Manti Temple Workers 1886

Photo Forensics in Family History

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I have been spending a lot of time in the world of Albert Smith for an upcoming video we hope to release. That, of course, comes with an always challenging effort to find images to help tell his story.

The best and perhaps most beloved photo of Albert is this one, showing him late in life with one of his wives:

Albert And Sophie

This photo has been mired in controversy for decades. That is most definitely Albert Smith, seated in the chair wearing the checkered suit. But the question comes from the woman pictured — is it Rhoda Gifford Smith or Sophie Klauen Smith?

Albert Smith lost his first wife, Esther, in 1856. As was common in the 19th century Albert began looking for a new companion because survival on the farm demanded it. He found a widow, Rhoda Gifford, who was likewise in need of a spouse and they married.

This was in 1857 — right after the arrival of the Willie Handcart Company. Grandma Sophie’s story has been told. Together, with Albert and Rhoda, Sophie went to the endowment house on Valentine’s Day 1857 and were sealed at the same time.

Albert Smith was suddenly a polygamist.

It wasn’t a happy arrangement and we’ll get into that in the video. For now though, let it suffice to say that Rhoda and Albert divorced in 1865 — long before the photo above was taken.

The picture above was taken by George Edward Anderson, a photographer born in 1860. This article from the September 1973 Ensign tells his story. The photo above was found in his collection of images dating from 1880-1928.

We know that Albert died in 1892. So this picture was taken between 1880 and 1892 — long after Rhoda was out of the picture. That woman in the photo is Grandma Sophie.

Mystery solved.

But in the resolution of one mystery comes yet another. And that is in this image:

Who are these people?

The photo is the next in sequence taken in Anderson’s Springville studio. It is likewise marked “Albert Smith”.

Looking at this couple do you suspect they are married? Or could they be brother and sister?

I have not figured it out yet. The records I’ve found of Albert Smith Jr. are so far pretty scant. He was married in 1883, just 22 years old, to Caroline Nielsen.

Looking at her records, which includes a few images, the woman in the photo above is definitely NOT Caroline. She and Albert Jr had three children in the 1880s — two sons and a little daughter, Mary Elizabeth, who died, along with Caroline, in 1889.

The journal of Albert Smith records a little about this period of time, with letters flying back and forth among the various family members. Not only did Albert Jr suffer from devastating news but sister Albertina, four years older, died in childbrith in June of 1890 in Huntington, Utah. Albert’s journal speaks of Albert Jr. returning to the Smith home in Manti with at least five of the grandchildren to stay with them a while.

I could be wrong — and probably I am wrong — but something tells me that might be a picture of Albert Jr and Mary Ann Humble sometime before they were married in December 1891.

Mary Ann Humble had been married before to a man named Clark Brinkerhoff. She was his 2nd wife. He was sent on a mission and while he was gone the Manifesto came out. With that he never returned to Mary Ann and the child they had together. In 1891 she married Albert Smith Jr, and he adopted the son Mary Ann and Clark had together.

Missing for me in identifying the picture above are the critical details in the histories of Albert Smith Jr and Mary Ann Humble.

Whoever these people are — they knew Albert Sr. and Sophie, because this picture very obviously was taken at the same time and paid for by Albert Smith in the studio of George Edward Anderson in Springville, Utah.

Note: I’m still combing through Anderson’s sizable collection but I did find this image of Manti Temple Workers taken in 1886. I’m wondering if there are any Smiths, Nielsons or Snows recognizable in these faces.

Manti Temple Workers 1886

Samuel Barnhurst

Getting the Story Right

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When I first began using Family Search I was somewhat frustrated with the idea that anyone could edit information on that one-world family tree.

To me, the “watch” feature is a critical function of Family Search. I click on “watch” next to any name and if someone comes along and adds or changes something I get notified about it right away.

Indeed, I get annoyed with unknown folks making ill-advised changes to data associated with my family members.

But over time I have come to see the wisdom of an open-edit record.

Not only do we get more complete information about our ancestors, in time more of their stories become easier to understand because inevitably other people have data, journals, and photos I do not possess.

This is a good thing. We all make the record stronger. The stronger the record, the more accurate the information we receive.

Family stories, you see, are not always family truth.

Consider for example the story of Samuel Barnhurst.

Samuel Barnhurst was the father of my Great Grandma Riggs. I’ve spent some time the past year or so working on learning the Riggs story so that I can begin sharing it here.

Like most of our stories I tend to focus on migrations west that explain the how and the why we all came to be in this part of the world now. Samuel’s story of his westward migration is no less epic than any other we’ve shared here.

Samuel Barnhurst was born in 1827 in Philadelphia to an English immigrant family. His parents were from England where his father was a silversmith. They were well-to-do, well connected and quite religious.

His parents, Joseph and Priscilla, were married and had two children before coming to Philadelphia sometime between 1812 and 1819. They would have ten more children in America, including Samuel, who would be the 9th of their 12 children.

Perhaps it was because of their wealthy status that we have pictures of almost their entire family, both together around 1840ish and later in life as photography became more established. I am hopeful that I learn from the records left behind of Samuel’s siblings what really happened in his early years that caused him to leave Philadelphia.

Certainly his conversion to the LDS church was central to the story.

I started collecting information on Samuel about 20 years ago when I had stumbled across a family history website who claimed him as an ancestor. Sadly, I can no longer find that website or remember who authored it but the story I archived from it varies quite a bit from what is now available from various sources on FamilySearch.org.

Joseph Barnhurst Family

The Joseph Barnhurst Family in the 1840s, perhaps as late as 1850.

Joseph and Priscilla and family were very active in a Baptist Church in Philadelphia. Young Samuel, who in his mid-20s had married a woman and started a family of his own, was employed in something that gave him extraordinary interest in religion.

The story I first found on that website was that Samuel was a newspaper columnist who wrote on religion in Philadelphia. One of the stories he wrote about in the 1840s was rumors of the Mormon Church and their “gold bible”.

In the aftermath of his published story mocking the Church he attended a lecture where missionaries of the Church rebutted his story – and therein began his association with the Church.

After catching up on Samuel’s stories on Family Search, I’m not sure any of that is true.

Here is an excerpt from another history posted of Samuel on Family Search:

“Samuel had high blood pressure and varicose veins. Doctors did all they could for him, bled him and put leaches on to keep his veins from bursting. One night he was wondering what to do, he either dreamed, or had a vision. He saw two men; a voice told him to go to them and they would tell him what to do to be cured.

About that time, Mormon missionaries were sent to that city. One day he was walking down town when he saw the two men he was shown in his dream on the other side of the street. He crossed over and spoke to them. They told him he would have to have faith. He was about 28 or 29 years of age. After attending their meetings he was favorably impressed with their teachings. His family was very opposed to the Elders but he decided to pray to find out for himself.

He went to his room to pray and see if the Church was true. The room began to get light. The brightness of it was more than he could stand and he told the Lord he was satisfied, to take it away. As the light began to die down he thought how foolish he was not to see more when he had a chance. No sooner had he thought this than it became brighter than before and he said he could stand no more. A voice said, “Anytime you want to see or hear more, ask and you shall receive.”

He asked the Elders for baptism and later was administered to for his illness. He was instantly healed and was never troubled with it again.”

Regardless of what his situation was that brought Samuel to the Church it is clear his family was greatly opposed to it.

Almost universally in all the histories shared about Samuel the story is told of him coming home one night and hearing voices of people in another room talking about him.

As he listened to their conversation through a door he heard their plot to kidnap and institutionalize him for his conversion to Mormonism.

So bitter was the divide that Joseph, Samuel’s father, evidently said “it would be bad enough to have a son in the insane-asylum, but even that would be better and easier to live down than having a son who had joined the Mormon Church”.

Whatever the truth, Samuel left.

No official record of divorce is known and family records clearly show that Samuel never again had contact with any of his family – not his parents, his wife or his children – in Philadelphia. In fact, in later years both branches of the Barnhurst family were shocked to learn the other existed.

In 1857 around the age of 30, Samuel headed west in the company of returning missionaries – including apostles John Taylor and Erastus Snow.

That year of 1857 was pivotal in the history of the Church in Utah. We’ve talked about it before. The march of Johnston’s army was underway and the Church was going through the famous Mormon Reformation. This was when polygamy grew immensely within LDS ranks, as we’ve seen the histories of other branches of the family.

It was also a season of peak immigration with Saints arriving from Europe, many of whom spoke languages other than English. This included a young single woman from Denmark named Ane Marie Jensen, whose story shared some interesting parallels to Samuel Barnhurst’s.

Though they did not know each other, at the encouragement of their new Church leaders in Utah, Samuel and Ane married just months after arriving in Utah in 1857.

He would live until 1890, she would live until 1906.

Their 30+ years together would bring 9 children into the world and would see them move several times before settling in Hatch, Utah where they and their children would impact local history.

In fact, a Google search of Hatch history reveals that a son of Samuel and Ane served in a Bishopric with William R. Riggs when they moved the town of Hatch to higher ground to avoid flooding from a local dam.

I don’t know the story of that association yet but it yielded a marriage between the Riggs and the Barnhurst families.

One history states that Samuel never reconciled with his Philadelphia family and that he refused to acknowledge or even to talk about them for the remainder of his days.
I question that. After all, my Great grandmother – his daughter – was named after his mother and his youngest child was named Joseph, after his father.

I’m guessing and this is pure speculation that the adult years of gospel training in the life of Samuel Barnhurst taught him not only forgiveness but respect for love and family. Theirs is another reunion I’m curious about when it took place on the other side.

I would encourage you to have an account at Family Search and to get out of the data of births and deaths and ordinances and begin reading and sharing the stories and histories people are posting there.

If you have old histories sitting around somewhere that are not on Family Search I would encourage you to upload them for all to enjoy.

Samuel Barnhust and Ane Marie Jensen are pioneers – beloved as much as any others we have spotlighted. I look forward to learning more about them.

The Importance of Visiting

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I had a delightful phone conversation with my eldest daughter, Aubree, the other day. She had called earlier in the week and gave us the happy news that she is expecting her first child. This 2nd phone call was the first opportunity I had to talk with her alone about it all.

Aubree’s journey to this milestone has been a long and difficult one. Her righteous desire has always been to have a family of her own. But for more than a decade she dealt with disappointment as one obstacle or another stood in her way. This past year she married and, to no one’s surprise, the great news came by phone this week.

Our joy for her is complete because we have been close to her struggle. So it was just a great thing to share a few minutes with her on the phone reacting, laughing, wondering about the next several months and playing what-if when it comes to things like this baby’s gender, the possibility of twins, and, of course, just “who is this little being growing within me?”.

I want to share two parts of this conversation with Aubree. First is our discussion of possible baby names. Aubree is the kind of girl who has named her babies since she was a little girl. I’m positive she has quite a catalog of possibilities. But I was delighted to hear her rattle off some names under consideration with her husband, Ryan, that come from both sides of the family.

We discussed many of the name possibilities and the significance of remembering and honoring generations past in the families. I was delighted to hear not only names from Ryan’s family but also from my mother’s family, my father’s family, my in-laws families. In fact, if we were to somehow grade this conversation Aubree would have earned an A+ for her knowledge of beloved names from family history.

Frankly, I never knew she was listening. But not only did she know the names, she knew many of the stories as well.

As I contemplated that I came to some conclusions. First, Aubree’s mother and Aubree’s grandmother have been HUGE influences on Aubree’s knowledge of family members. Over the years as they have shared stories and tears centered on precious family members these have grown precious to Aubree, especially now as she considers a new child.

Second, it dawned on me that Aubree herself is not only an “old soul”, as I like to sometimes call her, she also long ago mastered the art of “visiting”.

“Visiting” is what happens when large family gatherings settle down from whatever brought them together. Whether it is a holiday or a funeral or whatever — when the main event is over there are two things you can count on: food, and “visiting”.

For many of the younger members of the family this is a cue to exit to play with the cousins. And there is great value in that time too. But for me when I was a kid — and I noticed this with Aubree as well — hanging out for the visiting was where it was at.

As a child, you’re not much of an active participant as a visitor. At least I always felt that way. There was no way I could keep up with the banter. But there were a number of things I enjoyed about it. I loved the storytelling. I loved the laughter.

I especially loved the way it made me see other people. I can recall a time when visiting was going on when my mother called her father “Dad”. It was a simple thing. I was quite young but I connected the dots in that moment to realize Mom had a Dad. Sounds dumb, but all kinds of lights go on when “visiting” happens.

I remember really enjoying my Grandma when visiting would happen because it caused her to rise above her Grandma-ness to me. In that context, she was not only Grandma but also sister or mother or wife or daughter — depending upon the context of the stories being told. Visiting was an expansive experience. It caused relationships to expand and perceptions to refine because visiting changed facts and shook foundations.

It was always good, too.

For example, when I was little I had not spent much time around my uncle Darrell. In fact, I can recall being a bit scared of him as a 5 year old. Years later, when my little sister was just a baby, I saw Uncle Darrell as we were visiting after a wedding. He was holding my little sister on his lap when a little love affair broke out between the two of them. She grabbed his heart and shed a whole new light on my Uncle Darrell, to me. He smiled, he laughed, he told stories as he visited and listened.

Aubree has always been a great visitor. And she has always connected well with older members of the family. How very grateful I am for that as a new generation is about to join us.

Now, the other thing I wanted to share about this conversation with Aubree has to do with my mother.

Mom will have been gone three years come this next April. I have only felt closer to her since that time.

In fact, with every holiday like Christmas this past week I think of Mom and that usually results in dreams about her. I had one dream of her on Christmas this year that was so significant that I told my wife about it.

Nevertheless, I was surprised to hear Aubree tell me over the phone of a dream she had of my mother this week, too — a dream very similar to mine in terms of how mother looked and how happy she appeared to be — but it was a dream for Aubree that was much more specific.

Mother told Aubree in her dream how much she loved her and how happy and proud she was of her. She seemed to be aware of the changes in Aubree’s life this past year.

Mom was always aware of Aubree’s struggles. I know Mom and Aubree talked about the situation from time to time when “visiting”. But I too would confide in my Mom as I shared with her the parental pain and challenge of Aubree’s struggle and how we could help her. Mom knew.

So there is no doubt in my mind that Mom knows probably more about this situation now than we realize. It is entirely within the realm of possibility, in my mind at least, that Mom knows this new great-grandchild, too. I’m not sure how doctrinally sound that is but I’m convinced those family connections flow both ways, past and future.

In any case, it’s thrilling. To know there is a new child coming to the family, another in a new generation, gives me even more context in family history work. Knowing our past and appreciating them goes a long, long way I think in helping these new little strangers who join us.

They are part of all of us.

I cannot wait to meet this child. I cannot wait to be one this child hears speaking when it comes time to visit. I am anxious to do my part and share what a wonderful heritage it is we have together — on every side.

Maurine Westover, Topaz 1943

A Gift That Keeps Giving

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It has been a tough year for me with family history. Life and circumstance have kept me far from my goals. Much of the feeling of accomplishment I have experienced this year has come more from enjoying the successes of others. I have felt bad about that, almost as if I’m letting so many others down.

But as the months have turned I’ve been tempered in those feelings. The work of family history is not a race (yet) and it will forever be something that just needs work and love and time and attention.

Sometimes you seek out family history, and at other times it seeks you out.

That has been my blessing in so many ways this year.

Dad has asked me, and it has been our tradition here, to share Grandma’s Christmas talk where she tells the story of a Christmas she spent as a schoolteacher in Topaz, Utah.

Here again is that video. I want you to watch it again, paying particular attention to her telling the story of Topaz. Then press on to read the rest of the story from just this year:

More than 20 years ago I wrote a story for one of my websites, MyMerryChristmas.com — it was the story Grandma tells in the video, or at least my best recollection of it.

It is a significant thing to me because I did not have access to the video above when I wrote the story.

I knew Dad had the video and I knew it was archived somewhere but I had not seen it in years and I wrote the story based on a long ago memory.

What I may not have recognized then, in those infant days of the Internet, was that story would be copied and used on other websites, most often without my knowledge or permission.

That is where a woman by the name of Amy Denison saw the story.

Here it is years later and she looked me up on Facebook and sent this message, asking if I was the same Jeff Westover who authored the story:

The reason I am asking is because my mom, June Takiuchi Middo, was in Topaz during the war. She was 8 years old when her family was interned. She always spoke highly of her “Mormon school teacher” who started a brownie troop for the girls. If Maurine Westover was your relative, could you please message me back. I have a photo of Mrs. Westover’s class (which includes my mom) that I would love to share with you.

Of course, I was thrilled to receive her message.

I eagerly replied, affirming indeed that Maurine Westover is my grandmother, sending her a link to Grandma’s video sharing her Topaz Christmas experience, just so she could see Grandma’s countenance and share in her spirit.

She wrote back: My mom and her parents always spoke so highly of the LDS Church. They were very accepting when, 30 years ago, I took the missionary discussions and got baptized. The Church has been such a blessing in my life! My husband and I were sealed in the LA Temple 27 years ago. We have 3 children, two who have served missions, and our youngest son is preparing to serve a mission too. I know that your grandma, because she showed such love for the Japanese people, was planting seeds of faith that eventually led to my joining the Church.

Having a shared background in the Church I’m sure Sister Denison knew the thrill was providing for me — and now for you.

There are so many lessons from this.

Her mother is still living, although she is quite elderly and suffers from advanced dementia.

Nevertheless, she shared a photo with me of her mother watching Grandma’s video and seeing herself in the photo, too.

The Topaz years were a relatively short chapter in the lives of my grandparents. But those war years were so life changing for everyone of those generations and I cannot help but wonder the fuller story of Amy’s grandparents and all they endured.

It is quite something to consider how time and circumstance threw people together then — and that those experiences still share space today.

Amy was also kind enough to share this photo of her mother with her parents, also taken while they were in Topaz:

As I create a record of this blessed family history moment from 2017 I cannot help but ponder a bit the words of Clarence, from It’s A Wonderful Life, to George Bailey — “Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives.”

As I get older, I feel a bit frozen in time with Grandma. I was so very fortunate to know her when I was a child and as an adult. But in my mind she’s exactly as you see her in the video above. Time has changed nothing about her.

I’m sure, wherever Grandma is, she remembers June Takiuchi Middo as the 8 year old child she is in the pictures, even though June is 84 years old today. Time and age make us all so temporary.

But love is permanent. There is no doubt, in my heart, that in a coming day there will be no age difference between Grandma and June when they reunite. There will be only love, because that was what was there so long ago.

What powerful lessons these are. I cannot imagine some 70+ years from now anyone contacting one of my grandchildren to share something about me. But if that by chance happens I can only hope that love would be my legacy, too, just as it has been for Grandma.

May God bless Amy Denison and her family. They have given me a most precious gift this year, one I will never forget.

Alexander Westover

The Dead Among Us

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The other night I was visiting in my living room with a neighbor, a man I have only come to know in the past year or so.

As we were chatting he suddenly looked slightly to the right towards a window on the south wall of the room and his eyes got suddenly very large.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to be rude but there’s a spirit over there by the window — a very good one.”

I kind of wish I had video of my reaction to this comment. I was surprised not at all. I asked him if the spirit was a man or a woman.

“I don’t know, I can’t tell. I can’t really see features, it is just something I sense. This is someone close to you,” he told me. “Someone you know very well and who knows you. I get such a warm feeling.”

Without much thought I said, “That’s my Mom.”

I pointed to a picture of her on the wall over his left shoulder. He looked up at the picture and gasped.

“That’s who it is!” he said.

And then, as if talking about the weather, he asked, “Does she visit you often?”

I had to think about my answer to that question. My first inclination was to immediately say “no”.

I miss my Mom something fierce. I have been blessed not to have lost a lot of loved ones in my life, so losing my mother has been a new kind of experience for me, one that has surprised me many times with new emotions and feelings. In the more than two years since her passing I cannot say all the feelings associated with her loss have diminished much within me.

I had a long time to prepare for her passing.

I have studied and have learned and been taught all my life about the plan of salvation and I think I understand it.

But that still didn’t prepare me for all I would feel when death actually touched someone so close to me in my life.

Those feelings are very sacred to me and even still very close to the surface, tender at times, I admit.

But while I think of my mother often, especially when I work on things associated with her, I sometimes can sense how close she is.

And by “close” I mean close as in proximity. It is difficult to explain because it is not so much a feeling of physical closeness but more of an awareness of her knowing something important in real time as it happens.

It is a spiritual feeling but not quite like feeling the Spirit.

It is new to me and very hard for me to articulate.

But unlike my friend, who clearly has a special spiritual gift, I have NOT seen spirits and cannot lay claim to such manifestations.

I have known a few others in my life, my mother ironically, who had experiences like that. But it is not my gift.

But I have no problem seeing how real this all is and that was likely why he was so surprised about my reaction to what he witnessed. He was afraid I would think he was crazy or that such candid sharing between us would result in a change in our relationship.

But he’s not crazy, I believed what he said he saw and to me it is as real as anything else seen in this life.

I’ll tell you why.

Somewhere in these pages I’m sure I’ve told you about my experience working on the name of Francis Welty, one of my mother’s family from the 19th century.

As I was working on validating names from a family group for the temple I stumbled upon Francis, who my mother had identified in her records as a daughter of George Welty, her 3rd great grandfather.

But in later records (records I don’t think Mom in her time had access to) I didn’t find Francis, a daughter of George — I found Frank — a son, of George Welty.

It was the first time I had found a mistake in my mother’s research and I felt funny changing something she had done in FamilySearch.

As I sat here at my keyboard thinking about that for a minute I sensed a very warm feeling of confirmation and I felt my mother very, very close — like right behind me. It was as if she was saying, “That’s right. Fix it.”

I did not feel her hand on my shoulder and I did not actually hear her voice. But that is how I felt in that particular moment.

It was real. I was at my desk in a rocking chair and I stopped myself from leaning back, out of fear of hitting her foot — that’s how close she felt and how real that moment was to me.

We have been promised we would have our dead among us as we work on Family History and this is one of my most certain experiences that testifies to that truth. I cannot claim many such moments but I claim that one and I’m grateful for it.

As I have taken Uncle Frank’s work to the temple I reflect on the experience every time and each time I receive validation of what work is being done.

But there are other times, times unexpected I would say, that I feel my mother close by.

Whenever I have time to do things with my grandchildren I often get a feeling that my mother is aware and likewise delighting in a moment with me.

I have also had a sense of my mother’s awareness at key family events, including even when my father remarried earlier this year. Who would have expected that?

Even recently, as I’ve dealt with some difficult but normal teenage-years stuff with my two youngest at home, I have felt my mother’s presence.

All of this was not something I expected.

In fact, I have formed the opinion that if I were to pass away and go to the other side and see my mother I would have no news to share because she already knows it all. Such thoughts give me great comfort.

Losing my mother, I knew at the time, meant going through a physical separation from her. I was with her in her dying moments. I felt that immediately and I felt it keenly. Days later, as I looked upon her physical form for the final time in this life, the cold, stark reality of her absence from her body was shocking and even horrifying to me. I touched her arm and she did not feel it. I’ll never forget that.

But it is almost because of that moment that all the other times now when I sense her presence the feeling is so real and so important to me.

So in answer to my friend’s question about Mom visiting me often I said “yes”. But I did explain that I had never seen her, only felt her presence.

On the same wall as the window where my friend had this experience is the pioneer trail map I gave my Dad a couple of years ago, and on it appear several pictures of pioneer family members who, of course, I have never met.

“What about those people?” he asked me. “Have you felt them here as well?”

“No,” I said.

We didn’t have the time for me to explain what I knew about each of them and how I have come to know them these past five years. I wish I could have explained.

But my friend only nodded. Then he said something that again surprised me not at all. He has been in my home many times now and that pioneer map has not always been here. In fact, I only recently hung it on that living room wall.

“They know YOU,” he said. “They come here too. Your home is filled with people some times, I have seen it. It is always a good feeling and that is not always the case when these things happen to me.”

Now that blows me away.