#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. 

#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?

#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"?