In Honor of Pioneers on Our 24th

Here in Utah and other places where people celebrate the “Days of ‘47” (1847 – those were the days!) we remember the pioneers, some of whom are my Cannon and Rich ancestors.  I think it’s not just about the vanguard group of Mormons (members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) who arrived in the Salt Lake Valley around July 24th (God bless them for their courage), but also the numerous pioneers of all faiths who followed in the fall of 1847, and in later years.

Pioneer stories are intrinsic (“belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing”  -- The Merriam-Webster Dictionary) to the history of Utah, as well as other areas all over the world.  Today I celebrate the pioneering spirit of people everywhere, in every era.

Some interesting stories are found in George Q. Cannon – A Biography (©1999, Deseret Book Company) by Davis Bitton.  “… Brigham Young and the pioneers arrived at the Salt Lake Valley in late July 1847, planted potatoes, and began laying out a city.  Back in Winter Quarters [Missouri River, Nebraska], where George Q. Cannon remained, a different kind of company was being organized.  Apostles John Taylor and Parley P. Pratt organized a wagon train made up of men, women, and children, the old as well as the young, along with cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens.  Not a lean, fast-moving unit like the pioneer company, it was a larger, unwieldy ‘community,’ a veritable moving city of 560 wagons, fifteen hundred  people, and five thousand head of stock …”   George [age 20] and his sister Ann were in Captain Joseph Horne’s fifty (“referring to the approximate number of wagons”).  “George drove a wagon.  In the same company was Mary Jane Dilworth, who noticed something unusual in young Cannon: ‘I never saw him waste a minute.  As soon as his oxen were unyoked and the necessary work done, he could always be found sitting on the tongue of his wagon reading a book.’  When he offered to teach his sister Ann from her schoolbooks, she claimed she was too busy – and later regretted the lost opportunity.  …  Because he had a gun, George must have participated in the hunting, especially for buffalo, that kept the company supplied with meat and tallow.”  (GQC, pages 52-53)

“George was one of those exhausted travelers” in the Horne section, who arrived in the valley "on 29 September 1847.  …  One of George’s first assignments … was to dig a grave for a member of his company who had died.  ‘The soil was absolutely without moisture and resembling brick dust,’ he later said.  …  We constructed a ditch to what was known as the old fort,’ George continued, ‘and though the distance was but short it took two days before the water reached there.’  …  Something close to two thousand Latter-day Saints in thirteen companies had arrived at the Salt Lake Valley before the end of 1847.”  (GQC, page 55)

For Kay on Our 41st

On this special day, the 9^th of July, I'm sampling clippings and cards, etc., that bring back memories; digging into the “tank” of files – Grandfather’s WWII-standard filing cabinet.  A book of Kay’s amazing accomplishments, attributes and talents must wait --  another time, another place.  

Kay wrote for her WSU class, I guess (how many years ago?) – titled “Unit Rationale”: “Have you ever struggled to find the right words to express your thoughts?  Even when you are aware that you will be speaking before an audience and have time to write and organize your speech, do you sometimes wonder what words will be most effective?  …”  -- Kay’s handwritten rough draft.

Ned’s pink message form: “7/1/99 11:14 to Kay: While you were out, Leone of Fairfield phoned re. position just opened – English at NHS, closing 7/9.”

Membership card: “1991-1992 Mrs. Cannon is a member of Upland Terrace Elementary PTA.  --Joyce W. Muhlestein, Utah PTA President”.

[April 1990?] Business card from Victor Faleev, our guest with the Olympus Soviet Exchange; “Branch of Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, Troitsk, Moscow reg., USSR”.

[Feb 1995]  “Dear Kay, … You bore such a sweet testimony Sunday and I was touched by your special spirit.  Jack & I have loved our association with your family and hope that it will continue for many years to come.  Our faith and prayers are with you …  --Love, Nancy Hobbs”.

 “Ever Wish Chocolate Were A Health Food?  Well … Chocolate lovers, this is the medical study that you have been waiting for.  …”  -- The Salt Lake Tribune, 9/21/96.   “Chocolate: The Legal Addiction”  --SL Trib, 10/16/96.  “You are the star for which all evenings wait.”  -- Dove Dark [Chocolate] Promises foil.

 “Legendary dancer Isadora Duncan flouted every tradition.  A turn-of-the century voluptuary and revolutionary, she rocked the arts world with her unconventional spirit.  …”  -- Seven, August 1999.

Standard-Examiner / Xplore Outdoors10/22/2003 article by Kay Cannon: “Spiral Jetty scores big over game of Scrabble” -- photo of Kay and daughters sitting in the center of the Spiral Jetty at Great Salt Lake.  “... The snow-white shoreline, pink lake, blue skies, brown and black hills all combined to make for an unforgettable dreamscape.  The complete silence and solitude were stunning.  ...”

Card (sailing ship) 2005: “Happy Father’s Day, Ned!  …  May we get away to some coastal region this year to celebrate many things.  Thanks for being a caring father to our children.  [Love heart] Kay”.

“Christmas at Cove Fort”  -- copy of “painting by Ken Baxter, SLC, Utah” from 1997 LDS-temple calendar.

 “NEW YEAR AWAKENING

My sleep-swollen eyes slowly open,

The dawn has seeped through the shades,

And filled the room with a soft morning glow.

…   --- Kay Cannon” 

-- Ensign Third Ward FOOTSTEPS, Vol. VIII, No. 1, January 7, 1979, Poetry Corner.

Happy Anniversary, Darling!

Smart Dog!

It’s high time for another monthly message from our legendary friend and former neighbor, Rowland Smart.  He wrote this one in August 1990, and asked me to type it on my computer.  (I’m sure the floppy disk is in our basement somewhere, but it’s easier to retype parts from the legal-size draft copy found in my “Smart Philosophy” file folder.  As usual, the only final print went to Brother Smart to copy for neighbors.)

"Rowly" titled it “Fanny, My Friend” and told some great stories about his sister Eva’s “old border collie”.  Fanny came into his life in 1937, after he returned home from “picking up potatoes and topping sugar beets” in Idaho.  “This little pup took to me right off, and we became real friends … she always wanted to be with me.  Fanny was black with white paws, white chest and a ring around her neck, and a white stripe down her face … born with the instinct to know just how and what to do in handling and driving the cattle.”

“In the year 1939, I was farming on shares for a man named Larson [82] … for half of what I raised.  Every day I would get on a horse named Browny and ride [~1 mile] down to his place to farm.  Every day Fanny went with me.  …  She went through fields hunting [pheasants] as I rode down the road on the horse.  …  Whenever I went anywhere in my truck, I always took her with me.  She sat next to me on the seat with her head out the side window … Just mention going somewhere in the car, and she knew it and was ready to go.”

“Sometimes I would walk or ride a horse up Mill Creek Canyon.  Then I’d go up Thaines [Thayne Canyon] or Porter Fork, over to the head of Neff’s Canyon to look at the cattle we had … between Mill Creek and Big Cottonwood Canyon.  We always took the three dogs with us.”

“When I went into the army in 1941, old Fanny my friend went with me to catch the bus to go to Fort Douglas.  Each time I came she was waiting there at the bus stop.  I was there for a couple of weeks before I was shipped to Fort Eustice [Eustis], Virginia.  When I came home four times on furloughs, she was waiting for me ... the day I was due to be home on leave she knew it for some reason …  Then when I got the whooping cough and nearly died when I was 34 years old, instead of me, it was she who died.  …  I still think about my old true friend Fanny.  I feel when I die and go to the other side, she will be there wagging her tail to greet me …  Good-bye Fanny, until we meet again in a better world where time never ends.”   – Rowland Smart

Kids’ Ideas for Summer

Last week Kay and I “sat” (what’s a better word?) some grandchildren, ages 2 to 15, while their parents vacationed in “The Big Apple”.  We had a fun family home evening (“… in the context of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, refers to one evening per week, usually Monday, that families are encouraged to spend together in study, prayer and other wholesome activities. ...” -- wikipedia.org).  I asked them, “What would you recommend your cousins and friends do this summer that would make one a better, happier person?”  I was prepared with a list of two dozen ideas written on my little Super-Target-shopping scratch pad, but shared only three to stimulate the brainstorm session. 

Here’s what the children suggested for their peers:

Porter: “Go fishing, go swimming, help everyone, and go to Hawaii.”

Emma: “Go to Lagoon, read daily, and attend church weekly -- even when away on vacation.”

Bryon: “Treat others kindly, pray for people needing help, and invite a friend to attend Mutual” (mid-week youth church activity night).

Alem: “Learn right from wrong, be kind, get permission, pray for the sick, and read the Book of Mormon.”

Grace: (Lots of ideas, but maybe too young to express them.)

Here are two of my ideas I shared: Organize a neighborhood free yard sale, and pull weeds -- consider it a metaphor for life.

Smart Philosophy

Required reading (as background for this) is my April 2012 post titled: EMC Pioneer “Blogger”.  “Our friend and neighbor for 15 years, Rowland Smart, was a legend in his own time, and we loved him dearly.  …  'Rowly' was nearly 90 years old, a WWII (Europe) and Korean War veteran, good Christian …”

In honor of the valiant veterans and members of our military on this Memorial Day, I share excerpts from Brother Smart’s three-page monthly message dated October 29, 1991, found in my manila file folder labeled "Smart Philosophy".  This one was originally word processed by an unknown assistant to Smart; spelling and language are preserved as typewritten, except one four-letter word repeated:

“During the Fall and Winter of 1943-44 when I was assigned to the 247th Radar and Searchlight Battalion, our outfit was Camp Davis North Carolina.  This camp was an anti-aircraft training center for training officers for the U.S. Army.  …  I can say one thing, it was real tough and hard doing 90 days of training both mentally and physically.  …  I used to say to myself.  BOY!  Is it worth the h _ _ _ they took to be an officer?  …  I was the communications Sargent in our outfit.  I saw to it that the 600 miles of wire was layed right and worked, and that the command posts and headquarter’s post were wired and the switchboards were installed.  …  We had swamps, rivers, and highways to get around or cross over.  …  when you get into combat, there are so many telephone wire lines that it is like a spider web on both sides of every road …  It was fun to get away and be on our  own.  It is like being in combat, but not being shot at.  …  We had night missions … they lasted from dark until about one in the morning.  …  down to the camp called Scears Landing … where we shot at towed targets pulled by a plane.  …  We furnished the big 60 inch searchlights that had a range of 30,000 feet, about 6 miles.  We furnished the big 268 radars that had a range from horizon to horizon.  …  When we left Camp Davis, we went to Camp Stewart Georgia and then to Camp Gordon for advanced infantry training and from there to Germany to combat as foot soldiers.  …  It was different now I was just a regular old “doe boy” foot soldier, hoping to get home in one piece and not in a coffin or part of me left over there in that h _ _ _ hole of a country where it never seems to quit raining or snowing.     I want to thank God that I got home safe and sound and all in one piece!”      – Rowland Smart

EMC Pioneer “Blogger”

The monthly messages would have made an extraordinary blog.

Our friend and neighbor for 15 years, Rowland Smart, was a legend in his own time, and we loved him dearly.  “Rowly” (or “Rowley”) was the only living early-settler “pioneer” I’ve known.  A great area in which to raise our five children in the 1980’s, East Mill Creek (three words, according to early inhabitants Kay and I knew) still had pockets of rural pioneer life, look and feel.  The most obvious was the Smart property on 39th South (SLC), where the owner, Rowland Smart, lived in the old white frame house he was raised in.  Kay and I were privileged to enjoy Rowly’s friendship, and to feel welcome in his home.  Entering it was like time travel back to the late 1800’s.

Rowly was nearly 90 years old, a WWII (Europe) and Korean War veteran, good Christian, never married, had no children, but frequently shared his sage advice on marriage and parenting.  This down-to-earth farmer was also generous with his garden produce and other gifts delivered in his old repainted blue pickup truck.

A regular gift was Brother Smart’s monthly written message, often in his unique cursive writing (on backs of used paper) for me to type up (correcting numerous misspellings while preserving his special “voice”).  Many were already typed by other helpers, and photocopied for friends.  As I recall, most were personal experiences – true (we believed) stories from his amazing life.  I still have them in Grandfather’s file cabinet (my OCH) and on floppy disks (right) for possible publication.

I have a feeling Rowly would approve of my sharing excerpts from his monthly “blog”.

The 1940 Census

Having heard it's coming soon, I checked Ancestry.com for news about the 1940 Census.  (I'm excited about family history!)

"The 1940 Census is coming April 2, 2012. 
The 72-year wait is over.  On April 1, 1940, there were 132,164,569 people living in America. And today, 87 percent of Americans can find a direct family link to one – or more – of them.
When the 1940 U.S. Federal Census is opened to the public this April, you’ll have a window into every one of those 132 million lives. Their names, where they lived, who shared their house, even where they were five years earlier.  And that’s just for starters.
Where do you think your family was living on census day, April 1, 1940?"
--- www.ancestry.com/1940-census