Of Mothers, Cemeteries and Headstones

Before Mother's Day, Dad and I met at the cemetery to place our flowers on Mother's, Tina's and Mark's graves.  I took great-grandson Xadrian Winterton with me.  As Dad and I were intently trying to drive  wires into the ground to anchor our flowers, I looked around to see Xadrian across the road in the cemetery perched on the maintenance tractor in front the of the sheds trying to start up the tractor.

I figure Mom would have gotten a kick out of that.

I don't have a good photo yet of Mom's new headstone, but thought I'd add this anyway.  A few months earlier, Dad asked how we would feel about moving Mom's resting place up the hill a bit where standing headstones were allowed.  I was all for it.  It just seems right that Mom and Dad have a nicer headstone than one that was flush with the ground.

Alan, Dad and I met with the man who would design what we wanted for her.

It is near a tree further up the hill from Mark and Tina's with a beautiful view of Mount Timpanogas.

On Memorial Day weekend, Natasha called to see where Grandma Hunsaker was buried so she and Brian could take some flowers there.  She was surprised to see that the cemetery was full of Hunsakers, and that Kirk's ancestor had donated the land for it.  She messaged me this photo.

Ancestor Phineas Howe Young and Brother Joseph

A random discovery while listening to speaker Sharon Eubanks at BYU Women's Conference.  She was talking about loving and honoring our prophets.  She related this incident:

     Brigham Young's older brother Phineas Young was in Tiffin, Ohio, and while he was there he wrote to Willard Richards who was the prophet's secretary.  He said, "I long to see the day when I can again visit my brethren and see the Lord's prophet, and hear the words of life sweetly distilling from his lips.
     Give my love to the Prophet Joseph when you see him and tell him I'd come to the Rocky Mountains to see him and fight my way through an army of wildcats and Missouri wolves and  live on skunks the whole journey."
   

Brigham Young and His Brothers--Two of our Grandfathers!

Yes, people!  Two of Brigham's brothers are our great-great-great (or how many it is for you) grandfathers.  They are sitting on either side of Brigham.  Lorenzo Dow Young, a younger brother, and on his right, Phineas Howe Young an older brother.  Don't say it--- Phineas looks like a cross between Hitler and one of the three stooges.  Don't get me wrong, and I hope he will still claim me -- blame it on
the style back then.  In fact his face is quite nice if you disregard the hair factors.  And I am so thankful and feel so blessed to be their descendant.
Phineas was the brother who was first exposed to the Book of Mormon and knew right away it was the word of God.  He is the one who introduced Brigham to it.
The brothers took a very active role in the church's early days with the brethren.  Phineas was a close friend and brother-in-law to Oliver Cowdery.  Lorenzo was with Brigham crossing the plains and stayed back with him before they entered the Salt Lake Valley for the first time.  Google their names for some great histories of each of them.
More to follow......and I hope I'm not struck down for being disrespectful....just wanted to be silly with my kids and grandkids.  (If anyone ever reads this.)

My Bingham Family

This fall was a time of family history for me.  Besides working on the Book of Remembrance, I decided it was high time for me to finish up a project I began a few years ago.  My Uncle Carl, mother's  brother had a booklet of a history he had researched and compiled about Mom's grandfather, Calvin Perry Bingham (known as Perry).  He would have been Clara's father.  It was typed and printed up on a dot matrix printer that had faded grey type that wouldn't photo-copy well.  I asked Uncle Carl if I could borrow the history and retype it and get it printed for other family members.

I loved reading about ancestors I knew nothing about as well as my Grandma and Grandpa Young. The saving of files was a challenge as we had a couple of computer crashes, and a new pc and laptop.  The files were strewn between them all.  I finally got to the point when it was mostly done, and then I quit.  This fall when I decided I just had to get this done while Uncle Carl (who is 90 years old and weighs 90 pounds) is still alive.  Then I couldn't find the manuscript.  I searched high and low and knew or hoped I'd find it someday.  Then a few weeks before Christmas, its whereabouts came to me.  I quickly finished it up and got it to the printer. It isn't perfect.  My page numbering was off and I didn't have the whole manuscript on one computer.  Plus there were sheets that were clear enough not to need retyped.  So biting the perfectionist bullet - I did what I had to do to get it in print before Christmas and hand wrote corrections and page numbers. 

Because Grandma Young (Clara) lived until I was grown and married, I was able to know her fairly well.  This history has given me insights into her childhood and home life that I would have never known. I'll share some of them little by little as the blog goes on.

THE MOST MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS GIFT FROM MY DAD (and I got to help) !

Thanks to Gloria (Dad's second wife) and I believe, my mother orchestrating a little bit from heaven, Dad decided to give each of his kids a Book of Remembrance for Christmas this year.  He needed some help getting the information together and asked me to be a helper/liaison for Universal Genealogy Center.
Gloria had decided to give books to her children, and Dad had observed the meetings she had with the representative from the company in St. George.  He asked me to meet with him and see if it looked like something I thought my we would like.  Did it ever!!!
I gave Kevin Steadman the general information for our family and received the assignment to collect all the information for Dad's living posterity.  It was an assignment that was harder than I thought it would be.  My last information had been input on a computer that had crashed. Since then I had changed Family History software, so I had to find and re-enter the data.
To make it more interesting, I had changed to a Macbook (Apple product), so I was learning a new operating system, plus trying to get my software to work on it.  I had a bit of trouble saving the info to a thumb drive and going back and forth between computers.  It was finally pulled together after a couple of different setbacks.
When Kevin brought me sample book for my approval, I was overcome.  It was eight inches tall!  He said because all the family lines were pioneer lines with lots and lots of posterity, there was no family temple work to be done for the dead.  Just think!!! I have been feeling the hovering cloud of guilt every time we had a talk on doing temple work for your own ancestors.  That is not to say there isn't a LOT of things to do.  Updating my parents siblings info to begin with.
And so many, many ancestors to learn about.  There was one named Comyn the Red that Christian randomly saw.  He wanted to know why he was called The Red.  I googled him and up came tons of Scot history.  It was impressive.
We received CD's for each of the kids with all the info on it. 
WE WERE ALL SO THRILLED!

A MEMORABLE WEEK-- UNCLE LAMAR AND AUNT OLIVE FUNERALS

 Lyle LeGrand Young and his sons, Lawrence, Carl, (Lyle) Perry, and June

 Ruth Winchester Young, Lyle Young, Clara Young, June Young

 Olive and Lamar

In a collage of photos, a young Uncle LaMar and just below a photo of Kirk and I before we were married standing on Grandma Young's front porch in Altamont. 

 My cousins, the Nielsen boys, Leon, Larry, Keith, and Floyd now deceased.

 Lamar and Olive in their later years.

 I rotated this photo before I uploaded it (I thought)

 The young Nielsen family

 The three Young women -- Olive, Clara, and Lela

Happy days

The oldest of my mom's sibling, Aunt Olive Young Nielsen died five days after her husband, my Uncle LaMar passed away.  Kirk and I made the trip to Roosevelt twice in a week.  It was a most enjoyable experience which may seem weird of me to say.  They were both very old and suffering.  Their children and grandchildren had cared for them for a very long time.  They were more than ready to go.  I loved the tributes to both of them, and the opportunity to see my cousins, and other family members.  We stopped at the cemetery to photograph headstones of my Grandpa and Grandma Young and Uncle Perry Young.  I also snapped these photos with my phone from the display the family had at the funerals.

Kindred Spirits

MARILYN YOUNG ALARID, Helaman Halls, BYU, 2012

 My cousin and I have never lived near each other, but for the first 15 years of our lives, spent a week or two during the summer staying at Grandpa and Grandma Young's or Unicle Lamar and Aunt Olive Nielsen's home in the Uintah Basin.  We were inseparable.  Marilyn lived in California or Nevada, was about 9 months older than I was, and quite honestly was the kindest, nicest person with just the right touch of a sense of humor.  She was, quite rightfully, the sweetheart of the family.  She was like my "Jiminy Cricket", the little voice in the back of my mind, prompting me to be kind and helpful.  I adored her.
A few years ago, as I was going though family papers, I found a "will" Marilyn had written at probably 12 or 13 leaving me all her earthly possessions.
Her mother, my Aunt Ruth was killed in an automobile accident which also shattered Marilyn's leg and maybe hip when she was about 15.  A couple of years later, she married, and we went for years without seeing each other.  She had a rough marriage, divorce, and a lot of grief with her two sons who had severe drug and alcohol.  She worked hard to support herself, and was too busy to come with her family when they visited Utah.  Kirk and I went to see her once or twice when we visited Northern California.
Fast forward until Tina's death, when she called me, and then later invited me to join her at BYU Women's Conference in Provo when she drove a group of women up.  I, of course, accepted, and the almost 45 years melted away.  We were a team -- taking up where we took off with a lot of life experience behind each of us.
Marilyn had remarried a nice man who died a few years ago.  He was a staunch Catholic and wanted nothing to do with the LDS church.  Marilyn's mother was not LDS, and she was not baptized until she was a teenager, if I remember correctly, and wasn't active for most of her life.
Faithful home teachers took note of her interest in family history a few years ago, and got her visiting the family history center in Sacramento.  Things progressed from there, and she prepared to go to the temple around the time the Sacramento temple was dedicated in 2006.

I was able to go to my Uncle June's funeral in Chico, CA with my dad and Kirk.  It was wonderful to be together in Aunt Jeri's home for a couple of days.
We had to miss a year or two of Women's Conference due to Marilyn's work, but met up again this year.  What a great experience to share the spirit sitting next to each other in the Marriott Center.
We both are crazy busy, (and a little just plain crazy) and mainly just exchange email forwards of humor, politics. and beauty, but it's like we know we are connected.
I'm so thankful for the blessing of a renewed friendship, that we are cousins, and most of all sisters in the gospel with a shared faith in Jesus Christ.

A Plea on Behalf of Your Posterity and Your Peace of Mind

I AM THE POSTER CHILD FOR LESSONS LEARNED.  There is one thing that I would suggest will save you time and effort at some point in time whether you are "into" family history or not.  Make a file or a box where you can file birth certificates, baptism certificates, and dates of importance for your family.
For a few years I entered pertinent facts into a software program for genealogy.  Then I changed software and computers and didn't get all the information saved correctly.  I am on an exciting errand for Dad, and have had to call siblings and nieces and nephews as well as my own kids to get information.
I feel like a pest.  I know how annoying it can be someone calls looking for information needed with a deadline.  How I wish I would have just entered the info when I got a wedding invitation from a niece or nephew or a birth announcement.
Some of my relatives have the info at their fingertips.  Others struggle. WORD TO THE WISE: eventually you or your kids are going to need those dates and data.  Save yourself some grief and have the info someplace where you can get to it easily.  Just saying'.  

Great-Great Grandmother Myler and Tithing Blessings

My great great grandmother Ann Mariah (Pronounced MARIAHR) Thacker had been married to Joseph Myler for six years when he told her he wanted to take a plural wife, and she gave consent. After the marriage she was heart broken and she threw mud at them as they drove away in a buggy. 8 months after the marriage she took her three children and went back to Daniels to be with her family. One time when living in living in Strawberry, she took 3 dozen eggs to Bishop Clarence Ivie to pay her tithing. While talking to him, she told him she didn’t know if she should pay her tithing because she needed to buy flannel to make petticoats. Bishop Ivie told her to pay her tithing, and she would have the flannel to make the petticoats. She paid her tithing and left. While walking home she found a package in the middle of the road at the old Strawberry river bridge. She opened the package and there was the flannel she needed for her petticoats. She went back to the Bishop and told him what had happened. She went along the river and asked everyone she could find if they had lost the package. No one claimed the flannel so it was hers, and she had her petticoats. She had walked about 10 miles that day.

Poem for Pioneer Day

Mormon Pioneers, originally uploaded by AllAboutMormons.com.

COUNTERPARTS by Susan Noyes Anderson

Great Grandma walked across the plains,
Her blue dress grey with travel stains,
She bore the hardship, for she knew
Her faith in the Lord would see her through.

Her once pink hands were calloused now,
And she had said good-bye somehow
To husband dear and children lost,
Praying the end would be worth the cost.

I walk the darkened city street,
My hurried footsteps keeping beat
With a trembling heart, but I swallow my fear.
Reminding myself that the Lord is near.

I wear my travel stains deep inside,
Where I battle iniquity's rising tide,
Praying husband and children will not be lost';
And that the end will be worth the cost;

We all must walk these earthly miles;
Different times bring different trials.
***********************************
Used this in the talk I gave in church today "Remembering our Heritage.

My Thoughts on "Genealogy Meets the Blogsphere"

On July 14, 2011 there was a front page article called "Genealogy Meets the Blogsphere" on Mormon Times in the Deseret News.  One interesting point:  GeneaBloggers.com has a listing of 2,000 genealogy and family history blogs.   It's quite mind boggling. It seems the internet is exploding with tutorials, networking, and sharing of information regarding new trends and resources connected to the world of family history.
The article points out  places where one can watch videos on how to make a genealogy blog.  Even though I have been quite remiss in making frequent postings, I am so glad I met the challenge issued  last year in Web 2.0, 23 things.....embracing lifelong learning in the family history field.
It was fun for me to realize I was actually pro-active about something that was becoming a trend.
There is so much more to do than I can ever get done, but I want to post more frequently....even if it is just for myself.  Also I am trying to be selective in how I spend my time with Fam. Hist.  I have to keep up to date to be able to teach the Family History class in Sunday School, am trying to organize materials I already have in my possession, and want to pinpoint some incidents and qualities of grandparents and great grandparents and get them recorded in one source.
Kirk and I are speaking on the 24th in church:  Remembering our Heritage and Honoring our Heritage.
Loving and appreciating our ancestors more each day.  The spirit of Elijah has definitely settled upon me.

Brigham Young's Summer Home

We went to St. George on Spring Break.  The one thing I most wanted to do was visit Brigham Young's summer home, as I never had.  Kirk and I went one afternoon.  This portrait was hanging in the home.  Toward the end of his life, he stayed in St. George.  He had a lot of problems with his feet (not sure if hips and back were also involved.)  Anyway when he had an addition built onto the main home, he had his bedroom on the second made large enough so that he had an office and a dining table in it.  At times in order to get upstairs to his room, two men would carry him in a chair up the stairs.  There was a balcony outside his room so that he could spend time sitting there.  At times he would visit with people from there.

His bed was a tall four poster.  Most interesting item there to me was an upholstered stool next to it for him to kneel on to pray.

My relation to him --- his 3rd great niece.  Two of his brothers, my 3rd great grandfathers -- Lorenzo Dow Young and Phineas Howe Young.

Xadrian visits Grandma Hunny at work

Xadrian visits Grandma Hunny at work, originally uploaded by hunnygrams.

A Family History Pioneer

As I spend some of my evenings working on indexing records online for FamilySearch, I often think of my mother-in-law, Vera. Other times I am sorting through boxes of photos and family papers, dividing and filing them into categories so they can be more easily accessed. I ran across some information that made me realize that Vera was indeed a forerunner to the online indexing program.

Vera Cook Hunsaker was called on a mission by President Spencer W. Kimball. This mission was "not to be more than three years and to be served in the Family History Department of the Church. Seventeen years later she was released from this mission.

The assignment she was working on was called INDEXING/SPECIAL PROJECTS UNIT.

The following is an excerpt from Evan Evans, supervisor of the unit helping to bring this to pass.

"The volunteers who have worked on the Welsh-will project....produced such an impressive sample of the quality and volume of the work that Volunteers can accomplish, that 40 volumes of Welsh-will abstracts together with a five-way index for each volume, were recognized in 1976 by the Priesthood Genealogy Division....which was later included in a presentation given to the General Authorities.

"...The following year a special new unit was organized in the Genealogical Department consisting of volunteers with one full-time employee....

"The groups of volunteers working on the We;sh-will project were supervised by Sister Vera Hunsaker, whose capabilities, dedication, and countless hours of work were largely instrumental in bringing this to pass.

"This...set a precedent at the department...and was the forerunner of the "explosion" of volunteer work that is beginning and will transpire in the future."

Along with her service in the church, Vera had deep closet shelves filled from floor to ceiling with pedigree charts and family group sheets she had researched in her life.

We love and miss her!

Photo from the Early 50's

Grandpa Willard Day, in his dapper hat, Cousin Karen Gibson, me, cousin Kathy Gibson, and brother Byron. At Grandpa's house on Denver Street.

Trek ready

Trek ready, originally uploaded by hunnygrams.

Three of my grandchildren are on a pioneer trek for four days. Natasha, age 17 and Austin, age 15 are in Wyoming at the Martin-Willey memorial. Alec, age 15, is in the mountains somewhere above Heber City. All will learn a little bit of what almost all their ancestors experienced as they came from England or the Eastern United States to settle the Land of Deseret. I hope to have some photos to add from all three. .

Hair wreath

I bet it smells great., originally uploaded by lampwik.