Thanksgiving

A Family History of Thanksgiving

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A family history of Thanksgiving is bound to be a bit different than the traditional accounts of Thanksgiving we read in the media and in general history books.

These days there is an effort to “correct” the historical teachings of Thanksgiving as it was once known.

Family history has a way of re-centering it because we know what we know from our own traditions.

~ Thanksgiving is a Multi-Cultural Experience ~

The media debates whether or not turkey was part of the first Thanksgiving 400 years ago in 1621. It is a silly argument because turkey is hardly the point and the Thanksgiving of 1621 was hardly the first time Thanksgiving was celebrated.

It was not even the first Thanksgiving in North America. The settlers at Jamestown was first reported some 11 years before in 1610.

That never gets talked about, mostly because Charlie Brown wasn’t there (okay, I’m kidding).

The idea here is that Thanksgiving was actually a very British and very Christian thing to do. In fact, it was a somewhat common practice that was held at any time of the year whenever a governing authority cared to call for it.

Thanksgiving Declaration

“Thanksgiving” was a general term to denote when a community would together celebrate some sort of good news.

It might be a victory in battle, the birth of a new prince, or simply a great harvest that would ensure survival through the winter months. When things like this happened, a public call to prayer and the recognition of God was made through a declaration of Thanksgiving.

It was hardly confined to British Christians. French explorers famously celebrated Thanksgiving in 16th century Canada.

Native American cultures also celebrated a form of Thanksgiving, often recognizing Deity and nature for their survival. Thanksgiving was, for them, a way to recognize they were stewards of the Good Earth who needed to care for it.

~ Mayflower and Puritan Ancestors ~

There is an image of Mayflower passengers as being a religiously persecuted bunch who came here to worship as they wanted.

That is partly true.

But it is also true it was the riches and freedom of the New World that enticed them.

But the greater story behind that “first” Thanksgiving in 1621 was a recognition they barely survived at all. And yes, the Native Americans not only participated in that three-day feast of Thanksgiving they were likewise instrumental in survival of that colony.

Our Westover ancestors certainly fit the mold of English Puritans. Gabriel Westover and family lived in Somerset, England, which was literally ground zero for the Puritan clashes against the Crown. Gabriel moved his family to the Netherlands, as many Puritans of that time and place did, just to protect them.

It was because of these conditions that Gabriel sent his teenage daughter, Jane, first to the New World and then a little later, he sent his son Jonah Westover, who would become the North American patriarch of the Westover family.

Jonah was very young when he arrived and the colony in Windsor was only a few years old. By then the traditions of Christmas and Thanksgiving were well established in Connecticut.

How do we know this?

The young media of the New World speaks of both celebrations. Much is made today of a proclamation in Boston banning Christmas but this did not actually occur until 1659. That happened nearly 40 years after the Mayflower.

So, what did they do during that time? They celebrated Christmas – albeit in a more devotional way than their English family was used to.

Christmas in England had become a raucous community event at the end of each year. It bled even into the Church of England where priests were guilty of role reversals, looking the other way at grievous sin, and participating in less-than-religious activities common to pagan celebrations of the solstice.

Christmas, in fact, was one of the reasons why the Puritans wanted out. They saw no Biblical justification for the celebration that Christmas was known as then.
But the Christmas they envisioned – one of worship, prayer and devotion – only became established due to one thing.

And that thing was Thanksgiving.

~ New England Traditions of Thanksgiving ~

Over the course of time after the “first Thanksgiving” in 1621 there are recorded many events called Thanksgiving that happened up until about 1650.

It seems that around that time the end of November – harvest season – Thanksgiving found annual declaration by colony leaders.

This well-timed tradition for Puritan settlers gave them the more festive event they longed for. It was, in their own way, more like what Christmas was viewed as in Old England.
In other words, once the church meetings were over and the prayers were said, Thanksgiving was a time to party.

Well, as much as Puritans could party.

That meant gathering as family and feasting, playing games, enjoying music and other secular pursuits not commonly associated with the Church.

Hunting games were common and, yes, since turkeys were native and abundant, that is what they hunted.

But the Thanksgiving feast was never limited to turkey alone. Venison, chicken and even pork were prepared during periods of Thanksgiving.

Food then, as now, was central to festive times together as family. From 1630 comes this neat little poem, singing the praises of pumpkin, which has been linked to the Thanksgiving celebrations of New England from the earliest time:

For pottage and puddings and custards and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies:
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon,
If it were not for pumpkins, we would be undoon.

It must be remembered that families were necessarily huge. A lot of children were born because survival was tough and required a lot of hands on the farm.

So an end-of-harvest event was a grand celebration in which family got together – perhaps for the only time during the year – and the duties of bringing and preparing food were shared.

These family gatherings were festive and could take several days.

It is important to note that Thanksgiving was considered a family event. Yes, a community might share a common date declared for Thanksgiving by a governor but rarely did one colony celebrate Thanksgiving at the same time as another.

But families got together when it best suited them – when all was safely gathered in and families were preparing for winter.

So the seasonal, end-of-harvest Thanksgiving was built on family tradition – not any kind of national calendar.

~ Thanksgiving during the 18th Century ~

While still a British territory in the 1700s the American colonies celebrated annual Thanksgiving “seasons” that were well noted in the local media.

A newspaper report from Philadelphia in 1754 estimated that the average family prepared at ate 10 pumpkin pies at Christmas. The same article said more than 2 million turkeys were consumed in a single day on the American Continent.

Thanksgiving

Such was the popularity and commonality of Thanksgiving during the pre-revolutionary years.

Ben Franklin had a lot to say about Thanksgiving. In fact, he is famous for once trying to electrocute a turkey for Thanksgiving.

For some reason, he believed a turkey killed with electricity would be tastier than one dispatched by conventional means: decapitation. As fellow scientist William Watson wrote in 1751, Franklin claimed that “birds kill’d in this manner eat uncommonly tender.”

Franklin set out to develop a standard procedure for preparing turkeys with static electricity collected in Leyden jars. One day, while performing a demonstration of the proper way to electrocute a turkey, he mistakenly touched the electrified wire intended for the turkey while his other hand was grounded, thereby diverting the full brunt of the turkey-killing charge into his own body.

Maybe this is why we roast turkeys in Franklin’s oven, instead of by electrocution.

Thanksgiving was declared a national observance by presidential proclamation from George Washington, John Adams, and even Thomas Jefferson.

It is important to note that Jefferson was uncomfortable with the whole idea of Thanksgiving. Not that he disagreed with the virtue of gratitude. His concerns stemmed from the idea of calling citizens to prayer and recognizing God.

As governor of Virginia and later as president he proclaimed Thanksgiving anyway, saying he was merely “recommending it”, not mandating it.

By Jefferson’s time Thanksgiving was a defacto national holiday. It was so engrained as an automatic thing there was no turning back from it.

That didn’t stop several from advocating for a national holiday known as Thanksgiving.

~ Thanksgiving in the 19th Century ~

The acknowledgement of Thanksgiving which would come later on a national scale was driven by people in the mid-19th century who grew up with those gathering traditions.

Such was the case of the creation of “Over the River and Through the Wood”, a popular Thanksgiving poem written in 1844.

Over the River

It was written by an extraordinary woman named Lydia Maria Child – decades before Christmas and Thanksgiving became recognized as official holidays. It is through her efforts and others that we know that Christmas and Thanksgiving were long traditions in North America.

Lydia Maria Child was a woman ahead of her time. Born in 1802 she made her voice heard through the power of her pen. (Yes, we are related – she is a distant cousin, through the Snow line).

She was an accomplished writer, editor and civil rights activist – in the early 19th century. During her day she would be controversial and even daring in the eyes of some. In the 19th century man’s world she was a force that tackled the prickly topics of slavery, male dominance and white supremacy.

But while her individual story is fascinating, her simple poem teaches us much about what Thanksgiving was like in the early 19th century. It was, simply, the biggest family celebration of the year.

She is not the only American writer with an ancestral connection to Thanksgiving. Read this about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – and the common Alden ancestors we share through the Snow line.

Our pioneer ancestors in Utah adopted the same Thanksgiving celebrations they brought with them from generations before. The first “Thanksgiving” was held in August of 1848, though our Westover ancestors missed it by more than a month.

But Albert Smith was there and he had great reason to observe it. Albert famously recorded his efforts to farm on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley and he recorded the miracle of the seagulls that summer. His gratitude was well noted within the pages of his journal.

Utah didn’t recognize Thanksgiving until 1851, when Brigham Young, then-governor of the Utah Territory, declared Jan. 1, 1852, a “day of praise and Thanksgiving.”

We do not have any kind of family records (that we know about) that talk of celebrating Thanksgiving in those days.

But we know from tradition that spilled forward into the 20th century that the family had a long established tradition of gathering and feasting that continues to this day.

Family in the Cemetery

Family in the Cemetery

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The passing of Maureen Westover this month came as a sudden shock, as sometimes can happen.

This past week her funeral was held as family from all over the country gathered together physically and virtually to celebrate her life. There an incredible story was told.

Her story is not over. And another story is emerging that I believe is of great significance and huge value to anyone calling themselves family – especially for Maureen’s children and grandchildren.

As I write this there are seven vehicles carrying a large number of those so important to Maureen from California to Idaho for her burial.

Maureen is a native Californian with roots in the Bay Area. There she and Gale raised their children. For them, California has been the scene of so much life and family history.

But Rexburg is where Maureen, and I assume that someday, Gale, will rest.

I’m sure that was not the original plan. I’m certain the strange politics and expense of California has something to do with it.

Those details aside, I see the coming of a new story to the cemetery in Rexburg as a continuation of an old story. I pray the real significance of this is not lost of those of Maureen’s children and grandchildren left behind.

I hope they all come to understand that this is actually a blessing and, I believe, an answer to prayers given by one of our grandfathers many, many years ago.

The Rexburg cemetery resides on land that once belonged to family members. I believe we have shared this story before but I will recount it here again briefly.

A man by the name of Walter Paul came to Utah with his father, who was a rather well-known furniture maker. Walter and his brothers all learned that trade and when Walter married and started raising a family with his first wife he moved to Logan, Utah where he opened a furniture store.

Years later, after many children were born to him and his wife and after his furniture business had prospered, Walter’s wife suddenly passed away. Given that they had many children and several of them were quite young, Walter needed to remarry and he chose a young bride by the name of Emma Westover, of Mendon, Utah.

Emma was actually close in age to one of Walter’s oldest daughters and they were, in fact, good friends. But Emma was not a plural wife.

It was their intent to have children of their own – and to build a new life. Before long, Walter was asked to join a group of local men in Cache Valley who were assigned to settle the Rexburg area.

Walter opened a new store in the frontier town of Rexburg and, in fact, took on many roles within the community. He was a constable, very active in church leadership, a frequent host and producer of local plays in the theater and a justice of the peace. He was, conveniently, also the town undertaker and the primary source of caskets.

Walter and Emma, like everyone else in Rexburg in the 1880s staked a claim under the Homestead Act. This famous legislation provided them with at least 40 acres for free if they developed it and made it productive within five years.

This was a daunting task for Walter because building a house and managing a farm was a lot of work on top of all his other duties.

In fact, he decided he couldn’t do it and would “quarter” his claim. That meant dividing his property into four equal parts and having others develop the land for him. This was evidently a common practice, especially for men in Walter’s kind of situation.

One quarter of the land went to a local that Walter wanted to help. Another quarter went to his brother in law, our great grandfather William Westover, father to Arnold who was the father of Darrell – Grandpa to Gale and Maureen’s children.

William’s story is one we should all get to know.

The opportunity for him and his young bride, Ruth, in the 1880s to get some land that could be their own to raise a family on was significant to William. He wanted something lasting that he could give to his children. That was something his father could not do for him and something his father had never had himself.

So, William and Ruth went to work and it was brutally hard. Harsh winters, dry summers and the swampland that became the Westover Ranch was not an easy project to develop. Their poverty was severe.

As their children were born and they fought the challenges and disease of the time, they also had to contend with a struggling local economy that was devasted by a lingering depression during the 1890s.

That same depression devastated the finances of Walter and Emma Paul.

They went into bankruptcy and it was complicated.

Sadly, the finances of Walter Paul directly affected the hopes of William and Ruth and they stood to lose all they had invested and could do nothing about it.

But Walter was an influential man who could see no good in everyone losing everything in Rexburg and having to walk away.

With others, he worked with federal regulators to not only save the land but the entire community that was on the brink of becoming a ghost town.

In the end one of Walter’s quarters would be “donated” to become the community cemetery.

William and Ruth could claim the land they had already been working for years and could press forward by starting over – and agreeing to a payment arrangement.

When this arrangement was made there was no way William Westover could know that he was sick with a cancer that would prematurely take his life.

But when he found out, he re-doubled his efforts to make the farm produce and to pay it off before he passed.

He barely made it.

Within weeks of his death he cleared the debt and secured the land for his family – all that he could leave for his children and grandchildren. He was only 42.

Those children of William and Ruth, as well as the generation of their grandchildren, never had an easy life in Rexburg.

But it was home to them. It was precious. It reflected the dying wish of a father and grandfather who wanted permanence of his family for generations.

The Westover Ranch has a difficult and interesting story. Very few of us of my generation and beyond have the connection that our grandparents have to the place.

But it has survived thanks to their vision.

Now the cemetery will begin to see new generations laid to rest there.

I do not see Maureen’s burial there as a thing of necessity. I see it as a miracle of connection. I believe it begins a new tradition of coming home that perhaps is something our grandparents never considered.

I cannot help but think that William and Ruth are pleased.

This land is not what is important. The family with this land is what is important.

The Westover and Paul roots in Rexburg should be honored for their sacrifices during their years there. I can think of no better way than coming home to rest when times like this come.

As I have traveled the cemeteries where we find our grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins it has given me great pause for where I will someday be buried.

I think in most cases folks are buried wherever it is they made their home, and that’s okay.

But to come home where home was originally built is a thing of honor and, oddly for me, something of security. It adds to the permanence Grandpa William was seeking.

I hope when Maureen is buried there that some time is taken to consider all the Westovers and Pauls already buried in that rural resting place. In the years to come when Maureen’s children and grandchildren come to visit and tell her story I pray they will look around. There are stories aplenty there to learn. Adding Maureen’s story there only enriches the heritage of the family going forward.

I hope other members of the family consider that sacred place for themselves.

They will add to an already great story, too.

Utah War

The Chaotic 1850s in Utah

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Our 19th century timeline series continues with Part 2 – Pioneering Utah.

The chronological perspective is the only way to really absorb all that the Westovers were dealing with in the 1850s. It was nothing short of chaotic from start to finish.

The decade began in somewhat of a scattered fashion. Edwin and family were in the Fort Union area, trying to make the farm go. They were endlessly challenged by grasshoppers and drought. Edwin’s work was supplemented by mandatory militia service, which in time would take him to dangerous new assignments.

Electa’s status is interesting. She shows up, without explanation, in the 1852 census in Sacramento, California. She’s back in Utah a few years later. So what happened? Why was she there? Following the path of her youngest son Oscar F. Westover is really the only way to unravel this mystery.

Charles was now married and raising a family but began the decade still in the employ of Erastus Snow. That would change mid-decade as he would take up his own place near Edwin.

In fact, there was a convergence of sorts with the Westovers, the Shumways, and the Findleys in Big Cottonwood just as the handcart companies arrived during the Mormon Reformation in 1856.

The handcart pioneers brought us new family members. In fact, the introduction of plural marriage brought forward new realities to pioneering and different aspects to family history for us to contemplate. The “lone and dreary world” has a lot of salacious thoughts about plural marriage but the records left behind paint an entirely different picture that needs to be pondered. The women of the Westover families were strong in ways most cannot imagine and what was accomplished during these years by them is nothing short of miraculous.

The efforts to be faithful, to embrace new levels of faith and to grow farms and families was all interrupted by the Utah War – an event that gets passed over in most family histories because, well, nobody died.

But it was a hugely disruptive event that displaced nearly everyone in drought-stricken Utah Territory – including the Westovers.

Once again, the destitute and poor – which was just about everyone – had all that they had worked for placed on the altar of faith.

Families were separated from their husbands and fathers. It was a tense and uncertain time that would lead to significant changes for the family ahead.

While the post of this decade is a long one it is rich in new details, records, and photos. It needs to be absorbed and held up against written histories of the larger events of the Mormon Reformation, plural marriage, the handcart companies, the famine of 1855-1856, the 10th anniversary celebration of the 1847 pioneers, and the Utah War.

We also need to acknowledge the written histories compiled by earlier generations of our families. Within them is the general story – and a lot of errors. Many of the new records we have now and showcase in this post correct those errors. Family records and memories are always going to contain errors and conflicts in information – but they remain necessary because they contain that which mere data of records can never tell: the story of the family. We need them and we appreciate them, imperfect as they may be. We know that in posts ahead we will rely on the stories of individuals passed down to give nuance and definition to our ancestors who sacrificed more than what the data of genealogy can provide.

In all, the 1850s show that nothing was really settled at all with our pioneering ancestors.

They kept moving, they kept adapting and they kept faithful in fighting the demons of the past while forging a future for the family. While taking nothing away from their experiences in just getting to Utah we cannot help but be humbled by all they passed through just to stay there.

Our next installment on the 1860s shows how all this continued.

Hannah Beal Sceva Headstone

Hannah and Her Sisters

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As a father of six daughters who have all now grown to adulthood I can speak to the special society that sisters enjoy. I’ve seen it with my Grandma and her sisters, and with my own sisters, and with my wife and her sisters.

The stories from our family history below showcase this as well.

~ The Beals and the Westovers ~

Obediah and Rebecca Beal were married at the end of the American Revolution. They would go on to have a family of six children – five girls and a boy.

While Obediah and Rebecca were both born and raised in small communities near Massachusetts Bay their married life would take them towards a frontier in Vermont where all of their children were born.

Polly, Hannah, Sally and Daniel were all born in Bethel, Vermont.

In 1802, when Electa Beal was born, the family was further north in a village called Bristol.

Four years later a final daughter, named Laura, was born in Berkshire, Vermont – a tiny village on the U.S.-Canadian border.

This travelogue of the Beal family is significant because it puts them in very close proximity to the traveling Amos Westover family.

Amos and Ruth Westover, of Sheffield, Massachusetts, found themselves in Canada just beyond the border after the American Revolution.

Amos was looking for land and had followed a few of his older brothers in seeking a land grant from the King in Canada.

Between the years 1790 and 1811, Amos and Ruth moved their family several times – and had several children along the way – all within about 50 miles or so of the Beal family.

While there is no proof the families knew each other while in Vermont it is a fact that both the Beals and the Westovers ended up very close to each other in Ohio years later.

Electa Beal, daughter of Obediah and Rebecca, married Alexander Westover, son of Amos and Ruth, in Ohio in 1823. Daniel Beal, son of Obediah and Rebecca, married Olive Westover, Alexander’s little sister also in 1823, in Ohio.

The Beal and Westover families stayed settled in Ohio for the most part for about 20 years.

Obediah, Amos and Ruth all died and were buried there in 1822. Rebecca would live until 1844 and appears to have stayed near eldest daughter Polly for the rest of her life. Each of the Beal children married but were not far away from each other during these years.

When Electa’s husband Alexander unexpectedly died in 1834 she turned first to her family for help as she struggled with the family farm in Goshen and three young boys – Edwin, Charles and Oscar.

~ Conversion and the Trek West ~

Hannah Beal married a man named George Washington Brown in 1811. The Browns had two children, both daughters – Adeline and Sophia.

There was no small amount of trauma for Hannah during these years of the late 1830s and 1840s. Her daughter Adeline married in 1835 and made Hannah a grandmother in 1837. But within a few years both Hannah and Adeline lost their husbands.

In 1844, Hannah was taught by Mormon elders and converted, along with her daughter Adeline.

Hannah urged the elders to visit her family in neighboring counties. There they found a searching Electa, who at this time was trying to help her eldest son, Edwin, get through the death of his young wife and helping to care for her first grandchild.

When the decision was made to join the Saints in Utah, Hannah ventured west sometime between 1848 and 1850.

Perhaps she came at the insistence of her sister, Electa.

Electa and her boys and grandson were part of the large company that came west with Brigham Young in 1848.

By the early 1850 the records of Electa and Hannah clearly show them as being in Utah – Electa, in Salt Lake City, and Hannah out in Grantsville living with Adeline and her husband Aaron Sceva.

What records we can find confirm that “Aunt Hannah” was the family leader in Utah. Before Edwin and his families were called to the Cotton Mission in Southern Utah it was with Aunt Hannah where they were farming.

~ Living with Plural Marriage ~

We have accounted before how the years of 1856-57 were significant for the family during what is called the Mormon Reformation.

Plural marriage changed the lives not only of the men, but also of the Beal sisters who were grandmothers.

Hannah became the plural wife of Aaron Sceva – that’s right, her own daughter’s husband. This was actually not an unheard of arrangement. Church leaders frequently advised well-established men to marry widowed and unmarried women in order to help support them.

Electa Beal also took to marrying again during these years. Her new husband, like Hannah’s husband, was a prominent figure in their communities and within the Church. In 1849 she married Eleazar Miller, one of the men who had baptized Brigham Young way back in the 1830s.

Brigham, of course, knew all about the Westover family. In letters exchanged between Brigham and Eleazar in 1850 he inquired after “the new Mrs. Miller”. Electa, however, chose to stay close to her sons and never lived with Eleazar Miller. There is some indication as well that later Electa married a man named Chauncey Loveland – but as before, she never lived with him either.

~ Another Sister ~

Within 2 years another sister – the youngest of the Beal sisters, Laura Adaline Beal– would venture to Utah.
Laura’s story is a little unique. In 1844 when Rebecca Beal died she gave all she had to her youngest child, Laura.

When Laura was small child she suffered from an accident that put scissors through one eye, blinding her in that eye. Her history states that soon her other eye “faded in sympathy”, rendering Laura completely blind.

She would end up in a school for the blind from 1837 to 1844.

While there she was given a copy of the Bible published just for the blind, which took up several volumes and had become her prized possession.

Laura Beal's Bible

One of the volumes of Laura Beal’s Bible for the Blind now resides in the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum

It was not in Braille, as that had not been invented yet, but it featured large raised letters that could be read by touch.

The skill of reading with her hands was just the beginning of Laura’s many talents. She could sew, knit and create with her hands with legendary speed and dexterity.

Laura was also known for her spiritual sensitivities. Her love for the Bible and her ability to independently study it gave her amazing story-telling skills. Children later in life were reportedly spell bound by Laura’s retelling of Bible stories.

A missionary from Utah visited where Laura was living near Cincinnati in 1850, telling her that he knew her two sisters who had joined the Church and moved to Utah. His efforts to teach her the gospel were enough to get Laura to head west with him and his wife to Utah, even though she was not a member of the Church.

He continued his missionary efforts, drawing on Laura’s love of the Bible. While in route Laura fell ill but had enough faith to ask the elders for a blessing. She ended up requesting baptism while on her way west.

After arriving in Utah she became the plural wife of a man named John Price. It was not a good situation for her, however, and within two years she found herself in an abusive situation that had robbed her of the money given to her by her mother years before. On the advice of her Bishop, she contacted Brigham Young for a bill of divorcement, which was granted.

From there Laura headed to Grantsville to her sister Hannah’s home. It was there she began to build her legendary status as “Aunt Laura”.

From that point forward in her life Laura stayed with family she knew. For a while she was with Hannah, then she joined Electa in Southern Utah for a while. In later years, she lived with a daughter of Edwin’s in Hamblin, Utah where she eventually died and was buried.

Aunt Laura was noted for a couple of peculiarities. She was very independent and insisted on caring for herself and helping around the home. Most children were fascinated by her because of all she could do and how well she would engage them.

Laura’s history concedes to one “bad habit” Laura had picked up years before she came to Utah – she smoked a pipe. She battled for years to conquer the habit in efforts to keep the Word of Wisdom and her history notes she got it down to just a once-an-evening indulgence. Like everything she did this was done according to a well-established pattern. Frequently the children would be pressed into service to help her light the pipe.

Laura’s church activity was forever steady and when the St. George Temple was dedicated she was there, with her sister Electa as a fellow temple worker, and she participated in doing temple work for their family members back in Ohio.

Hannah, Electa, and Laura each had their individual stories of coming to Zion and working out the salvation for their loved ones. Each of them was faithful. Each of them was a powerful example and doggedly devoted to the family. They cared for each other and honored their parents.

Hannah is buried in Grantsville. Electa is in Washington City, near St. George. And Laura rests in the Hamblin cemetery.