I took along my camera and shot photos of the food. But what I most enjoyed was shooting the people. (I know that last sentence sounds a bit odd.) I enjoy recording the character in the faces of friends we have known and appreciated for many years. Most of my photos are un-posed candids; I simply try to capture a familiar expression. Sometimes they turn out well; sometimes they don’t. Here are the ones I particularly liked from Christina’s party (in no particular order). My apologies to the folks whose photos I missed — there’s always next time.

Christina Reeve — Our frequent host and nearby neighbor for thirty-four years. Apparently she is only three years old (or maybe thirty, if each candle stands for ten years).

Jessica Reeve — We’ve known Jessica since she was a little girl. We remember how she loved horses. Now she’s staked out a career in the food catering business.

Carole Robinson — Another friend from the day we moved to Villa Park in 1977 and I was assigned as the Robinsons’ home teacher. Carole’s husband, Max, was our dentist until he became incapacitated; now her son, Chris, takes care of our teeth. Max was one of the greatest bishops ever; Carole is an inspiration to all widowed women. 

Elaine Greene — The Greenes, friends for years, are now one of my home teaching families. Elaine is a talented administrator and teacher, having held nearly every Church position imaginable (at least until women are given the priesthood).

Bob Greene — I used to play basketball with Bob who was a banking executive until his retirement. He was formerly our Stake President and is now LDS Public Affairs Director for Orange County. The Greenes’ children grew up with our children.

 Mary Warren — Another long-time friend and former Relief Society President (as are several of the other women portrayed in this blog post). Mary is always fun to be around.

Herb Warren — Formerly our bishop and an all-around great guy, Herb is a veterinarian specializing in race horses.

Connie Maude — Blessed with a beautiful soprano singing voice, Connie has been a mainstay of our ward choir for as long as I can remember.

Les Maude — A good friend and faithful ward member, Les can build or fix anything (sort of my polar opposite in that respect).

Connie Gwilliam — Our ward chorister forever. You’ll never hear a hymn dragging when Connie is in charge. I realize how spoiled we are when I visit other other wards and hear hymns sung like funeral dirges.

Weldon Jolley — Another of my home teachees, Weldon is a former bishop, is currently a patriarch, and was a research scientist with honors and credentials that would fill a book.

Ferneth Courtright — Ferneth and her husband, Ivan, have been good friends for many years. They were among my best writing students.

Dawn Thurston — What can I say about Dawn? A brilliant woman who has given her talents in many Church positions, from Relief Society president to Young Women’s president, to Gospel Doctrine and Relief Society teacher. And, she’s a fabulous life story writing teacher. All this while having to endure that husband of hers!

Anita Smith — Christina’s friend and one of the party organizers. A legal secretary by profession.

Christina Reeve

Joshua Reeve — One of Jessica’s twin boys. It is always fun to shoot kids in their wide-eyed innocent years.

Nathan Reeve — The other of Jessica’s twin boys.

 Joshua and Nathan.

Christina, Jessica and the beautiful birthday cake.

And now to the food — here is an overview of some of the scrumptious fare.

Chinese Chicken Salad (fresh roasted chicken on the side).

There were several varieties of sandwiches, including this turkey on marble rye.

Roast beef, cheddar, lettuce & tomato.

A cheese board with candied walnuts and pecans, which I find go great with any dish! Just behind the cheeses is a tray of cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, which turned out to be my favorite.

What’s for dessert, you ask? How about huge chocolate-dipped tuxedoed strawberries?

If strawberries seem overly healthy, there were plenty of other choices, including out-of-this-world home-made lemon bars.

I have a feeling Jane Austen would feel quite comfortable in Christina’s living room.

One of the many little items of decoration in the Reeve home. When we were all younger the Reeves raised rabbits. (We don’t have to raise them, they seem to understand that our yard is their dining room.)

T H E   E N D !

Aunt Ruth passed away a few days ago at 97. Actually, Ruth Reese Dahle wasn’t my aunt; she was my mother’s aunt, but as she was only a couple of years older than my mother, she functioned more like my mother’s cousin.

Because I grew up in California, and Ruth lived in Utah, I didn’t know her well. I do recall seeing her at various Reese family reunions, always smiling and friendly. A few years ago I met her again and we talked about family history. Then I did one of those things you always wish you had done, but more often than not, you don’t. I set up an appointment to visit her in her home and interview her on camera about her father and how it was to grow up in the Reese household.

Ruth Maurine Reese Dahle (1914 – 2012)
I took this photograph on January 9, 2008 in Ruth’s Ogden home.
She was 93 years old at the time.

The day I arranged to visit Ruth turned out to be one of the worst snowstorms Utah had experienced in years. I drove from Park City to Ogden and it was quite an adventure, especially for a California driver. Fortunately, I had an SUV, but I saw many cars that had just slid off the road, or become stuck on an inclined street, wheels spinning, unable to continue. I pressed on, however, and somehow sloshed and skidded my way to Ruth’s house. When I got there she seemed genuinely surprised and said, “I can’t believe you came in this weather!”

But she was expecting me. Ninety-three years old at the time, but she had dressed in a cheery red blouse, white knit sleeveless sweater, and slacks. She had made up her face and she looked great. She was also as mentally sharp as any nonagenarian I have met. I interviewed her for two hours, which can be grueling, but she held up like a champ. I was mostly interested about her growing-up years because that is where our relationship coincided—her father was my great-grandfather. I also obtained copies of some photos of Ruth when she was younger—a beautiful and classy-looking woman then, as well.

Here is Ruth’s short obituary:

Ruth Maurine Reese Dahle, 97, passed away peacefully at home on February 20, 2012. Ruth was born on November 2, 1914 to William Griffiths and Karen Andersen Reese.

She married Norman DeVell Dahle on July 23, 1935 in the Logan LDS Temple. They were married for 62 years before his passing in December of 1997.

Ruth had very fond memories of her childhood growing up on a farm with 12 siblings in Cache Valley.

She was a wonderful hostess, a marvelous cook, and loved entertaining. She was a math whiz and had a keen mind up to the very end. While some count sheep when they can’t sleep, she thought that much too boring and would instead recite the 13 Articles of Faith all the way through from beginning to end and then start over again. Ruth had many talents including playing the piano and organ. She made beautiful hand-crafted items as gifts which she knit or crochet for family members and friends. She was a champion bowler in her day and thoroughly enjoyed playing games of any kind. Her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even many of her great-great-grandchildren will long cherish the times they played “Hot Dice” with Grandma Dahle. She also loved to play cribbage.

Mother was very proud to be an original Daughter of Utah Pioneers. Ruth is survived by her children, Norm (Karma) Dahle, Clinton, UT; Pat (Frank) Clark, Clinton, UT; Elden (Sharon) Dahle, Malad, ID; and Reese (Patsy) Dahle, Taylor, UT; 13 grandchildren; and 22 great-grandchildren; and 25 great-great-grandchildren.

I wish circumstances had permitted me to travel to Utah to attend the funeral because I know I would have heard many other great stories about Aunt Ruth.

I titled this post, “The End of a Generation,” because Ruth was the last surviving child of my great-grandfather, William Griffiths Reese, who left Wales with his parents and infant brother in 1860, Mormon converts going to Zion. Willie (as the two and a half-year-old boy was then called) was the son of Charles and Sarah Griffiths Rees of Amroth Parish, Pembrokeshire, Wales. (The family changed the spelling of their surname to Reese after arriving in Utah in order to avoid confusion with Rees families already living there—I will use the Reese spelling.) Charles was 29 years old; Sarah was 27. Like many men in the area, Charles was a coal miner in Wales, a dreary, draining occupation that left many dead long before their time.

A few years ago I took a trip to Wales and visited Pembrokeshire and the churches in which our Welsh ancestors were baptized and buried. It is a spectacularly beautiful place, located along the south coast of Wales (its “Riviera”), with beaches, cliffs, and green, rolling hills further inland. The countryside is criss-crossed by winding, narrow lanes, bordered by hedgerows, and you can always see some sheep grazing in the fields. Today it is a favorite place for wealthy Londoners to vacation.

Pembrokeshire Coast, Wales

St. Issells Parish Church is in Saundersfoot (next to Amroth), but many of our Welsh ancestors were christened and married there.

The young Reese family sailed on the ship Underwriter, chartered by LDS Church authorities. Also traveling in the company were Charles Reese’s brother Thomas (and his wife, Mary), as well as their sister Margaret (and her husband James Davis or Davies). The Reese family had been members of the LDS Church for several years (Charles was baptized in 1852), but the three siblings had promised their widowed mother Mary that they would not leave Wales while she was still living. Mary Morgan Reese passed away 1859 and the following year Charles, Thomas, Margaret and their families left for America.

Mormon immigrants congregating in Liverpool awaiting the trip to America.

There were 596 Mormon immigrants crammed into the sailing vessel—70 from Switzerland and the rest from the British Isles. They sailed from Liverpool on March 30, 1860, and arrived in New York Harbor on May 1. There were four marriages on board and four deaths.

One of the Swiss immigrants, a young man named Johann Lebrecht Baer, was married to his betrothed on board and wrote later of the experience. Apparently, before he converted to Mormonism, Johann belonged to a religion that frowned on frivolous activities such as dancing (perhaps Methodism?). Of course, the LDS are known for their love of dancing, but Johann had quite a different reaction to the onboard frivolity:

Underwriter was the name of our boat with 600 passengers, all Mormons, so called, from the British Islands, except us Swiss. After all was settled the ship did plow its way over the briny deep and what did we the Swiss hear and see? Hand organ, violin music and then dancing! We did not like that and asked one another what kind of people is this?  One of our elders … went to England sometime ago and could now speak English fluently, told us they were all Mormons. We were horror stricken in hearing this. We never expected that Latter-day Saints would indulge in such worldly pleasures. We were disgusted. I always abhorred dancing. I said: “Mark now, we will have a storm on top of this. Remember what is written in the Book of Mormon when Nephi’s brethren and the sons of Ishmael and their wives began to make merry inasmuch as they began to dance and so on—and there arose a great storm and the compass did cease to work. Now we did get a storm so they had to quit too. [I modified some punctuation for clarity---MAT.]

We can imagine the difficulties in assimilating such disparate backgrounds and customs into a unified group. The problem would be multiplied in Utah, which contained even more varieties of ethnic backgrounds and customs.

Most of the passengers on the Underwriter continued on to Florence, Nebraska (near present-day Omaha) where they were outfitted with covered wagons and continued on to Utah. The Reese party, however, had spent all they had just to get across the ocean and needed to earn more money in order to purchase their outfits. They stayed in Bevier, Macon County, Missouri. Today, Bevier is a small, sleepy town of 700 people, the coal mines all played out; in earlier days, it was quite the opposite. A recollection of a slightly later time:

[When I used to visit my grandparents there,] Bevier… was a bustling coal town, with active coal mines all around the area. I loved hearing the big steam engines pulling the heavy coal trains from the mines through town…. Miners would gather at the Bevier roundhouse each morning to catch the 4 a.m. passenger train and ride to work. [Larry Vaughn, Surviving God's Woodshed.]

The Reese men found work in the mines and the women worked as maids. By the next spring Charlie and Tom and families had earned enough money to purchase their ox teams and wagons and so they set out for Utah. Jim and Margaret Davis, however, stayed behind in Missouri and never went further.

The Reeses were part of a wagon company headed by Milo Andrus and John Murdock. Willie (Aunt Ruth’s father), although only three years old, walked most of the way across the plains. After a brief stay in Willard to earn more money, the family moved on to Hyde Park, in beautiful Cache Valley, Utah. As land became more scarce, some residents of Hyde Park took their cattle and horses down to open fields west of town near the Bear River. Bears, cougars, coyotes and deer were abundant in the area and the streams were well-stocked with fish. It seemed a good place to farm so, in 1870, the Reese family relocated to an area known as Upper Benson and homesteaded 160 acres of land. They and another family became the first settlers of Benson. Soon others followed.

The Reeses settled in Benson, Utah, an area where streams and wildlife abounded. This is a modern Benson scene, with an LDS meetinghouse in the background.

The area had been such a haven for wildlife that it was also a hunting ground for Native Americans. Apparently the Reeses were friendly with the natives, but there were moments of stress and concern as well. Years later the story was told of eight-year-old Willie being home alone with his two younger brothers when they saw a group of Indians approaching. He stood his brothers up against a wall, told them to be silent, and struggled to get the bar in place on the only door to the house. He eventually succeeded and the Indians banged on the door for awhile, but decided to go on to the next house to demand food. Perhaps there was no real danger, other than the loss of some food, but young Willie remembered it for years afterward.

Charles Reese prospered in Benson. As related by William’s second wife, Carrie, “Grandpa Charles was quite a good businessman …. He drove an ox team for years, finally trading for a span of horses. Some of the people thought he should have been excommunicated, because he drove horses when even the bishop did not, but the bishop soon quelched [sic] that feeling, he being a broadminded man.”

The family of Charles and Sarah Griffiths Reese as adults. Top Row, L-R: Alma Victor, Moses Martin, Thomas Heber, Richard Ohsman, Andrew James. Bottom Row, L-R: Charles Albert, Sarah, Charles Sr., William Griffiths.

Charles and Sarah Reese had twelve sons (although four died as infants and one died at age 12), but no daughters. As we have already learned, William Griffiths Reese (called “Willie” as a child and “W.G.” later on) was one of these. William was a bright young man so his family sent him to Brigham Young College, in Logan. That school, established by a grant from Brigham Young, was opened in 1978, with Miss Ida Ione Cook as principal. William would have been in one of the first classes of students. Some of the subjects taught at the BYC were  rhetoric, natural philosophy, physiology, United States history, ancient history, book-keeping, and algebra. The deed of trust from Brigham specified that “no book should be used that misrepresented or spoke lightly of the Divine mission of the Savior or of the prophet Joseph Smith, or in any manner advanced ideas antagonistic to the principles of the Gospel as it is taught in the Bible, Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants.” ["Establishment of Brigham Young College," from An Early History of Cache County, compiled by M. R. Hovey, 1923-25.]

William interrupted his schooling to teach at Mendon, but returned after a year of saving money and gaining experience. Then, in 1882, he received a letter from Salt Lake City (“Box B”) issuing a call to serve a mission for the LDS Church to Great Britain. During his two-year mission he had the chance to visit Pembrokeshire and many of his relatives still living there.

William Griffiths Reese as a young man at the time of his first mission to England and Wales.

Before William left for England he had become serious about a young woman, also studying to be a teacher, named Mary Maria Rees. William loved poetry and throughout his life he composed poems for many occasions and moods. About Mary he wrote:

But here was one – a classmate, too,
One of the truest of the true,
Whose soulful large brown eyes expressed
More sympathy than all the rest.
As weeks and months had passed along
And we had joined in work and song
My heart with love for her grew warm
Her every action had its charm,
And as her hand I gently pressed,
To say goodbye, I felt distressed
There was a light’ning round the heart
To think I know from her must part.
And travel far by sea and land
E’re I again might clasp her hand.

Mary’s father was a Welsh immigrant named John Rees (no relation to the Charles Reese family), and her mother was a child in the large Molen family (thirteen children) who had lived in Nauvoo and had crossed the plains with the first wave of pioneers in 1847. Shortly after William returned from his mission, he and Mary were married. The date was July 2, 1884; the place was the Logan Temple. Marriner Merrill, then Logan Temple president, later an apostle, performed the wedding.

The marriage photo of William and Mary Reese

At the time they were married, William was not quite 27 and Mary was 19. They settled in Logan, where both obtained a teaching positions, William at a nearby grammar school and Mary at Brigham Young College, where she took over the teaching duties of Ida Ione Cook. The newly married couple bought a home and over the next decade had four daughters (including my grandmother, Sarah Wanda). In 1894 the Reeses moved to Benson, where they had purchased a farm. A fifth child, a son named William Grover Reese, was born there.

The family of William and Mary Reese in 1892. The children (L-R): Sophronia Ione, Sarah Wanda (my grandmother), Mary Naomi, Anna Eliza. All of the girls except Anna went by their second names. The Reeses’ youngest child, William Grover, had not yet been born. (Mary’s hair was short because of an illness she had suffered. I need to research what it was.)

Then, in June of 1898, a terrible tragedy occurred. As related later by William, he had returned home from closing exercises of school in the Hyrum District, where he was teaching, and was met by “my dear wife was standing on the porch awaiting my arrival.” Later they went to his parents’ home and Mary complained “of being chilly.”

Next day she went with me to Logan and seemed so well and happy. Sunday she observed fast day and went to meeting. She prepared supper for the family and a number of our relatives. In the evening she complained of being tired and chilly. Monday I insisted upon her staying in bed and having a good rest. She rested very little Monday night. She complained of having trouble with her breathing. I built a warm fire in the dining room and she got up and sat by the fire. After bathing her feet in warm water and giving her what remedies we had at hand, she said the felt better. However, I sent for Bother and Sister Martineau, Sister Thompson, my mother and her mother, and my brother Andrew and wife.

She now began sinking, her pulse grew weaker and weaker, and at 9 o’clock Tuesday morning her sweet spirit took its flight and my darling had gone. At first I thought she had fainted, but no! She was dead. O! What a dark cloud overshadowed my sad heart, and I felt:

The form of my darling will never be seen
Gracing my home like a beautiful queen.
Her loving spirit had taken its flight
And left me alone, life’s great battle to fight.
My dear little children have lost their sweet mother.
To love them as she did, they’ll ne’er find another.
When troubles come to them, Oh! where can they find
Such a loved one to treat them so good and so kind?

William, then 40 years old, was left with five children to care for. He hired a young Danish immigrant, Karen Andrea Andersen, to serve as nanny while he taught school. Although at 22, Karen was only ten years older than William’s oldest daughter, she did a marvelous job. A year later, she and William were married.

William Griffiths Reese and Karen Andrea Andersen Reese

Karen (or “Carrie,” as she was called), went on to bear eight more Reese children. By every account I have heard, she was a wonderful mother, not only to her own children, but to Mary’s five children as well. They grew to love her as their own mother and I have never heard anyone suggest that she played favorites. My mother, who was a daughter of Mary’s daughter, Wanda, always spoke glowingly of “Aunt Carrie.”

Here are some of the Reese kids and cousins playing in Benson in about 1920-21 (with year of birth in parentheses). Aunt Ruth is in the center. Standing top: Lowell Reese (1912), Norma Reese (1909), Weldon Reeder (1913), Evelyn Reeder (1911). Sitting center: Barbara Ashcroft (my mother) (1916), Ruth Reese (1914), Will G. Reese (1917). Sitting bottom: Cleve Munk (1918), Reese Andersen (1918).

As illustrated by the photo above, when my mother was a child she often went to Benson to play with Aunt Ruth, who was close to her age, and with cousins from the older Reese children. When I was young our family would visit my mother’s family in Hyde Park every summer; we would always make the trek to Benson to visit Aunt Carrie and the other inhabitants of the Reese homestead.

When I visited Ruth in her Ogden home, she had the above painting hanging on her wall. It is her childhood home in Benson, along with inset portraits of her father and mother, William and Karen Reese.

William was called to serve another mission, this one to Australia, in 1906, when he was 49 years old. He left Carrie at home to tend the farm and their children. I’m sure it was a challenge for her. On W.G.’s fiftieth birthday he wrote a long poem that served as a history of his life to date. About Carrie he wrote:

From earliest times this truth was known,
It is not well to be alone,
A wife is man’s protecting guide,
‘Tis well to have her near his side,
And He who knoweth all our need,
And to our prayers giveth heed,
Provided me another wife,
To share my joys and griefs of life.

As wife, how well her part she takes;
A loving mother, too, she makes.
My faithful wife of days of yore,
Beholds the one who fills the space
Of wife and mother in her place.
Her noble spirit does rejoice,
Because I made so blest a choice.

In holy wedlock come the joys
Of darling girls and precious boys.
Three boys are added to my home,
One darling little girl has come,
The children of my noble wife –
Companion of my later life.

William Griffiths Reese, Welsh pioneer, died on October 13, 1938 at the age of 81. He had been a life-long school teacher and farmer. William kept a journal most of his life. While he was in Australia he sent letters to the Logan Herald that were published on a bi-monthly basis, providing a fascinating look at the Antipodes through the eyes of a rural Utahn. My mother remembered him through her young eyes as sometimes demanding, though never unkind. He prided himself on using correct grammar and punctuation.

Carrie lived to age 81, passing away in 1958, mourned by a large posterity of her own and Mary’s. She filled in some of the gaps that were left by W.G. in his written histories. Aunt Ruth was her seventh child and third daughter.

This is a photo I took a few years ago of the old Reese home in Benson.

Ruth was the last of the thirteen Reese children to pass from this life. She was the last of the children of a father who walked across the plains to Utah and a mother who immigrated from Denmark. Her passing marks the end of a generation, the end of an era.

Postscript: Someday I hope to publish a history of William Griffiths Reese, his ancestors and descendants.

As I was looking through some old files inherited from my parents when they passed away, I found an interesting letter. Not earth shattering, but fascinating to a historian. It was a three-page thank-you note written in April of 1950 from my maternal grandmother, Sarah Wanda Reese Ashcroft, to my paternal grandmother, Nelsine Martine Sorensen Thurston. Since several of my sisters were too young to have remembered much about their grandmothers, I thought they would enjoy this, as would all of our children, who never knew their great-grandmothers.

Wanda didn’t like to be photographed; she felt her thick eyeglasses emphasized
her somewhat protruding eyeballs, the result, I believe, of an eye illness.
This drawing was made three years before her note to Martina was written.

First, a little background. At the time the note was written, Wanda was 58 years old and living in Hyde Park, Cache Valley, Utah. She was the descendant of Welsh and English immigrant Mormon pioneers (with a little old-line American lineage having German and Scots-Irish roots). My mother said Wanda enjoyed entertaining, and often hosted social “teas” and club meetings in her home, which, by Hyde Park standards, was a very nice one. She also was active in political matters and hosted political discussion groups. I can’t recall at the moment whether she was Republican or Democrat, but my recollection is that whatever she was, her husband, Leland, was the opposite. I have the sense that my grandparents were well respected in the society of their small town (both had attended college and had taught school for a time, which was unusual in a small Utah farming community). My mother emphasized, however, that Wanda was the opposite of snobby—she went out of her way to invite and involve individuals in the community who might be looked down on and to help them in other ways as well. Wanda had fragile health and, although she gave birth to five living children, only two survived infancy. When her third child died, she adopted a baby boy.

I believe this photo of Martina was taken shortly after the note was written.
Martina had a slight build, no more than 5’5″ tall, which was
probably about average for her generation.

Martina (as my dad’s mother was called) was a 66-year-old Danish immigrant who had come to America when she was a 12-year-old to live with the family of a Mormon missionary who had served in Denmark. Martina had only a high school education. Shortly after she married Edwin Elroy Thurston she became completely deaf. She and Elroy had ten sons, seven of whom had served in World War II. They always struggled financially; such a large family to raise during the depression. Elroy had attended Snow College and was, for a time, the Richfield County Clerk. But a failed investment in a service station business during the early 1930s and an ineptitude for farming had resulted in his serving as a foreman on a CCC crew in the mountains during many of the depression years, leaving Martina to pretty much raise her ten sons on a daily basis on her own. At the time this letter was written, Nelsine and Elroy were living in a small home in Provo, where Elroy was a maintenance worker for BYU (in those days called “janitors”).

Wanda’s oldest (and only) daughter, Barbara, had married Martina’s third son, Morris, in 1941, nine years before this note was written. Both sets of parents were present at the marriage in the Logan Temple. Morris was 38 and Barbara was 33 at the time the note was written. They had three children, with a fourth on the way. They play no real part in the letter, but I just like to fill in the edges of the picture.

Apparently Wanda and her son, Vern (then 22) had recently visited the Thurstons in Provo. This was a “thank you” note that Wanda wrote, apparently a bit delayed from the normal, for which she apologized. Here, then is the three-page note:

I enjoyed seeing this note for several reasons. It is always fun to see the handwriting of one’s ancestors. It is also enlightening to “hear” them talk about daily events, the sorts of things that often don’t survive if they’re not journal keepers. I’m sure my wife and sisters, especially, will find Wanda’s description of what she served her club members to be interesting. Wanda says she served chicken a la king over pat tie shells. I had to look that up. “Pattie (or patty) shells” are apparently pastry shells.

Chicken a la king over pastry shells

Thirty-two guests is a daunting number to have in one’s home. Although Wanda’s home was large by small-town Utah standards, it was far from a mega-mansion. It did have a good-sized sitting room just inside the front door, which could have seated quite a number of people.

The home of Wanda and Leland Ashcroft, Hyde Park, Utah

I thought it was interesting that Wanda addressed Martina as “Mrs. Thurston.” This is a formality that we would not use today, but it would have been more common sixty years ago. Of course, Martina was eight years older than Wanda. I remember when I visited Grandmother Thurston I found it a bit difficult to communicate with her. She was a willing communicator, and could read lips, but when she spoke her deafness and her Danish accent made her hard for me to understand.

I also thought it was nice that Leland had painted a couple of rooms of the house and “had everything clean” when Wanda and Vern returned from Provo.

Wanda mentions that she is going to Salt Lake with her son Harry to General Conference, and hopes that Leland will be able to join them for the Sunday session. I found it interesting that Harry wanted to go to the Northwestern States Missionary party; he had returned early from his mission not long before this because of a “nervous breakdown,” as my mother explained it.

Sadly, in 1954, four years after this note was written, both of my grandmothers died. I feel fortunate to have known and loved them both.

What about this note (and surrounding story) do you find interesting?

What do we do? Mainly we catch up on end-of-the-year movies that are expected to contend for an Academy Award, many of which haven’t yet made it to the hinterlands of OC. We read, relax, check out the post-Christmas shopping sales, and eat. Then we go home.

One of the attractions of Santa Monica Pier is the Ferris wheel. This shot brought out the spectacular colors of the wheel against the brilliant blue sky, framed by the roller coaster.

This year I decided I wanted to go on a photo shoot one morning. After considering several possible destinations, I decided on Santa Monica Pier. It was a perfect day to go to the ocean — warm and sunny, the sort of day that cause out-of-towners to consider moving to Southern California.

The 2012 Rose Bowl featured the University of Oregon against the University of Wisconsin — Ducks against Badgers — green and gold against red and white. The Ducks were scheduled for a pep rally on the pier in the afternoon of the day I visited; the Badgers had rallied the day before. I thought if I arrived in the morning I would avoid the worst of the Duck flock, and perhaps I did. Even so, there was a good crowd already on the pier when I arrived.

I wasn’t the first to arrive at the pier that morning!

The best time to go to the beach in Southern California is in the winter. You have fewer people to contend with and the air is usually fairly clear. During the summer months the beach is often shrouded by a morning fog that burns off later in the day. This shot is looking north towards Pacific Palisades.

Arlington West presents a sobering sight to the visitor. The Veterans for Peace maintain the site, which is intended to provide a place to grieve, to acknowledge the human cost of war, to encourage dialogue among people with varied points of view and to educate the public about the needs of those returning from war.

Each white cross represents a fallen soldier; each red cross represents ten fallen soldiers. The Veterans for Peace also point out that the suicide rate for soldiers is at an all-time high (perhaps as many as 950 attempts per month by veterans who are receiving some type of treatment from the VAD).

The flag-draped coffins represent soldiers who have been killed just within the past week.

I didn’t see any Ducks of the feathered variety, but I found a couple of our more exotic feathered friends.

This is shooting out to sea from the end of the pier, looking southwest. At first I thought the hills rising out of the mist might be Catalina Island, but on reflection decided they were probably the Palos Verdes peninsula.

Here I’m at the end of the pier, looking back toward the the amusement area.

Another view of the Ferris wheel.

It would have been easy to find a seat on the roller coaster. I waited until the coaster was just in the middle of the picture to snap this shot.

Route 66, aka Will Rogers Highway, aka the Main Street of America, aka “the most famous road in the world,” ends at the Santa Monica Pier. It was one of the original U.S. highways and was established in 1926, starting at Chicago and ending in Santa Monica. It covered a total of 2,448 miles. The hit song (“Get Your Kicks on Route 66″) was originally recorded by Nat King Cole, then by many others including Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones, The Manhattan Transfer and Depeche Mode.

Can you imagine what an adventure it would have been to drive the length of Route 66 in the 1920s?

Looking back at Santa Monica from the pier.

What pier would be complete without a Bubba Gump shrimp restaurant?

Large green and yellow balloons marked the rally point on the beach later in the day for the Oregon fans. They also made a colorful picture.

Here are a couple of Ducks looking suspiciously at a couple of Badgers.
They apparently feed them well in Oregon and Wisconsin.

A couple of views of the Rodman Shore Gun above Santa Monica beach. It was cast at the West Point Foundry in the 1860s. Originally a part of the Angel Island shore battery in San Francisco, the gun was transferred to Santa Monica in 1908 for the Independence Day celebration that year. It has never seen active duty in Southern California, but it is a cool monument.

All along the park above Santa Monica Beach there are twisted tree trunks.

Most people look out towards the sea, but I thought there were some interesting shots looking back to the east.

Picturesque trees on the bluff above the beach.

As I continued to walk north from the pier along the bluff, I saw some homes on the beach. Most were nondescript, but a couple had been remodeled and repainted. I’m sure they were quite magnificent inside and no doubt would cost a fortune to purchase.

While I was snapping photos a friendly couple stopped and asked if I was a private detective. I said I wasn’t–I just enjoyed taking pictures. They said if I wanted to get photos of stars it would be better to walk along San Vicente Boulevard. I said I probably wouldn’t recognize a Hollywood star if (s)he bumped into me. (Well, there might be some exceptions.) In any event, they offered to shoot a photo of me, an offer that I accepted. Although it doesn’t add to the cache of this post, it does provide historical data of what the photographer looked like on this particular morning (sans camera, of course).

On my way back to the car I tried to imagine what might interest me in Santa Monica if I were a tourist from someplace like China or Romania or the Congo. These last few photos are of quite ordinary things, but seen in that light, were inviting to my camera.

This was tucked into the corner of a small commercial yard behind a fence. I have no idea what it is.

Parking lot art.

More parking lot art.

MOVIES

I mentioned that one of the reasons we go to Los Angeles is to see the end-of-the-year Oscar contenders. We did see several movies over our long weekend, and also caught several others in the weeks before and after. Here are my capsule reviews of the films we saw.

My favorite was “A Separation,” an Iranian film. It was brilliantly scripted, beginning with a domestic disagreement in contemporary Iran that becomes a legal thriller. Fascinating setting, an intriguing look into the Iranian legal system, extremely well scripted and acted. It addresses themes of care for the elderly, custody of children, truth, lies, trust, loyalty, and religious devotion.

For an adrenaline rush it is hard to beat “The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo,” the American version movie of the first book from the wildly popular Stieg Larsson Millennium trilogy. We had read all three books, seen the three Swedish movies, and wondered how Hollywood would do it. I thought this movie was even better than the Swedish version, although I can see how someone who hasn’t read the book first might occasionally become confused.

In third place was “Carnage.” Some critics have noted that the movie seems a little “stagey” (it was based on a Broadway play), but I thought the dialogue, and especially the acting performances, made the movie a treat to watch. How often do you find four incredibly gifted actors (Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz) in one movie and on screen the entire time? Add an outstanding director like Roman Polanski and you have a masterpiece.

Here are my quick takes on other end-of-the-year movies we saw:

• Young Adult (B+) — A pleasant surprise; well written and well played by Charlize Theron.
• Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol (B+) — I can’t believe I actually liked a Mission Impossible after so many disappointments. Even though the plot was outrageous, this one kept me on the edge of my seat.
• Hugo (B+) — A movie I admired more than liked. Fantastic set, excellent acting, but perhaps a little too slow for my taste.
• The Descendants (B) — I enjoyed the movie, but not as much as the critics. I certainly wouldn’t vote for it as the outstanding movie of the year.
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (B) – John LeCarre is one of my favorite authors and TTSS is one of his best novels, but his genius wasn’t translated to the screen. LeCarre is very good at characterization, wonderfully inventive descriptions and intricate plots. You only get a glimpse of the characterization in the movie, the plot is far too complex for a single-episode movie, and the beautiful language is entirely lost. The viewer is also lost. If I hadn’t read the book I wouldn’t have been able to make heads nor tails of what was going on. The critics liked it, so perhaps I was expecting too much.
• We Bought A Zoo (B-) — A fun movie; lightweight, but enjoyable.
• The Artist (C+) — Sorry, but this emperor had no clothes. There is a reason that talkies spelled the end for silent movies — they’re more interesting! This movie could well have been put up for an Oscar if it was running in 1928; today, no way it gets my vote for 2011.
• Iron Lady (C+) — Too much of the movie took place when Margaret Thatcher was suffering from dementia (the present) — I wasn’t interested in that. When it focused on her career as prime minister (and leading up to it), the movie was fine. There should have been more of that and less of the present.
• War Horse (C) — A big disappointment for me. Too disjointed, the horse just didn’t carry the day as the center of attention. Perhaps he was too one-dimensional. Again, the critics liked it more than I did.

-

My 2012 Oscar Picks

So what were my favorite movies of all of 2011? I suppose I would have to go with “Midnight in Paris,” “Moneyball” and “The Help.” It is difficult to compare these films, since they are so different from each other. Close behind these would be “The Ides of March” and “Carnage.” For best foreign film,”A Separation” was my clear favorite.

My career as a practicing lawyer was spent with Latham & Watkins, now a global firm with some 2,000 lawyers. When I began with the firm in 1970, however, there were less than 50 — all in the Los Angeles office of the firm. In 1977 I transferred to the Orange County office of L&W, its first branch office. Several years later we moved into the top floors of Center Tower — a prime location adjacent to the O.C. Performing Arts Center and one block from one of the world’s great shopping centers, South Coast Plaza. The above photo is looking up at Center Tower, the tallest building in Orange County.

Here is another view of Center Tower. I find it interesting, architecturally, in that it has a curved side, a flat side, and a “jagged edge” side. The jags permit several “corner” offices to be placed next to each other. I also like the rich Napoleon red granite that covers the building.

Shortly after I began working with the firm I handled the first expansion of South Coast Plaza. During the course of the project I got to know Henry Segerstrom quite well. He is the scion of a family whose Swedish immigrant grandfather purchased the land that now encompasses the Plaza and South Coast Metro. Henry is a farsighted entrepreneur and arts patron who did a masterful job of developing the flat bean fields of what had been a forgotten corner of a rather nondescript town (Costa Mesa) into a vibrant commercial and arts center. One of the most recent additions to the complex is the beautiful Segerstrom Concert Hall, named after Henry and his wife, Renee, donors of the land and a large portion of the construction cost.

Adjoining Center Tower is the the photogenic Samueli Theater, where large-scale musical theater productions are held.

The most prominent work of art at the Samueli Theater is the “Fire Bird” sculpture, by Richard Lippold, below.

After shooting the arts center buildings, we walked over to the sculpture garden called “California Scenario.” The garden is tucked away amongst some office towers and if you aren’t specifically looking for it, you’d never find it. (Even some people who do look for it don’t find it.) It was designed by the Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi in 1980. The garden is structured as a Japanese garden, with an array of contrasting natural and formed objects. The gardens contain plants native to various parts of California. I didn’t have high hopes of getting very good photos there, but as it turned out, they were my favorites of the day. Here are a few of them:

Leaving the Noguchi gardens, we walked back toward the Performing Arts Center and past the interesting Plaza Tower, the second tallest building in Orange County (just a few feet less than Center Tower). It is a striking stainless steel building, designed by world-renowned architect Cesar Pelli (formerly dean of the Yale School of Architecture).

At this point Dawn picked us up to take us to our next destination. Of course, a photo was in order.

Then we headed over to Old Town Orange, a place that takes one back to the 1940s or 50s. Lots of restaurants and antique stores. It was a setting for the 50′s-themed Tom Hanks movie, “That Thing You Do.” Here are a few random shots:

Here is Brad, discovering something that everyone else overlooked.

This old Plymouth was parked in one of the spaces on the Orange Circle. It seemed appropriate to the locale.

We decided to have lunch at Watson’s Drug and Soda Fountain, a throwback to the old time drug store / lunch counters. Watson’s specialize in burgers — Dawn ordered their famous Patty Melt, Brad ordered a Traditional Burger and I ordered an Ortega Burger. We considered ordering the “Chili Size,” but decided against it. We did consider a question that has always puzzled me. Why do they add the word “size” — why isn’t it just a chili burger? It isn’t a different size! We couldn’t get any enlightenment from our waitress.

We also ordered a chocolate malt — which comes in the old-fashioned metal canister used to blend it. We all had childhood memories of the joy of pouring the “extra” in the bottom of the container that wouldn’t fit into the malt glass. (Of course, this time we split the malt three ways.)

Here are a few photos I took inside the drug store.

The shot below was into the mirror that covers one wall. The one below that is into the curved mirror near the entrance.

In all, it was a very enjoyable day.

]]> http://www.morristhurston.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=2677 6 http://www.morristhurston.com/blog/?p=2639 http://www.morristhurston.com/blog/?p=2639#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 01:56:21 +0000 Morrie's Musings http://www.morristhurston.com/blog/?p=2639 Continue reading →]]> I recently drove from Orange County to Granada Hills in the San Fernando Valley to visit my old high school. Our graduating class, which we named “Pristians,” is having its Fiftieth Anniversary Reunion next weekend on Catalina Island. I have been working on a reunion book and will MC the dinner event, so I thought it would be a good idea to do a little research and see firsthand what the school is like today. I was quite impressed by what I saw. Scattered throughout this post are photos I took during my visit.

I met with Granada Hills Charter High School Executive Director Brian Bauer and got an overview of the current state of the school.

First, a little personal background. My family moved to Granada Hills in 1955 when I was in the sixth grade. At that time “The Valley” was the fastest growing suburban area in America; new tracts of three and four-bedroom ranch-style homes were being built at a breakneck pace. New schools were being constructed each year. I attended five schools during the seven years I lived in Granada Hills, as newly constructed facilities continually opened up nearer my home.

Visitors are greeted by this cheerful sign as they enter the campus.

The last of these, at least that affected my little world, was Granada Hills High School, a brand new school opened in 1960 between the fall and spring semesters of my junior year. There were no seniors that first spring, so our class became the first graduating class the following year. We established many firsts—we gave the school a nickname (“Highlanders”), chose school colors (Kelly green, black and white), created a newspaper (“Highlander Highlights”) and published a yearbook (the “Tartan”). I say “we” did these things, but in truth I had very little to do with it. I didn’t run for any office and was on precious few committees. I was a member of Key Club, played basketball and ran track, attended classes, got decent grades and participated in classroom discussions. That’s about it.

These are the same buildings as we had, but the trees are enormous. I’m sure current Granada students don’t fully appreciate the shade they provide. We merely had saplings; no shade.

Today the school looks similar to how I remember it in many ways. It still has the same low-rise, single-story, generic-looking classroom buildings, but the trees are now fifty years old, which gives the school a comfortable, lived-in feel that was lacking that first year. The football field and track are much nicer than what we had—it is now called “John Elway Stadium,” named after Granada’s most renowned athlete-alumnus. There are lots of tennis courts, something that was lacking when I was there. The shop areas are way cooler than what we had. There is a full-fledged auto shop with lots of fancy-looking equipment and in another room students take classes in “robotics,” a subject that only existed in comic books when we were students.

A class on “robotics.” This was definitely not among the “shop” choices we had.

The biggest change, however, is that the school has now become Granada Hills Charter High School, “an independent public school.” While it is still is required to take all of the students within its geographic boundaries, it can accept a certain number of students from outside. Each year several times as many students apply as can be accepted, necessitating a lottery to determine which of the lucky ones is admitted.

One of the bright murals on campus. I saw no graffiti of any kind.

Why do so many want to attend Granada? Quite simply because of its remarkable academic track record. With more than four thousand students, GHCHS is the largest single-campus independent high school in America. This would suggest that academic excellence would be difficult to achieve since the standard wisdom is that schools with larger student bodies tend to revert to the mean. Also working against Granada is its demographics. It is not located in an affluent area. Most of the homes in the area are fifty to sixty-year-old tract homes that were unpretentious when constructed and even less so now. The student body is remarkably diverse: 36% Hispanic, 33 % Caucasian, 18% Asian, 8% Filipino, 5% African American and 2% Pacific Islander or Native American. Granada students speak over 40 languages other than English in the home. This is strikingly different than most over-achieving high schools, which have overwhelming percentages of Caucasian and Asian students.

Yet, notwithstanding what could be considered handicaps, GHCHS is the top-ranked school in the Los Angeles Unified School District with an Academic Performance Index score o 874, a number that has increased every year for the last eight years. GHCHS is also the highest-ranked independent charter school in all of California. In all of Southern California, only two public schools rank higher than GHCHS, and those are located in Palos Verdes and Westlake, both of which are wealthy, highly-educated, homogeneous communities.

The remarkable thing about the extraordinarily high achievement scores at GHCHS is the diversity of its student body (36% Hispanic, 33 % Caucasian, 18% Asian, 8% Filipino, 5% African American and 2% Pacific Islander or Native American).

Students don’t ditch school at Granada. During the most recent school year for which I have statistics, its “in-seat” attendance rate was 98%. The dropout rate was 1%, one of the lowest in California. Ninety-six percent of the most recent graduating class met the University of California/Cal State entrance eligibility requirements and 98% are attending either a four-year university or a community college.

Motivational signs, such as this one, were prominent on the campus.

Comparisons between Granada students and average students at other California high schools are striking. Granada students averaged a 20% higher API score than the average California high school. Seventy-eight percent of Granada students were scored proficient or higher in English (reading and writing) compared to 49% in the average California high school. Other scores, such as geometry, history, and biology showed similar gaps.

GHCHS’s John Elway Football Stadium, named after our most famous athlete alum.

I enjoyed reading down the list of extra-curricular clubs on campus—there are far too many to list here, but this is a sampling: Adventure Club, Academic Decathlon, Autism Awareness Club, Christian Club, Classic Movie Club, Eco Plant Club, Future Business Leaders of America, Game Developing Guild, Gay-Straight Alliance, Mock Trial Club, Speech & Debate Team, Table Tennis Club, Treepeople Club, Young Medical Discoverer’s Group and Youth Against Poverty. Some had names that mystified me, such as Robodox, With Eyes Wide Open, and Love 146.

The Bryce Schurr Athletic Complex. Mr Schurr was the first principal of GHHS, dating back to our time.

There were a also number of ethnic and religious clubs: Christian Club, Jewish Student Union, Muslim Students Association, Black Student Association, Filipino Club, Korean Club, Japanese Club, Latino United Culture and Education, and Mandarin Bilingual and Cultural Interactions Club. It takes your breath away to imagine the potential for conflict and how well the school seems to handle it.

My favorite place on campus was the basketball court. It seemed larger when I was there.

In April of this year, Granada Hills Charter High School achieved a remarkable victory, taking first place in the national Academic Decathlon in Charlotte, N.C. Granada’s score of 52,113 made it, by far, the overall winner of the competition, besting a high school from the Houston area by about 1,200 points.

The trees and mature foliage give the campus a much more settled atmosphere than we had.

What accounts for Granada’s success? I had a chance to meet with Brian Bauer, Granada’s Executive Director, during my visit to campus. Brian received his BA degree from Yale, an MA from UCLA and is currently working on his Ph.D. from UCLA. He also spent some time in Colombia as a Fulbright Scholar. He gave the credit to the fine teachers and administrators and to a highly motivated student body. I’m sure this is an important factor, but effective leadership begins at the top and Brian has clearly played a key role in raising the standards to where they are today.

Brian Bauer, Executive Director of GHCHS, kindly posed for a photo in his office. He has impressive credentials–a Fulbright scholar, B.A. from Yale, M.A. from UCLA, and currently working on his Ph.D. from UCLA.

After our meeting, Brian and I walked out to the front of the school to pose with the GHCHS sign. Brian’s assistant, Karla Diamond, was the photographer.

After meeting with Brian, I was given a nice tour of the campus by Maribel De La Torre, an impressive young woman in her own right. Maribel is the GHCHS Director of Development, a Berkeley grad, and a local politician in her hometown of San Fernando. The photos on this blog were taken during my campus tour.

Granada Hills Elementary School, where I attended Mr. French’s sixth grade class.

After finishing my tour I drove quickly by Granada Hills Elementary School, where I attended sixth grade after our family moved to the Valley from Northern California. Then I drove by our home at 11224 Via Arroyo. As you can see by the photos at the end of this blog post, the house seems to be in a sad state. It has been painted a salmon color, which wouldn’t have been my choice. It was white with a blue-green trim when we lived there. We had a green, well-kept lawn and lots of flowers in the flowerbeds. The current home has a weedy brownish lawn and no flowers. It also has a high, white iron fence bisecting the front yard, giving it something of a prison look.

Our former home at 11224 Via Arroyo appears to be in a sad state of disrepair.

We had trees in front; they have either died or were cut down. Now there is one squatty bush or small tree looking a bit forlorn in the middle of the front lawn. The house sports a basketball standard on the garage—something we also had. The current one is nicer; our backboard was plywood and constructed by my father. The driveway and walkway are now concrete, whereas ours was asphalt.

By way of comparison, here is a photo of our Granada Hills home taken around 1960. My sisters and my mother are on the front porch.

It was a different neighborhood in the 50s and 60s, when the homes were new and almost all the GHHS students were Caucasian. For us a “minority” was likely to be an individual who was Jewish or Mormon or perhaps Catholic. But things never stay the same and, based on the success of the diverse student body of GHCHS, perhaps it is well they don’t.

Here is my father and my oldest sister, Mary Kaye, in front of the flower garden in the early 1960s.

It is remarkable how much of a difference trees can make. The planners of Index Street, just a half block north of our house on Amestoy, planted trees uniformly all along the street. Now it is a delightful tree-shaded lane (with regular speed bumps to slow traffic).

Top Row (l-r): Matt, Morrie, Dawn, Tyson, David. Bottom Row (l-r) Amy, Quade, Brooke, Noah, Ashley.

I dragged any willing people into the garage at some point in the afternoon. Here are some of the results:

Dawn had made festive decorations catering to Quade’s true love — the Lakers. Here she is with her Laker colors balloons.

I wanted my photo with the birthday boy. Fortunately my remote trigger made it easy.

The girls: Ashley, Amy, Brooke, Dawn

Our kids (hard to believe they’re all adults): David, Matt, Tyson, Ashley.

Our “original” family.

Matt’s family

Amy’s family were at the party too. Here are Bob and Sue Olson, Amy’s parents.

Amy’s brother, Scott, his wife Maile, and their daughters Chloe and Olivia.

No shoot would be complete without a basketball photo of Quade.

Dawn had hung a festive sign on the front door.

Quade got lots of stuff, including some pricy Kobe Bryant basketball shoes.

Back to the garage for a shot of beautiful Brooke.

As you can tell, this was Brooke’s idea.

And this was by special request of our grandchildren.

Edson was one of my great-great-grandfathers. A carpenter and millwright by profession, he lived in St. George from the 1860s until the turn of the century and helped build the tabernacle and the temple there. Between sessions of the conference I had a chance to shoot some photos of those buildings while Dawn patiently waited. The photographs turned out quite nice, so I thought I would share a few of them, interspersed with a few words about Edson. I hope this format doesn’t seem too disjointed.

The theme of the MHA Conference was “From Cotton to Cosmopolitan,” meant as a nod to the vast changes in Utah’s Dixie from the time of the first settlers in 1860 (sent by Brigham Young to establish a cotton industry) to the current era, where St. George has become a vibrantly growing city, a destination for snowbirds and a retirement Mecca. I took this shot of the St. George Temple at dusk, with setting sun illuminating the stream of a 21st century jet behind the 19th century steeple. I thought it captured well the theme of the conference.

The title of my presentation came from Assistant Church Historian Andrew Jensen’s notation in his “Church Chronology” for February 2, 1905: “Edson Barney, a member of Zion’s Camp and a pioneer of southern Utah, died at Provo, Utah. At the time of his death he was the oldest member in the Church….”

The St. George Tabernacle, a beautiful building, was finished in 1876. Edson said he built a fence around the tabernacle when he was 70 years old (1876), but I need to research whether it resembled the current fence. I took this shot at about 1:00 p.m. Friday on the way back from lunch at Cafe Rio.

It is not my intent to give a detailed history of Edson Barney here—-I am working on a book-length treatment of his life. But readers may be interested in a few details to put my photos into context.

Edson was born in 1806, which means he was just six months younger than Joseph Smith. He joined the LDS Church in May 1831 when the fledgling religion was only a year old. Joining at the same time was his new wife, Lillis Ballou Comstock, his mother and several siblings. The Barneys were all were living in Amherst, Ohio, just sixty miles west of Kirtland. A few years later, Edson and his brother, Royal, accepted the call to join Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and other Church leaders in Zion’s Camp, an informal Mormon militia that marched almost 1,600 miles from Ohio to the Jackson County, Missouri, and back again. Edson returned just in time to witness the death of his infant son, Olney Ammon.

The interior of the Tabernacle is beautifully crafted. I took this shot late in the evening after nearly everyone was gone. The last people out let me slip in to shoot this photo. We were told that the original balconies were originally six feet higher than they are now. When Brigham Young came south to visit he noted that the balconies were so high that some sitting in the back couldn’t see the speaker at the podium. He instructed that the balconies be lowered, which was, of course, a very difficult task in those days without modern equipment. The towns men all gathered and, using their own muscle, managed to lower the balconies. However, they elected to keep intact the fine staircases in the back, so that now, after ascending to the top of the stairs, you have to descend another six feet on a separate set of stairs to reach the balcony. I wonder what Edson thought of Brother Brigham’s edict?

Back to our story: A year after returning from Zion’s Camp, Edson was called to the First Quorum of Seventy, making him the only one of my ancestors to hold a “General Authority” position. He moved to Kirtland, then the headquarters of the Church, and built the carpentry shop that serviced the temple construction. He helped construct the Kirtland Temple and, in 1836, attended the dedication, where marvelous spiritual manifestations took place.

I stayed at the St. George Temple as night fell and got this shot at eventide.

Edson moved to Nauvoo in 1840 (after a two-year stay in Michigan) and was away from home on a mission for the Church when he received the news that Joseph and Hyrum Smith had been murdered. He returned to Nauvoo and worked to help finish the Nauvoo Temple before he and his family joined the exodus from Nauvoo in 1846.

I like the graceful detail of the St. George Temple windows.

Edson and his families (for in 1847 he had acquired a second wife in Iowa named Louisa Walker Butterfield, a divorcee) came to Utah in 1851, where they helped establish town of Provo, then in about 1860 accepted the call to go to Dixie. I won’t go into all of the other service Edson gave the Church, but in addition to working on the tabernacle and temple in St. George, he constructed buildings in many towns in Southern Utah. He seemed to defy age. When he was in his early 70s (in an era when most did not live that long) he spent two years building fences around the tabernacle and the temple. Amazingly, in 1883, when he was 76 years old, he made the treacherous journey to Bluff City, on the San Juan River near the Four Corners area, to visit his son Danielson, who had been part of the original “Hole-in-the-Rock” expedition. He spent the winter there and built two mills for the settlers.

One thing I’ve always wondered about is Edson’s failure to discuss, in his autobiographical sketch, my great-great-grandmother Louisa, who was his polygamous wife. Neither she, nor any of her children are mentioned at all, although he carefully notes his marriage to Lillis and the births of each of her children. Although I can’t be certain of the reason, I suspect this omission was due to his concern about creating written evidence for the federal marshals. In 1888, Edson’s son, Joseph Seth Barney, was indicted, arrested and convicted of unlawful cohabitation, spent six months in the Utah Territorial Penitentiary and was fined $300 for his “crime” (a not insubstantial amount in those days).

A copy of Joseph Barney’s Indictment for Unlawful Cohabitation. Note that the court form was originally intended for “Adultery,” but it was almost impossible to obtain an indictment for adultery because of the difficulty of producing evidence. The Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882 declared polygamy a felony, but again, evidence was difficult to obtain. So the act also prohibited “unlawful cohabitation,” which was deemed a misdemeanor, thus removing the need to prove that an actual marriage had occurred. Perhaps this is why Edson was so reluctant to mention his marriage to his second wife, Louisa.

A photo of Joseph Barney (Edson’s son) and other convicted polygamists (or “unlawful cohabitors”) in the Utah Territorial Penitentiary in late 1888 or early 1889. Joseph is standing third from the left. The white-bearded gentleman sitting in the middle on the steps is apostle George Q. Cannon, who served in the First Presidency under four Church presidents (Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff and Lorenzo Snow). The man in civilian clothes is Francis M. Lyman, also one of the Quorum of the Twelve, apparently visiting the prisoners.

During his final years Edson was often honored by family and friends and interviewed by those anxious for information from a man who knew the prophet Joseph Smith. The Deseret News reported in 1896:

“Elder Edson Barney was 90 years of age last Tuesday. His children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to the number of fifty assembled … to honor the event …. The venerable old gentleman is jovial and lively for his years, and enjoys talking over the early scenes of the Church with which he is well acquainted.”

Edson Barney late in life

The “oldest man in the Church” passed away February 2, 1905, just four months shy of his 99th birthday. This is my photo tribute to him.

The St. George Tabernacle in the evening, with a good view of the current fence.

Full night view of the tabernacle.

Another view of the St. George Temple.

I took this though the Temple Visitors Center window. The statue of Christ faces out toward the street corner.

These are the members of the Board of Directors of the Miller Eccles Study Group who attended the MHA meetings. (L-R) Dawn Thurston, Lael Littke, Morris Thurston, Daryl Eccles, Steve Eccles, Ruth Mauss, Rob Briggs and Armand Mauss. Directors who could not make the St. George conference were Phil and Marilyn Bradford and Russ and Christie Frandsen.

We drove up to St. George on Thursday, just in time to participate in “St. George Live,” a two hour tour where re-enactors talked about the history of the city. Here is one who is explaining a unique odometer, conceived by Orson Pratt and built by William Clayton, to measure distances on the journey to the Salt Lake Valley.

A close-up of the odometer (or “road-ometer,” as the pioneers called it). Until this was invented, young boys were assigned to count the revolutions of the wagon wheel. Of course, this proved unsatisfactory, as the attention paid by the boys would understandably tend to wander during such a long journey.

Another re-enactor discussing the construction of the tabernacle.

When we reached the courthouse we found that Judge John Menzies MacFarlane was presiding. You didn’t want to mess with Judge MacFarlane.

One of the ladies conducting the tour picked me out and gave my name to Judge MacFarlane. He called my case and had me sit in front of the courtroom while he grilled me about my violation of the St. George water ordinance. In pioneer days, stealing water was a serious crime. As a lawyer used to doing the questioning, I had fun sitting in the witness chair for a change.

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