A return to Duchesne

Last Memorial Day, we journeyed to Duchesne and other important Jenson/Jensen family history spots with Aunt Alice.  Last weekend we returned without Aunt Alice following through on a promise.  We also took pictures of places we somehow missed last time (something to do with Glen taking the pictures out of the window :)

This is one I most regretted.  This is the home where George and Della Jenson raised their large family of 13 after the Depression had squashed many of their dreams and plans.  Aunt Alice showed us this place just across the street from their nicer home and said, "Can you imagine that many people living in that small house?"  The back add on may be on the same footprint where Jordan and his brother, Aral built a slab wood lean to so as to have a place to sleep away from all their sisters.

Our promised stop on north up the road to the Utahn Cemetery came next.  I had brought my divided iris bulbs from Arizona and we were going to plant a few to see if there would indeed be perpetual flowers for Memorial Day as we had seen by other graves last May.  First, we did a bit of cleaning up, including the leftovers from the nursery in Duchesne where we had purchased flowers months before.

We found two rocked off spaces on each side of the marker for Clive, George, and Della.

We created a bit of a water basin to capture more rain or snow.  Yes, it was raining even as we worked.

We brought a jug of water to add moisture for a hoped for good beginning.

Six deep purple irises for each space . . .

also next to the marker for Hazel.

We had brought a shovel and a hoe plus some gloves, but the rain increased the longer we stayed.  It was all a bit overwhelming.  Glen stated, "What I need is a blow torch."  Perhaps a crew can be assembled in the future to really clean the site.

Once again we drove the highway back along the Duchesne River.  After a detour up the road along the north fork of the Duchesne River we made our way back to the main road and stopped at Moon Ranch where George was herding sheep when he died.

We were more adventurous this time, and took that dirt road going up the hill in the background.

When I see corrals with a loading chute at the side of the road, I know there have been many round-ups in the past.

I loved this tree announcing "orange."

Once we got to the top of the ridge, Glen turned around so that I could take pictures from the window on the way down.  The Moon Ranch on a rainy day.

There was the sheep herder's wagon, but it also looked like he or she might now enjoy a cabin as well.

Glen said, "Make sure that you take a picture of the sheep."

 

So I zoomed in as far as I could zoom and there are the sheep but just barely.

The horses were pretty, too.  In the background is the road and sign leading into the ranch from the paved road.

It was a bit sobering to think of George passing away here all by himself save for his dogs and sheep and being found a day or so later.  There were autumn colors then as well on October 15, 1963.

Truly sacred ground for the Jenson/Jensen family.  This makes my 1000 published post.  Some how, it seems a proper one to honor with a special number.

Mirror Lake Memories

Last Saturday I was in the High Uinta Mountains at Mirror Lake.  Yes, that is the tree line you see in the background because Mirror Lake is at 10,500 feet elevation.  When the wind isn't blowing, it does indeed look like a mirror.  Last Saturday, it was incredibly blue.  Our daughter and her family had been camping and we decided to join them with our grandson for a fun afternoon.  It was the last camping weekend of the season for the Mirror Lake Campground as there had been three inches of snow the previous weekend.

Oscar loved this adventure.

He told grandpa that he needed his own fishing pole with one of those red and white things that go up and down.

Grandpa found him a fake log and toad stool instead.

It provided a needed distraction.  We arrived just after a major rain storm, thus the puddle.

There is a great trail which circles the entire lake shore line.  It also includes informational signs about flora and fauna.

It was a good thing that they both had their green jackets.  It was in the forties.

The forest is a great place to explore.

When we first arrived at our daughter and family's camp site it appeared to be free of people.  After our time at the lake, we returned hoping the cousins and their parents would also be back.  And then we heard this little one's voice and realized that she was in the tent.  They all went inside during the rain and she fell asleep as did her parents.  Her brothers were sooooooo bored!  Or so they told me.  She had just awakened and everyone seemed happy to see us.

They played catch.

And helped da da build a fire.

We were lucky enough to be invited to a dinner of tin foil dinners and smores.  YUM!

But first more tending of the fire.

Great job guys!

It was a beautiful drive and the mountainsides are starting to change colors.  We also had a great narrator in the back seat.

A narrator that loves his cousins and they love "Oskie."

I have been cropping out pictures from Glen's parents' family photo albums which my daughter had scanned to a disc several years ago.  This is a picture of Glen's father, Jordan, with his mother's siblings, Joe and Kathleen at Mirror Lake about 1950.  It made us very grateful for the nice, paved road that we had just traveled.  Jordan's backyard had been the Uintas while growing up in Duschesne.  He had been with his father many summers herding sheep in the meadows.  Beautiful places are also shared generation to generation.

Cow Hollow fire burns memories

When we drove Aunt Alice to Duschesne, we were very near where the Cow Hollow Fire is burning right now.

Courtesy of Forest Service

Cow Hollow holds a special place in the Clement/Jenson family memories.

This was the last place for the Clement sawmill operation.  They were in Cow Hollow from 1943 until 1946.  This is a picture from that time period.

Glen's father, Jordan Jenson, carved his name into an quaking aspen tree while in Cow Hollow on August 6, 1943.  He was 15 years of age.  I am taking pictures of pictures from Ted Clement's book, "Time and Chance."  It is not the best way to get a great picture, but the book is so thick that it is also hard to make a scan.

Arlon Jensen took these pictures when he hiked in to Cow Hollow in 2003.  When he went with his mother, LaPreal Moulton Clement, in July of 1982 he also carved his name into a tree near Jordan.  Glen was saddened when he first heard of the fire last night.  He knew that his father's work might be no more.

Arlon writes the following story which I think that the family will enjoy.  It is also taken from Ted Clement's book, "Time and Chance."

Since I spotted Jordan Jenson's name on the tree, I've wanted to know the year he carved it.  From family members familiar with Cow Hollow, I narrowed the possible years down to four.  After a careful examination of my photos and video tape, the year became obvious.  Remember how Jordan spaced each letter, wide apart?  He did the same with the date.  According to his system, the unreadable rectangle only contained the first three numbers of the year,  and I already knew those.  It came down to reading the key number, on the extreme right, in the fourth space.  The year could only be 1943.

The fifteen-year-old boy, Jordan, asked LaPreal for another dish of ice cream.  It tasted good to him on that hot summer day in early August.  He figured he deserved an extra helping.  After all, he'd helped to make it.  His arm still ached from turning the crank on the ice cream freezer.  It was easy at first, but became more difficult as the creamy mixture began to freeze.  He had even gathered some of the ingredients.  Early that morning he had picked the fruit which gave the ice cream its distinctive flavor.  Only the ripest, juiciest apricots had been selected.  The apricot trees in Aunt LaPreal's back yard in Duchesne were descendants from Darius Salem Clement's orchard in Fairview.  Darius was Jordan's great grandfather on his mother's (Della's) side.

All week Jordan had been looking forward to Friday.  A picnic in the mountains, with some of his many Duchesne cousins, was going to be fun.  He had heard about the new sawmill site that his uncles had, in Cow Hollow and this was his first opportunity to see it.

Jordan was feeling fine.  It was good to have a full stomach, especially with an extra scoop of rich ice cream topping it off.  The day had gone by too fast.  Preparations for the trip home would soon be under way, but there was still some time left to enjoy the mountain scenery.  A sense of relief had overcome Jordan when the sawmill was finally shut down for the day.  He was able to appreciate the beauty of Cow Hollow now that there was some peace and quiet.  Exposure to the awful racket, day after day, had to affect your hearing.  It was a wonder his uncles hadn't all gone deaf.  The diesel engine fumes had dissipated so the air was sweet and fresh again.

Taking advantage of a few leisure moments, Jordan explored the forest of thrifty quaking aspen surrounding the sawmill.  One particular tree caught his attention.  The tree had a smooth, scar-free section of bark at just the right height.  He reached into his pocket and withdrew his knife.  Unfolding the sharpest blade, he plunged its point into the soft white bark.  After a few minutes of careful carving, Jordan had outlined a capital "J."

Pioneer Day Posting

Grandpa Jordan Jensen with Janae on her baptism day, 1990

Twenty years ago our family spoke in church during Sacrament Meeting. Our assigned topic was Pioneers. I'm not sure that the actual Sunday was on July 24th, but it was a Sunday prior to the 24th in July of 1991. Utah has a state holiday each July 24th to honor those pioneers who first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847.

We had moved into our current home at the end of May and it is a bit of a custom to have new move-ins of an LDS ward speak so that other ward members might get to know them better. This particular time, the assignment came to the whole family so not only did Glen and I speak but so did Eric, Ryan, David, and Janae. Four year old Nathan was given a bye.

Today while in church and listening to a new to the ward young couple talk about what it means to be a "pioneer," I couldn't help remembering that Sunday all those years ago. I had helped to write up four talks plus my own. Each of those children told a story about one of their pioneer ancestors. Today when I got home I searched my file for those four talks. I could only find this one given by nine year old Janae.

My great, great, great, great grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Jones was a very small person and she ran errands for the prophet Joseph Smith. Her mother was a good friend of his wife Emma, and they would dress Mary Elizabeth up as a little girl and give her a rag doll to carry in her arms even though she was a young lady.

When the prophet was in hiding or being watched by those that did not like him, she could pass by the guards without being noticed. This enabled her to deliver messages for the prophet. Sometimes she would pretend that she was driving the milk cows to the pasture to graze. When all was clear, she would go looking for the person the message was for. Other times she went skipping off with her rag doll through the streets of Nauvoo until she saw the person whom a message was for. She would then say, "Brother, I am ambushed." This was her password. The person would then know she had a message from the prophet. She was 16 years old when Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were murdered in Carthage Jail in 1844. She often told of how stunned the people were and how they could think of little else. When she came across the plains in 1850, she had a baby girl 3 days before reaching the Salt Lake Valley. She had married Job Pitcher Hall.

Mary Elizabeth's parents were neat, too. Her father, William Jones, was a stone mason and helped build the Nauvoo Temple. Her mother, Elizabeth Hughes Jones, was a charter member of the very first Relief Society.
-Janae Jensen, Mesa 76th Ward

I was unable to locate the boys' talks but I know I talked about how we can all be "pioneers" as we become one who goes ahead or becomes the first to do something. Today this makes me think of my daughter-in-laws Emelia and Nichelle who were brave enough to be the first in their families to do something different and I'm so glad that they did.

On this day I'm so grateful for many of my ancestors who were true pioneers.

-Nathanial Foote, who crossed the Atlantic ocean to Massachusetts colony in 1633 and then became one of the original "Ten Adventurers" who traveled up the Connecticut River and founded Wethersfield and eventually Hartford.

-Warren Foote, who lead a wagon train of 100 from Nebraska to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1850.

-Issac Ricks, who came from England and settled in Virginia in 1660.

-Jonathan Ricks, who followed Daniel Boone through the Cumberland Gap and settled on Donaldson Creek in 1802.

-Job Pitcher Hall, husband of Mary Elizabeth, who joined the Mormon church in Maine then journeyed to Nauvoo in the early 1840's. He and his brother, Charles, accepted the call by Brigham Young in 1850 to open the Iron Mission in what is now southern Utah. He and Charles built the first log cabin in what is now Iron County.

-John Lloyd Roberts, whose family joined the Mormon Church in Wales. He journeyed across the Atlantic to New Orleans as an infant, surviving the cholera which killed his father and brother as they traveled by steamboat up the Mississippi. His mother, Gwen, struggled on with the remaining three children.

-Anders Olsson Nyborg, who also immigrated to Utah from Sweden and helped settle Mt. Pleasant, Sanpete County.

-Jordan Clay Jensen, pictured with Janae, who became the first in his family to gain a higher education, becoming an engineer and helping pioneer telecommunications with patents for equipment used on satellites used in space.

I also honor all the women who pioneered with these man and sometimes without them. Often times they were the true heroes.

There are many different ways to be a "pioneer."

An image from the past

This picture popped up on FB yesterday posted by Glen's cousin, Karrie. I always feel a bit off center when I see a picture from many years ago that I have never seen before. It seems as though my reality has shifted.

I knew it must be from about 1977 because the baby on Glen's father, Jordan's lap is my oldest son Eric. Glen's long hair would also date the photo even if Eric were not included. Glen's uncle John sits in front of Glen. John and Jordan married sisters. John and his wife Kathleen have lived in a home south of Kathleen's parents' home for years. Jordan and Elma built a house to the north of Elma's parents and planned to retire and live out their lives there. They did live out their lives but those lives ended much too soon. Both died in that planned retirement home, Elma from cancer before Jordan's retirement from TRW in southern California and Jordan not long after finally retiring and moving north to Utah.

Tomorrow would have been Jordan's 83rd birthday if he were still with us. He died shortly after his birthday in 1991. We would have loved to have had him with us for two more decades. This is what my daughter, Janae, wrote as a 4th grade student after his death.

"Grandpa's Funeral"

I stared down at him. My knot in my stomach grew tight every second. I looked at him. Why? Why does it have to be him?

"Stop that Janae," I told myself. I had a hundred questions in my mind waiting for an answer I'd never know. Why did he die? The knot in my stomach was so tight I thought it was going to break anytime.

"He is dead," I thought. I felt a wet tear fall down my cheek. I didn't bother to wipe it away.

He just went to sleep one night and never awoke. Never awoke to hear the sound of children sledding in the winter. Never will wake up.

I reached down, my hand trembling. I touched his icey cold finger. My hand flew back in a flash. His hand was not warm and comforting like when we went for walks. It felt like a cold drumstick on a turkey. His veins were blue, blue like an icey pond. My eyes were blurry, and I could hardly see. The knot in my stomach broke and now I had mad butterflies.

"He died of a broken heart," I thought, as some guesses flew through my mind. My grandmother had died a few years ago of cancer. I had a silly image of her dancing up there. I watched her for awhile in my mind and a smile came to me. I hadn't smiled since I found out my grandfather died. At least someone's happy I thought. A river of tears flowed down my face.

Happy birthday Jordan! I hope that you and Elma are enjoying a birthday celebration dance.

Grandparents' Day

Some days are more interesting than others. Wednesday was like that. I had returned home from a RS meeting and a stop in at the office to see if I needed to make a deposit. Glen had returned home from an appointment in north Phoenix and due to a somewhat sleepless night, had just awakened from a short nap. The door bell rang and two young women stood at the door. They were somewhat expected as mission transfers had just occurred.

Glen, the ward mission leader, welcomed them inside and seated them in the living room with ice cold glasses of water. I joined them for the introductions, Sister Holliday from Idaho then Sister Stephens from Maryland.

"Glen, don't you have family in Maryland with the last name of Stephens?" I asked.

"Yeah, my cousin, Kaylene," he replied.

"That's my MOM!" exclaimed Sister Stephens.

And so the reminiscing began. Sister Stephens is pretty young, but she vaguely remembered Grandma B and her home in Draper, especially since her grandparents (daughter of Grandma B) lived right next door to the south. I told her about the missionary board on Grandma B's dining room wall with a map of the world surrounded by pictures of her descendants with a ribbon leading to the location of where each had served as missionaries. That map was bordered shoulder to shoulder with shining faces and it was covered from top to bottom and side to side with colored ball tipped pins. I'm sure that Gina is included on her map in heaven.


Talking of Draper and Grandma B took me right back to her front porch with its view of the mountains. Family barbeques in her yard were a constant experience for our young family. My sons had just participated in the annual Easter egg hunt in this picture.

While on FB today I was reminded that it would be Grandparents Day on Sunday. The poster had also shared a story about her grandmother and challenged her FB friends to share a memory of their grandparents. I've thought about that all day and once again felt saddened that many of our grandparents had left us at a young age. I wanted to share a picture or two with my children of the grandparents that they knew personally.

Grandma B always welcomed visitors. Here are those same three great grandsons, who once sat on the porch, stopping by to say hello.

Sister Stephens remembered the toy closet in the corner of Grandma B's living room and also remembered her sitting in her favorite chair. Her husband, Raymond, passed away from cancer in August 1975 just after Glen and I were married.

Grandma B (June) had a daughter whom she named Elma. Elma married Jordon and had a son named Glen. My children were in heaven when the pickup truck with personalized plates would arrive in Arizona from California for a visit.


They also loved it when they would go to California to visit Elma. She loved to share the "happiest place on earth" with her grandchildren. When she had cancer one of her final wishes was to have ALL of her grandchildren join her on a last Disneyland visit. Unfortunately, she was unable to go with them but they returned to her home to tell her all about it.

June and Elma loved to have a good time. Whenever a new ride would open up at a Southern California amusement park, Elma would secure an airline ticket for her mother, June, so that they could be among the first in line. Unfortunately shortly after June's 80th birthday, Elma died of cancer.

Jordan didn't stay much longer. He died in his sleep a couple of years later in the home on the north side of Grandma B's in Draper where they had planned to retire together. He was a quiet, gentle, and loving man.

My mother, Velva, was a pillar of strength to all who knew her. Her husband, Gary, passed away after a long and lingering illness just short of his 50th birthday. Her life was one of service to him as well as her six children.

Velva's life ended after an 8 year battle with Alzheimer's disease. We lost her piece by piece so my youngest son, Nathan, never really knew his grandmother as she really was.

My grandfather, George Ostler, lived into his nineties. This picture was taken on his 80th birthday in Idaho Falls. His second wife, Alice, sits by his side. His daughter-in-law, Velva, as well as myself and my children, David and Janae ,were in attendance at this special party. During my childhood, I spent more time with George and my grandmother, Georgianna, than with my other grandparents. They had three sons, the oldest of whom was my father, Gary. When I, their first grandchild, was born they were thrilled to have a girl and I was often invited to spend several days and nights at a time in their home. Georgianna passed away when I was almost 12.

Glen's father Jordan's parents both passed away when Glen was quite young. My mother Velva's father passed away when I was 7 and her mother when I was a very young mother myself.

As family members have gathered to celebrate special occasions over the years, I have often wished that these special people could still be in attendance. We've missed them at mission farewells, weddings, and grandbaby blessings. Perhaps they have been closer than I knew.