Wedding Reception Invitations

James Monsen History ~ Advent of Mowers, Hay hauling ~ One Trip a Day

Denmark Crest ~~~ From the Johanna Madsen Hafen Collection

The Building of a Temple .....Courtesy of Mt. Pleasant Pyramid July 9, 1981

TWO WARS-TWO TROOPSHIPS-TWO SINKINGS ~ Submitted by Lee R. Christensen

Lee R. Christensen has shared both Hamilton School Photos, Military photos as well as allowed us to post quips and memories from his book, "You Knew Me As Buddy".

TWO WARS-TWO TROOPSHIPS-TWO SINKINGS

World War One SS Tuscania

When the United States declared war on Germany in April of 1917, my father, L R Christensen, was herding sheep for his father, J W Christensen. When the Draft Act passed a few weeks later he became a prime candidate, age 27 and single, to be drafted. He started looking for a military unit he could join that would take him overseas. At some point, he heard about an engineer unit recruiting experienced mill and forestry workers to cut and mill rafters and planking for the trenches. He had worked for his father at his mill up Fairview Canyon and this experience qualified him for the 20th Engineers (Forestry). He reported to American University, Washington D C, December 1917 where the unit was mobilizing. The unit did not spend much time on military matters; they were, after all, going to do in the military what they had been doing as civilians. They sailed for France on the 24th of January, 1918 on the SS Tuscania. Their troopship was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland, early evening 5thof February. This disaster is covered in detail on the internet. Go to:

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~carmita/

To read my fathers’ biography on this website: click on “Archives”, click on “24 January Passenger list”, click on “20 Engineers Co F”, scroll down to Utah and click on “Private Lee R Christensen”

Private Lee R Christensen December, 1917

(center, with receding hair line)

World War Two His Majesty’s Troopship Rohna

Just as in WW 1, it was the passage of a Draft Act that got my father back into the active military. He had been a member of Mt Pleasant’s National Guard unit, Btry D 222nd FA Reg since it was reorganized following WW 1. The Draft Act of August 1940, some 15 months before Pearl Harbor, called for the drafting of men 21 – 35 and the mobilization of all National Guard units. Mt Pleasant’s Btry D with the rest of the 40th Div Utah/California National Guard was called up 3 March 1941 and reported to Camp San Luis Obispo early April just as carpenters drove the last nail completing their mess hall.

A renewal of the Draft Act of 1940, passed in August of 1941, gave the military permission to send draftees and National Guardsmen overseas. The ink on this new Act was barely dry when the 2nd Bn of the 222nd FA Reg that included Btry D was alerted for assignment to the Philippine Islands to sail from San Francisco 10 December. In preparing for this overseas post a number of the older officers considered too old for a combat unit were transferred. My father was one of them.

After Pearl Harbor, and following a number of assignments that included Ex officer of the MP Bn at the Japanese Relocation Center, Santa Anita, he was assigned to train and take overseas a stevedoring Bn (men that load and unload boats). They trained spring and summer of 1943 on the Seattle docks and sailed for Oran, Algeria late September. After a short stay in Oran where the war had moved on, they sailed for India with sections of the Bn on a number of different troopships. My father and his staff were aboard the Egra directly behind the Rohna with a clear but nervous view of the sinking. Like the SS Tuscania in WW 1, this troopship disaster is covered in detail on the Internet. Here are links for more information on the sinking of the HMT Rohna.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMT_Rohna



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glide_bomb

KATHY:  I have now heard from the American Battle Monuments Commission.  There are thirteen Utah  men MIA from the sinking of the troopship Rohna, none from Sanpete County.  lee

  Eleven of the thirteen MIAs from Utah who went down with the troopship Rohna belonged to the 853 Engineer Bn, Aviation.  They were headed to India to build landing fields for our flyers flying the Hump to China.  Newel Nelson, Hamilton grade school class of ’34, flew the Hump.  lee 

Rasmus Anderson and wife Annie Brotherson Home ~ Researched by Tudy Barentsen Standlee

This Day In History ~ Cloudburst

Ferdinand Erickson and his first wife, Clementina Morrison and baby Beatrice

Neils Rolph Home ~ Researched by Tudy Standlee

Duty ~ A Poem by Ellis Reynolds Shipp

To those of you who may not know the story of Ellis Reynolds Shipp, she came across the plains as a child with her father and mother. Their first home was in Pleasant Grove, where her mother passed away, her father remarried. They later moved to Mt. Pleasant. Everyone who knew her knew she had a great gift. She learned fast, remembered everything. She was obviously very intelligent. When Brigham Young came to Mt. Pleasant for a conference, he asked to meet with this young girl. After visiting with her a short while, he invited her to live in the Lion House with his family where she could get the best education possible here in the Utah Territory. She prayed about it and worried some about leaving her father. Her father encouraged her to go to Salt Lake and take advantage of Brigham Young's offer. She was tutored with the children of Brigham Young. One of her tutors was Karl Maeser. She later married Milford Shipp and ultimately gave birth to ten children. Four of those children died in infancy. Milford had entered into polygamy and married four more wives. Brigham Young announced that women would be sent east for training as doctors so that they could return to Utah and serve as physicians. Ellis left her children with her sister wives and went to Philadelphia to study medicine. After three years, she returned home and set up her medical practice in Salt Lake. During her career she delivered more than 5,000 babies. She also served on the Relief Society General Board. Amongst everything else she accomplished in her life, she wrote a book of poetry entitled "Life Lines".  

DUTY

Oft we ask ourselves the question

What list for us to do?

What in life the best vocation----

Best for woman to pursue?

Shall we be the dolls of Fashion?

Loved and flattered for a while,

Simply live for passing passion,

Sycophantic smile;

Shall we live for vain ambition?

Live to gain life's wealth and power?

Feast on words of adulation,

on the friendship of an hour?

Shall we live for public duty?

To reform low and vile?

Shall we stake our all on beauty,

Or to add to Mammon's pile?

Shall we live for home's fair altar?

Ne'er to pass beyond it's shrine?

Shall we put our hearts in halter

of mere Fashion all the time?

To these queries, what's the answer?

Duty at the time is all!

Let our thoughts and feelings center

On our Duty !  That's the Call !

Know it, love it, act it bravely,

Wheresoever o'er the path it may lead,

For 'twill bring so perfect pleasure,

And at last the richest meed.

Past Fourth of July Celebrations in Mt. Pleasant, Utah

 Hazel (Jensen) Anderson dressed for 4th of July in Mt Pleasant circa 1904.

 We always looked forward to getting ready for the big Fourth of July parade.  Mama always made a really nice dress out of embroidered material for each of us girls every summer.  We got new white long stockings and nearly always a pair of black patent leather slippers.  All the kids in the neighborhood had aboout the same type of clothes.  The night before the Fourth of July, about eight or ten of the girls around the block slept together on the Lund's upstairs porch.  It was really awe inspiring to watch the heavens, and once in a while the stars fell and left a streak of light across the sky.  We listened to the sounds of the night that were so eerie, but we eventually fell asleep. 


The next thing we knew the cannons in the hills were shooting off with a boom that fairly shook the earth around us.  Then we listened for the sound of music; the town band got in a hayrack or some other vehicle that could carry them and rode through town playing.  It was wonderful, so exciting; soon they came past the house, and we went home to get ready for the big parade and the rest of the Fourth of July festivities.  All the kids planned how much money we would ask for to spend on the big day.  One day stands out in my mind as a really special day because we asked for and received ~twenty-five cents to spend!  We decided to spend a nickel in the morning at the parade and then in the afternoon go up to the drugstore and have a BANANA SPLIT, which cost $.15.  Then we still had another nickel to spend at night when we saw the fireworks shot off on the corner below the big schoolhouse where a monument stood.  It was a thrill to watch the fireworks, especially when we were sure the sparks hadn't caused a fire anywhere in town.






THE FOURTH OF JULY SHOW Elizabeth Jacobsen Story Cheyenne, Wyoming 
Even now I become emotional and fearful when I remember the 4th of July show in 1920 when I was a child growing up in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. It was the glorious 4th of July celebration and I was five years old. This year I had been chosen along with many other South Ward Primary children to put on costumes and ride on a horse-drawn wagon in the 4th of July parade this early morning. My mother had dressed me in an authentic costume for the occasion. I was wearing long socks, high-buttoned shoes and an off-white coat with a bertha collar trimmed with fine lace. The bonnet I wore on my head was a lovely blue bonnet which was trimmed with blue ribbon bows. It tied under my chin with two steamers of blue ribbon. All the costumes and children were adorable. We were an excited group of young children really having a great time. Then it happened. There seemed to come out of nowhere some riders on horse-back who looked exactly like wild Indians with feather headdresses and all. They rode close by the wagon and were whooping and hollering like Indians. Then one of them came close to our wagon and grabbed me about the waist and dragged me from my place on the wagon onto his horse, and we rode off.

I was screaming and kicking and struggling with all my might and all the time remembering tales of Indian massacres and torture that I had been told. I was absolutely terrified. When eventually the Indian imposter let me down into the arms of a strong bystander and I was asked my name and who my parents were, I could not speak a word. I was hysterical. When somehow my father found me in the crowd and I felt safe again, I could the speak, but only softly at first. Today at present

I have found in an old photo album with pictures taken by Kodak in the 1920’s a small picture of the two men dressed as Indians and myself dressed as the little Pioneer Girl. I do not look too happy in the photo about the whole thing, but a thought now occurs to me as I recall this day. Yes, I had really been the star actress this day. I had played the role of a frightened little five-year-old Pioneer girl as if it were for real, and even though I had been an unwilling actress in the drams, I had played my part very well without any rehearsals. It must have been the best performance of my life on any stage or in all the other parades I’ve been in since. I had played my role with feeling. I, along with the other actors, had pleased the watching crowd in this ‘The Fourth of July Show.’

Reverend Martinus Nelson for the Women's Home Missionary Society ~ Researched by Tudy Barentsen Standlee

THE MT. PLEASANT STORY ~ United States Department of Agriculture ~ A study done in 1850