Showing posts with label Neil/Faddis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neil/Faddis. Show all posts
Monday, February 3, 2014
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Memories of Rachel Vella Fowler, by husband Jim Neil and siblings Joe, Lois, Norma Rose and Wendell
MEMORIES OF RACHEL VELLA FOWLER
Informant Code: Jm
= Jim Neil, husband
Jo = brother
Joe 2 ½ years younger
L = sister Lois 1 ½ years older
N = sister Norma Rose, 9 years younger
W = brother Wendell, five years her junior
Appearance: W Tall
and stately, a little taller than most girls.
L Blond as a child, dark brown hair as an adult. Known for her
“violet eyes.”
L Fell a long way down in Waterfall Canyon
L: Mother didn’t use makeup and we
girls didn’t use much – maybe a little powder. When I got married and started
using makeup, mother was appalled.
Jo Didn’t fuss with appearance, made no effort to
enhance it, had no interest in fashion.
NR Never fussed about looks but always
looked very nice. Shoulder-length very dark hair usually wore long except
pulled it into a bun after marriage.
Jo A beauty queen – remember her riding
on a float around the track for a football game.
Courtship: W (uneasy
with this question) Because Jim Neil was not active in the church and because
he drank and smoked, Rose and Ben were not happy with Vella’s choice to date
him exclusively. Why would she do that when she had so many other beaus who all
wanted to date or marry her – good, handsome, popular young men? But the family
didn’t make it an issue for comment, just a word dropped here and there – it
was explored mostly by the parents in private. And the church wasn’t as strict
about such things then.
L One of her rejected beaus pleaded to
have her sealed to him after her death.
Domestic: W Mother
Rose was so efficient and good around the kitchen and house that she didn’t ask
her older daughters for help with cooking, dishes, or cleaning during the week
– only a little on weekends. She wanted them to have time to become what they
should become.
L The Crowthers were very pious and had
long and frequent family prayers that Rose wanted to continue but Ben did not.
So Rose never went against him. Ben also had a real temper, especially when
arriving home from work, and would sometimes shout around the house. Rose was
very loving -- liked physical closeness,
liked to kiss and hug the children and their friends. Always sweet in
temperament and touching people. Ben said too much love made children weak.
Vella rebelled against Ben’s rules to some degree but was never disrespectful
towards him.
(Meals W
dinner about 6:30 in the dining room, “father Ben” at the head of the table,
boys on one side, girls on other, “mother Rose” at the foot. Fowlers were
always noted for eating everything. Rose had a salad and cooked vegetable every
night. Ben brought home a steak every second or third night that weighed less
than a pound and was divided among the members.
Jo When he thinks of Vella he thinks of
her eating peanut butter and jam spread on bread. Dinner was to be at 6:30
sharp and anyone late caught “verbal hell.” There was always a lengthy evening
prayer at the table and the rest of the meal was pretty structured with discussions
about family matters, school, or any problem that needed to be addressed.
Intelligence:
W an outstanding, brilliant girl, quite a student.
NR and L Spoke beautiful French –
majored in it in college and spoke it socially with others who also spoke
French. English minor. Graduated with a perfect GPA but was not valedictorian
because the faculty chose a man with a comparable GPA but who majored in
engineering to take that honor.
Interests and
Talents: W Tennis, doubles
champion in Ogden
City
L Vella and I did a lot of
singing at different churches when we were about 9 and 10 – were invited by
different organizations, I (Lois) sang soprano and Vella alto. Also did some
dancing – Lois ballet, Vella tap --in public as children. Vella did
recitations. [The wards used to have this kind of talent at evening meetings.
What a gentle world without television and the Internet.]
NR She was seldom home; but when she
was there, she was always reading. She
was wonderful at tennis – played to the #2 position in Weber County
L and NR Went to
church as long as she was living at home and taught Sunday School. After
she moved in with the Neil family’s dormitory in Salt Lake, the Fowlers didn’t
call on her even though the building was only a half mile from the Fowler home
– said they didn’t feel comfortable with the obvious differences in point of
view over religion and religious practices.
Outings: W Every
summer the family took a car trip to Malad Idaho to visit with Rose’s relatives, the
Crowthers. The drive was always a lot of fun with conversation, jokes, and
plenty of singing.
Personality: W Vella was always very congenial, pleasant, helpful.
Strong willed at times but not seriously. Very popular at school. Boyfriends
coming over to the house almost every night. Vice President of school senior
year, elected final prom queen – a big deal, selected as a “sponsor” for the
ROTC band (ROTC was also a big deal at the time.) complete with uniform and “presence”
at band appearances.
L She had tall friends. Some
seemed ugly or unconventional in dress or behavior but she chose them for her
own reasons – liked everybody. Ben very disturbed by her choice of friends. She
was a tom-boy, usually played outside at whatever the boys were playing rather
than playing with dolls or crayons like her sisters. Liked to ride her bike.
Later as a young woman she had a very romantic outlook on life – longed for
true love, being swept off her feet by a handsome man and living happily ever
after. [I think this was a “Fowler women’s” dream, but less of my mother than
the others.]
L Vella was always light-hearted,
optimistic, and upbeat, giving people the benefit of the doubt. Inquisitive,
brave, went off on her own exploring as a child. Generous. A religious rebel.
(Apparently Vella had told Lois that Lois was “too stiff.”)
L As a child Vella took a double dose
of Epson salts (one belonging to Lois) because Lois put up such a fuss with
lots of crying. The double dose made Vella very sick, but she didn’t complain
about it – “She was like that” – a dare devil, willing to try anything. When
Norma Rose was whining about having to do dishes, Vella locked her out of the
kitchen and did the dishes for her. Told NR to ignore her brothers’ teasing and
they would soon stop it. This worked. (Joe had said that it was fun to tease
both Lois and Vella because they were so trusting and gullible).
NR AND L Vella was idolized by all who knew her and with no
resentment because people thought she deserved it.
NR If Vella had a fault it was
being stubborn. She preferred odd balls for friends.
Jo He and Vella argued. She would work with a
problem; he was more headstrong. She was well-organized; knew what she was
doing. Good outlook on life. Not distracted by other people’s opinion.
The following is all Jim and not really
categorical:
They lived in the same LD.S. Ward in Ogden and performed on the same evening
programs – Jim doing recitations and poetry readings. She was two years
younger, a grade behind in school, and he sat behind her in a speech class and
never spoke to her once. Her junior year she was in the “queen’s court” and the
following year elected Queen of the Classicalia with Karl Hopkins’ son working
“fervently” to elect her even though her father was superintendent of the Weber
Schools and Hopkins superintendent of the Ogden schools. Vella won by the
largest margin of any girl in the history of the school. After she started college, Mrs. Eccles (which
one) asked Jim to escort Vella to one of her parties, and Jim never took out
another girls after that although Vella continued to date other men.
“Vella was not differential like Lois and her mother.
Instead she was very vivacious. Lois would sit quietly at a table at the party and
observe the action while Vella got right in the middle of it. At the same time
she was totally gracious. All of the Fowler girls were very idealistic,
expecting a rosy future. She was very strong. She was a great athlete. We would
play tennis and I got beat pretty often. Or she and another partner would play me
and my male partner and we got beaten
regularly, also. She had a strong serve and a great net game that she wasn’t
afraid to play to the fullest. She wore a white blouse or sweater to play
tennis, a colored skirt, white tennis sox over her nylon hose and white canvas
shoes – Keds or Converse. No woman wore pants or shorts at the time – an
outrage.”
One of her former friends went to Hollywood where he worked for a movie
company; and when he showed Vella’s photo to a director, he was told ‘If you
can get her here, we can cast her,’” At 5’7” she weighed about 125 pounds.
School (college) clothes were skirts with a blouse or sweater, or a print dress
and hose with soft suede shoes that we called “mocs” but were not really Indian
moccasins. She had beautiful party dresses (Rose’s work) and a little
high-quality jewelry that looked very good on her as she had a long neck and
pretty shoulders and neckline. She wore a fragrance called Coty’s ‘Chic.’
Jim thought she got the scar through her eyebrow in a
motorcycle accident. He remembers her hair as long, “very long to the middle of
her back. She wore it braided in two long braids that she wrapped around on the
top of her head like a Jewish skull cap. Or she coiled them on either side of
her head in a style called ‘shells.’ Or she let them hang down her back and
tied them together at the end. Or she wore
a single long braid that hung down her back. She wore a bun for special
occasions.
They had regular Sunday afternoon dates when they went to
one of two homes in Ogden
of wealthy and prominent families where the young people gathered to visit and
play cards and eat. Once they went to a
large dance at the Alhambra Dance Hall in Ogden
with Jim her date. He therefore had her dance card and so was theoretically in
charge of her dances. He took dances four, eight, and twelve for himself,
waltzes, because he didn’t want anyone else to get that close to her. And he
always had to fill his choices in immediately because it otherwise filled up
the first minute. But just after dance four, two guy appeared who had come down
from southern Idaho
and were related to her family “and she asked me to find them a place. And I
said ‘your card is full,’ and she asked me if I couldn’t just fix it somehow so
they could have dances after coming such a long way. So I gave up my last two
dances, went to the coat room, checked out my coat, and was going to go back in
and give one of them her claim check and ask them to take her home. But I
watched her out there on the floor – so lovely -- and I just couldn’t walk away
from that. So I returned my coat and waited. But I did want to say, ‘Lady, I
just can’t compete with all this traffic.’”
Vella had to drop out of college to work for a dentist named
Foutz where she functioned as a receptionist and dental assistant. And when she
had saved enough, she transferred to the University of Utah Salt Lake City .
After they were engaged (no ring, no announcement) they were sitting on one of the dorm
balconies and Jim had loosened her braids and was running his fingers through
her hair to loosen it. One of her many suitors passed by and saw Jim’s action.
Vella began to cry. She knew that the other man would realize she was promised
to someone else and that would wound him. And his wound caused Vella to cry for
him. She was very tender hearted, kind and compassionate. She could also find
something good to say about anything, even the squalid apartment they had after
they were married – she liked it because Jim was there. Jim’s father used to
brag that his son was going to marry a woman who was much too good for him. But
he’d add – ‘She’s too good for anybody.’
They were married the afternoon they graduated by Apostle
Richard R. Lyman in the Church Office Bldg. They didn’t go to church; they
“prized their weekends together” as she had been either studying or in class or
working at the dorm and he did the same plus working at Utah Power and Light on
North Temple where he arrived by street car after school and caught the last
car home at night arriving by 1 a.m. Weekends were the time they had together
“We never said much about church, didn’t discuss religion at all. Her faith must
have been there because her family were very devout, and you can’t live with
religion without it rubbing off a little on you. But she dated Mormons and
non-Mormons equally and married a Jack-Mormon. After the wedding the family
fathered for a lunch that Ben Fowler sponsored.”
Jim and Vella spent their honeymoon summer working at Ideal Beach
When school started they moved into a one-room basement
apartment on the corner of Jefferson and 25th Street , directly across from what
was then Ogden High School
Their entertainment was walking even in the cold of winter.
Unfortunately, Jim and his best friend spent almost every evening in the little
apartment with the only window closed against the cold. Both were chain
smokers, and Vella got an unhealthy dose of second-hand smoke for several months before her baby was born. It didn’t
affect her appetite, however. “Her favorite meals were breakfast, lunch, and
dinner. She had no food dislikes and was a good cook. She was the only person
I’ve ever known who would throw out dishwater when it got dirty and finish the
rest with fresh water. She was also meticulously clean about her self, bathing,
showering, and washing her hair often. She would rub cold cream on her face
every night before bed, thick enough to be white before she rubbed it in. She
also took her hair out and let it fall freely during the evening before going
to bed.”
“She got only one new item to wear after their marriage.
Lois and Harry took her to Ogden
and opened Harry’s mother’s store and helped her choose a maternity dress. We
should have had twins because I wanted a girl to name Vella (she said not Rachel Vella) and she wanted a boy
to name James Sidney Neil. That’s why my daughter’s middle name is Sidney .” After Christmas
Jim moved Vella to Salt
Lake Ogden ,
and they saw each other only on weekends.
One story has Vella walking the three blocks from the
Highland Dorm to the Holy
Cross Hospital Hot Springs – an unlikely
choice. In any case, her doctor was impatient that the placenta did not deliver
quickly and gave her an extra heavy dose of pitossin which brought the placenta
in a hurry but also apparently caused the uterus to turn completely inside out.
No one checked on this, as would be standard now. Instead she was taken to a
private room where her mother, Rose, sat by her bedside, naive, not daring to
pry into such indelicate business, until Vella turned deadly white and Rose
asked a nurse if something was wrong. Apparently the bed was bathed in blood.
Her blood had not been typed, those willing to donate had not been typed, and
all efforts were too little and too late. She was twenty-two. After her
daughter’s death, Rose lobbied strongly to take the baby. Since she had been he
person who had produced the superior original, shouldn’t she be the grandmother
to reproduce it in the granddaughter? But Jim argued that the child shouldn’t
have to lose both mother and father as his job was in Ogden . His own mother left the Highland Dorm
and took a house in Ogden
whereshe could care for the baby and keep house for Jim. And so it turned out
that Vella’s daughter was raised by her father’s mother – a woman who loved her
as her own. They moved from Ogden when Vella was
2 to Idaho Falls – Jim following – and back to Ogden when Vella was 11.
The Fowler grandparents, Lois, Wendell and Joe lived in Salt Lake California . And so it was that young Vella
saw very little of her Fowler relatives until she was 19 and lived with Ben and
Rose for three years while attending the University. There she worked after
school until five o’clock each afternoon and during her senior year – Saturday
morning, as well. She saw cousins only on Thanksgiving and briefly on
Christmas. Little wonder they did not grow up close. Perhaps something of that
can yet be achieved.
Vella Sidney’s
Observations:
With the exception of her high school English teacher – who
was also my high school English teacher – Vella was constantly described as the
smartest, most beautiful, kind, and universally loved of anyone that speaker
knew. (My English teacher said Lois was prettier.) Even the art teacher LeConte
Stewart said she was beautiful. Many women said she was “dainty” – but no man
ever did. Her French teacher (later my French teacher) said she spoke French
like a native and thought fluently in
French.
More than one person said that Vella was not her father’s
favorite child. That honor would go to Wendell (over the long haul) although
the focus was early on Joe. Ben even concocted the name Benson to identify his
paternity, as it otherwise has no relevance in the family.
Over the course of the years, I have come across this
additional; information: I have two photos of her on horseback -- she was
apparently an all-round athlete, a member of a social club in high school
“Carpe diem” and belonged to the modern languages club in college. She was also
the society editor for the Acorn, the
college yearbook. At that time, Weber College was actually a church school – the L.D.S. Academy
in Ogden , with
daily devotionals just like BYU. She included everything in her annual report,
from the devotionals to the debate team’s honors, to the team sports, the
plays, and finally the school dances of which she was particularly fond. The
literary editor of the Acorn chose
two poems and one short story to include in the yearbook, and it was Vella’s
story -- suggesting additional talent
with language and narration.
Here are the things that struck me in reading her yearbook
singings: Class leaders, reputed athletes, other beauty queens, and “ordinaries”
all wrote in her book. Several teachers wrote saying they had enjoyed her in
their classes. A couple of the men said they loved her. Many wrote that she had
helped them enjoy the school year. Many
of the high school girls and college women told her that they loved her. I find
this amazing, as a girl who is beautiful, smart, prominent, talented, and a
“queen” is sometimes resented by other girls. Apparently Vella didn’t wear her “superiority”
out in front and people related to her on a genuinely human level. One of the
college men told her that she had the rare quality of being herself.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
How Ideal Beach Was Created On Bear Lake, by VSNE
HOW IDEAL BEACH WAS CREATED ON BEAR LAKE
My grandfather, James Wilson Neil, started
building Ideal Beach in 1913 – just before World War I erupted in Europe.
(America entered the war in 1917.)
Jim Neil was born in a little mining village in Scotland
named Calderbank (this is where we stopped the couple coming out of the bar and
the woman went home and got me the map).
His parents had joined the Mormon Church in Scotland in the
1860s and they came to America in 1885 both to immigrate closer to Zion but
also to find work in the coal mines near Evanston, Wyoming.
In 1892, seven years after the family settled near Evanston,
the Neil parents traveled to Logan, Utah, to have their marriage sealed in the
Logan, Temple – the second temple completed (1884) after the Saints moved west.
While they lived near Evanston, and later in Kemmerer,
Wyoming, the Neil family met many Utah Church members because they belonged to
the Utah Woodruff Stake that stretched all the way from Garden City on Bear
Lake, past Randolph and Woodruff, Utah, to Evanston and Kemmerer, Wyoming. They
attended stake conferences with their fellow Church members and heard such
speakers as Parley P. Pratt, J. Golden Kimball, and other notable Saints.
The Neils also became acquainted with the Hodges family who
owned a sheep ranch and milling company by Bear Lake. They got to know this
family particularly well because the Hodges men would make a two day journey by
wagon to sell their sheep, lambs, flour and any excess produce to the coal mining communities in Wyoming.
Then they would carry a load of coal back to Bear Lake. It was a profitable
business for all concerned.
In 1900 Jim Neil’s parents bought a small parcel of land
from the Hodges family where they could have a little home in their retirement.
They moved to Garden City about 1908.
In 1910 son Jim had a thriving hardware and mercantile store
in Kemmerer, but by 1912 he was persuaded to relocate near his parents and Bear
Lake.
In 1913 Jim Neil bought 37 acres of what had been their
spring “lambing out” property from Joshua and Niamiah Hodges for $1,900 – a
large sum at the time. To buy the property and help develop the resort, he sold
interests to his former partners in the hardware store and to other Kemmerer
businessmen.
He named the new resort “Ideal Beach.”
Jim had 41 small log cabins built in a row along the beach.
Indoor plumbing was not considered necessary in vacation properties (or many
homes, for that matter), so several outhouses were built and frequent
standpipes were installed where people could obtain water in buckets for
drinking. There were no kitchens in the cabins – just a bed or two and some
chairs. This was not considered a deprivation. People went to the Bear Lake for
a lakeside “camping” experience; and cabins were a real luxury.
In addition to the 41 cabins, there was a bath house, a
kitchen and dining hall, and a large entertainment building with a hardwood
dance floor that was built with springs underneath so the dancers’ feet would
not tire. (This room was later converted by a timeshare company called
Sweetwater into a roller rink.)
Jim also had a dock and pier built, brought in sail boats
and motor boats to rent, and ordered many truckloads of sand hauled in and
spread between the cabins and the water as the original “beach” was just rocks
and dirt and mud.
Ideal Beach was a popular summer resort for many years. Jim
Neil advertised in the Salt Lake, Ogden, and smaller papers. It was only a one
day drive for people living in Salt Lake or Kemmerer or Boise.
Between 1915 and 1950, most people didn’t travel hundreds of
miles from home just to vacation. Thus Bear Lake was a good destination for
folks in the nearby states. Visitors were charmed by the water’s beautiful
color and by shade trees for the hottest days. High school graduates came to
celebrate the end of their schooling. People drove for miles to attend the
dances – the best in the area as a good orchestra was always hired for the
weekends. Jim’s wife looked after the guests and his sister-in-law ran the
kitchen (almost single-handedly) where people could order full cooked meals or
picnics to eat elsewhere.
As they grew older, the Neil children were put to work
cleaning the cabins, helping with the boats, working in and around the kitchen.
In the winter the lake would freeze over pretty far out. Then they or someone
else would need to cut big blocks of ice and put them in piles layered with
straw in a large underground pit called an “Ice House.” A lot of ice had to be
cut for the resort to be able to keep its perishable food fresh and to serve
iced drinks throughout the summer. The older boys had the job of fetching
blocks of ice from the ice house as it was needed.
(Once Uncle Lyle was showing the ice house to a guest and
stressed the fact that he had to leave one block of ice there over winter. When
asked why, he said “Because we need ‘seed ice’ so we can grow more ice for next
year. His listener believed him. That was Uncle Lyle.)
Ideal Beach was popular for many years. However, a drought
occurred about the same time that farmers wanted to divert more water from the
Bear River for their crops and the power company built a diversion dam to run
their turbines. These combined stresses on the lake caused the water level to
drop much lower; the shoreline to recede many yards out; mud, sticks, and rocks
became the beach, and the resort lost popularity. Jim Neil had passed the
management over to a native of Garden City some time earlier, but he finally
had to abandon his “Ideal” resort; and it passed through a variety of hands to
be what you see today. (Is it called Sweetwater now?)
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Family History Talk, Testimony And Personal Conversion Story, By Vella Evans
Robert
and Elizabeth Faddis, JW Neil
Student
Ward Final Draft (by “a cousin”)
Brothers and sisters, I’ve been
asked to talk this afternoon about genealogy. Well, as a recent
vice-presidential candidate said when confronted with the need for specifics, quote
“I’m not going to talk about that.” End quote. However I am going to talk about
things related, and maybe a little genealogy and if you’re patient it will all
come together in the end.
Let’s start with a confession.
I’ve sworn never to do genealogy. That was for old women. And it was time and
brain intensive and the costs outweighed the benefits and it was boring. But
sometimes younger women did it. My husband had a really great cousin – smart,
funny, I liked her. And she was really into
genealogy and was constantly
running down to the Family History Library and trying to get everybody excited
about it. And I used to look at her and think: “You’re sweet, but unbalanced,
and really need get a life of your own.” But then, something happened:
I got scared into writing
family history – note the distinction: history, not genealogy – and it was all
an accident. One day in 2004 my husband and I accidentally drove the scenic
route past Mirror Lake into western Wyoming. And being there, and out of sheer
boredom, we looked for a town near Evanston where I thought some of my
relatives had been miners. The town was gone. We drove east to look at Oakley
where my father had been born, but it was also gone. And we drove south about 20 miles to
where my grandmother had been postmistress in Cumberland. Also gone. Three
towns in Wyoming gone forever, Another in Utah.
Four family homes and four
family towns lost. No walls or parts of walls or porch steps. There was one
chimney and a few bottle shards. But mostly but just sage and dust. I felt I
needed to do something, but it wasn’t the spirit of Elijah that moved me --
more like the Endangered Species Act.
All of the people who lived in
those towns had been dead 50 to 100 years or more. I knew their names; their
ordinance work was all done, and the family lines were pushed back as far as
they would push. So what was the point?
The point for me was I wanted to know
them before every scrap of evidence that they’d ever been alive disappeared. If
entire towns can evaporate in 50 years, what else might be lost? I wanted to
know where my people lived and how they lived and why. I wanted to rescue their
mortal lives, so to speak. To bring them back to life in a family history so my
children and grandchildren would know them – really know them. The problem was
they’d left no clues: no letters, no journals, no personal records. Instead,
they were just names on group sheets and pedigree charts. Poor immigrant
laborers who’d become obscure.
I talked with every descendent
I could find, and they knew even less than I did. All I got were family legends
that I already knew. For example: Great Grandfather Robert was killed when a
mine roof fell on him. Great Grandmother Elizabeth had such a bad heart that
you could see pounding under her blouse from 10 feet away. Their little boy was
killed by a train. That’s
all most of my cousins had to tell. I had a little more plus lots of birth and
death dates and a few photos. So, I put the group sheets on one side of the
computer, opened up Ancestry. Com, and got to work.
First I looked for my great
grandfather, Robert Faddies, in the 1880 Utah census. He turned up twice, a bad
sign. In Summit County, Robert was found in the Coalville home of his mother,
Elizabeth Faddies. She was listed as head of house. But in
Ogden,Robert was listed as
head of that house and living with his wife,
Elizabeth Faddies.
Next, I tried to find their son
who’d been killed. I wrote the archivist at the Ogden library and asked if
there was a newspaper story. She fired back with a long and lurid article from
the Ogden Standard Examiner for June 15, 1880. It was
accurately titled “Horrible! Horrible!” Here’s a much toned-down summary:
Samuel Faddies, aged 6, was run over late afternoon by an engine in the Ogden
Railroad Yards. His mother lives in a small house by the tracks. His father
used to work for the railroad but now mines coal in Summit County. The boy’s
older sister, with him at the time, said he tried to climb on the moving train
but fell.
The group sheet told me that the
sister who went out with the boy was only eight years old and there were two
younger sisters: a three-year-old and a newborn. Now the family was more than
just names on a page. Now this scene emerged: It was close to dinner time that
day in June – maybe hot. The family lived right by the railroad yards where
there is no green space, no open water. No place to hide from the sun. Just
soot and ashes and the rails reflecting the heat. Great grandmother (with the
bad heart) had apparently been alone for many days while her husband was with
his mother in Coalville. He’d left her with three youngsters plus a baby to
care for. Wouldn’t a new mother with a bad heart be hot and tired? Wouldn’t the
children be restless and hungry? Maybe the six-year-old boy, bursting with
energy, slipped out or was sent outside with his older sister.
Now I could see the small house
by the tracks, hear the noise of metal grinding on metal, the whistles, bells,
the hiss of steam, the screeching brakes. I could see the house shiver with the
power of the engines. See the coupling and uncoupling of cars. See the boy’s
excitement. See the girl – only eight -- try to control the boy. But she
couldn’t.
Week by week I learned a little
more. Their lives grew fuller. That mother with the bad heart died two years
later, in 1882, after giving birth to my grandmother. Robert was killed three
years later, in 1885, leaving four orphan daughters, ages three to thirteen.
Where would they live? How would they live? They invaded my thoughts and my sleep.
In doing more research, I learned that two very old grandmothers – Robert’s
mother, born in Ireland, and Elizabeth’s mother, born in Scotland --, took two
of the girls. Another went to live with an aunt
The oldest – the eight-year old
who hadn’t been able to keep her brother off the train – had already been
earning some money. At 13 she became a full-time hired girl in Evanston and
later went with Senator Clark’s family to Washington D.C. where she cared for
their children and house. By 1900, that oldest girl – then 28 – and the
youngest girl -- (my grandmother) then 18 -- were living in adjacent houses in
Ogden, Utah. And the census identified both as “household servants.”
Household servants. No glitzy
“nanny” business for orphans. They washed other people’s heavy woolens and
cottons on a washboard every Monday. Hung the clothes out to dry, year around.
Made pot roast every Tuesday when the coal stove would be hot for the irons and
ironing. Scrubbed the wooden floors every night, sometimes using bleach – sometimes
sand – to scour them white. Cared for children not their own. Sat up nights
with measles and scarlet fever, mumps and whooping cough.
Thirty-four years later, those
two household servants, my grandma then married and her sister still an “old
maid”, took me home from the hospital after my own mother died in childbirth.
For 18 years I grew up in their home, but still learned more about them after
they were dead than when I’d lived, self-absorbed, with them. The same for my
grandfather. I knew he had built Ideal Beach at Bear Lake but had no idea he’d
had a hardware and mercantile store in Kemmerer that sold everything from milk
pails to bicycles, coffins to pianos. You get to be a one-man-band in a little
town.
I hadn’t asked, but why had no
one given me these stories. I had to find them in old newspapers on microfilm.
And the more I learned the more I wanted to know. I couldn’t stop thinking of
them or their parents and the rest of the family. They invaded my nights, kept
me awake, slipped into my dreams. I learned to love them and love them deeply.
By day I poured over the records. And the more I learned, the more I grew
to love the work, also.
There are so many places
to learn about your ancestors – the people who made your own life possible:
There are tax rolls, military rolls, court records, wills, rent books, wage
books, poor house rolls, guild records, ships’ manifests, immigration records,
news papers, government documents. I found my grandfather four years ago in the
Congressional Record. From 1919 to 1921 Senator Reed Smoot repeatedly
introduced a bill called the J. W. Neil Relief Act designed to compensate
grandpa for losing his fortune when the government mistakenly seized his
shipment of sugar and held it until the price of sugar bottomed out. Bad
mistake. He finally got a
little money back and gave it all to the bank that had lent him credit to buy
the sugar.
There are ordinance surveys to
check. Once the British controlled Northern Ireland they sent in the army corps
of engineers to measure and count everything including the economic and living
conditions. And old parish records are wonderful. For centuries many churches
kept records of their members and their weddings, baptisms, disciplinary action
and the like. Then in 1785 John Sinclair, General Secretary of the Church of
Scotland, directed all the ministers the Established (or Presbyterian) Church
to write an account of the geology, hydrology, antiquities, economic and social
conditions of each of their parishes. Some wrote 2 paragraphs and some wrote
200 pages. Taken together, it’s the best overview of Scottish history of the
period ever produced and surely made my own work easier
And the work was going well.
Sort of out of the blue I met the editor of a tiny Wyoming newspaper who’d recently
written about my grandfather. What a co-incidence!!!. That editor introduced me
to old Paul Canoso in Diamondville who had known two of my great uncles 60
years ago. Paul introduced me to 92-year-old Alice who’d gone with her husband
to work in my grandfather’s mine. She included the mine in a book she’d just
finished writing.
In the Family History Library I
met a missionary named Faddies (Robert’s name, also). That man’s ancestors
lived in the same tiny village of 300 people in County Antrim. Ireland, when
Robert was born there. Time after
time, without plan or
preparation, I’d come on the right paper or book or person to answer a
question. It all seemed extremely convenient and lucky and circumstantial.
Then in May of 2007, a grandson
wrote me about a spiritual experience concerning my mother – a woman I’d never
seen. He broke my heart. That month we took our children on a family history
trip. In Ireland we called unannounced at the local parish to talk with the
minister, but he was away for the day. But before we could leave, he showed up
– having forgotten something – and stayed for over an hour answering questions
and telling stories. He also told us how to find the old laborers’ cottages we
wanted to see by following a path that he’d had cut through some over growth
just the night before. We wouldn’t have been able to walk that path until that
very morning.
A woman whose cottage we
rented just happened to have an out-of-print copy of a small parish history –
about the same as a stake history – for the 19th century. Just happened to have it and
her son just happened to have a photo copy machine for the pages I wanted
In Scotland a golf pro gave me
a tattered postcard from his bulletin board that showed land where my ancestors
had lived and mined coal. And now, picture this: We drove into a little
Scottish town where my grandfather had been born. In 1881 there would have been
smoke stacks, smelters, and ponds for the iron works. Mine openings, tipples,
slag heaps. The miners’ row houses. But in 2007 there was none of that. Just a
beautiful countryside with clean row houses and a short main street.
When we saw two people walk out
of a pub, we pulled the car over and I asked them how I could learn the layout
of the town 150 years earlier. The woman suggested we have a drink with her
husband in the pub, and she’d be right back. So we stood talking on the
sidewalk until she returned with paper rolled up like a map. Which it was. A
map of the village in 1860, a little before my grandfather was born. Perfect.
And when I asked if I might photocopy it, she said “No, it’s yours. Keep it.”
Brothers and sisters, you don’t
have to travel 6,000 miles to meet helpful people. There’s a website for the
United Kingdom called Genes Reunited, kind of like Face Book for dead people.
If you actually have a photo, so much the better; but there weren’t many photos
taken in 1800 or earlier. So all you really have to do is register, type in an
ancestor’s name and maybe a bit of information like their birth date or birth
place. And then the soft ware program matches names and dates and pretty soon
you get email saying your ancestor has been matched with one or two or twenty
other dead people and do you want to check those others out?
This checking is the hard part
for me. I open up those matches, some lead into family trees, and there it all
is: truck and branches and smaller branches and even smaller branches with all
the spouses and children and grandchildren and lateral relatives -- names and
dates expanding exponentially. And I try to navigate around in that maze of
people and numbers and look in vain for the help prompts and the review icons
and even the cancel or escape buttons. But in my fumbling way I’ve found dozens
of cousins and correspond with some.
There’s cousin Bev in Australia
(we have a common ancestor who immigrated to New South Wales). And I have
cousin Gina in England, whose great, great grandfather – my great, great uncle
--, told the family he was born in a Scottish mining camp called “Mud Hole.”
And I have cousin Colin in Scotland who has apparently plain-out fabricated a
birth place and marriage for our common great-great-great grandfather just so
he could get the temple work done. Cousin Colin has yet to provide me with any
documentation to support his work.
On the other hand, many of the
great uncles and great aunts and their children and spouses that I find have
not had ordinance work done. For them I make temple cards, and my family joins
me in the baptisms and sealings. So there are collateral blessings to writing
family history. Unintended consequences. Genealogy. Temple work.
You won’t appreciate that last
until you hear this final story: I’m seventy-five years old; and for more than
half that time, I’ve been inactive in the church, and for almost all of it,
I’ve felt doubt and disbelief. Disbelief in a heavenly father, or brother, or
comforter. Mine was a different path until I started writing family history. On
that trip to Scotland, I finally had to admit that I was being helped
in my research. Greatly, enormously helped. There were too many coincidences,
too much good luck, too many times my heart had broken as I learned about my
people. Too many times I had been shaken by a spirit I didn’t recognize. And
then there was the message from my grandson.
I understand now that grace and
goodness have walked with me this whole family search and before. Been with me
without my asking, without my deserving. Others had asked for me. Had prayed
for me when I hadn’t prayed. Had faith for me when I had none. Had lived sweet
spiritual lives right beside me. Certainly
my husband and children. Likely others, seen and unseen.
For me, the greatest unintended
consequence of doing family history has been greater joy. Increased hope for
human kind, greater faith in a divine presence, greater activity in the church.
A greater sense of love and being loved. Of being forgiven. Of being turned
toward an even fuller understanding.
I’m not there yet. Not where
most of you are. Some people bear a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Some of Joseph Smith. Some of
missionary work. Most that the Church is true. And most say I know – I know beyond the shadow
of a doubt. I don’t say I
“know” much of anything. To know – to have real knowledge of what is -- that’s
a lot for me. However, I can talk about belief and hope. So the testimony I
leave with you is this:
Believe in the spirit of
Elijah. Your real father and mother are not a bad place to start. Ask them for
some of their happiest memories, some of the worst, the turning points. You
might be surprised. You might develop more compassion, more love and respect.
And you might learn quite a bit about yourself, too. Write it all down; you’ll
want it some day. Then move back in time. It’s interesting. A giant human
puzzle. Even more, if you turn your hearts to your fathers and mothers, I
believe YOU will be blessed by unintended consequences of magnificent
proportions. For this is the work of the Greater Father, whose name you know.
And I so testify in the name of His beloved son, Jesus Christ, Amen.
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