weeks old when my parents decided to come to Star Valley from Utah. Our first house was a two roomed sod covered house. I remember the logs, white washed inside and periodically whitewashed on the inside—the chinks filled with clay to keep out the cold. It seemed interesting to me and not the least undesirable. Seeing things as they were with my childish eyes I can understand why they always seemed so good. I know our fare was meager and not in the least what a dietitian might prescribe for a growing family of children. Few pioneer families had better so it did not seem a hardship—perhaps to the older one but it was all cozy in our little house.
School did not open many doors to me. The one roomed school house where all grades from 1st to 8th were housed. The poor teacher contended with all ages. The ones who really were interested in learning were given some lessons to study and as we grew older, sentences to diagram. I remember how uninterested I was with arithmetic and how I loved Grammar. I was especially interested and intrigued with parts of speech and composition. The printed word had fascination for me. The eighth grade ended formal education for me, though I never have had enough of reading.
I shall resume where I left off when my dear husband died.
As I have aid before, I was deeply interested in all sorts of activities. Everything seemed interesting. My health was no loner good at least not good enough to take me where I would like to go. But one memorable trip I must thank Clarissa and my sister Lena for. Lena and her husband and her daughter and her husband were planning to go to Texas to bring their son Evan home from his mission. When she first mentioned it to me I discounted it as an impossibility, for there were the children to care for and there was no money for such a trip. But without saying too much to me, she maneuvered things for me to go with them. So in March 1940 we went but not without misgivings. Because I had sense enough to realize that it would be so much responsibility for Clarissa, who bless her heart, has always done so much to ease life for me and my family.
Our first night we stayed at Rawlins in a tourist cabin. I had never been to the eastern portion of Wyoming, so everything was new and interesting to me. The next day we rode through as bad a storm as I have had the misfortune to see. It was through the Denver area. I had never been one to worry and add to a driver’s discomfiture, thinking philosophically that he was as anxious for his safety as ever I could be for mine.
I remember the beauties of Colorado Springs and I would like to live there were I wealthy. All portions of Colorado were lovely when we got passed the storm area. Anyway it was a marvelous trip, the first I had ever had beyond Salt Lake City and was made possible by Clarissa, her cooperative husband, Gwen who loaned or rather gave me the money. The trip cost me nothing beyond the expense of motel and some few necessities required along the way.
For that I shall be forever grateful
We stayed in Houston, Texas as when we had to meet Evan. Not being familiar with the city, we arrived well after dark, we drove to a motel and the attendants were all negro. I thought nothing of that but when daylight came, we could see we were all well within the negro quarter of the city. I have thought much of the sensations that were mine when I learned that, since there has been so much about the segregation problem in the news. I am sure that I wouldn’t by any more objective were I faced with this question than anti-segregationists.
I am reminded that in the racial controversy that Southerners love the negro individually by despise him as a race; while the North say they love the negro as a race but despise him individually. Anyhow we are all God’s creatures and have no right to be hostile. I can’t resist mentioning some highlights of that trip. There was Old Mexico, at least Juarez. In old Mexico we had such fun bargaining. The Carlsbad Caverns were on of the nicest places to see with the stalagmites and the stalagmites , the floor to dome formation in the big room the always 50 degrees temperature was welcome to us even though it was early March the weather was uncomfortably warm.
When we crossed the painted desert with its beautiful clean sand. I couldn’t resist the temptation to take off my shoes and stockings and like a kid wade in the warm sand.
We spent a day or two with Sister and Brother Heber Hanson. We spent a day in the Arizona Temple and I was very impressed with the plants that grew around the temple.
We then drove to Phoenix to see the State Capitol and its beautiful Wrigley Building. From there we went to San Diego. We spent one day going through the Balboa Zoo which is one of the best in the world. There were so many animals of every variety. Every variety of monkey was there from the gorilla to the tiny rather cute ones. But we saw none that were in the process of evolving.
We spent ten days as guests of Myra in Los Angeles, where Eli could find any point of interest with no difficulty whatever. Any point or sight we might be interested in he could find. We visited museums, parks. We rose at 3:00 am on Easter morning to attend the Hollywood sunrise service. We spent part of a day at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. I was very impressed with the statuary there and the picture of the Lord’s Supper, the soft subdued music that filled the air, filled us with reverence and memory of those who had passed away. I remember how I was overcome in “The Little Church of the Flowers”. Everywhere there were lovely inscriptions to remind us of the inevitability of death and the thought of the Latter Day Saints philosophy of life and its glorious promise of eternal life gives peace and comfort to those who believe and are obedient.
We then went to San Francisco. Wandered through China Town saw a wharf or two, rode up and down the irregular streets. Some of the streets were almost perpendicular and breath taking. We saw the Golden Gate and the Bay bridges, the prison fortress which housed incorrigibles—prisoners. I looked at Alcatraz and thought, “How near and yet how far. How sad those who stray.”
From San Francisco, we doubled back to see Boulder Dam and Hoover Dam. We saw some of the interesting night life of Las Vegas. I forgot to mention that we went to hear Aime Semple McPherson on Palm Sunday. It seemed as interesting as a show to me, with its choir, the waving palms, etc. It was so interesting and her talk as empty of real meaning in a spiritual sense. An amusing incident occurred in the passing of the Collection plate. There were representatives form every state of the union with several foreign nations thrown in. The plate passed our seats all together in a row and there was not a single contribution from one of us. I had protested that what we had seen was interesting as a play or a movie but Lena thought the very idea of contributing to any church but our won was sacrilegious.
We arrived back in Salt Lake City for annual conference. Only then did I find out that the three youngest children had the measles. I knew that Clarissa could give them even better care than I could have done, never the less, I felt conscience stricken not being where my clear duty lay.
But it was all so wonderful to take that trip and enjoy it in such congenial atmosphere. I am grateful beyond expression for those who made it possible.
Maybe I should add something of the trips I took to Laramie as a delegate for the Women’s Extension Clubs, one trip to Laramie and then to Thermoplis. I had been a member of the Auxiliary of the Farm Bureau in the Southwestern Region. They gave me that position before I scarcely knew what the Farm Bureau was. Star Valley had been selected as the locale of the next year’s convention. I was quite deep in state affairs, anyway I have seen so many interesting things and have heard so much that is constructive that I know that everything we learn just broadens our horizons a wee bit.
The I, who had thought it was impossible to worsen an already bad situation, broke a hip. The expense really mounted, of course, I had to go to a specialist. An orthopedic specialist, Dr. Hess. Had it not been for the expense and trouble I would have enjoyed my stay at the hospital. My first night at the LDS hospital I was in a ward where the other three women smoked. When I went to surgery, my impulse was to ask for a transfer into another ward, but I didn’t, but one of the nurses did and I appreciated it. Because not alone was the air purer but the visitors were a better type. My own family continued faithful, bless them, and did much to help recovery. Of course, at no time was I in severe pain. The break was on the side which was paralyzed, which was the reason I broke it in the first place. Such an easy fall but the weak bone could not even take that.,
Now as I sit writing, I recall events in my life. The fine wholesome family I was born into, the good parents I had, my good brothers and sisters. All gone now leaving me the weakest of the lot to survive.
May events have flowed past to amaze and sustain me.. I am grateful for the good family of my husband, his brothers and sisters. For my kind understanding husband. Those wonderful children, not of my flesh, who have done so much to help through the years. Berniece who is married to Arthur Roberts, and they have three children, Bruce, Marie, and Carolyn and three grandchildren. Berniece is a housewife and a school teacher. Clarissa, who is married to Ozro H. Merritt. She has four children and four grandchildren. Her children are, Clarice, George, Harold and Von. Fortunately she had been content to remain a housewife that she might care for me. Since my hip was broken, I have not been able to set foot on the floor.
Garth is married to Agnes Klein. They are living in Appleton Wisconsin. He is a professor in the biological field. Gwen is married to James E. Ray. She is a housewife and teacher and with her husband and two children make a home in Fontana California. Their children are Jimmie and Jeanne. Gordon and his wife, Carol Graham Kennington are buying a home in Oceanside California. His is a Chiropodist. I have always appreciated Gordon and how considerate he was of me after his father died. He was wonderful. He has two children Jeri and Guy.