Wednesday, November 15, 2023

#52Ancestors - Week 18 - Where Were You When

VE DAY: From my mother's personal history:  "It was my tenth birthday on VE (Victory over Europe) day [May 8, 1945].  I had received a bicycle and went to school.  When we got the news, we were let out of school early and I got to go home and ride my bike."  She tells us that she thought it was pretty neat that school was let out early on her birthday.  

SEPTEMBER 11TH:  Scott and I were traveling to New England for our 20th anniversary in September 2001.  On Tuesday, September 11th, we left our hotel room early and drove to Acadia National Park.  While we drove we listened to CDs.  We spent the day in the park hiking in different areas and enjoying the beautiful scenery.  Around 3:30 or 4:00 we were ready to be done and stopped at one of the visitors center to pick up a souvenir bookmark.  It was pretty quiet and there was a ranger standing in the middle of the steps.  I stayed in the car and Scott walked up but was stopped by the ranger saying that the visitor center was closed.  He seemed surprised that Scott was questioning why.  He asked him if he hadn't heard what had happened earlier that day.  Scott came back to the car and we, in shock, started listening for reports on the radio to try and catch up with what had happened.  We had no idea.  We didn't have a cell phone with us so my parents who were with the kids had no way to reach us.  We were upset and wondered what we were going to do as we were to fly home Thursday.  We decided that we would drive as far as we could that night towards the Providence airport where we were to leave from.  We made it to Bath, Maine where we had found a place to spend the night.  When we pulled into town, there was a vigil taking place at a park in the center of town.  It was dark and we didn't know where we were going.  We parked near the vigil and got out to ask someone to point us in the right direction.  He was so kind and said we could follow him and he would lead us there.  I think that is my fondest memory among the despair of that time - the kindness shown by everyone.  We were far from home and not knowing how or when we were going to get home.  We had offers from people to get us groceries or help in other ways, and I think we could have asked for anything and people gladly would have helped.     

Friday, July 7, 2023

#52 Ancestors - Week 17 - Road trip

 Margaret Burt - 1814 - 1874.  Information taken from history found on FamilySearch, author unknown, and a history by Margaret H. Burt Tensmeyer written 20 Aug 1964.

Margaret was born in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, a daughter of Ann Allen and Peter Burt.  Her family worked in the coalmines.  She gave birth to fourteen children, six of whom died before the family immigrated to America. Margaret Tensmeyer states: "The condition portrayed in the show "How Green Is My Valley" [this is one of my favorite books, maybe I was drawn to it because of the connection] were very similar to the stories my father John Burt Jr. told about his experiences in the mines when he was a lad.  Women carried coal in baskets or creels, as they were called, their faces streaked with dust and sweat.  Horror gripped them at the sound of the disaster whistle, for those at home as well as the workmen."  

It is believed that she joined the church near the same time as her husband, John Burt, 19 July 1847.  Fifteen years later they would say good-bye and John would leave his wife and smaller children as he and his older daughter immigrated with a plan to send money for the remainder of the family to come to Utah.

About two years later, with the help of the Perpetual Emigration Fund (it was hard for either group to raise the money as wages in Utah were paid in provisions, clothing and exchange of work), they left London on the ship "Hudson" on the third day of June 1864.  Margaret and her five younger children were in the John McKay Company. 

Crossing the ocean, measles broke out.  Many adults died of it.  Margaret's family was blessed that they had no casualties.  Arriving in New York, 18 July 1864, they had spent 46 days on the water.  Soon after noon on the 21st they boarded a train leaving for the west.  At Buffalo a change of trains was made and they were made to ride in cattle cars that were not clean.  They came to learn that the land trip was more dangerous than the ocean voyage.  At times the train was boarded by Army men looking for deserters. 

Along the way many bridges had been torn, washed out and sometimes burned.  It was then expected of them to carry all the baggage across the streams.  They had to walk long distances at times.  While staying at a railway station after crossing the Mississippi River, a great storm arose and they sought some protection by the river.  "While there, some wicked men tried to drown them in the river." (Tensmeyer)  They again boarded cattle cars and at St. Louis all were placed on a river boat which carried them to Wyoming, Nebraska.  Here was the gathering place for the Saints to prepare for the trip west.  A large church house was the only building and was used as a storehouse for the Perpetual Emigration Fund under the leadership of Elder Erastus Snow.  Teams and supplies were sent from Utah.  

They were assigned to the Warren S. Snow Company.  They camped at Ft Kearney.  During the journey there were bad storms and snow came early.  Buffalo chips were used along the way for fuel.  Adults were buried along the way.  

John Burt Jr. said that they entered the valley in a blinding snow storm and that they were cold,  wet and hungry.  Because they were so late entering the valley the companies were given a special reception.  Saints came with hot soup, beef, potatoes, pies, tea, coffee and sugar and the sick were cared for and those that had no home were taken into homes of the Saints.  

Tensmeyer states, "Grandmother Margaret Burt Burt [her husband was a second cousin] was rather a large woman, strong in mind and body.  She had worked in the mines even when her fourteen children were being raised, staying at home only long enough to be confined, then she was required to take her place with the other able bodied women in carrying coal in baskets or creels, as they were called, for only a few cents a day."  John Burt Jr tells that his mother Margaret had long dark hair.  She had developed heart trouble and was ill for a long time.  "He stated that she was so lovable and kind, yet if she set her mind to accomplish anything even when time and odds were against her that task was completed."  (Tensmeyer)  

This was the ultimate road trip.  I've crossed the US via automobile five times - Utah to Boston, Utah to North Carolina and back, Utah to Virginia and back - with some adventures along the way.  I don't know how the immigrants did it as I complain about the size or softness of the beds.  They were strong people.  The women, though we sometimes think of them as weak, dependent or incapable, were anything but.  They worked hard providing for their families, often times without a spouse's help, they knew great sorrow, and I hope they experienced great joy.  They have left me a legacy that I know I am unable to duplicate.   

Sunday, April 9, 2023

#52ANCESTORS - WEEK 16 - Begins with a Vowel

All three of my beautiful, talented daughters-in-law's names begin with a vowel - Alicia, Erin and Angelie; two granddaughters also. I have a great-great-great grandmother on my paternal side Isabella Clayton Short who I am fascinated with because we know so little about her even though her family was such a large part of the beginnings of the Salt Lake Valley with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I wrote a little bit about her mother here - Alice Hardman

Let's get to know my maternal great-grandmother, Erminnie Rozella Layton (b: 22 Dec 1870; d: 10 Aug 1959), who passed away three years before I was born.  

Erminnie

From my mother's history:  "My mother's parents (Grandpa Charles and Grandma Erminie Cottrell) owned a grocery store on Mead Avenue (11th South between West Temple and First West [Salt Lake City]).  Along with the store there was a small home behind it and a bigger home just east of it.  We lived in the small home for a while.  It had only one bedroom....Grandpa would also let us play like we were grocery shopping in the store as long as [no] customers were there.  I remember people bringing ration stamps in to the store during WWII.  There were coins that were called mils - ten mils to a penny, but I don't remember us having to go without.  Grandpa would have coal sent to the homes of widows.  I remember early summer mornings sitting on the back steps of the little house and Grandma bringing me out a piece of toast with sugar on it.  Then Grandpa would let me go to the farmers' market with him while he picked out the fresh produce for the store....During the Depression, people would come to the grocery store and sign a book saying what they owed and leave with their goods.  Years later, Uncle Chick's oldest son, Bill, told us that he had found a book of all the people who owed Grandpa but had never paid.  Jack, Bill's brother, tells the story that someone came years later and gave to Bill $1,000 that was owed to Grandpa...[Later] Grandpa and Grandma Cottrell lived on "I" Street and 6th Avenue ... so Bobbie and I used to walk up and visit with them a lot."  

Mom remembers that her mother would have Grandpa and Grandma Cottrell to dinner every Sunday.  Living that close to them meant that they were just always around, part of their daily lives.  When mom and her sister, Bobbie, would go visit them when they lived in the Avenues, Grandpa would be sitting in his chair and most of the visiting was done with him, probably while Grandma puttered around.  


Erminnie, Charles, Barbara and Maida


Back row: Margie Odell, Barbara Warburton, Maida Cottrell, Wynona Kirkham, Leah Perry, Mrs. Gittens, Mickie Cottrell, Maida Jean Burt holding Patti;
Front row: Laurie Warburton (Vicki Burt in front of her), Grandma Cottrell, Grandpa Cottrell, Margie Gittens, Lynne Warburton.


Sunday, March 26, 2023

#52 Ancestors - Week 15 - FEMALES

FEMALES

This was the prompt from a year ago and since I'm more than a year behind in these posts, I thought this would fit well with that one.

 A few years after moving to Vernal in 2000, I was invited to join a group of women that got together every Wednesday for quilting, handwork and lunch.  It included Janet (Jeannie) Suddreth (Scott's aunt), Ramona Stevens, Eva Joy, her daughter Carolyn, Carol Rasmussen and Judy Mathisen (Scott's cousins), Monica Jessen, Carolene Gardiner (a friend of Ramona's and Jeannie's).  Kamie and Trisha (Scott's cousin's girls), sometimes Tammy (Jeannie's daughter) would come over also and sometimes others from the area including Julie Jessen and Veloy Farnsworth would stop by.  It was such a fun day.  Everyone would work on handwork or a quilt if someone had one to work on.  We often met at Ramona's because she had a large open space where we could all gather and work.     

The Lindsay reunion in Altamont each August included a quilt that would be raffled.  I offered to do one in 2015 and these ladies helped me quilt it.  I wish I had kept track of other quilts that they helped me with.  

After Ramona passed away we began meeting at Jeannie's.  These ladies were always so kind to prepare a good old fashioned meal.  They were wonderful cooks and bakers.  

Here are a few pictures that Carol so graciously shared with me because I couldn't find some that I know that I took.  

Eva Joy, Ramona and Jeannie

Jeannie and Monica

Carolene

Jeannie

Carol, Carolene, Trisha, Bobbi, Jeannie on a day when my DIL and GD visited!

Business quilt

There was one day when Carolene was binding a few winter quilts during cousins' day.  Ramona asked her what she was going to do with all of them and Carolene responded it was none of her business and we all laughed.  A few weeks later at Christmas time, Carolene gifted each one of us one of the  beautiful quilts (mine is pictured above, business quilt).  They became known as the "business quilts" because indeed it was none of our business.

Another day Carol's daughter Megan and her son Jax were visiting with us.  Ramona got up to go to the bathroom and tooted all the way there.  As Carol puts it, "The look on Jax's face was priceless."  

One more story - Eva Joy kissed Kamie (two generations younger) on the mouth when Kamie went to leave.  Kamie had the funniest look on her face.  She didn't realized that that was a common thing with the older cousins.  

We miss those ladies who have left us, and we miss getting together each week.  Nothing more special than the time spent with these dear friends.      


Monday, February 20, 2023

#52 ANCESTORS - Week 14 LANDED

 LANDED

All of our lines include immigrants (which is an obvious statement). It appears most are in the mid-1860s and came to the United States because they were affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  There is one that appears to be an early member of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  I'll list below those that I can find immigration records for.

John Burt Jr.  - lived in Scotland and immigrated from London through New York City in July 1864.  He came on the ship Hudson with his mother, siblings Isabella, Margaret, Jane, Mary and Adam, and maybe a cousin Peter Burt.    (I don't know what the difference is between the two lists of names.  I need to learn about that.)




Thomas Seddon - lived in Worsley, Lancashire, England, left through Liverpool, 5 Sep 1849, ship Berlin to New Orleans (one other notation in FamilySearch says he was on a different ship a year later.  I need to do some digging on that one.)

Phillip Nephi Margetts - from Warwickshire, England, arrived in New Orleans 15 Apr 1850.



John Whipple - from Essex, England - died in Essex, Massachusetts, Colonial America in 1669.  I don't know how correct this info is.  It's in FamilySearch.  

Peter Christian Peterson - from Mygdal, Hjorring, Denmark, immigrated through New York August 1862.  

Christine Sorensen - from Storvorde, Alborg, Denmark, immigrated in 1862.

Samuel Joseph Short from London, England, immigrated May 1863 through New York.

William Clayton - from Penwortham, Lancashire, England, immigrated 11 Oct 1840 through New York City aboard the ship North America.

David Webb - from Gloucestershire, England.  FamilySearch entries note that he immigrated with the saints.  

Caroline Amelia Knowles from Manchester, Lancashire, England, immigrated with David Webb.

Sarah Ann Blenkhorn from Yorkshire West Riding, England, immigrated to Ellis Island on 30 Nov 1894.


Charles Cottrell, Jr. from Reading, Berkshire, England, immigrated to New York 29 Oct 1880 with parents and a number of siblings. 


Charles Layton from Northill, Bedfordshire, England.  FamilySearch notes he immigrated 23 Nov 1850 through New Orleans.  

Sunday, January 29, 2023

#52ANCESTORS - EDUCATION

Last May we visited Capitol Reef National Park.  Sad to say after living my whole life in Utah this was my first visit there (still have never been to Arches and Canyonlands).  Before we left for the trip my father, Ray Burt, mentioned to my son that he remembers, while spending time in the area with his grandparents, when he was about 8 or 9 (so around 1938) driving into Capitol Reef on a road that wasn't paved.  On the left he could see a schoolhouse that he was told was still in use and on the right were the orchards.  Fruita Schoolhouse.  I thought about that schoolhouse as we drove through the Park. As we listen many nights to the news reports of school shootings, we often wish we could go back to the "good ol' days".  

Following is a very incomplete list of four generations of my family and the schools or best guess of schools that they attended.

Scott - Bellview Elementary 
Bobbi - Edgemont Elementary (just up the street from Bellview) All three of our boys went to at least one year at Edgemont, Bryce and Brad then went to Alta View Elementary for the ALPS program. Brock tried the ALPS program, not a good fit, and was back at Edgemont until we moved to Vernal in 2000 and went to 4th at Ashley Elementary, 5th at Discovery, that was the only grade that was there, and then 6th began middle school. 
Ray Burt - Forest Elementary, Salt Lake
Maida Webb Burt - Highland Park, Jefferson and Forest (not at the same time as Ray, they were 5 years apart), all in Salt Lake 
Roger Gessell - West Jordan Elementary where he states that his Aunt Eva was his teacher for three years. 
Doris Lindsay Gessell - Altamont? I need to find out about this one from her sister. I believe there was only one school for all grades and I don't know if it was in Altamont or Mountain Home. (I tried to call Janet (Doris' sister) today on her birthday.  She is in an assisted living home.  I was excited to ask her about her elementary school days and find out the elementary she and her sister attended.  She couldn't hear me and I was unable to find out the information.)  
Ray Burt, Sr. - Census of 1920 has him in Salt Lake City Ward 1 at a home on Lincoln Street (runs from 1300 S to 1500 South between 900 E and 1000 E. Forest Elementary was built in 1906 at 900 E 2100 S Wanda Peterson - In the 1920 census was in Sevier County.  
Henry Hudson Webb - I don't know where he went to school.  He has done a few histories but none of them mention a specific school.  This picture was included in a group of photos that I obtained from him.  Looks like a schoolyard.  
Maida Cottrell Webb - 1910 Census has her in Salt Lake City Ward 2, on Mead Street (between 9th So. and 13th So. and 2nd West runs for just a couple blocks East).  Maybe Whittier Elementary?? It was at 120 West 5th South and built in 1885.  
Earl Gessell - the 1920 census has him at West Malvern Avenue in Salt Lake, maybe Highland Park Elementary School.
Mildred Haun - near Winchester Street in Murray in the 1920 census, maybe Liberty Elementary or Bonnyview. 
George Geddes Lindsay - residence in Park City in 1910.  The Lincoln School is a possibility, but a history of Park City states it was one of three schools built to meet the demands of a growing school population as mining in the area increased.
Thelma Andersen Lindsay - 1910 census has her family living in Castle Dale, Emery County, Utah.  The LDS Church had built a school known as a Stake Academy.  It functioned as a high school (7th - 12th) for LDS residents from anywhere in the county.  Thelma was in the Uintah Basin by 1920 and I'm not sure when her family left Emery County.\

So what I learned by this post - unless there are stories told and shared, histories written or facts known, the information, even seemingly basic information such as what elementary school did you attend, is lost to posterity. 

Monday, January 16, 2023

#52ANCESTORS - Favorite Photo

This photo of my great-grandfather Thomas Burt, his wife, Dora Estella Margetts, and their children Allen, Ray, Alta and Ruth, is adorable (approximately 1920).
The faces of those two children in the middle remind me so much of a picture of my sisters and me when I was a baby (1963).
Does it get any cuter than that?

Friday, January 13, 2023

#52Ancestors - Week 11 - WHO WOULD I LIKE TO MEET

"Though hard to you this journey may appear, Grace shall be as your day." Come, Come Ye Saints, No. 30, Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1985. Did my great-great-great-grandmother Alice Hardman Clayton ever feel the comfort from this hymn written by her husband, William Clayton? Following are some facts as documented online in FamilySearch and found in An Intimate Chronicle, the Journals of William Clayton. Alice was christened on 23 April 1816 in Kirkham, Lancashire, a daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Hardman. William Clayton's journals make mention of the Hardmans, and Alice in particular, on several instances in 1840 during his mission to Manchester, and I believe she had been baptized before that time. The 1841 England census has her living with her mother in Manchester, Lancashire, England, at the age of 20. She is listed on the Louisiana, New Orleans Passenger Lists, age 24, arrived 26 April 1842 on the John Cummins. Entry in Clayton's journal, 13 Sept 1844: "At 3 went to see Alice Hardman who is sick and was united in the E[ternal] C[ovenant]. Alice's marriage to Austin Sturgess on November 3, 1844, two months after her marriage to William, is witnessed in a civil ceremony performed by Levi Richards. On November 20, 1844, about three weeks after Alice married Mr. Sturgess, William married Alice's cousin, Jane. Alice would later divorce William in 1858 and Jane would also divorce William (An Intimate Chronicle, pg 149 fn112). Footnotes in An Intimate Chronicle state that Alice began the trek west on February 27, 1846 with William Clayton, two other wives, four children, and a mother-in-law. Records on FamilySearch indicate William and Alice had four children: Clara Agness born 1852, died 1856 Isabella Alice born 1854, died 1913 Aaron and Moses both born January 1857 and died October 1857. Alice dies and is buried in November 1894 in Glenwood, Sevier County, Utah. I wish that I could speak with Alice and find out about her life. The entry about William and Alice’s marriage stating Alice "is sick" makes me wonder if she was married because they thought she was going to die? How was she married again a few weeks later? What were her marriage circumstances? Did she ever love William Clayton? How did she feel about plural marriage? How devastating were the deaths of her three young children? Did she have a testimony of the gospel, and could say, "Our God will never us forsake"?