On the occasion of Maggie Ericksen and Peter Azel Peel's Engagement
*from the Alice Peel Hafen Collection*
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Monday, March 7, 2016
The Lives of Six Pioneer Girls
Becky BartholomewHistory Blazer, September 1996
The life stories of six cousins--Clarissa Wilcox, Martha Wilcox, Mabel Wilcox, Luella Hurst, Ida Hurst, and Mary Young--born in three Utah towns between 1863 and 1893 reveal what it was like to be a girl growing up in pioneer Utah.
First memories: Martha was only five years old when someone came to the house to tell her mother that Mormon president Brigham Young had died. Martha remembered that moment all her life.
Clarissa received her first pair of buttoned shoes at age five. Her father, a shoemaker, cut them out of the bootlegs of a man's discarded hightops because leather was so scarce.
As a young girl Luella was afraid of the Indians who went house to house begging. Actually, Utah Indians by that time were friendly, but Luella had heard stories from male relatives about the Indian wars of previous decades, and they filled her with imaginary terrors.
Play: When not helping their mothers, the girls played games they called nip-cat, pomp pomp pull-away, Sister Parute, and rounders (a ball game). They also played hide-and-seek in the sagebrush.
Treats: For treats the girls ate parched field corn and homemade molasses candy. As an old woman Clarissa confessed, "I couldn't stand to eat another bit [of molasses candy] to this day." They also gathered grass and shrubs on which honeydew had condensed during the night and then boiled it down into a sweet syrup. As they grew older and went to community dances; the girls sometimes went at intermission to buy crackers, cheese, and tinned salmon for refreshments.
Clothing: In warm weather small pioneer children mostly went barefoot, especially in towns like Moab where they could not have kept the sand out of their shoes anyway when they went to fetch a bucket of water.
Their mothers made all the families' clothing. In summer the girls wore calico dresses (not slacks or shorts) and in winter dresses made of a homespun material they called "lindsey" (actually linsey-woolsey). One girl's mother would get up early on winter mornings and warm the children's clothes on the stove.
Clarissa somehow got the idea that the only dress appropriate for special occasions was black satin. One year her mother made her a black satin dress, and for the rest of Clarissa's life she always owned such a dress. The year before she died her granddaughter made her a maroon satin dress. It took some persuading before Clarissa agreed to wear non-black.
Work: Martha, when eight years old, was sent on an urgent errand. But on the way she met a friend, and they lallygagged until Martha's mother finally sent someone else. When Martha got home, fully expecting to be punished, her mother just told her to go and play. Martha felt so bad she told her mother she needed "a good licking." So her mother sent her to cut a fresh willow stick. Martha brought back a green one, and her mother gave her several stinging lashes. When Martha yelped, her mother asked, "What's the matter? Didn't I give you enough?" Martha answered, "I didn't think you would whip me so hard." "Well," said her mother, "you asked for it."
At age nine or 10 the girls got their introduction to serious work. Mabel, as the oldest daughter in her family, and Ida, because her mother was a midwife and gone frequently, took over most of their families' household duties: cooking, cleaning, scrubbing clothes on a washboard, milking cows, and tending the younger children. Early morning and late evening work was done by the light of coal-oil lamps.
By age 10, especially if there were few boys in the family, the girls began to help in the fields. At first they weeded or dug potatoes, then (for 25 cents a day) gleaned the wheat after the harvesters had gone through. By age 14 they were able to help shock bundles of grain or hire out in other peoples' homes. Since her mother died when Martha was 13, she spent her teenage years cooking and keeping house for her father and older brothers.
Schooling: School was held only a few months a year in one-room, log schoolhouses. The girls started at about age seven and usually quit by 13 or 14 to work. Most did not go past the eighth grade, but they learned the skills needed to survive in their day.
By today's standards these six cousins had hard lives. They could not even go to the store and buy material to make their own clothes. But they had loving families, lots of friends, and games and dances to enjoy.
Source: Histories of Clarissa Jane Wilcox Meiling, Martha Anna Wilcox Westwood Foy, Mabel Wilcox Johnson, Alice Luella Hurst Nielson, Ida Susannah Hurst Patten, and Mary Ethel Young George; in Montel and Kathryn Seely, Seely History, vol. 2 (Provo: Community Press, 1996).
Mabel Wilcox - From The Lives of Six Pioneer Girls
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Mt. Pleasant's Own Red and White Store
Mt. Pleasant's Own Red and White
The following comes from Wikipedia:
This Red and White Spice Tin
sells for $84 on Ebay
Red and White stores were independent grocery stores in small towns. The company did centralized buying and distribution for the small stores to allow them to compete against large chains that were consolidating their power in the 1920s. All members of this group had the words Red and White as part of their names, usually with the owner's name or town name as well. The firm started around 1925.The corporation Red and White, headquartered in Chicago procured branded products for the independent grocery stores. The headquarters were located at the Mercantile Exchange Building at 308 West Washington Street.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Friday, March 4, 2016
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Donna Graham Brunger Passed Away
Donna Graham Brunger was born in Mt. Pleasant, Utah to Loyal and Ellen Vida Seeley Graham April 12, 1929. She left this life peacefully on February 26, 2016. She spent most of her life in Milburn then in Mt. Pleasant the last few years of her life.
She graduated from North Sanpete High School, Snow College and Brigham Young University. She earned a degree in social work and psychology when she was 47 years old. She worked at the sewing plant in Mount Pleasant and the turkey plant in Moroni to earn money for her tuition. She was a counselor at Central Utah Counseling Center for twenty years. She married Norman (Tommy) Brunger, January 1948. They were later divorced.
Reading, sewing, gardening, farming, and church service were some of her interests and hobbies. She had a driving ambition to write a history book about the north end of Sanpete County titled “Milburn and Its World.” In 2000, she developed health problems but continued to see it completed. She was an active member of the LDS Church and gave service two different times as a Relief Society President as well as served in many other ward and stake auxiliaries.
She is survived by four children: Paulette (Michael) Park, West Jordan, UT; Tom L (Mary) Brunger, Orem, UT; Randy Ray Brunger, Mount Pleasant, UT; Annette (Steven) Muir, Solon Ohio; 10 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren. Brother, Grant E. (Shirley) Graham, West Jordan, UT; and sister-in-law Darlene Steusher Graham Bullough, West Valley, UT.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Loyal and Ellen Vida Seeley, brother Berkley and four sisters, Baby, Alice, Marie, and Vida Loy Graham.
Viewing will be at the LDS Church, 1465 West Bristol Ridge Drive (8420 South) in West Jordan, UT at 9:30 a.m. The funeral service will be 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 5, 2016 at the same location. Interment at Fairview City Cemetery at 3:00 p.m. under the direction of Broomhead Funeral Home.
In lieu of flowers, Donna requested donations given to a worthy charity in her name.SERVICES
Visitation
Saturday, March 05, 2016
9:30 AM
LDS Church
1465 West Bristol Ridge Dr. (8420 South)
West Jordan, Utah
Get Directions on Google Maps
Funeral Service
Saturday, March 05, 2016
10:30 AM
LDS Church
1465 West Bristol Ridge Dr. (8420 South)
West Jordan, Utah
Brunger was born in Mt. Pleasant April 12, 1929, to Vida and Loyal Graham. She attended Fairview schools, was valedictorian at Fairview Junior High School and again at North Sanpete High School. The honor earned her a scholarship to Brigham Young University (BYU). She graduated from Snow College in 1971 and from BYU in 1974 in social work and psychology.
She raised her family of four children, Paulette, Tom, Randy and Annette, in Milburn. Brunger worked for Central Utah Counseling Center for 20 years, taught at Snow College, served as chair for March of Dimes and cancer fundraisers, is a member of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and served twice as Relief Society and LDS Stake Primary president.
Brunger has written short stories published in the Ensign and Sanpete Saga. At the present time, she is writing a history of Milburn in northern Sanpete. She has been a faithful volunteer at the Relic Home since about 1999 and is currently there on Fridays, assisting in going through old local newspapers and making copies of obituaries to go in a file.
Stubby And Friends ~ From the Alice Hafen Collection
L to R: Stubby, Joanne Hafen, Cameron Maxwell, Tommy Ericksen, Donald Hafen, Peter Hafen
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
History of Martha Christine Gottfredson Tuft ~ Pioneer of the Month March 2016
 |
| Jens and Karen Pedersen Gottfredsen |
George TUFT died on December 1, 1897, in Sanpete County, Utah, when he was 50 years old.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The address below ( 85 East 100 South) is wrong.
The correct address is 306 E. 100 S.
also see:
http://mtpleasantpioneerofthemonth.blogspot.com/search/label/Gottfredson
Monday, February 29, 2016
Polygamy, Persecution And Power All Played Role in Nauvoo Exodus~~~~~Utah History to Go
| Hal Schindler | |||||
| Published: | 06/16/1996 | Category: | Nation-World | Page: | A1 |
Being burned out and shot at was nothing new to the Mormons of Nauvoo. For members of the fledgling Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, being driven from their Illinois homes in the winter of 1845-46 was but the latest in a series of what they considered religious persecutions. They had been expelled from Jackson County, Missouri, by their neighbors in 1833; another group was rousted from Kirtland, Ohio, in 1838; and more were forced by an armed militia from Caldwell County, Missouri, in 1839. The faithful followed Joseph Smith Jr., their prophet and leader, to refuge in Commerce, Hancock County, Illinois, a peninsula settlement on the banks of the Mississippi.
In six years of back-wrenching toil--first draining the vile swamps that infested the area, then clearing brush and timber to make the land fit for settling by families in the town site they would rename Nauvoo--the Saints had built more than a thousand log cabins, nearly 300 solid brick houses and as many or more frame homes. Nauvoo was thriving in 1844 when trouble once more came baying like a wolf pack.
This time there was murder in the air. A mob bent on the assassination of the Mormon prophet and his older brother Hyrum attacked them in Carthage Jail as they awaited trial on charges of committing a riot. They were accused of breaking into the Nauvoo Expositor and unlawfully burning and pieing its type. The Expositorwas a newspaper fiercely critical of Joseph Smith. The mob members believed that with the Smiths "out of the way," their church would crumble, its power and influence disintegrate and its members panic and scatter. And Joseph Smith's death, they were convinced, would crush once and for all "that damnable doctrine" of the plurality of wives--polygamy.
In truth, the Carthage assassinations on June 27, 1844, did divide the church, but they also erupted into a furious war between Mormons and anti-Mormons that raged sporadically for more than a year before the Saints' final expulsion from the state. It was a violent end to what had been a promising, even cordial beginning with Illinois, which faced public bankruptcy in 1839. The state recognized in the Mormon migration from Missouri an opportunity to welcome as many as 40,000 new residents to its tax rolls.
From this accommodation emerged the somewhat mysterious figure of John Cook Bennett, a physician and quartermaster general of Illinois. He was an ambitious and unscrupulous rogue who saw opportunity in becoming a confidant of Joseph Smith. In a lengthy correspondence with Smith, Bennett pleaded, "Wealth is no material object with me. I desire to be happy, and am fully satisfied that I can enjoy myself better with your people...than with any other. I hope the time will soon come when your people will become my people, and your God my God."
He would have shared Smith's persecutions in Missouri, Bennett insisted, "had not the conflict terminated so speedily. I should have been with you then. God be thanked for your rescue from the hand of a savage, but cowardly foe!" When Bennett made his appearance in Nauvoo in August 1840, he was baptized, and by October was Smith's lobbyist to the Illinois Legislature, where he cultivated figures like Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, two of its most powerful members. By dangling the prize of a solid Mormon-voting bloc before the legislators, Bennett was able to obtain a charter creating the City of Nauvoo, with its accompanying benefits. He exulted in writing Smith, "Illinois has acquitted herself with honor...Every power we asked has been granted, every request gratified, every desire fulfilled."
The Legislature unwittingly had placed into Mormon control an instrument that would rise to haunt it. While the charter essentially copied the Springfield City Charter, it did have some innovations. It permitted, for example, a city council, including a mayor, four aldermen and nine councilmen, empowered to pass any ordinance not in conflict with state or federal constitutions. The mayor and aldermen constituted the Municipal Court, having the power of justices of the peace and the right to issue writs of habeas corpus in all cases involving city ordinances.
The charter also allowed a militia, thus opening the way for the Nauvoo Legion, which "shall be at disposal of the mayor in executing the laws and ordinances of the city corporation...and shall be entitled to their proportion of the public arms." And so in one fell swoop, in an effort to curry favor with the Mormons, the Legislature had placed in Joseph Smith's hands the legal and military power with which to create a secular dictatorship without rival in any other city in America.
It was no wonder Bennett was exuberant, and he was well rewarded for his efforts on behalf of the church. In the first municipal election in February 1841, he was named mayor of Nauvoo; Joseph and Hyrum Smith and Sidney Rigdon were elected councilmen. In the subsequent organization of the Nauvoo Legion, Joseph Smith took the rank of lieutenant general. To that time, the only other military leader to hold such a high rank had been George Washington.
The editor of the Sangamo Journal published a lengthy editorial critical of the Legislature and Smith's status as the highest-ranking military officer in America. The editor correctly pointed out that if war came, Smith would command the nation's armies, because Winfield Scott held a subordinate rank of major general. But the ability to issue writs of habeas corpus would prove to be even a mightier weapon in the Mormon arsenal. Nauvoo was to become a safe haven with justice-of-the-peace courts and probate courts issuing such writs to free arrested people regardless of the jurisdiction in which they were arrested.
The net result, Robert Bruce Flanders wrote in Nauvoo Kingdom on the Mississippi, was "not only to help protect the Mormons from legal persecution, real or imagined, but also to make 'outside' law enforceable in Nauvoo only if the city government concurred." And that aroused the opposition of the gentiles around the city. When elections rolled around in 1842, Smith used the opportunity to further strengthen the Mormon position in politics. He had himself appointed city recorder with William Clayton, one of his scribes, as deputy. That gave him control of registry of deeds, but put Nauvoo at loggerheads with Hancock County recorders, who refused to recognize deeds registered only in the city.
There were yet other problems to contend with; during the spring of '42, word circulated that Smith had predicted the impending demise of Lilburn W. Boggs, former governor of Missouri and the man who had ordered that state's militia to "exterminate" the Mormons. The prophet was quoted as saying Boggs "will die by violent hands within a year." Not too long afterward, Orrin Porter Rockwell, Smith's distant cousin and close friend, noticeably was absent from Nauvoo. On May 6, 1842, an assassin outside the Boggs home shot through a window, striking the man in the back of the head as he sat reading in his living room. Miraculously, Boggs survived four large buckshot wounds, two in the brain and two in the neck.
By the first of August, a warrant for Rockwell charging him with attempted murder was issued, and, on March 4, 1843, he was arrested in St. Louis and jailed. In Nauvoo, affairs were beginning to unravel at an alarming pace. The rogue Bennett resigned his office as mayor because, as Smith confided to his journal, "[Bennett's] whoredoms and abominations were fast coming to light."
Smith assumed the duties of mayor. Bennett, humiliated and publicly disgraced, set out to destroy him. He wrote a series of letters for publication in theSangamon Journal exposing Smith "and his secret doctrine of spiritual wifery, among other things." He also claimed Smith had sent Rockwell to kill Boggs, and that after the shooting the Mormon prophet had said "The Destroying Angel" had done the work "as I predicted." From that day forward, Rockwell bore the sobriquet "Destroying Angel."
Smith and Rockwell had been arrested--Rockwell for assault with intent to kill, and Smith for being an accessory "before the fact." When two deputies took them in custody, Smith obtained writs of habeas corpus and the deputies reluctantly turned over their prisoners to the Nauvoo city marshal. The two men were released as soon as the deputies were out of sight. The warrant for Smith was set aside as "nebulous" by a circuit judge.
Back in St. Louis, Rockwell was ordered to trial. He escaped jail once and was recaptured. A Missouri jury found him guilty, but because of his long confinement awaiting trial, he was sentenced only to "five minutes in the County Jail." After nine months on the run and in Missouri dungeons, he was free to return to Nauvoo. For some time there had been a widening breach between Joseph Smith and William Law, a member of the church's First Presidency, primarily over Law's wife. Rumors had reached Law that Smith had tried to persuade her to become his spiritual wife. And so the seeds of discontent spread through the city, with Law and his brother Wilson, Chauncey and Francis Higbee, Robert D. Foster and Joseph H. Jackson at the center of intrigue against Smith and his followers.
Jackson was an adventurer and notorious scoundrel; the Laws, Higbees and Foster, however, were wealthy and influential in Hancock County. They broke away to organize their own reformed church. From this clique grew the idea for the creation of a newspaper to attack the Smiths. And so was born the Nauvoo Expositor. It was intended to be a sounding board for their opposition views and tear away the secrecy surrounding the plurality of wives being taught by the church's hierarchy. But it lasted only one issue, for Smith moved swiftly to crush the dissidents. In doing so he unleashed a whirlwind and sealed his doom.
Seven years earlier, Illinois had been torn by the murder of an abolitionist editor and Presbyterian minister named Elijah Lovejoy, who set up a newspaper in Alton, Illinois, to fight for anti-slavery. His press twice was attacked by a mob and in the second assault Lovejoy was shot to death. The incident made Illinois the object of national scorn, and the state still was smarting under criticism when the Expositor affair occurred. Smith's City Council passed a libel law and then charged the Expositor with being a public nuisance. In the next breath, Smith ordered the city marshal to abate the nuisance--"destroy the press and pi the type." But even Smith was unprepared for the uproar that followed. Freedom of the press once more had been trammeled in Illinois, and the residents would have none of it.
The Expositor editors swore out complaints and found enthusiastic backing from another enemy of the Smiths--Thomas Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal, who editorialized in blind fury: Citizens arise, one and all!!! Can you stand by, and suffer such infernal devils! To rob men of their property rights, without avenging them. We have no time for comment! Everyman will make his own. Let it be with powder and ball.
Joseph and Hyrum thought of leaving Nauvoo and making tracks for the Rocky Mountains, but halfway across the Mississippi, Joseph was persuaded to return to surrender at Carthage and face trial. Governor Thomas Ford interceded to calm the Smiths' apprehension regarding their safety and promised protection while they were in Carthage Jail. There were strong questions concerning Ford's role in what was to transpire, with some Mormons suggesting that the chief executive was connected with the assassination plot, for he left Carthage for Nauvoo after promising he would stay.
In any case, the Carthage Greys, a militia company, was assigned to guard the jail, but with an armed mob painted and howling, as one writer put it, "like demons vomited from hell," the militia detachment commanded by Lt. Frank Worrell offered only token resistance and stepped aside, allowing the attackers to gain the second floor where the Smiths, John Taylor and Willard Richards were sequestered.
After a brief struggle--during which Joseph Smith, who had armed himself with a smuggled pepperbox revolver, reached around the doorjamb and fired all six chambers--Hyrum fired through the door and was struck in the face by a mobber's bullet. He was hit by three more shots and died. Joseph leaped to the window, where he became an excellent target for those outside as well as the intruders on the stairway. Two shots from the doorway struck him in the back; a third, fired from the ground outside, penetrated his chest. "O Lord. My God!" he screamed, and plunged to earth.
In the melee, John Taylor, armed only with a cane, swung it wildly, fracturing gun hands as they forced the door. But the attackers burst through and Taylor was shot--in the thigh, in the chest (the bullet was stopped by his pocket watch), in the left forearm and in the left knee. The floor of the cell literally was awash with the blood of the three Mormons. Richards, bleeding from a bullet nick on the left ear lobe, had been forgotten by the mob almost at the instant he thought himself a dead man.
Once Joseph Smith had fallen from the second-story window, the mob began to disperse. Someone shouted, "The Mormons are coming!" and the milling crowd fled in panic. But no Mormons came. Richards went for help for the wounded Taylor. (They survived to make the trek West.)
In the ensuing months, the question of church leadership was resolved when Brigham Young, president of the LDS Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, prevailed over Sidney Rigdon to become president of the church. Young immediately set about consolidating the faithful by pledging to finish the Nauvoo Temple, so that members could receive their churchly "endowments." And within six months he was toying with the notion of an exodus that would take the Saints beyond the Rockies, perhaps as far as Oregon or California. But a power struggle continued among the church leaders, until finally Young threw Rigdon "off his shoulders," and by September 1844 Rigdon was--declared an apostate.
In the three months since the Smith killings, the anti-Mormons had remained reasonably subdued, waiting to judge the response of the Saints. When the Mormons failed to abandon Nauvoo, the "anti's" sought to hasten the process. Soon there came reports of "wolf hunts" and house-burnings by roving marauders out to intimidate Mormon settlers. Young ordered out the Nauvoo Legion, and the Illinois Legislature responded by revoking the precious Nauvoo Charter, thus dismantling the Legion and voiding the right by municipal courts to issue habeas corpus writs. In a single stroke, the Legislature had emasculated the Mormons.
By mid-May 1845, members of the Carthage mob were brought to trial, and one of the key witnesses for the defense was Lt. Worrell, who had charge of the militia's guard detachment the day of the assassinations. Worrell refused to answer whether rifles carried by the Greys that day had been loaded with blanks. After a dozen days of testimony, the defendants were acquitted. Soon after, the house-burners stepped up their terror and night-riding became a popular pastime as Mormon battled anti-Mormon. A Mormon-elected county sheriff, Jacob Backenstos, set out to capture the marauders, until he himself became their target.
On one occasion, a small party of riders began chasing Backenstos on the road to Warsaw. The sheriff whipped his carriage to a nearby railroad siding where several Saints were watering their horses. Recognizing two of them as Porter Rockwell and Return Jackson Redden, Backenstos sputtered his predicament and quickly deputized the men. "Don't worry," Rockwell said, "we've got our pistols and two rifles." Backenstos shouted to his pursuers to halt as they came galloping on. Rockwell took a bead on the lead rider, who, it later was said, was reaching for a pistol. A slug from Rockwell's rifle took him just above the belt buckle and fairly catapulted him from the saddle. Frank Worrell died before his companions could get him to Warsaw. Backenstos and Rockwell later would be tried for the shooting. Both were acquitted.
The house-burnings increased to the point of leaving an ashen trail of Mormon homes from one end of Hancock County to the other, until Governor Ford stepped in to negotiate a truce. The Mormons promised to abandon the county by the next spring. So began the expulsion of the church from the City of Joseph in February 1846. Work to complete the temple was a top priority and droves of church members were receiving their endowments in ceremonies around the clock.
Mormons sacrificed their homes for hard cash. Some, like John D. Lee, who refused to be stampeded, turned down absurdly low offers. But, ultimately, he was a loser. His home of twenty-seven rooms, which cost $8,000 to build (and which would have been worth $50,000 in Salt Lake City), was turned over to a church committee to be sold to help the poor join the westward trek. "I was afterwards informed they had sold the house for $12.50!"
Twelve thousand wagons were constructed for the journey ahead, and by May some 16,000 Mormons had crossed the Mississippi and taken up their line of march westward. They left behind perhaps a thousand of their fellow Saints who thought to stick it out. But a posse of some 600 anti-Mormons moved on Nauvoo, and in a furious engagement lasting little more than an hour September 12, 1846, with the defenders, involving cannon fire and rifles, three Mormons and one non-Mormon were killed. The Mormons capitulated and subsequently abandoned Nauvoo and joined the exodus to Winter Quarters at Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Did You Remember This Is "Leap Year"?
Who Invented Leap Years?
Roman general Julius Caesar introduced the first leap years over 2000 years ago. But the Julian calendar had only one rule: any year evenly divisible by four would be a leap year.
This formula produced way too many leap years, but was not corrected until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar more than 1500 years later.
Folk traditions
Roman general Julius Caesar introduced the first leap years over 2000 years ago. But the Julian calendar had only one rule: any year evenly divisible by four would be a leap year.
This formula produced way too many leap years, but was not corrected until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar more than 1500 years later. ]
The following comes from Wikipedia:
A spinster eagerly awaits the upcoming leap day, in this 1903 cartoon by Bob Satterfield.
In Ireland and Britain, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage only in leap years. While it has been claimed that the tradition was initiated by Saint Patrick orBrigid of Kildare in 5th century Ireland, this is dubious, as the tradition has not been attested before the 19th century.[14] Supposedly, a 1288 law by Queen Margaret of Scotland (then age five and living in Norway), required that fines be levied if a marriage proposal was refused by the man; compensation was deemed to be a pair of leather gloves, a single rose, £1 and a kiss.[15] In some places the tradition was tightened to restricting female proposals to the modern leap day, February 29, or to the medieval (bissextile) leap day, February 24.
According to Felten: "A play from the turn of the 17th century, 'The Maydes Metamorphosis,' has it that 'this is leape year/women wear breeches.' A few hundred years later, breeches wouldn't do at all: Women looking to take advantage of their opportunity to pitch woo were expected to wear a scarlet petticoat—fair warning, if you will."[16]
In Finland, the tradition is that if a man refuses a woman's proposal on leap day, he should buy her the fabrics for a skirt.[17]
In France, since 1980, a satirical newspaper entitled La Bougie du Sapeur is published only on leap year, on February 29.
In Greece, marriage in a leap year is considered unlucky.[18] One in five engaged couples in Greece will plan to avoid getting married in a leap year.[19]
In February 1988 the town of Anthony in Texas, declared itself "leap year capital of the world", and an international leapling birthday club was started.[20]
In the United States, February 29 is often referred to as "Sadie Hawkins Day" signifying a gender role reversal, such as a day when a woman proposes marriage to a man.
1908 postcards
Woman capturing man with butterfly-net.
Women anxiously awaiting January 1
Histrionically preparing
A person born on February 29 may be called a "leapling" or a "leaper".[21] In common years, they usually celebrate their birthdays on February 28. In some situations, March 1 is used as the birthday in a non-leap year, since it is the day following February 28.
Technically, a leapling will have fewer birthday anniversaries than their age in years. This phenomenon is exploited when a person claims to be only a quarter of their actual age, by counting their leap-year birthday anniversaries only. In Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, Frederic the pirate apprentice discovers that he is bound to serve the pirates until his 21st birthday (that is, when he turns 84 years old), rather than until his 21st year.
For legal purposes, legal birthdays depend on how local laws count time intervals.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Grandpa George
George W. Johansen
8/11/1941 ~ 2/26/2016
George Wilford Johansen, 74, passed away February 26, 2016 at his home in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. He was born August 11, 1941 to Dean Niels Johansen and Evelyne Jane Whitman. George married Barbara Ann Graff on April 10, 1965 in Parowan, Utah. They were later sealed for time and all eternity in the LDS Manti Temple.George worked hard his entire life. He started and ran two successful businesses and a farm. Through those business ventures his children and countless others learned the value of an honest day’s work and its rewards. George always assumed you could perform any given task or find any given location without much direction – we all learned to problem solve on the fly. He was a self-proclaimed doctor and a connoisseur of convenience store fare. George was active in his church and community. He served as a Stake President, a Bishop, a member of the High Council, a counselor in the Single Adult Ward and as a Primary Teacher. He served as a City Councilman and a member of the Planning and Zoning Committee. He had a strong belief that hard work and a backhoe could fix any physical ailment or home repair. He doted on his wife, kids, grandkids and his cows and made sure that all were home and safe each night. He loved living in Sanpete County and could only live without Sanpete County air and water for short periods of time. He was a magnificent teacher, by example. He taught us that music in the car isn’t just there for background noise. It needs to be sung out loud with hand gestures. That if someone is in need you jump in and help – no questions asked. That everyone is a child of God and deserves to be treated as such – God will judge later. Forgive and forget no matter how hurtful another person is being. George was a man with a body and a heart bigger than the average man. He will be missed but his influence will never be gone. He was a wonderful husband, father and grandfather. He loved unconditionally and that instilled a sense of safety and security that allowed all of us to grow and become who we are today.
George was preceded in death by his parents Dean and Evelyne Johansen. He is survived by his wife Barbara Ann Johansen of Mt. Pleasant, his five children: Cindy Lynn Johansen of Mt. Pleasant, Christy C. Johansen of Mt. Pleasant, Dean George (Laura) Johansen of Providence, John Graff Johansen of Mt. Pleasant and Karen Ann (Clint) Sorensen of Heber, his seven grandchildren: Duncan George Johansen, Dawson Peter Johansen, Beckham Dean Johansen, Roman John Johansen, Wrigley Clint Sorensen, Reese Ann Sorensen and Atticus Cole Sorensen, his siblings: Alden (Martha) Johansen and Rodger (Jenni) Johansen.
Funeral services will be held Thursday, March 3, 2016 at 11:00 a.m. at the Mt. Pleasant North Stake Center. Friends may call Wednesday evening, March 2 from 6-8 p.m. or March 3 from 9:30-10:30 at the Stake Center. Interment will be in the Mt. Pleasant City Cemetery. Online Condolence rasmussenmortuary.com
Friday, February 26, 2016
Pioneer Day ~ Mt. Pleasant Homecoming Day
Saturday, March 19th
Theme: Honoring Our Military
Past Present and Future
Held at the Mt. Pleasant North Stake Center
461 North 300 West
Doors will open at 10:00 a.m.
Box Lunch will be served at 12:00 noon
Program following Lunch
The Relic Home will be open after the Program
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