Tuesday, September 8, 2020

WOODRING FAMILY RESEARCH


































Mary Woodring and her daughter


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Richfield Reaper 1906
Louis Woodring Wife
was Bertha Nielsen of Mt. Pleasant
a sister to Carrie Nielsen Hafen 

August 7, 1907



Mary Woodring was a daughter of  Dr. William Woodring
She married William Madsen


Deseret Evening News
April 1900

Sunday, September 6, 2020

VIRTUAL BOOK FESTIVAL


The Mt. Pleasant Relic Home is a part of the UTAH HUMANITIES.  You are invited to participate in their "VIRTUAL BOOK FESTIVAL".

OUR FIRST-EVER

ENTIRELY VIRTUAL

FESTIVAL
Fall is in the air and leaves are beginning to turn...all of which means that our annual Utah Humanities Book Festival is right around the corner! Join us for this year's celebration, now in its 23rd year of engaging Utahns with books, events, and conversations.

This 2020 book festival is our first-ever entirely virtual festival (via Zoom) and features scores of events, authors, and conversations in six categories.

Each week, we will send a Book Blast with details about upcoming events so that you can plan ahead. This Book Blast contains events for the  
first
 week of the festival.

Remember to check our Book Festival Calendar and download our digital Book Festival Programs for a complete listing of events by category.

Here's what you can look forward to in the upcoming week:

September 10 | 6:30 PM | Books and Bridges: The Heritage of Persian Literature

Lily Alavi, Professor of Literature at University of Utah, will discuss the heritage of Persian literature with a focus on women authors and poets. A Q&A will follow. Zoom Link



September 10 | 7:00 PM | Park City's One Book, One Community Presents Pam Houston

Join us for a conversation on Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country. Deep Creek is a love letter to the earth, animals, and the best of humanity. By the legendary author of Cowboys are My Weakness, Pam Houston. Zoom Link


September 10 | 7:00 PM | Writers In the Woods Author Series: Out of the Woods

Join us for a conversation and booksigning with Julia Corbett, author of Out of the Woods: Seeing Nature in the Everyday, a book  full of wonderful turns and explorations about how our human lives entangle and enmesh with all that nonhuman life surrounding us. Zoom Link.


September 12 | 11:00-12:30 AM | The Book Bungalow



A panel discussion on the role of women, both as creators and stars, in science fiction in the past and at present, including a look at the rise of women of color in the genreSign-Up Link.


 
September 12 | 6:00 PM | Westminster Slam Poetry Workshop by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Join multimedia artist, photographer, and poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths for a generative poetry workshop, hosted by Westminster Slam. Zoom Link.


Remember to visit our Book Festival Calendar for a Full Listing of Events!


 FESTIVAL BOOK BLAST
Utah Humanities, 202 West 300 North, Salt Lake City, UT 84103

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Koyle's Dream Mine


Opposition from the LDS Church[edit]

"DREAM MINES." Owing to the importance of the subject treated on in the letter of the First Presidency to the officers and members of the Church, which first appeared in The Deseret News of Aug. 2, this year, it is reproduced today at the head of these columns. We trust the Saints generally will profit by the advice given. And in order to bring it to the attention of all Church members it might be well to cause the letter to be read in ward meetings, or stake conferences, or other similar gatherings of the people. The First Presidency warn the Saints against investing in worthless mining schemes, or valueless stock, even if the promoters allege that they are guided by dreams and revelations. It is a timely warning. Almost everyone have heard of how Such-and-Such found a rich mine by following directions given in a dream, and many fondly hope for similar luck, but in most instances it will be found, on investigation, that such stories have little or not foundation in fact. They belong to the class of rumors which like the wind, "bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth." No one should be guided by such rumors, but by reason enlightened by the Holy Spirit. It is a safe rule not to accept the counsel of anyone who is in any way antagonistic to those who have been duly appointed to lead and guide Israel. And it will be found that the promoters of "dream mines" and "vision enterprises" generally are of that class. They find fault and pass judgment, without justification. But by that very fact they warn the Saints to steer clear of them, just as the ringing, or whistling, buoys during foggy weather call the attention of mariners to the presence of danger, by the noise they make.
First Presidency letter published in the Deseret News on August 16, 1913
In 1913, Mormon apostle and geologist James E. Talmage examined some ore from the Dream Mine and reported to church headquarters that it was worthless.[9] On August 16, 1913, the LDS Church issued a statement entitled "A Warning Voice" directed at Koyle's Dream Mine.[11]:35 The introduction to this statement reads:
The First Presidency warns the Saints against investing in worthless stock, even if promoters allege that they are guided by dreams and revelations…. Almost everyone has heard stories of how such and such has found a rich mine by [12]
following directions given in a dream, and many fondly hope for similar luck, but in most instances, it will be found on investigation, that such stories have little or no foundation in fact.

Abstract


The Koyle Relief Mine, located near Spanish Fork in Central Utah, has had a profound effect upon the life and property of thousands of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Company officials claim that the number of stockholders, past and present, exceeds six thousand persons.




Despite the sixty-eight years of its totally unsuccessful operation, the mine continues to maintain a countless number of old believers and to attract a considerable array of new ones. Prompted by a type of religious fervor, these people continue to declare the mine divine and its founder, John H. Koyle, inspired. Basing their faith on the claimed dream, visions, and theophanies of Koyle, they await the coming forth of boundless riches from the mine which will be used to benefit not only themselves, but all of the righteous in the last days.

 

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

VIOLA IVIE SHEPHERD PHOTO ALBUM submitted by Jerry Shepherd

I found more photos that I didn't realize I had in addition to ones I knew that I had but had no idea where I placed them. The one of the five children, Thomas to Leland Shepherd, are the youngest surviving children of Andrew and Rachel Brady Shepherd. I listed them in order of birth, but in the photograph they are posed in a Z shape so start at Thomas, then Ida, then to the middle with Iva, lower left corner is Ira and over to Leland.

The photo of the construction of the high school at Mt Pleasant, I think I know the name but decided not to guess, shows a man at the far top of the photo that has an x drawn on him. That was Viola's brother, Alden Simons.
Thomas, Ida, Iva, Ira and Leland Shepherd 
Unknown Woman

Mardee, Glen, Vedora Shepherd  circa 1908
George Franklin Martin and his wife, Nancy Jane Shepherd.
~~~~~~
1I found more photos that I didn't realize I had in addition to ones I knew that I had but had no idea where I placed them. The one of the five children, Thomas to Leland Shepherd, are the youngest surviving children of Andrew and Rachel Brady Shepherd. I listed them in order of birth, but in the photograph they are posed in a Z shape so start at Thomas, then Ida, then to the middle with Iva, lower left corner is Ira and over to Leland.

The photo of the construction of the high school at Mt Pleasant, I think I know the name but decided not to guess, shows a man at the far top of the photo that has an x drawn on him. That was Viola's brother, Alden Simons.

George  and Mary Dalley Peterson Family 
Construction of North Sanpete High School

``
Warren Shepherd and Semeilia Peterson 
Unknown 

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Wilcox Family ~~~ Pioneers of the Month ~~~ September 2020 (from our archives and updated)





History Of John Henry Owen Wilcox

History Of John Henry Owen Wilcox
taken from Family Search written by J.O. Meiling


On December 25, 1775, in a little town in Rhode Island, was born Hazard Wilcox. He met and wed Sarah Seeley. In 1824 the resided at Benton, Arkansas, where on 14 Feb. 1824, was born John Henry Owen Wilcox, the youngest and last of a larg family and the subject of this treatise.

Little is known of his early life. Leaving Arkansas the family settled in Missouri, where in 1831 the father died. It was here in Marion County, Missouri that the boy accepted Mormonism. This new religion had aroused such bitter antagonism against its adherents that mob violence was prevalent throughout the Middle west. They lived in Jackson, Clay, and Caldwell counties in Missouri, being driven from place to place with less regard than for so many cattle. On one occasion, Grandfather escaped the wrath of the mob by hiding in a corn field, and another time he was clad in girls clothing to cover his idnentity lest he be taken away by a brother-in-law who was bitterly opposed to his affiliating with the Mormons. He witnessed the transfiguration of Brigham Young when he assumed the likeness of the Prophet Joseph Smith at the time a successor to lead the western trek was being discussed. When it was seen futile to further attempt to maintain the homesteads in the Mississippi valley, and hold their religious convictions, the Mormon converts, in accordance with the advice of the Prophet Joseph, prepared to head west into the unknown Rocky Mountain region. John Henry Owen, with his widowed mother and sister Jane, was among them and early in the summer of 1847, in a slowly moving ox drawn prairie schooner, set out in John Taylor's Company, bound for that unknown, unexplored western wilderness. Jane and Justus Azel Sealey were married 10 March 1842, and were in the same Company. Over the prairie lands, along the North Platte river, up the ridges and valleys, up of the Wasatch Mountains, and down through Emmigration Canyon continued that trek of more than 1000 miles, the like of which is recorded no where else in history. What were the emotions that surged through his being his being when , on September 30, 1847, from a vantage point on the Western Slope of Big Mountain, he gazed over Salt Lake Valley, a cheerless, desolate, uninviting desert wasteland? What did he behold in that panorama to bid him welcome, or to suggest that this is the long sought haven in which to build a home? Somber indeed, was the picture painted by Jim Bridger when he urged the original emigrants not to stop in Salt Lake Valley. Said he, "This is no place for civilized man. Nothing but wild beasts and savages could possibly survive the vigors of the elements and the destitution of this barren land. Nothing can grow and utter starvation will inevitably follow if settlement is attempted." Did Grandfather lament and want to turn back as did the children of Israel? Never. With a burning desire for a home in a land of religious freedom, as the obstacles that beset the way of the o conquer the obstacles that beset the way of the frontiersman, as in the woof there was woven into his being some of the most enduring fabric that ever formed a part of human character.

He first settled in Salt Lake, where on the 14th of March, 1848, he was married to Mary Young, a convert from Ontario, Canada, who also came westward in John Taylor's Company. In 1850, they moved to Manti remaining there until 1853, when they settled at Fort Hamilton, a settlement located some distance west of the present site of Mt. Pleasant. That same year, they moved to Pleasant Grove, Then to North Ogden. In 1860, he came to Mt. Pleasant whare they resided the rest of their lives. He homesteaded 20 acres of land Three miles north of the town and tilled this land for nearly 40 years until he became so feeble he could plow but a quarter of an acre per day.

Grandfather participated in the Walker and the Blackhawk Indian Wars. While residing at Fort Hamilton, he was employed at a sawmill in Pleasant Creek Canyon, where on one occasion he was left as a watchman while the other workmen went to town. In the early evening he heard the words, "go home." He paid no attention to this until the warning was repeated three times then he went home. On returning to camp the next day they found it a smoldering mass of ruin. The Indians had set fire to the lumber, the logs, the wagons and every combustible object, and driven off the cattle. This cost Grandfather his wagon and oxen, but did not deter him in his determination to strive on. He traded all his possessions, including a house and lot for another wagon and yoke of cattle.

Though he went hunting occasionally to augment the family food supply, he had little recreation, his first concern was to supply provisions for a wife and eleven children. His life was filled with toil, trials, hardships, privations, sacrifices and heartaches incident to life in that time. He was ambitious and worked at any form of labor available, including farming, logging, mining, building log and adobe dwellings. At one time he worked at a mine near Austin, Nevada, where he was so severely injured that he was weak for years. He was an expert log hewer, even made lumber by this method. His ability in making ox yokes was widely known and many men came to him for his service. On one occasion he exchanged a large load of poles for 40 pounds of wheat, which he planted on an acre and a quarted of land, and with joyousness they gathered from the threshing floor seventy bushels of grain. He grubbed oak brush for a peck of corn per day and thanked God for the opportunity of earning that 14 pounds of corn to help feed his family. In our day, we hear much about the full dinner pail but Grandfather well remembers the days his dinner bucket contained only a pinch of salt, with which he hoped to season a kettle of segas, thistle stocks, pig weed or other edible plants he might find to cook for his noon day meal. Grandmother Wilcox oft repeated, "As I look back on these agonizing times, I wonder how in the world we ever managed to keep body and soul together. I know, However, that it was through the graciousness of the Good Lord on High, we were able to withstand those terrible ordeals." The Mormons made the desert blossom as the rose, but the first "roses to bloom for grandfather were a few potatoes broduced from seed brought from California on pack animals and sold pour to a customer at 25 cents each.

Grandfather never learned to read or write, yet the feat of turning this sagebrush covered wasteland into fields of bounteous harvests, will be emblanzoned on the history of Utah by these early pioneers. It was not the call of wild, the desire for fame or fortune, or adventure that promted him to abondon his friends and posessions, but the hope of finding a place where he could dwell in peace and safety, unbomolested by a bloodthirsty mob determined to annihilate the converts to this newly-born religion. He had morality, truthfulness, and strict adherence to the golden rule worthy of emulation to the end of time.


"Well done, thou good and faithful servant, ... ... ..."




~~~~~











The following is a handwritten history written by a daughter of Mary and John Henry Wilcox .