Graduation Invitation

Stena (Said Sty-na)

Lars Ericksen was a flour miller in Denmark. Soon after his first marriage, he and his first wife, Bertha Marie, were baptized as members of the LDS Church. Lars then served as a missionary among his fellow-Danes. The family moved quite a bit as a result of this work. Stena Hansen, her brothers and mother, were all converted. Stena was told that she could travel to Salt Lake with Lars and his wife as their hired girl. She was also a friend. 

Stena, Lars and Bertha walked almost all the way to Salt Lake Valley. The old couple traveling with them rode in a wagon and the little girls also rode. There were eight with the one wagon, Lars, Bertha, Stena, the little girls, Emma and Camilla, Rasmus Rasmussen and the old couple. The old couple had purchased a cow, they were somewhat wealthy, and the cow gave them good milk, butter and buttermilk, until near the end of the journey. At that point, one of the oxen died and the cow was needed for pulling which meant she did not give much milk.

The women would hang the cream in a bucket under the wagon. On the bucket was a tight lid. The constant swinging of the bucket churned the butter. The buttermilk, left after the cream turned to butter, was used to make pancakes. May of the pioneers traveling with them would come to them for the buttermilk. They arrived in Salt Lake City in October of 1861.

One day, on their way to the valley, the women found a big, black iron kettle, which had been abandoned by a previous party. They decided it might come in handy when the got to their final home. So between them they carried it the remainder of the journey. There was no place for it in the wagon. That big black kettle was used over and over again in Mt. Pleasant. Soap was made in it and water boiled in it for hog killing days. It was passed from family to family for various uses.

Stena was very pretty and was also a good worker and quite smart. Many men wanted her to marry them. One sent a church leader to ask her to become a polygamist wife. She and Bertha were both upset by this. They decided they would ask Lars if he would marry her instead. Stena said she would rather have him for a husband than any of the others. That way, all of them could still be together. He agreed. Bertha, Lars and Stena all received their endowments at the endowment house in Salt Lake City. Bertha and Lars were sealed and then Stena was sealed to Lars, as well. 

They traveled to Mt. Pleasant in the spring of 1861 where they purchased a lot from Harvey Tidwell and immediately began to build a cellar for the family. The cellar was about 25-feet long and about 16-feet wide. To the east was a window with of four lights, which opened up and down, and to the north and south was one window of two lights which was set in the logs. There were no curtains because of the dim light and no blinds. It was two-roomed and was about six-feet deep in the earth. There were four logs above. The dirt floor was washed and water left standing to make it hard. Then it was sprinkled with clean white sand. There were partitions of adobe brick and a chimney of adobe with a fireplace and mantle. In front of the fireplace stood a step-stove.


Stena was the mother of Ferdinand, Amasa, Christena, Annie Marie, Mina and Lena (whose twin sister died shortly after birth). Another son, Alma, died during infancy. 


Bertha and Stena were always good friends. Up until their deaths, they loved each other dearly. They divided the chores of the household and the garden and farm and the children all loved them both. One was Mommy and the other Mama. 


The family had a wonderful vegetable garden with potatoes, carrots, onions, parsley, cabbage, peas and currant and gooseberries. They also had apple and plum trees.

This is a Great Site!

From: Melanie
 Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:42:48 +0000

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/

 This link allows you to scroll across any part of the world and you can see that day's paper. Try it out. I checked out Omaha, Salt Lake and Newcastle. Kind of fun. 

From Myrna: Thanks, so much, Melanie. This is a great site. Love, M

Myrna's Baby Photo

Photo taken July 12, 1941. I was born December 24, 1940.


Melanie wrote:

Mom,

Isn't the date supposed to be July of 1941 and not 1940? I think you would have been embrionic at the date you stated. :-)

PAINTING THE MORMON STORY

self-portrait, 1937

By Peter B. Gardner (BA ’98)

An artist, rancher, and mother, Minerva Teichert was, at heart, a teacher who found her greatest eloquence in the wall-sized paintings she created in her remote Wyoming home.

If you lived in Cokeville, Wyo., in the middle of the last century and needed to buy a pint of cream, you might very well have taken a walk down Main Street to the end, where the Teichert place marked the border between town and the grazing fields and western hills beyond. Your knock at the door of the bustling ranch house would summon white-haired, headbanded Minerva Teichert, glad you stopped by and grateful for a break from chores.

The chores she’d be referring to would depend on the time of day you called. If it were morning, it might be dishes after a 6 a.m. breakfast for a kitchen full of family and ranch hands. At midday, it might be cleaning milk bottles, churning butter, or forming a loaf of soap. In the afternoon, you might have caught her in her apron, pockets full of seed for her flock of 75 chickens.

She’d welcome you into the high-ceilinged front room and sit you on a worn couch. First thing you’d notice is the scent of linseed oil. Then you’d look up and see a painted canvas—in some stage of completion—filling every inch of the largest available wall in the room, with paintbrushes and a blotched palette nearby. You’d ask about the painting and, to be certain, you’d later leave the Teichert home with your pint of cream as well as a story—of a pioneer’s courage, an old Indian ritual, or maybe Lehi’s desert trek.

Minerva Teichert was a rancher’s wife and a gardener, a raiser of children and chickens, a maker of butter and biscuits, but at heart she was a storyteller, a teacher who found her greatest eloquence in bold brushstrokes on her entry-room wall.

Minerva Teichert is no longer selling cream at the end of Main Street in Cokeville, but she is still telling stories of the West and of her faith. Today, if you want a story from her, you can find it in galleries and in art shows, like the exhibit at BYU’s Museum of Art, Pageants in Paint, which explores ways Teichert borrowed storytelling techniques from pageants and used them in her murals. Taken together, Teichert’s paintings help tell another story—her own.

The Making of a Western Artist
Minerva Teichert lived her life at the border between the rustic and the refined, walking with one foot in the frontier and the other in the circles of culture and high society.

Born in 1888, Minerva spent much of her young life on a remote homestead near American Falls, Idaho. As soon as she could sit in a saddle on her own, Minerva could be found astride her horse, Gem, exploring the countryside and filling sketchbooks with charcoal and pencil observations of the Indians on the nearby reservation, the animals she encountered, and the landscapes around her. Her parents supplemented her sporadic formal education by reading aloud history, geography, and, one winter, the complete works of William Shakespeare. She would call the time she spent on the Idaho homestead her most important training as a painter.

Her art ambitions raised considerably at age 14, when she spent the summer in San Francisco as a nursemaid. There, at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, she observed the creation of great art for the first time. After graduating from high school, Minerva taught school and pitched hay to support her father on a mission to Europe and then to raise funds to study at the Art Institute of Chicago.

In Chicago, she became known to classmates and professors alike as Miss Idaho. Renowned draftsman John Vanderpoel taught Minerva and the other students every bone and muscle in the human body. One day, feeling Vanderpoel was excessively critical of her work, which she thought was better than that of her classmates, Minerva confronted her instructor. His disappointed face and choked reply always stayed with her: “Miss Idaho, can it be possible you do not understand[?] . . . [T]hey will drop out, but you—ah, there is no end.” Minerva finished her coursework in Chicago in 1912. While there she was introduced to mural painting, a then-popular form for many artists, who saw their works as a way to educate the masses.

During breaks in her coursework, Minerva had returned to Idaho to earn more money. There she resumed teaching and tried her hand at homesteading (sleeping for months in an isolated cabin with a pistol under her pillow). She also formed an attachment with Herman Teichert, a quiet, unlearned cowboy whose parents had emigrated from Germany. Minerva’s parents were against the match because Herman wasn’t a Mormon. Herman’s parents were against it because Minerva was. In the end, Minerva’s mother made an offer: if Minerva would agree not to marry Herman, she would support Minerva at the Art Students’ League in New York City. Telling Herman to find someone else to marry, Minerva chose art.

In April 1915 the 26-year-old artist boarded a train for the East. She immediately fell in love with New York, attending operas, concerts, and suffrage meetings. When funds ran low, she drew cadavers for medical schools and illustrated children’s books. She also donned an Indian costume and performed dances and rope tricks to earn money.

Minerva quickly emerged as a top student in her crowded art classes. When people questioned her choice of subjects for her art, she’d say, “There’s too much sagebrush in my blood to forget the beauties of rugged mountains [and] dry plains.” She became especially noted for the quality of her animal paintings. Back home, Utah and Idaho newspapers spread word of her successes, including the prizes and scholarships she won to further her studies with renowned artists of the day.

A major influence on Minerva was famed portraitist Robert Henri. “Love reality, but abhor photographic representation,” he instructed his students. He also taught them to use large brushes and loose strokes and to not overwork their compositions. Minerva blended Henri’s instruction, her training in figure drawing and mural techniques, and her Western sensibilities to create a style that is recognizable at a glance.

Henri, who became a lifelong friend and mentor, lent guidance in more than just brushstrokes. “Has anyone ever told your great Mormon story?” he asked her one day. “Not to suit me,” she replied. To this he retorted, “Good heavens, girl, what a chance. . . . Oh, to be a Mormon. . . . You’ll do it well.”

From that time on, “I felt that I had been commissioned,” she said.

But this wasn’t all that turned her focus westward. In a talk at church, a speaker counseled the women who had come east seeking worldly success: “Girls, what’s a career? You go back home and marry your sweethearts and have your families and you will be much happier than you will [be] by following a career.” The sentiment struck Minerva. “I [thought] of all the men I had met in my search for ‘glittering gold,’” she later wrote, “and back on the Idaho desert, herding his cattle and branding his calves, was a man more nearly meant for me than anyone else in the world.”

With doors to the highest levels of American art opening before her, this time Minerva chose Herman and a family.

I Must Paint
Minerva Teichert chose family again and again throughout her life, as when she was invited by Henri and his wife to accompany them to Europe to study art. Herman consented, and Minerva, then a mother of three young boys, made plans to go. But then she had a vivid dream of a daughter and felt she should stay—much to the frustration of Henri. Laurie was soon born to the family.

But choosing marriage and family hardly meant forsaking art. To hear her describe it, one would think she had little choice in the matter. “I must paint,” Teichert would say. “It’s a disease.” Nothing—not the ranching duties she fulfilled, lead poisoning from her paints, or failing eyesight in later years—could keep her from painting.

In 1927 the Teicherts were forced from their remote Idaho log cabin in the Snake River bottoms, which were to be covered by a reservoir. When the family arrived at their high-mountain-valley ranch home in Cokeville, Wyo., they were delighted by the marvels of electricity and running water. But especially important to Teichert was a stretch of wall in her front room, much larger than any wall space in her Idaho cabin. She’d dreamt of such a space, and for the next four decades, a mural nearly always hung there. Large as it was, it wasn’t big enough to accommodate all her grand designs. Sometimes murals had to be folded over and painted one section at a time. To evaluate her work in the confined space, she’d view the paintings through binoculars turned backward.

With a dramatic nature, abundant vivacity, and unusual ways, Teichert stood out from but was appreciated by the Cokeville community. Arriving at age 39, she already had a shock of white hair, which was always encircled by a headband (she joked that this was to hold her brains in). Marian Eastwood Wardle (BA ’73), a granddaughter and curator of the current BYU exhibit, recalls her grandmother reciting poetry, sometimes stopping midline to strike an appropriate pose. Grandson Burke Teichert remembers, “When a funeral would end, she would go and help herself to a bouquet of flowers.” A day or two later she would present a still life of the bouquet to the grieving family. Eventually her neighbors caught on and began delivering the flowers to her doorstep.

But her main artistic outlet was her murals, to which she’d add strokes between chores. “She was a multitasker—big time,” says Wardle. “She’d be cooking at the stove and walk around [the corner] and put some brush strokes on the painting.” At night, once her children were asleep, Teichert gave her paintings full attention. She’d sometimes adjust the clocks to get them to sleep sooner.

While in Idaho, she had painted several works that hung in public spaces. But it was in the 1930s, early in the Great Depression, that her art began to pay off. Like most everyone else, the Teicherts were struggling to make ends meet. Minerva wanted to contribute with her brush, but she needed to reach out to a larger market. So she traveled to Salt Lake City in search of an agent. At a meeting with Alice Merrill Horne, a well-connected art dealer in Utah, she unrolled a mural and said simply, “Please look at this.” Horne was astonished. Two weeks later, Horne had arranged an exhibit of Teichert’s work. Within months Teichert would meet with the governor of Utah and receive enthusiastic reviews of her art in major Utah newspapers. In 1932, when the Teicherts’ economic situation reached a crisis, Horne found several buyers, and Teichert’s paintings saved the ranch.

The two became dear friends as Horne encouraged and directed Teichert’s efforts and regularly showed her works to potential buyers. In the 1930s alone, Horne placed some 60 Teichert murals in schools, churches, and civic buildings. When it came time for the Teicherts to send their children to college, Horne brokered a deal with BYU to provide scholarships in exchange for murals. Many Cokeville youth besides the Teichert children would eventually benefit from the arrangement.

As Teichert’s profile rose in Utah, the artist continued to explore stories of the Mormon migration and scriptural themes. By 1947, Teichert had risen to the top of the Mormon art world, winning first prize in the Church’s centennial art contest and becoming the first woman invited to paint a temple mural.

Her task was to paint the Manti Temple’s gigantic world room, which in other temples was typically rendered as a barren desert wasteland. True to form, Teichert envisioned an entirely different world room, creating a grand procession of people from every culture marching with high heads, hardly noticing the poor at their feet. “Beggars going unheeded by all these pompous people,” says Wardle. “Man’s inhumanity to man. That’s the lone and dreary world.”

Midway through her work on the mural, Teichert wrote her daughter: “The authorities told me to do this thing speedily and, believe me, as it nears conclusion it has been the speediest giant any American painter has ever concocted. . . . [The authorities] come often and are thrilled. I shall not fail them.” In her unrelenting approach and with the help of an assistant, Teichert finished major work on the nearly 4,000-square-foot mural in just 23 days.

Riding the crest of her successes, Teichert sketched out ambitious plans for the future and had every reason to expect them to materialize.

Telling the Mormon Story
Those who knew Minerva Teichert best say the only skill that rivaled her ability to paint was her ability to talk. Most often, the two went together.

Children and grandchildren universally recall coming in from the fields to use the bathroom or get a drink of water only to be detained as models for the current mural. And while they held their figures just so, Teichert provided her captives with lessons in art, scripture quotations, and commentary on the political problems of America.

“Always talking,” says Wardle, remembering her own modeling for her grandmother. “Lots of times it was quoting Isaiah.” But often she was telling the story of the pioneer or the scriptural character she was painting. Her teaching extended to dinnertime, when she’d read the scriptures or literature like Moby Dick while the others ate—saving her own meal for later. Herman, who had joined the Church soon after the move to Cokeville, supported her teaching efforts. “We had family home evening every evening,” recalls her youngest son, John Teichert.

The instruction wasn’t limited to family. “I have fond memories of her sitting on the couch with people who may or may not have been members of the Church,” recalls granddaughter Trudy Teichert Lamb (’66). “She would have her Book of Mormon or some scripture and she would be just animated telling them about this wonderful piece [of artwork] and the story that went with it.”

Teichert increasingly felt it was her responsibility to tell the Book of Mormon story in images so that “he who runs may read,” a common phrase from the time taken from the book of Habakkuk. So after finishing the Manti Temple mural, she set out on what she expected to be her masterwork—42 paintings of Book of Mormon stories, rendered large enough and simple enough to be “read” at a glance.

Finishing the paintings in 1952, the 64-year-old Teichert was aflame with enthusiasm for how the works might accompany the Book of Mormon text or be used as slides by missionaries around the world or be sold as a book of paintings.

What happened was something she never had anticipated—nobody wanted them. Many praised her efforts, but nobody would purchase the paintings, though Teichert would try for the remainder of her life to find a buyer.

A half-century later, Wardle describes two major factors that contributed to her grandmother’s declining influence in Mormon art. First, in 1948, was the death of Alice Merrill Horne, Teichert’s best critic and counselor on the art market. Then there were changing tastes. Murals had long since gone out of favor, and the Church commissioned others, such as Arnold Friberg, to paint the Book of Mormon.

Other dreams were fading too. Though Teichert had long desired to teach at BYU or another university, she had never been offered a post, presumably because in all her training she had not acquired the requisite degrees. Thus she had no true students, no one imitating her style, no one to whom she could pass the mantle she felt.

Though discouraged, Teichert wasn’t one to mope. After all, there were chickens to feed, grandchildren to tend, and genealogy to research. And she kept painting, eventually finding a new agent. Though the market for her religious work had run dry, her agent found interest in her western-themed works outside of Utah.

And she hadn’t lost confidence in her calling. One day a grandchild asked if she were famous. “No,” she replied with a smile, “but I will be someday.”

Lost and Found
In the spring of 1970, Teichert fell from her porch and broke her hip, possibly after suffering a stroke. She would never paint again. She died in 1976 in a Provo nursing home.

Within months of her death, Minerva Teichert would be rediscovered by the Mormon community. The thawing of awareness began quietly, when, just four months after her passing, a handful of her Book of Mormon paintings were used to illustrate a package of Ensign stories. That trickle of interest soon turned to a flood, when she was profiled in the Ensign two months later. The article called her art “sophisticated in technique and style, yet simple and direct in content and impact.”

With this growing interest, murals were dusted off and pulled from storage closets and from under stages in high schools, churches, and other buildings across the Intermountain West. Paintings were reproduced on covers of Church manuals, and murals began being mounted in temples around the world. In 1988, on the centennial of Teichert’s birth, the Church Museum of History and Art held a major retrospective exhibition.

One by one, many of Minerva Teichert’s dreams began to be fulfilled, including her hopes for the Book of Mormon paintings. In 1969 she had given the Book of Mormon paintings to BYU with no compensation or promise of publication. Upon receipt BYU showed the paintings briefly, then stored them away. In 1997, after the resurgence of interest in her work, BYU held a major exhibit of the Book of Mormon paintings and created a companion volume of the collection. BYU religion professors also lobbied to have Teichert’s Book of Mormon series line the hallways of the Joseph Smith Building, making it possible, in effect, for those who run to Book of Mormon class to read.

Wardle marvels at the revival of interest in her grandmother’s art. She was a student when Teichert donated the Book of Mormon paintings to BYU. Wardle remembers leafing through the comment book after attending that initial exhibit. “Every remark was disparaging,” she says. When she finally came upon a positive comment, she read the name below it: “Lois Dayton, Cokeville, Wyo.” Nearly forty years later, at the current Museum of Art exhibit, the comments have warmed considerably. “The colors give life to the story she tells and remind me of God’s tender mercies,” writes one viewer. “Absolutely beautiful,” adds another. “What a talent. What a spirit.”

Nowhere is the enduring spirit of Teichert’s work felt more strongly than in her hometown.

Walk down Main Street in Cokeville on a summer’s Sunday afternoon, down to where the town and grazing lands divide, and it’s easy to see that Teichert’s influence still lingers. There’s talk of making the Teichert place into a museum. But for now it remains a working ranch, occupied by a Teichert grandson and his family. Outside the house two great-grandsons relax in the shade. Adding a touch of art to their ranching know-how, they form their ropes into lassos and practice rope tricks. Soon they’ll be called in for dinner. They’ll find their places in the kitchen where Minerva Teichert once presided. And just past the stove, through an open doorway, on a large stretch of wall, they’ll be watched over by a canvas that tells a Book of Mormon story.

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VIDEO: In two slideshows BYU Museum of Art curator Marian Eastwood Wardle (BA ’73) examines several Minerva Teichert murals and discusses the themes behind them. 

INFO: The Museum of Art will display Minerva Teichert: Pageants in Paint through May 2008. Admission is free. 

Research

You are about the only member of the family who knows even a little bit about genealogical research. As you are the only one - I'll tell you what I do.

I took some classes from BYU-Ricks in the 1960s from the world's best genealogical teacher. Richard's Dad was taking the same classes at BYU in Salt Lake and the teacher told the class - "You don't know how to do research yet so why don't you hire someone to start doing it for you."

My teacher would have us spend the first hour telling each other about our genealogical problem. She'd ask the class to give ideas as to where what to do. After we had all thought it through as well as we could she would then tell us other things to do. As we got results we would report to the class and then think as a class what to do next. She would teach us about birth certificates or wills or parish registers - and have our assignment for the next week be to write a letter to get a birth certificate from England, or butter up the minister to see if we could get a parish register microfilmed. When we got films of census or wills or parish registers she would say, "Now transcribe it." We bought 20 microfilm readers at a time and got them for good prices. And then
transcribed the films.

I was lucky that the Smith family pretty much stayed in the Oxford area. The Oxford people wouldn't cooperate with the Salt Lake Library to have much filmed. But the Oxford people had me help them get records filmed and I gave them copies of my transcriptions. In about 1980 Richard and I visited the old gentleman in charge of transcribing parish registers. He offered us drinks before dinner and when we took orange juice he said, "Now, don't tell me what religion you are. When I go to get permission to have a register filmed for you and they ask if you are a Mormon, I want
to be able to say I don't know." We all laughed and of course he knew. When he would transcribe a register he thought I might be interested in, he slipped a 6th carbon in and sent the extra copy to me.

I found a lot of the Kings, Fosters, Holts and Kirbys, etc. were farmers and had wills. I would order a film of wills to Idaho Falls. I would then realize I needed the same roll a few months later. So when a roll came to IF I would abstract all the wills in a 8 mile radius of Bicester. I have many card files of those will abstracts and still refer to them quite often.

The Oxfordshire Family History Society has long ago got all their registers transcribed - and indexed .- most of them up to 2005 - no laws of privacy I guess - and now sell them on fiche or CDs for a tenth of the cost of microfilming. So, I have lots of transcriptions and fiche.

They comuterized all the marriages of all the Oxfordshire parishes and put it out alphabetically by grooms and brides. They are now working on doing that for all the christenings and burials. So when I asked recently for information about Thomas Mason - they told me that the only one in that time period at that area was christened in Bucknell. I had the Bucknell records.

So. When I got this new lead, I just look at the parish registers. And go online to Ancestry.com for the census records - 1841 to 1901 are all there indexed. And go online for FreeBMD which is an index for all births, marriages and deaths in all of England since 1837. So for the Powells I spent three days last week going through the the parish register, the census and the FreeBMD - back and forth.

I'm supposed to be finishing up a new blessing dress for one of my daughters to use for her future granddaughters - but just can't pull myself away from the computer. It is much more fun to be looking for these people.

I think I am guided. It seems as if there is someone up there saying "OK - it is the Kirbys turn. Now it's the Powells turn." And then those people just seem to be giving me ideas.

Somehow I've never had dreams of people coming. It is just ideas. Except a couple of times. Once I was transcribing the Launton microfilm and typing along. Suddenly I heard Richard's Dad say, "There is your clue. Take it and run with it." It wasn't in those words. It was an idea. But in his voice. I turned around but he wasn't there. He had died two months before. That was when I found the parentage of James Smith born 1780. I looked at what I had just typed. It was a christening for a child of Robert Smith, a blacksmith in Launton. I suddenly thought - "There can't be two blacksmith shops in Launton. That is too small a village. They must be brothers. If I can't trace James because he died before the 1841 census, maybe I can trace Robert. I found Robert was born in Bicester and had a brother, James just the right age. Later the Hon. Secretary of the Launton Historical Society found the death notice of their father in an
old newspaper and sent it to me.

So, I belong to the Oxford list online. And to the Oxfordshire Family
History Society.

Well - that is way more than you wanted to know. Thanks for being interested.

Donnette

Old Folks At Home--Dec. 2, 2006

Thanksgiving was quite wonderful. It was filled with my favorite things: food and family. And yes, I do like the noise of family talking all at once and of kids playing. We had visits from David, Bree, Barbara, Erin and Donovin. Eric, Amy and family, AnnMarie, Brandon and family, Julie, Jim and girls, Siovhan and Amy J’s parents. It was a good time.

Usually Jim and Julie spend that holiday in Idaho so it was nice that they were here. It was nice to have some in-law folks to enjoy. That made the day even brighter. Of course, when you eat at my house you work yourself to death. Barbara made the pumpkin pies and

worked all day helping Dad and I get things ready. Amy made fruit salad, her mom made the yams (and helped clean up afterward), AnnMarie made the rolls, and Julie made apple and chocolate pies. YUM! It was all good.

Just before Thanksgiving, Howard and Siovhan drove down to Nephi for a short visit. We really enjoyed the visit and were glad to see Howard again. It was so nice that he could fly here to Utah to spend time with Siovhan.

We also had a great time at Toren’s baptism. Gramps and Grammy had the privilege of giving baptism talks. It was great to see Toren take the step of choosing baptism. He was happy about it but had become sick with a sore throat just that day. Shawn and LHT gave him a blessing prior to leaving for church. It worked and he felt better so he could enjoy his special day. The Howard’s, Joneses, Siovhan and LHT and Myrna Rae all gathered and had turkey at Shawn’s and Kimberly’s afterward.

I have always loved Christmas! It seems like the perfect way to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ—in the dead of winter when there is little else to be joyous about. We have been told that the Savior was actually born in April, the same month (33-years later) that he died. But the dead of winter is when some of us need something to celebrate and something to look forward to. It isn’t just because I was born in December, it is because of the Christmas Spirit that fills the hearts of all Christians (and some who are not). The reason that I think the month needs a celebration is because it is always so very cold and, unlike the Trauntvein family, I have never liked being cold and would never, on purpose, choose to be outside on a chilly day. I have, from time to time, been persuaded by one of you to indulge in a winter activity. I enjoy being with the family but I am always glad to be back indoors where it is warm. I have no idea where I got this dislike of being cold from because I don’t remember any relatives who complained about being outside making snowmen and throwing snowballs and having a great time. I didn’t like getting on a hay wagon to go caroling either. I was always just persuaded by peer pressure to participate. No one else minds the cold. Just me. Maybe I am really an alien. Maybe my story about my guardian angel getting directions mixed up and eaving me in Utah instead of Hawaii is really true.

I wonder if Garth remembers the time when Santa came to the community center in Price in the evening. It was dark but was probably just 6 or 7 p.m. Anyway, we stood in a long line and I complained all the way there. Garth was happy with the candy, a bag full, and an orange and peanuts, but I was COLD and I did not want to do the Santa wait the next year. “Please don’t make me go!” I preferred the Christmas

community carol sing. It was indoors. So I haven’t changed, have I? By the way, this year, in Nephi, the kids got oranges and fruit roll-ups. Somebody was more interested in health than in fun.

Dad, however, is a snowperson in clothes. When we first moved to Nephi, our neighbor, Joey Olpin, came to our house and brought a jacket of her husband’s to give to Dad. I told her that he had a jacket, he just didn’t wear it. I actually had to show her the jackets in the hall closet. “Then tell him to wear one for me,” she said. She said that watching him shovel snow in his shirtsleeves was too much to expect of anyone. It made her cold just to watch him. He didn’t repent, however, now he wears a coat but he didn’t back then and he really did have three or four.

Dad remembers sledding, throwing snowballs and playing outdoors for hours. I guess that is why he always talked me into the tubing excursion every year. That and the fact that I wanted all of you kids to be normal and not like me. The best part was watching you all have fun in the snow. The very best part was having hot chili and hot chocolate afterwards. Oh, and you can all tell stories about going to cut down our very own tree. Let’s see, there was the time one of you fell down the mountain with the tree. Wait, that was Dad. I know there were other misadventures. Now my joy is my fake tree. Dad just gets it out of the box and puts it back in the box. No cold, no sneezing (from fir-fever), just green tree today and boxed tomorrow. I did do the tree thing all by myself one year. That was the year that Dad was in the hospital after having his gallbladder removed. I did the whole thing. I even got it in the stand. Of course, I remember that Shawn, Melanie, Todd and Eric were helpers also. AnnMarie was just a baby. She had been born in May and it was December. That would have made her 8-months old. Aunt Renee and Uncle Max came up to Provo and watched you kids during the surgery. They took you to Richard’s apartment. Grandpa Trauntvein sat with me at the hospital. Grandma Trauntvein was sick herself and had her gallbladder removed a short time later. Dad did get to be home for Christmas but he was still not feeling well.

I have always, at least since I was a girl, loved the carol/poem below. In those days of girlhood when I had hoped to be a poet/artist/dancer, I learned to enjoy the work of Longfellow. Grandmother Smith, Aunt Renee, Dad and Mom Edna had all learned works of his in school in the “old days” when people actually had to memorize poems. I did not know, however, that there was a bit about the Civil War included in the poem. Remember when we visited Longfellow’s home when we were on our 1976 trip? It was a U.S.D.A. property. I was in awe then—I was actually in the same place one of my writing heroes had lived. It is across the street from the LDS chapel. In fact, the church is built on property that once belonged to Longfellow when he was alive.

Christmas Bells

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The Carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;

‘For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’_

Then pealed the bells more loud and

deep:

‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Henry Wardsworth Longfellow

Over the river, and through the wood,

Grandmother Smith always loved this Thanksgiving song. She taught a verse or two to each of her classes each year. We would also sing it at home. Now, all these years later, this song always reminds me of her and of Thanksgiving. Her birthday was Novembe 26 and, depending on the year, it might actually fall on Thanksgiving. 

A Boy's Thanksgiving Day

by Lydia Maria Child.

Over the river, and through the wood, 

to Grandfather's house we go;

the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh

through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,

to Grandfather's house away!

We would not stop for doll or top,

for 'tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the woodoh,

how the wind does blow!

It stings the toes and bites the nose,

as over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood.

with a clear blue winter sky,

The dogs do bark and the children hark,

as we go jingling by.

Over the river, and through the wood,

to have a first-rate play.

Hear the bells ring, "Ting a ling ding!"

Hurray for Thanskgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood no

matter for winds that blow;

Or if we get the sleigh upset

into a bank of snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,

to see little John and Ann;

We will kiss them all, and play snowball

and stay as long as we can.

Over the river, and through the wood,

trot fast my dapple gray!

Spring over the ground like a huntinghound!

For 'tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood

and straight through the barnyard gate.

We seem to go extremely slow

it is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood-

Old Jowler hears our bells;

He shakes his paw with a loud bowwow,

and thus the news he tells.

Over the river, and through the woodwhen

Grandmother sees us come,

She will say, "O, dear, the children are here,

bring pie for everyone."

Over the river, and through the woodnow

Grandmothers cap I spy!

Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?

Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

Originally published in Flowers for Children, Vol. 2 in 1844, the poem has outshone the rest of the poems in that volume. 

Lydia Maria Child was one of the earliest American women to earn a living from her writing. She was the writer of one of the most popular domestic advice books, The Frugal Housewife, later renamed The American Frugal Housewife to distinguish it from a book published in England. She later published other advice books, including The Mother's Book , A Little Girl's Own Book and Juvenile Miscellany, an early American magazine for children. Her earliest novel, Hobomok, was one of the first American novels to depict pioneer life. When Maria turned to anti-slavery writing with her Appeal for the Class of Americans Called African, much of her devoted audience turned against her. Her most important contribution to history is probably The Appeal, but her poem about Thanksgiving is the best remembered.

Old Folks At Home--Oct. 27, 2006

Happy Halloween! If you see a witch, don’t worry. It is just Myrna.

Poor little Mary hates to go shopping. She is being traumatized by the store displays in Nephi (and elsewhere). There is the ghoul display (the ghoul is carrying an extra head) at “Family Dollar” and the singing skeleton at the grocery store in Ephraim. She keeps asking us if it is OK and talks about it constantly. Also, I knocked on her door late one afternoon and scared the wits out of her because she was certain I was a monster. I hope the rest of my grandkids are looking forward to costumes and candy and are not traumatized. 

I always wanted to stay home on Halloween because it was a lot more fun at my house than it was on the street. Grandma Smith always tried to guess who the person behind the mask really was. She also made everyone do a trick for her. They had to sing or dance or tell a joke, or something. She would say, “You said: Trick for treat.’ Here is the treat now where is the trick?” She had so much fun and the kids must have also because we used to get hundreds of kids. There went the budget. Of course, she gave good treats also, like candy bars or her wonderful big butter cookies or something BIG and good. Sometimes she even had apple cider or a drink to go along with what she put in the bag.

Halloween means Christmas is just around the corner. The stores have forgotten about Thanksgiving. I found a couple of turkey decorations and that is all. When you get to be my age, the days just slip by. Everything goes so quickly that it seems that there is just time to put away the Christmas decorations before it is time to get them back out again. I am certain that Christmas was just yesterday. When I was a child, Christmas took FOREVER to get here. Garth, David and I (Richard was born when I was 11.) would start picking out things about July and then we would revise and revise. David and I had birthdays at the end of the year, but Garth got his birthday present back in March. Either way we took time to consider carefully just what we would ask Santa to bring. Now I just buy what I want (ha, ha) when I want it. (Now you all know that was a joke, right?) I still have my secret wish list. For example, there was this. . . never mind. (If I told, you kids would get it for me and then I would feel dumb). I’ll probably ask for new socks or underwear, just the things I hated to get when I was a kid. Now that I am OLD they are OK.

I just wanted to add this bit: “I. . .saw the reference to the lion's cage at the LA Zoo, no doubt. My son did something similar at Sea World in San Diego when he decided to climb to the top of the shark tank so he could look down inside from there..... He was about 10 and his dad & I had gone into a 'dancing waters' show & didn't know about it until he had already climbed up! Boys!!!! Gotta run, more later, Toni” (Betty’s daughter)

We had a great time at Disneyland. AnnMarie and Dad (LHT) rode everything scary. I am getting better. I did quite a lot of things with Dad, Ams, Brandon and the older kids and quite a lot of things with the younger kids because I still like climbing the Tarzan tree and going to the Tom Sawyer island. Alyssa is like me; she isn’t really crazy about wild rides. Rachel had fun just walking around the island and liked everything except the swinging bridge because some OLD nerdy guys made it shake while she was trying to walk and she is not that steady yet. Anyway, the pills I take for my stomach have made it so that the drops of some of the rides do not make me want to throw up anymore.

That’s a plus. . I used to wonder why Dad wanted me to pay someone to make me sick. I don’t mind being high if I am in something but I used to hate having that falling feeling. I still don’t like standing on edges of things and lookingmdown. I wasn’t born to be a high-wire

artist.

We stopped to see the St. George Trauntveins on our way back. (It was too late when we were headed down because we waited for school to be out for UEA so we could leave. They did have an early day but we still drove way late.) The Howards got to see the great place that David and family are living. They were impressed with how nice it is and how big. It is a good place for the kids and the family. Barbara was cooking chicken that smelled wonderful and we were invited to eat but had been eating the food we brought so we were full. Plus we had Burger King for lunch. 

The trip into Nephi was horrible. My boss, Allan, said he knew about how horrible it could be so he got off at Mills. We didn’t. We crawled home. The freeway construction just east of Nephi had everyone at almost a stop. There were signs that warned that fines doubled for speeding. AnnMarie said that they should warn that fines doubled for parking. As a result, we got to Nephi about 11 p.m. and the Howards still had to get home. We had Matthew and Megan with us so we just put them in their car and they left. They went the Mona way because getting back on the freeway was a joke.

David was a big help to Jim working on his warehouse, barn or whatever we are currently calling it. Thanks to him, Dad and Jim’s Dad, Phil, who also came to help (at a different time), the warehouse can now be used for extracting though it is still not all the way insulated. There have still been some problems. Even working to get it done so quickly, still put the bees behind schedule and some of the honey has started to crystallize in the hives. It cannot be melted out of the hive without ruining all the honeycomb which is needed for the next year. So

some of the hives will just winter with the honey inside. Nevertheless, all the hard work has made it so that the place will be useful for years to come. Jim and Julie have now put their trailer on the lot and the family can be together more. They will stay there for four days or so at a stretch. The guys worked to put up insulation, build a heat-room (so the honey will come out), and to install two boilers and an extractor. Greg Newton decided to sell Jim his used equipment so that helped.

Dad has almost got his shed finished. (Now there is the little item of the downstairs bathroom that still needs to be finished.) Thanks to all the help from family, Dad’s shed is almost done—it just needs one gable and the doors. Shawn and boys came down and worked one day and Jim came and helped. Dad and I worked some and we roped Julie in for part of the job. Dad tried, once again, to smash me. He dropped a 2X4 on my finger. My pointer finger has been so bruised that I don’t shake hands. But, with the help of a lot of tape and padding, I have been able to type. When the doors are done, we can actually use the place. Dad is going to do like my Dad and put shelves up and hang things around the edges. We are supposed to put the Christmas tree there. We have had the fun of having some of the grandkids come to visit. We always like having them here. After all those years of noise and confusion, the poor old house makes noises if it is not full. (Maybe it is just the two old nuts rattling around inside.) So it is nice to have kids here. We got to see Donovin for a short visit and Shawn’s boys.

Remember to vote! Grandmother Smith, who was something of a Suffragette and stood for women’s rights, valued the right to vote and never missed a presidential (or other) election after she could vote. American women have had the right to vote since 1920. (Wyoming Territory in 1869, Utah Territory in 1870, and the states of Colorado in 1893 and Idaho in 1896 granted women the vote but the Eastern states resisted. Utah had actually allowed women to vote since settlement but did not make it a law until 1870.) Remember that Grandma Smith was born in 1894. My Dad was also proud to vote. After all, he fought to preserve that right and to preserve the free world. Grandma Edna was also proud of the right to vote and served as election judge many years. I too am proud of the right to vote. I encourage you all to be.

Photos From Donnette

In rereading this I did have those original pictures. Now I can only find the negatives. I have a scanner that does negatives but have no idea what the dpi is. I just can't seem to be able to find the pictures. I have gone through all my boxes of pictures.

Maybe I'll have to have the pictures printed up and then - 

I only have the 35 mm negatives of those two pictures. You go ahead and sign for the family. I have searched through all my files and can't find any of those Mexican border pictures. I tried to put everything in big boxed files when I did the CD scanning - I can't imagine what happened to everything.

Oh dear. I have spent two days now looking for those pictures. I realized, too, that Richard's war pictures are also missing - they must be together. I have gone through every envelope in every file drawer and in every box I have filed pictures in. I am at a loss.

My scanner that I scanned pictures with could scan at different dpi and I usually used 300 except for the very small pictures when I switched to 600. But my little HP Photo Smart is older and while it does a good job with 35mm films and slides it doesn't really tell what the scanning scale is. I scanned it on the largest it had. I hope this will do and I will still wrack my brain to find the original pictures.

Donnette