Poke ‘Em in the Leg

Sandy and I had the chance to visit Manti this week for the temple open house. When the renovation work was announced a couple of years ago being able to see the Manti Temple before rededication quickly became a bucket list item.

But something unexpected happened to me on this visit to Manti.

It reminded me a bit of an occasion with Uncle Darrell when I was a teenager. I cannot exactly recall the circumstance but I do remember well exactly what he said to me. He was having a conversation with my father and I wasn’t paying much attention to what they were saying. Suddenly I felt a sharp poke in my leg and Darrell asked me, “What do you know about Albert Smith? Do you know who William Rowe was? What do you know about the Mormon Battalion? These men are your family and you need to know.”

For a moment I thought he was mad at me. It was a hard poke! Being startled, I looked up at him and there were tears in his eyes. He wasn’t mad – he was speaking from great conviction. He meant what he said, it was something he clearly felt very deeply about. I said, “Okay – I’ll learn.”

Well, I’ve learned.

The visit to Manti this week brought it upon me in so many ways.

~ Learning about Albert Smith ~

I credit the time I spent caring for my Dad the last year and a half of his life as a time when I gained a greater appreciation for Grandfather Albert Smith.

Albert lived in Manti. But that 42-year period of his history is only part of his story. I’ve told some of it here, about our family during the crisis year of 1856.

But we have shared before about the place Manti plays in our family history, too. It explains a bit more about Albert. In reading that again I was struck by memories of my own deep feeling for Albert as just a regular person.

That long piece on Manti’s place in our family history was a work that took better than a year.

It was a blessing to have that time during the pandemic to work on it. I had an employer who allowed me to work at home, giving me the opportunity to take care of Dad. But when I wasn’t working, and when Dad was feeling up to it, we dug deep into our family history.

I would put the family tree up on his TV in his bedroom so he could see the connections. And, of course, we would talk about the new discoveries that came up as we planned various projects.

Albert Smith was a project. Dad wanted a video (which I still need to complete). He would get frustrated a bit with me when I would post new stuff because he felt I am too wordy (I am but I’m not sorry).

And Albert was and continues to be one continual string of fascinating detail. I kind of wish I had Uncle Darrell around to talk about it with me now. I wonder how much of this stuff he knew and did not.

Dad and I found that Albert was referenced many times in a history that is published on the Sanpete County website.

That is where we learned a little more about the Indian troubles experienced in Manti and one violent incident that took place right in front of Albert’s home.

That story opened up one simple question in our minds: Where was Albert’s home?

Dad didn’t live long enough for me to discover that information. But several months ago I found this map showing the settler plots in Manti from the very beginning:

Manti Settler Map

So that was one of my goals this week in visiting Manti.

Why was this such a big deal to me?

Albert Smith was an old man by the time the Manti temple was announced, constructed and dedicated.

He had aged and while he still worked his farm as best he could he had, by the time of the temple dedication in 1888, made several concessions to age. He sometimes just didn’t go to Church because his hearing had become so bad he couldn’t listen. Albert expressed his frustrations many times about slowing down.

But he was an avid watcher of the temple going up and he and Grandma Sophie, according to his journal, would visit the temple construction site to see up close how things were progressing.

When the dedication came, Albert was chagrined to get tickets to the 2nd day events. The first day events he would have to watch from his porch and he did, noting in his journal the masses thronged at the doors of the temple.

Crowds at the Manti Temple Dedication

Crowds that Albert saw at the Manti Temple Dedication from his doorstep

So finding Albert’s house was just a desire to connect with his real world view of the temple.

Using the map above, I located where his property was – and that of Gardner Snow – and tried to picture what Albert described.

I was a little disappointed.

Main Street in Manti has grown so much it was inconclusive to me if Albert really could see the temple from his house.

Then I stumbled upon this picture of the temple from around the time it was under construction:

Manti Temple mid-1880s

This is roughly the view from near where Albert’s property was

This view is not too far north of Albert’s lot. Of course Albert could see the temple. And no wonder it became so important to him.

For many years Albert had written and sent money to a genealogist back east to research his ancestors. As soon as that temple was dedicated Albert noted in his journal the many times he and Sophie and Azariah and other family members went to the temple to work on family names.

Take a good look at that hill.

That hill was where that original pioneer group sent by Brigham Young lived in the winter of 1849-50. Albert noted in his journal about the rattle snakes they found there and the work it was to remove them all. Contrast that to the history of hill as it became known in Albert’s day, with Moroni dedicating that spot for a temple, long before our pioneers ever got there.

Even now, driving into Manti from any direction, the temple dominates the valley. It is the center of everything. Symbolic in every way.

~ The Temple ~

In our tour of the temple we learned that the remodel was not really an effort to change the facility. We were told there were some structural issues that caused roof leaks, that electronics and computer infrastructure were upgraded, and that the famous murals of this pioneer temple were painstakingly restored after having faded.

Other than that, the temple remained pretty much the same it was when originally dedicated. I guess that is why is has only been closed about two years.

All the furniture is the same. The intricate wall and window coverings are the same. The detail work on every door, every handle, every piece of trim in every room is exactly the same.

I swiped these images from the Church website of some of the interior of the temple:

The Creation Room

The creation room at the Manti temple

This is the creation room. Those benches are original, as are those upholstered chairs. The mural has been “restored”.

To my knowledge, Albert and Sophie did all the various ordinance work for those names they were able to obtain. Interestingly, though Albert was bent by age he found he did not need to use his cane once he got inside the temple.

Spiral stairs of the Manti temple

Sandy made this week’s visit having come off of heel surgery just a few months ago. We knew that getting up and down the temple stairs would be an issue for her. Back in Albert’s day he had to navigate those stairs and he had to climb that hill to get inside the temple.

So as we look at this baptistry below, and think about the 1400 family members Albert and others were baptized for between 1888 and 1892, it represents no small amount of physical effort:

Manti Temple baptistry

Albert and Sophie, of course, were not the only family members who made the Manti temple a focal point.

In fact, as various family members have made their way to Manti this month they are noting with fondness the weddings, endowments and temple experiences of all previous generations.

My grandparents were sealed in Manti in 1940.

In thinking about that before this week it didn’t occur to me that Manti has more sealing rooms than most temples.

Even more, the sealing rooms in Manti are all unique – unlike each other. Look at this incredible room:

Sealing Room in the Manti temple

What kind of world was it in the 1880s that allowed such creation in Manti, Utah? This was some special generation.

The craftsmanship of all the woodwork and furniture is credited to a lot of talent brought over from our Danish ancestors, which was no small community there in Manti.

The design, the financing, the ground-level preparation, the stone cutting and hauling, and the construction of the Temple took 11-years and who knows how many man-hours to accomplish.

But records were kept. Here is an example, of a donation of labor – one of several, no doubt, made by Grandfather Gardner Snow:

Temple donation in Manti

Note the date of this donation – February 18th, 1878. That means that Gardner Snow, at age 85, made this donation to the temple by working with his hands. Gardner Snow was, by this time, a man of means. He had a ranch. He was a probate judge. He doubtless could have just donated cash. He didn’t. He went and gave of himself.

The Temple was built with many, many such contributions. That is what it meant to those people.

For Albert, his temple experience began in Nauvoo. The anticipation of another temple in his lifetime was great. In his journal, from 1877, he mentions traveling to St. George to see the temple there:

October 30th, 1877 – “…We left on September 28th and had a very good journey there in 7 days, a distance of 220 miles, found Hannah and the rest of our friends well. It being only 24 miles from St. George we went there to see the Temple. I shall not describe the building. I will only say it was finished outside and all of the rooms in the lower stories. The outside is as white as the driven snow. It was worth going some way to see…”

In April 1878 Albert talked of meetings held in Manti. “…President Young, Brother Wells and company came here from St. George and held meetings in the evening…They selected the spot for the Temple and had the place staked off and surveyed. Today there was a meeting at 10 o’clock to 12 o’clock they repaired to the place and had the place dedicated…Next Monday we are to commence to build the Temple…”

Albert kept close tabs on the work of the Temple. His New Year’s day journal entry gives all the dimensions of the temple, including how many steps needed to be made (126) at the entrance. He noted that there were “…150 to 200 hands to work they put in 15 kegs of powder in one blast which lifted at least 2500 yards of rocks and debris weighing at least 2500 tons…”

Around that same time, Albert noted: “A few days ago I sent $15 to Brother Cummings Jr living at Salt Lake who is going ast to get the genealogy for the brethren that wishes to send by him. Anxious to procure all the name that I can….”

On his birthday in November 1878, Albert noted this in his journal: “I am 74 years old. How many more birthdays I shall live to see I do not know. Sometimes I feel as though it mattered not if I am only prepared to go and then I feel anxious to live till the Manti Temple is finished and I have an opportunity to enter there in and attend to the ordinances for my Father’s House, those that died without having an opportunity of hearing the Gospel. O my Father in Heaven, I ask thee in the name of Thy Son to spare my life if it is consistent to Thy will till the Temple is finished and I have an opportunity to enter therein and attend to the ordinances for my friends that died without having an opportunity to attend to themselves. Even those ordinances that were ordained before the world was made for the salvation and exaltation of all the sons and daughters of Father Adam, except the sons of perdition, even those that sinned against the Holy Ghost that have no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come. And O my Father help me to so live that I may be found worthy of that privilege and may they holy spirit inspire the saints to go with their might and labor diligently till the House of the Lord is completed.”

In 1880 Albert reported that fireworks were displayed over Temple Hill on the 4th of July and that by the fall the walls had reached 30 feet in height. All needed stones for the temple were cut and numbered, making faster work of the walls going up.

In 1883 Albert at long last was able to report on the project of securing his genealogy. “He wrote me soon after he returned that he had procured several hundred names of my forefathers and would be pleased with the when he got them so arranged that he could send them to me. Surely I am pleased with them there being upwards of 400 from my great grandfather whose name is Rev. Henry Smith who was the first Baptist minister in the place he lived in England. He came over 16 years after the landing of the Mayflower….”

In May, Albert was asked to speak in Church on the subject of Baptism for the Dead. He said in his journal: “One week previous I received 400 names in addition to 100 previous I had of my forefathers. It caused me to reflect on that subject a few nights previous to that meeting. As I was meditating on the principles of baptism for the dead, it seems as tho I was surrounded with the spirits of my forefathers opening the principles to my mind, giving me understanding that they was looking to me and my children to attend to those ordinances for them that they cannot attend to themselves. Not only did the open the principles in my mind but they showed me the necessity of my stirring up my children to faithfulness and to so live that we might be prepared when the Temple is finished to go there as well as the brethren and sisters and attend to those ordinances for which the Temple is built. Suffice it to say that I did not sleep none all night for it seemed as tho they was with me till day light opening my mind to many things.”

In December 1886, Albert said this: “ …I went with Azariah to the Temple. We spent 3 hours or more viewing all the rooms. We went to the top of the west tower. I will not try to describe the beauty of some of the rooms but leave it to those who are permitted to go there to contemplate on the beauty and use of these rooms…”

Dedication day came on May 21st, 1888. Albert noted: “There are so many here not one half could get in! There was excellent preaching by the Twelve and others….It is now 20 minutes after 11 o’clock. I can stand in my door and see crowds of people in front of the Temple that cannot get in. The service commenced at 10 o’clock.”

As I viewed these rooms and took in all the rich detail I was moved by my memories of Albert’s many journal entries of doing work for his ancestors.

He would work on 20 or 30 names at a time and his journal notes each time he went in the last years of his life.

In fact, the bulk of Albert’s journal entries until he died noted frequent temple attendance and records how he and Grandma Sophie enlisted their help of children and grandchildren in getting all those names worked on.

Thoughout these years Albert continued to learn about his ancestors. In 1888 he noted, “The other day there was a book put in my hand that contained the record of John Alden who came in the Mayflower and the first one that stepped on Plymouth Rock and the last one that died of that crew. I think he was my mother’s 3rd great grandfather.”

Albert and Sophie continued to go to the temple. In December 1891 Albert noted that their temple routine was interrupted slightly because of the “grandchildren that were with us”.

These were likely the children of Albert Jr. and his new bride Mary Ann, who were married in the Manti Temple on December 16th. Albert and Sophie were there to witness it.

His last noted entry in his journal of temple attendance was in June 1892, some four months before he died. Albert freely noted that sons Azariah and Albert Jr “had helped” during some of his final sessions.

While I am aware of all our ancestral family who have attended the Manti Temple – particularly contemporaries such as Gardner Snow, who no doubt attended frequently as well – it is Albert who most occupied my mind while touring the temple he visited so many times.

In fact, it occurs to me that Darrell’s poke to my leg was really just a proxy work for Albert, who pokes me in the heart.

I want Albert’s story known but I especially want what Albert’s prayer as noted from his journal above known by my children and grandchildren. For generations to come I want them to hear his words, his witness and the desires of his heart as it comes to the sacred temple.

His feelings, in this regard, are my feelings. He expresses them better.

May we reflect on them often.

Friends and Family

Circles of Friends and Family

In April of 2021 we took a road trip to Southern Utah. It would be my Dad’s final road trip, an exploration of family history.

It was his desire to connect the names and dates on the family tree to places – places even that he was familiar with from his first years growing up there.

I can recall Dad telling me that he wanted to really know these people as best he could before he passed.

In response, I spent as much time studying the people and the places we went to. I wanted to be so familiar with it all that the stories could be shared in real time.

My Aunt LaRee and Uncle Will worked on putting such a trip together for more than a year.

I fear they may never know what a big deal that was to both my Dad and for me. That trip, I feel, extended Dad’s life a bit because it gave him purpose beyond fighting illness and recovering from surgery.

As we drove we visited and Dad mixed memories of the times and places he lived in when he was a boy, sharing things of himself and my grandparents the rest of us did not know.

We stopped at pioneer cemeteries and shared what we knew of the people we found and the places they lived.

Some of these were remote, almost forgotten places. Ghost towns, really.

Places like Hebron and Pinto and Hamblin. Other places were smack dab in the middle of civilization, such as St. George, Provo and Manti.

While Dad had broad places and target individuals in mind I was swimming in details ahead of where I knew we would go.

Despite all this there were surprises and spontaneous moments.

Dad, knowing that Aunt Gladys (daughter of Grandpa and Grandma Snow) was buried in Junction, Utah, decided to make a brief stop there after we had left Kingston.

Junction still has only about 200 residents and it was no problem finding the cemetery, which resides on such a hill that the graves are terraced. Finding Aunt Gladys took just a few minutes and while the others stood there to look I turned around and found this grave:

James Bay - Friend of the Westovers

My surprised response to this discovery was, “Well, hello old friend!”

~ James Willard Bay ~

James Bay converted to the Church in 1840. He was single.

Guess who his influencing missionary was? The same Elder Goodale who taught Hannah Beal and later, Electa and Edwin, in Ohio in 1844.

In fact, James Bay became embedded in the whole company that included the Westovers coming from Ohio to Winter Quarters, and then on to Salt Lake in 1848.

He not only knew the Westover family well but also others who would also interact with the family over the decades.

My surprise in discovering James Bay’s grave that day in Junction in 2021 was centered on the fact that he knew and was important to my family.

What I did not know then was the story of the rest of his life once he got to Utah and how many others in our family story he knew and interacted with.

As we have noted many times on these pages, there are few coincidences that surprise in family history.

James Bay has more than his share of them.

~ A Mission and Marriage ~

There are a number of people who were involved in the Westover trek west to Utah. In the group were men named Aaron Sceva and John Kempton. Both men would, in time, marry Hannah Beal.

Traveling as a body of Saints under the direction of Apostle Ezra T. Benson they headed first to Council Bluffs, Iowa before staging for the trek west at Winter Quarters.

Like others in that pioneering group, Bay, being a farmer, spent about two years in the Salt Lake Valley just trying to help people survive.

He desired to serve a mission back home in Ohio because he hoped to convert his family and his old girlfriend.

Brigham Young obliged him, calling James to serve 1850. He went East and tried again with his family. Though civil to him, his family rejected him.

His former girlfriend was a little harsher with him. Years later, after he heard she had passed on, he had her sealed to him because “I still love her so”.

As James Bay returned from his mission he was called to Captain a company west in 1852. This experience set up his future and speaks of his associations in the past.

In his company was a blind woman by the name of Laura Adeline Beal.

Yes, she is another sister to Electa and to Hannah. There is no doubt that James Bay was asked to see her home to family in Utah because of his prior association with Hannah and Electa. They trusted him.

A years-later published news clipping about James Bay declares Laura to be his wife. However, this is now believed to be false. There is no official marriage record between Laura and James found in either history.

Laura had been blind since childhood. Her parents sent her to a school for the blind in Ohio, where she learned Braille. She had obtained a copy of the Bible in Braille and would be known for generations for her love of continually reading from it.

When Laura’s parents died, they left her a small inheritance that would help fund her way west to where her sisters lived. All they needed was someone to care for her on the trek.

There is little doubt that James Bay was trusted for this. The same man who had helped with financing the Westovers through the inheritance of Sarah Jane Burwell was the same man who made the arrangement for Laura’s money and passage west. James Bay was asked to see those arrangements through.

James knew another man in his company by the name of Festus Sprague, who was traveling with sister Lucinda. Festus was James’ friend as well.

Within just weeks of starting their trek west James and Lucinda were in love and were married on the trail by Elder Orson Hyde.

In his journal, James wrote:

While walking together in the hot sun today, keeping pace with the slow tread of the oxen in their steady trek toward the land of Zion, I persuaded Lucinda to marry me.

When they reached Independence Rock histories of James Bay and Laura Beal say this:

“On July 22, they reached Independence Rock, in Wyoming, and at noon, James Bay, his wife Lucinda, Laura and others walked upon it. By August 4, the company had reached the Big Sandy Creek in southwestern Wyoming. James Bay sent word ahead to Salt Lake City that most of the company was well, but the cattle were weak, and he asked if twelve yoke of cattle and four wagons could be sent to assist them. He also mentioned Laura Beal, a blind woman, sister to Electa Miller, “her that was Westover”, and requested that Electa come to meet them. It notes: “It would be a great satisfaction to her sister Laura, for she is unwell and wishes her assistance very much. My wife takes charge of her now, and has since leaving Ohio.”

Their destination once arriving in Utah was Grantsville – home to Laura’s and Electa’s sister Hannah.

James Bay stayed in Grantsville only a short time and within the year of 1853 they were called to move south to Johnson’s Fort.

~ Joel Hills Johnson ~

Johnson’s Fort, now known as the city of Enoch, between Cedar City and Parowan, was founded by a fairly well-known individual named Joel Hills Johnson.

Johnson had a long history in the Church dating back to 1830, just after the Church was organized. He played a minor role in the history of Church, witnessing and participating in many well known events between Kirtland and Nauvoo.

Joel Hills Johnson

After arriving in Salt Lake he wrote the hymn High on a Mountain Top while waiting one day to pay his tithing. He was a trusted man of action to Church leaders no matter where they sent him. After sending him south to Parowan they directed Johnson to build a farm and a ranch not far away.

While there, a few other families joined him in efforts to expand the offerings of what could be grown in the territory. One of those families was James and Lucinda Bay.

James Bay had become something more than a simple dirt farmer during these years. It is thought that his association with Joel Hills Johnson extended as both men moved to Bellevue, a remote area of far southern Utah. It was in this place that both Bay and Johnson found success growing different kinds of fruits and vegetables.

James Bay took to calling himself a “horticuluralist”, and the charge from Brigham Young to grow cotton in Utah’s Dixie was one hotly pursued by both Johnson and Bay, leading to the colonization of St. George and surrounding areas in 1861.

It became Bay’s life’s work to grow things. He supported his family through his healthy crops in Bellevue, then Virgin City and finally in Junction.

In the mid-1860s he entered plural marriage with a widowed sister of his wife. In time, he would have several more women sealed to him, though most were sealing arrangements for support of widows and single sisters. He would have 11 children in all through three of his marriages, adopting several children along the way.

In a history written by two granddaughters named Pearl and Eliza Snow (I haven’t yet figured the connection – but bet money there is one) much is made of James Bay’s gentle nature, his many friends, and his gospel living philosophy.

“His was a practical religion. He believed he should help his neighbors and speak no ill of them. He had numerous friends. We have never met an enemy of his. His home was humble, but it was a haven to all who wished to share it with him and his family.”

James Bay had other family associations. One of the more enduring was with Charles Westover, one of many family members he first crossed the plains with. Charles and James worked for Erastus Snow after first coming to the Salt Lake Valley. As single men, they were ideally suited to help the Apostle to build and maintain his new Utah farm for his families.

Another important association was with Aaron Sceva.

Aaron Sceva was born in 1806 and while we don’t know exactly how James Bay and Sceva first met we do know that Aaron Sceva was passionate about the gospel of Jesus Christ. James Bay was baptized in the spring of 1843. By the night he was baptized James was accompanying the missionaries who baptized him to preach to others.

In December James Bay was ordained an elder by John Kempton, husband at that time to Hannah Beal. Shortly after that ordination, he met and baptized Aaron Sceva, who was also immediately ordained an elder by James Bay and, like Bay, immediately went on a mission.

Sceva was known throughout his adult life for his missionary zeal. He was always preaching the gospel, whether serving a mission or not.

This passion led Sceva to leadership positions, even speaking before general conferences of the Church in Salt Lake City. For a time, he served as a counselor and general authority in the church Elders Quorum Presidency in the early 1850s.

Upon reaching Utah, however, he made his home in Grantsville, not Salt Lake City. It was there he married Hannah Beal after John Kempton died. Sceva never left there and it was his homestead where the Beal families and Westover families – and yes, at times even the Bay family – gathered and found safety.

One line from the journal of James Bay seems to sum up the relationship he formed with Aaron Sceva, as well as provides us a small glimpse into each man’s convictions: Aaron Sceva had a vision before I baptized him and he thought he had received the Holy Ghost, so when he found out that I had the authority to baptize him he was very happy.

James Bay would have other close connections to people we know from various family histories. He received his Patriarchal blessing from Isaac Morley. He was married under the hand of Orson Hyde, and later by Brigham Young, Daniel H. Wells, and James G. Bleak.

He was an avid temple-goer, and along with Lucinda he performed the work for hundreds of their kindred dead or even his friends. He frequented both the St. George and Manti temples.

James and Lucinda Bay

James and Lucinda Bay

Given all his associations with Westovers and Beals there is no doubt he was at the St. George temple dedication with Electa, Charles, Edwin and others he knew from way back at Winter Quarters.

His association with Joel Hills Johnson is personal for me because Johnson is the 5th great-grandfather of my daughter-in-law, Angie. Thus he is a direct ancestor of my grandchildren.

Johnson is buried near Edwin Westover in Johnson Canyon, Kane County, Utah – another location we found on that trip in 2021.

It was at the Johnson farm there where Edwin sought refuge in the final days of his life and where he passed away. The Johnson family took him in and tried to save his life. When he died, they buried him with their own.

I find it a rich irony that my grandchildren’s two great grandfathers, who were the first men of their families to join the early Church, are buried together. There is no way they could have known then, of course, that they would share descendants.

Or perhaps, in the realm of the great beyond we all go to after we die, they do know now.

I know it is not coincidence.

I’ve worked on this brief review of our friend James Bay for some time. But it was only today, March 15th, 2024, that I came to another bizarre connection that’s not so coincidental.

I have a good friend who is the same age as my son. We’ve known each other for several years.

Weeks ago I learned of some vandalism at the cemetery in Grantsville and I shared that news in a group this friend and I are in online. He mentioned that he had grandparents buried there and, when we go out there, to see if their grave sites were affected.

In looking at his family tree and digging a bit into his family’s pioneer Utah past, I discovered that that his family are among the founders of Grantsville and, in fact, one of his great grandfathers designed the very cemetery where many of his family are buried.

Like all family histories, it was interesting to learn of their lives and sacrifices as they pioneered that area.

But in my quest to learn more about James Bay through his wife Lucinda I learned that her brother, Festus Sprague, stayed in Grantsville after arriving in Utah. He married one of the daughters of my friend’s great-grandfather, a founder and former mayor of Grantsville.

This seeming coincidental and unimportant connection, like all others we talk about above and in other places in our family history, has a purpose.

I cannot help but think of my Dad, who said to me on that trip in 2021, “Who is James Bay, again?”.

Dad has to be smiling about all this. It’s been about three years since that trip and I’m still learning new stuff – beyond the stuff I knew that day in Junction. There is a reason for all this.

I have no idea what it might be. The possibilities are endless.

All I know is that the friends we make and the friends we have are not far distant from those we call family.

It was true of James Bay in his day. And it is true of me in mine.

We are all connected. For a reason. The Lord is in it.

The Honeymoon Trail

Just west of a place out in the middle of nowhere on the Utah/Arizona border called Fort Pearce is a old pioneer trail. In this remote place on this mostly forgotten trail are rocks where at a time in the old west travelers left their mark on red stone in wagon wheel grease.

Those marks remain today and can still be read:

Honeymoon Trail

Those written words are “Westover” and “Funk”.

There has to be a connection, right?

Yes. There are several.

~ The St. George Temple ~

In 1877 the St. George Temple was dedicated. It was a huge event for the Westover Family.

Mother Electa Beal Westover, through her sons Edwin and Charles, gathered the family to go through the temple for themselves and for their families.

The St. George Temple was the first completed after the Nauvoo period. Though work had started on the Salt Lake Temple almost as soon as the pioneers arrived in 1847 it was a work in progress for decades.

The Endowment House in Salt Lake City was built for the purposes of “sealing” ordinances for the living and nearly all the Westovers and their extended families had been there for their own weddings.

In January of 1871 the prospect of a temple in St. George was raised by Brigham Young.

The Cotton Mission, known as Dixie and encompassing many small communities around St. George, was struggling and many settlers were wanting to leave. Brigham, frustrated that work on the Salt Lake temple had stalled for 7 years, proposed a temple in St. George as a means of unifying the Saints living there.

There was an immediate enthusiastic response. Work began and continued for several years with contributions from nearly every pioneer family in the area, including the Edwin and Charles Westover families. As the dedication approached in early 1877 everyone in Electa’s family gathered.

St. George Temple

Edwin and family, living in Hamblin, had come to St. George in advance of a new mission call to settle new communities in northern Arizona. Property had been traded, supplies had been gathered and further preparations, which included going through the temple and getting patriarchal blessings, had to be done.

Charles and family had relocated sometime before from Pinto to Washington City, just outside of St. George. Mother Electa lived with them.

Their bishop was a man named Marcus Funk.

~ Charles Westover ~

Charles WestoverAlexander and Electa Westover had four children while building their farm in Ohio and three of them lived to adulthood: Edwin, Charles and Oscar.

All three came west with Electa and she remained close to all three. Edwin, the oldest of the three, farmed next to his brother in the Cottonwood area of the Salt Lake Valley until the early 1860s.

Charles and families were called to the Cotton Mission as part of the original settler group in 1861. His name and original family home shows on the first pioneer map of St. George.

Edwin and families were called to the Cotton Mission in 1862, after living for a brief period in Grantsville near Electa’s sister, Hannah.

Oscar left Utah as a young man and moved west to California, raising a family in Petaluma.

Of the pioneering Westover brothers it was Charles who seemed to be the most well known and well connected.

Charles Westover had a personal relationship with Apostle Erastus Snow.

Erastus Snow

Erastus Snow

As a young single man in 1848, when the Westovers traveled to Winter Quarters, Charles sought Snow out because he heard he was looking to hire someone to drive his family’s team west.

In the course of making those arrangement Charles indicated his desire to be baptized so Erastus Snow baptized him.

For the rest of Snow’s life there would be interactions between him and Charles Westover.

It is assumed that Snow influenced the call of the Westovers to St. George and, of course, he played a central role in the construction and the dedication of the St. George temple.

Charles and his wives spent the rest of their lives in St. George.

That is why it is ironic that Cache Valley – far to the north on the other end of the state – would not only be known as home to Edwin’s posterity. It would also become home to many of Charles’ descendants.

Thanks to Bishop Marcus Funk.

~ Marcus Funk ~

Marcus Espersen Funk was born in Denmark in 1842 and came to America in 1857 with his parents. His parents, Dederick and Kirsten, joined the Church after missionary work was established in their area of Denmark by…Apostle Erastus Snow.

They came to Utah and found farming opportunities in the tiny Cache Valley community of Richmond.

While in Richmond, young Marcus became known for his ability to handle horses. Throughout his life, wherever he lived, he was known for his fine horses and for the care and gentle treatment he gave them. Eventually he became a teamster for William B. Preston, who was the chief founder of Logan, the town mayor, and bishop (all by the age of 29). The job would eventually change Marcus’ life for good when he answered to call to drive one of his teams on a “down-and-back”.

It was on such a drive in 1864, on a return trip, that Preston’s company helped a pioneer handcart group on their westward trek. In that group was a girl who caught Marcus’ eye. By the time they all arrived in Salt Lake, they were engaged.

Not many years later Marcus and his wife were called to move their family south to the Cotton Mission by Brigham Young. They settled in Washington City, assigned there by Erastus Snow, and became embedded in Church and civic leadership. In time, Marus would serve as both bishop and mayor.

Marcus Funk

At the time of the dedication of the St. George temple, the Charles Westover family and the Marcus Funk family each had several children living with them.

In 1877 Lewis Burton Westover was 9 years old. Eliza Johanna Funk was 8.

In 1889 they married. In the St. George temple.

Around that time Marcus Funk was called yet again by the Church to settle a new area in Sanford, Colorado. He was again called as Bishop.

The newlywed couple of Lewis and Eliza followed him to Colorado. The Lewis Burton Westover family would stay there until Marcus Funk and family left – in 1909.

~ The Honeymoon Trail ~

When the St. George temple was dedicated it wasn’t just a big deal to the Westovers and Funks and other in the region known as Dixie. Mormons from everywhere came to St. George to go through the temple and they did so for years, at least until the next temple opened in Manti.

An unwritten chapter in the life of Edwin Westover belongs to that of his Southern Utah family. Edwin was sure to communicate to his wife Sarah Jane that their entire family was called to settle in North Arizona. He wanted her to continue on to fulfill that mission, which she did.

The Westovers, under Sarah Jane’s direction and that of Edwin’s eldest son, Edwin Lycurgus Westover, grew the generations of the Westover family in Arizona in an epic and righteous way.

As they prospered, met spouses and married they had to travel the Honeymoon trail to St. George to get to the temple.

Honeymoon Trail

For better than 30 years this trail was well known to newlyweds.

Ironically, the newlyweds in Lewis Burton Westover – a grandson to Electa Westover (who was a temple worker in St. George) – and Eliza Johanna Funk were living in Washington City when they married in the St. George temple. It was only after they married and were living in Sanford, Colorado that they traveled the Honeymoon Trail and put their names on the rock.

~ A Latter-day Westover-Funk Connection ~

This might or might not be something, I don’t know yet. I only discovered the above story in the past few days.

My own move to Cache Valley happened in 2012 when a change in jobs allowed my wife and I to reconsider where we were living and raising our children. We felt we needed a change.

We looked all over Utah but were drawn to the little town of Richmond after one of our daughters expressed a desire to attend high school in nearby Smithfield. We went there, found a house and it just felt right.

This move had everything to do with my family history awakening. A short time after we moved we got called to serve on trek, which would include two of our daughters.

We went and I had some powerful experiences in learning all about my pioneer ancestors.

Our stake president, in the early morning devotional on the day we left on trek, promised us that if we desired a spiritual experience we need only to pray for it. I did and I had several.

Upon our return, I emailed him and told him of what happened to me on trek. His note was short but gracious. And he signed it with this post script: “Oh, Brother Westover, by the way, my mother is a Westover”.

I looked her up and she is Zaetell Westover, a daughter of Lewis Burton, and thus another descendent of Charles and Electa.

I have scoured the cemeteries local to me here in Cache Valley. I visited them often enough I can trace many familiar names, even people I am not related to. One of those names in Funk, which is prominent still in Richmond.

My children had friends from our time living in Richmond with the last name of Funk.

Boy, do I have a story to tell them.

Kirtland Connections

With the news that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has acquired the Kirtland temple and additional historic sites in Nauvoo the question has come in about our family connections to Kirtland.

The individual who comes immediately to mind is Grandfather Gardner Snow, who is the great-grandfather of Muriel Snow, wife of William Riggs Jr and mother of Maurine Westover.

Gardner Snow

You would be hard pressed to find a more active family in the LDS faith than the Snows. Long before plural marriage that family name was central to the early history of the Church.

Names such as Eliza R. Snow (a wife of Brigham Young), apostle Erastus Snow, President Lorenzo Snow, and, of course the many sons of Gardner – particularly James C. Snow, Warren S. Snow, and George Washington Snow – would go on to pioneer fame in Utah. They are all related, in various ways, and their posterity are numerous.

In 1900, Congressman Charles B. Landis of Indiana, remarked that the Snow family was “the most consistent Mormons in the whole bunch”.

Gardner Snow and family left their home in Vermont for Kirtland specifically because of the promise of the temple. They arrived a few months after the dedication of the temple.

Gardner by this point was an established member of the Church, having been baptized with many family members by Orson Pratt in 1833. Not long after arriving in Kirtland he was ordained an elder.

His ordination was noted as a certificate, available in the Joseph Smith papers:

Gardner Snow

He later was provided with a “license”:

Gardner Snow

The Snows were thoroughly embedded in the activities and events of Kirtland. Here is a copy from a ledger of the Kirtland Safety Society noting a $500 investment Gardner made:

Gardner Snow

Gardner Snow and family would move to Adam-ondi-Ahman in 1838. Following Missouri persecutions the Snows relocated to the Issac Morley settlement, not far from Nauvoo.

After coming west the Snows were asked to help settle Manti – along with the Morley and Albert Smith families and others. There Gardner Snow would live the rest of his life, serving in several callings and in civic offices, until he died in 1889, having lived a long life of 97-years.

At present I cannot think of other family connections to Kirtland.

Albert Smith and family joined the Church in 1835 and started towards Missouri not long after that but headed to Nauvoo. Albert Smith would later serve in callings in the same ward as Gardner Snow in Manti. Neither man would live long enough to see their descendants marry.

The Westovers of Ohio, while technically the closest to Kirtland, did not discover the Church until the 1840s. They started moving west in 1844, intending to go to Nauvoo, but diverted directly to Winter Quarters in advance of the move West.

All of these sites in Kirtland and Nauvoo have been available to visit for years and they will remain so. I’ve been to Nauvoo but Kirtland remains a bucket list item for me.

There are, of course, other family members with ties to these areas. Horace Roberts – who was the father Jane C. Snow (James C. Snow’s wife) – was known as the Potter of Nauvoo. He is frequently mentioned in Nauvoo tours.

Thanks to our many family histories we can visit all of these places – and the spots marked on the trail west – and identify with them better.

Family History

Family History vs Family Story

Of all the projects at the end of Dad’s life nothing was more passionate to him than the history he was writing of my Mother.

He attacked it in typical Dad fashion. He wrote an outline, he gave each salient section an objective, he selected pictures and started jotting down notes of things he did not want to forget.

He began writing and re-writing. Dad also warned me that he was going to need help in the way of perspectives from each of his children.

In a conversation I held with him the last Sunday of his life about this and other family history projects Dad said he felt he owed Mom to do this right.

For all his efforts, for all the fantastic detail he left for me, especially about their early life together and their courtship, it pains me to think I will need to finish this project.

I have had more than two years and it has occupied my thoughts a great deal.

As is my way, I spend part of Rootstech weekend every year doing maintenance to this site and catching up on things that need to be taken care of.

In that process, I came across this video we did for Mom and Dad on the celebration of their 50th anniversary:

Of course, that event and this video were produced 14 years ago.

It was a collaborative effort. Voices heard in that video are considerably younger. All those images had to be gathered from my siblings and their families. It left no one out up to that point in time.

In seeing it again I marvel at how much has changed since we made this video.

For example, all ten of my grandchildren came after that video and that event.

Of course, since that time, we have lost both Mom and Dad.

So very much has happened. Some hard things have been experienced. The world, inside and outside of the family, has changed.

Their story, at least as we would view it in a slideshow like above, has changed. It has continued. It has expanded. It has taken on new twists and turns.

And, of course, it continues still. Their story is not complete.

It makes me wonder: how do I catch up?

History, to me, is an accounting of what happened. The story, however, is how and why it happened, and it includes far reaching consequences Mom and Dad did not live to see (well…maybe).

Which is more important? The history or the story? And if you want to tell both the history and the story of a person or a family, how do you do it exactly?

As I have mulled these questions, even as my own history and story takes on new twists and turns, I’ve decided to deviate a bit from Dad’s original plan he outlined of Mom’s history.

I’m still going to use it – all of it – but I’m going to include his history into a new effort.

I don’t believe I can tell Mom’s story without Dad’s story included. And vice versa. Mom and Dad sometimes had a passionate and even volatile relationship. Together they could sync in mad creative fits and at other times be so at odds they could hardly look at each other. I believe Mom and Dad, together, were much more than what they came to be individually.

How do you convey that? How can I share all those complexities and still get the history and the story right?

At Rootstech I went to two classes dedicated to writing family history. I left quite unsatisfied.

Like with most things I find associated with genealogy, there is something of a strict format to doing this “right”. There are rules. There are set ways to go about this.

Nearly every idea I have had in considering this seems to break those rules. What I am thinking of how to do this does not fit within what family historians are supposed to do.

We have some outstanding family history records left from generations past. I appreciate those things but I don’t want to leave the same kind of record. I think we can do better. I think we should at least try.

When I reach back in history and try to piece together the lives of family from 500 years ago I’m limited by the fact that no matter what I do I cannot capture the essence of these people.

I was not there. I didn’t know them. I can only piece together the facts and comment on what I see.

That’s not true of my parents.

I do know them. I have had not only my own life experiences but I have talked at length with both my parents about their lives. I know their feelings.

More importantly there is a dynamic (or two) between my parents that needs to be included in any history written about them.

I want to give my best in helping my children, grandchildren and generations beyond to know my parents and the family that surrounded them in as intimate detail as I can.

It’s something of a dangerous prospect.

So many histories we read tend to glorify individuals. My parents deserve to be honored but can we do that while being real? Is it possible to create a life record that reflects weaknesses, imperfections, mistakes, missteps and failures as a part of telling their glorious story.

I believe we can produce that. I believe we can leave a better record.

Being me – my mother’s son – perhaps this is to be expected.

In my work life I have long trained my people to follow their instincts with some things. “You Don’t Have to Do What You’re Told” is a lesson I preach over and over. The idea is that in many cases there several right ways to do different things. “Rules” sometimes constrict us – and at least with some of them, they beg to be excused.

And why should I conform? These are my parents. Their history and their story is not only vitally important to me but for my grandchildren, who are too young at present to understand many things, I want them to experience my folks and not just retrace the cold statistics of their birth, life and passing.

So, casting aside all the formats and the rules, I have decided the following:

First, like the video above, this needs to be collaborative effort. I will seek out others who knew my Mom and Dad for their perspectives.

Second, my father being the ultimate geek and my mother being the mad-creative family historian, this record needs to include as many of their creations as we can include. I have literally tens of thousands of images, documents, artifacts and other associated “stuff” to help create the record.

The record needs to be more than just written words. It can include a book. It most certainly can be digitized. But it can also, in some way, include a little of what they left behind. Remember, it can be a better record.

I also feel this needs to include, where possible, grandchildren of my parents. What a rare opportunity stares at us here by getting their perspective.

How long will this thing be? I have no clue.

How long will it take to come together? I have no idea.

Just how will we get the completed projects in the hands who will keep it and share it in the years ahead? I’m not sure.

But since I’ve come to these conclusions I can tell you I’ve found an energetic groove. I can get this now off of step one – and maybe check off a few of those boxes representing the family history projects Dad left for me to complete.