Back in Business

Well, I have a computer again, which means I'm in the process of rebuilding/updating The Henderson Reunion website. It's a slower process than I anticipated, but I'll get there -- I promise.

The most frustrating part is that I expected by now to be creating new content; instead, I'm only piecing back together what was already in place. Unfortunately, I over-estimated my computer skills and am paying the price. But with cold weather setting in, I should be indoors more and have more time to devote to this blog and the actual website.

Over time, I'd like to create individual pages for all families who would like to be included -- mostly as a way for all of us to become more acquainted with each other. The pages can be as superficial or detailed as you want them. (Let me know if you think this is even a good idea, or maybe it's superfluous given that most of us are into various avenues of social media and perhaps that's enough.)

I have abandoned the tentative effort to move this blog to Wordpress, since twice now I've created content there only to have it mysteriously vanish. I actually prefer that blogging software -- it's what I use at work, writing a daily blog for our executives -- but for some reason at home I've had bad luck with it. So, I guess we'll just stick with Blogger. I see this as an efficient way to keep you updated on the website, and as a way for us to be more interactive than the website can be ... so far, anyway.

Take care, all, and give me your feedback as I get rolling again.

A very special old tintype

So, I've told you about how I've done a little traveling this summer, and unearthed/been handed some gems about our family's history along the way. In an earlier post, I included a photo of Grandpa Dave when he was a young man -- probably sitting around a fire in a Wyoming sheep camp, or some such.

But more exciting, I think, is today's photo -- an old tintype in cousin Marsha's possession. If you click that link, it's a Wikipedia explanation about tintypes, which, its author claims, were popular at fairs and and other gatherings, and offered almost instant photos. My guess is that this photo -- of Hyrum and Julia Ann Lindsay Henderson, Hyrum's mother Elizabeth Harris Henderson, and their children -- was taken shortly before a diphtheria epidemic in July 1880 that claimed six of those children pictured within a month's time.

The baby in Julia's lap must be Laura Louise, who was born Aug. 13, 1879. She looks to be less than 1 year old. (She lived to age 8, dying in Basin, Cassia County, Idaho.) So my assumption is that this photo was taken in early 1880.



Here's a ghastly timeline:

On July 10, 1880, Elizabeth Celestine passes. (Since she's one of four identical twins in the family, I'm guessing which of the two oldest she is.)





On July 18, 1880, Rosilla passes. (Again, since she's one of four identical twins in the family, I'm guessing which of the two younger twins she is.)


On July 21, 1880, Priscilla and Samuel pass.





The next day, July 22, 1880, Hazel Hazeltine passes.






Then, finally, on July 28, 1880, Hannah Abigail passes.





Sort of hard to get your head around, isn't it? Six of their beloved children died in 18 days.

This story has always haunted and fascinated me, especially when I discovered that all six children were buried in Vernal, Utah -- three hours southeast of Salt Lake City (and where my Grandfather Porter, who died in 1974, is buried). Why so odd? Here's where the family was living according to when their children were born:

• 1866-1879 -- Oxford, Franklin County, Idaho.
• 1880 -- Vernal, Uintah County, Utah.
• 1881 -- Liberty, Bear Lake County, Idaho
• 1883 -- Basin, Cassia County, Idaho

Why so much moving? And these weren't short distances. Does anyone out there know?

My curiosity, then, coincided with a business trip to Vernal a couple of weeks ago. I visited the cemetery to photograph my grandfather's gravemarker -- Fotomat ruined the two rolls of film I took at his funeral 36 years ago -- and to visit the six graves of my long-lost great aunts and uncle.

Their graves were on the map, and I verified them with the sexton in the cemetery office. Here's what I found for our six ancestors:















I don't know what I expected, but it was more than this. Two sandstone markers, weathered smooth by 130 years. I wondered if anyone had ever visited them. And I was sad that this was all that marked the existence of those six souls that even our Grandpa Dave didn't know, since he was born three years later.

I haven't even looked into it yet, but I wonder if it would be terribly expensive to have a marker -- maybe just a simple metal one -- made to list their names. Anyone else think this might be a good idea? Either way, let me know.

Great news about our family history

Just a quick note tonight, with more to come -- hopefully this weekend.

First and foremost, I've been accepted into the Caldwell-McIntosh Coalition. It's a group of our relatives -- some distant, some not-so-distant -- who possess a treasure trove of family info. Our distant cousin Dave Hull has sent me two DVDs chock full of photos, histories, genealogy, etc., which I will begin sorting through and posting on this blog and my Henderson Reunion website as soon as I can get a handle on the technical problems that have prevented any recent updates.

Yes, that's right: Two DVDs. It's the motherlode, people.

When I got a look at what was on those discs, the wealth of information, well, it's a good thing I was alone.

Also when I get more time, I will post some information about a couple of cemetery visits made to the graves of Elizabeth Harris Henderson (mother of Hyrum and grandmother of Grandpa Dave), as well as the six siblings of Grandpa Dave's who died -- within the space of about a month -- during an 1880 diphtheria epidemic in Utah's Uintah Basin. Great-great-grandmother Elizabeth was living in Spring City, Utah, when she passed. I think it will probably be fairly easy to figure out which child she was living with when she passed, but I am really curious about what Hyrum and his family were doing in the Vernal, Utah, area when those children died. That's a head-scratcher.

Anyway, be looking forward to this info as I get time and tone the photos for better Web viewing.

Been a long time since I blogged and rolled ...

Has it really been since December that I posted anything on the Henderson Blog? I mean, I knew it had been a while, but December?

I apologize to one and all, but I've been distracted by life and haven't made time to do this -- one of my favorite things. But I feel invigorated, having recently spent the weekend in Cody, Wyo., with cousin Marsha Jones. We spent a night going through old family photos and histories and genealogy -- I'll soon be posting some of this at the Henderson Family Reunion website, and focusing on some specifics here on the blog.

Not only did Marsha put me onto some things I hadn't seen before, but when we attended the Burlington, Wyo., July 24th celebration I met up with Margaret Lafallotte, who is pointing me in the direction of a McIntosh/Caldwell coalition of family members who apparently have a treasure trove of family history, gedcom files and photos. So, we're on our way to more knowledge about our ancestors.

One of the curiosities Marsha and I pondered was the "discovery" that our great-grandparents Hyrum and Julia Henderson moved around a lot in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Theirs was the family unit that lost six children to a diphtheria epidemic in 1880 within three or four weeks -- this was before Grandpa Dave was born in 1883. The family was in Idaho in 1879, then Vernal, Utah, in 1880, then the Bear Lake, Idaho, region in 1881 and back to south central Idaho in 1883. We're hoping to come across some history that tells us why they moved so much during that short span of time.

In the meantime, I'll be visiting Vernal for work later this month, and plan to visit the cemetery where those six great-aunts and -uncles are buried to photograph headstones. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a local newspaper that was published in that area during 1880 that might help tell us the story of the deaths and/or possible wider epidemic. I'll keep looking.

Now, you're probably wondering who's in the photo. It's a young Grandpa Dave Henderson. I've cropped his image out of a larger one taken at what appears to be a campsite. It's just one of the little gems I brought home from Wyoming.

Grandma's leters, December 1916-February 1917

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks, I know, but I’m back on track (again), and we’ll finish Grandma’s letters today. Then it’ll be on to something else from the Henderson Reunion Web site. (If you have any suggestions for topics of discussion, please let me know.)

The Dec. 4, 1916, letter, she mentions a little business I don’t recall her ever referring to before: People like her being paid to play music at the dances. I suppose it stands to reason she would have been paid; I just never thought about it. Indeed, if she was paid each time she played at a dance over the years, it must have provided some extra money for her.

She mentions, too, all the imbibing going on at the post-Thanksgiving dance, and names names.

In her Dec. 8 letter, she makes a statement that was still hitting home to me in the early 1970s when I was a boy going to school in Big Horn County: “I wish you were going to be here for the basket ball game tonight. I expect Cody will beat the boys pretty badly.” In Basin, we were a class B-sized school, and Cody was either class A or AA, and we’d play them every year in the role of sacrificial lambs. The worst beating was a football game; we showed up one cold, cold Saturday morning to find about 12-14 inches of powdery snow on the football field, and the officials took snow shovels to clear the five-yard lines up and down the field. It was a cold day, made miserable by the snow and having our opponents double our score. There’s nothing quite like playing sports for such a tiny, rural school.

She also mentions she doesn’t like teaching school much.

In her Dec. 10 letter, there’s a bit of a surprise – arguably her most blunt expression of love for Grandpa that I recall seeing in any of these letters:

“Dave, if you just knew how much I really do love you, you’d never doubt me again. I know that no one could love you more than I do, sweetheart. You are dearer to me than anyone else in the world. If I could just please you always, dear, I’d be perfectly happy.” But then she expresses regret: “But I disappoint you so many times, dear, and I try so hard to please you. I’d give most anything if I could see you tonight.”

And that’s the last letter of any consequence that she wrote to him – that we have in our possession, anyway. There’s a letter from Feb. 13, 1917, but it just details travel plans. They were married April 11, 1917, and their first child, Uncle Rip (David Ira), was born a year later, April 30, 1918.

It’s been really interesting to read through these letters. I’ve learned a lot about my grandparents that I would not otherwise have known. If you want to do more reading about them, Rip makes mention of them in his entertaining, detail-rich memoir, as does Mark in his. (I’ll post an edited version of my own mother’s memories soon.)

Grandma's November 1916 letters

Can it really be that I haven’t posted anything since August? Well, sorry about that, although I didn’t get many messages asking where I was or begging for more. That ought to tell me something, I guess.

Still, I’m determined to finish off this letters project, and then maybe move on to other items that a couple of people besides me might be interested in.

So, let’s pick up where we left off, in November 1916.

In her Nov. 1 letter, Mary reveals that she won’t go to visit a married friend because her husband is “too precise. I’m always afraid of doing something he wouldn’t consider proper.”

Then she writes of the fun she had at the Democratic Party rally, and talks about dancing with “Judge Metz.” If I’m not mistaken, that would be the judge who lived in Basin, where I grew up. I was acquainted with his widow, and I think Neil Lamont’s late father-in-law, Metz Smith (a really good man), was named after Judge Metz. I hope someone will set me straight if I have that all mixed up.

Here next letter isn’t until Nov. 13. She notes that it was 18 below zero (Fahrenheit, no doubt) in mid-November. That’s one of those details that makes me not miss Wyoming so much.

She also notes that she’s been stiffed so far on payment from the Democratic Party for music she provided – apparently for money – at the rally mentioned in the Nov. 1 letter.

As I’ve mentioned before, some of Grandma’s letters are maddeningly cryptic, and this one’s no different. In the Nov. 1 letter, she says she’ll need to tell him something in person the next time she sees him. Apparently she did, because in this letter she writes,

“I need you, ’cause when I’m with you, I never think of doing some of the foolish things I do when you are gone. I don’t want to disappoint you anymore, sweetheart. I’d much rather have you disappoint me. It wouldn’t hurt me as badly as it does when I’m the cause of it, and I don’t enjoy disappointments, either. I’m afraid I’m a failure in some respects, and I try so hard to be good, too. You’ll have to help me, dear, to be stronger. I can’t do without you; I love you too much to think of it.”

So, any guesses? It does make the mind race, doesn’t it?

Next up is Nov. 18, and it starts right off with a continuation of the previous letter. She has received a letter from him since her last letter to him:

“You haven’t anything, dear, to be forgiven for. I didn’t blame you one bit for being disappointed. I did do something bad, and it makes me furious to think I’m so foolish at times. I think that must be the trait that you dislike, and I dislike it, too. I couldn’t help telling you about it. I was afraid someone else might before I had the chance. I could never even try to keep you from knowing things like that, Dave. I want you to know my faults, dear, and help me to be better.”

This letter also marks, I think, the first time she actually mentions marriage.

“Carol is busy planning things for me when I get married. I believe she is almost as interested in it as I am.”

Then she writes about things that are certainly familiar to members of our church. It’s kind of interesting to hear it from her perspective, though:

“After the dance last night, Mother and I had a long talk, and she advises me to do just what I told you I was going to do. She would rather have me married in the Temple, of course, but I can’t give you up, dear, because of that. I could never be happy without you, sweetheart. I love you too well. I don’t think you want to get along without me, either. I don’t want you to, anyway.”

If I’m understanding this correctly, her mother wants her to be married in the temple, but since Grandpa wasn’t yet ready for that step, her mother is OK with a civil marriage. The temple sealing, of course, would come years later, just before Grandma passed away – although nobody even knew she might be ill at the time.

In the Nov. 26 letter, Grandma writes of being thoroughly disagreeable – with everyone, all the time. She claims to have a real problem with her bad moods. I wonder: Was she?

Next week: December 1916.

Mary's letters, October 1916

If I’ve ever had a busier summer, I don’t remember it. An unrelenting string of little things, mostly, that have foiled all sorts of plans, from travel to projects like this one, the Henderson Reunion blog. But now I’m back on track, for at least this week. So we’ll pick up where we left off, in October 1916.

In her letter of Oct. 9, she expresses the same sorts of frustrations I think most of us feel when it comes to church service – or any type of service, really. She’s in the Primary presidency, but says the president doesn’t get much support from Mary and the other counselor. “I don’t blame her either,” Mary writes. “I think I’ll resign” because all she does is “neglect” Primary anyway.

As I mention frequently, I love the slang she uses. In this letter, she asks if Dave has caught the cold that’s going around, saying her mother and Uncle Ira have colds, and that “Almost everyone you see is barking.” That’s funny.

With the Oct. 11 letter, we’re reminded, too, of the mundane tasks they had before more modern conveniences like vacuum cleaners became widely available. She speaks of washing and cleaning, and wishes Dave was there to “beat the carpet. That’s fine for exercise. It’s great for building muscles.” And I find myself complaining about having to run the vacuum once in a while.

As you read her Oct. 15 letter, it reminds you of how much time the extended family and friends spent together. She writes of a popular game called “Whist.” And while she’s writing, she says there’s an intense game of it being played by Roah and Gert against Carol and Fon – and, she notes, Carol and Fon are losing.

The same letter also mentions what seems to be the most unromantic of marital proposals. She says a man, Joe Christopherson, has married his housekeeper and that Roah is disappointed because she had been approached by him the year before to move to where he was living, teach school and take care of his children. My guess is Mary’s being ironic, but I can’t be sure.

Also in the letter, she talks of a horrible “infection” plaguing a Mr. Bryant:

“The infection is going down his spine. Wherever it breaks out, the flesh all rots and the nurse says it is going all thru his system.”

Yeesh.

Speaking of irony and sarcasm and that sense of humor she so often displays, there are a couple of fine examples in the Oct. 20 letter. After a litany of piano-playing and singing assignments and rehearsals, she deadpans: “So, this week has been a continual round of pleasure.”

Then, the first sentence of the next paragraph: “I’m compiling (notice the big word) a book of cooking recipes for future use.” Funny.

Next week (I hope), we’ll head into November 1916.