Erin Go Bragh...a Visit with Saint Patrick!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Welcome to Ireland

A few years ago, my daughter Sascha and I took a trip to Ireland with the Daughters of Utah Pioneers.  We went there to discover our Irish heritage.  It was an amazingly beautiful place...I couldn't believe how beautiful!

How Green is Ireland?

This is on the West Coast on top of the Cliffs of Moher...the Cliffs of Insanity featured on "The Princess Bride." 

There is a reason I fell in love with this postcard...

I saw this on the front stoop of a small shop...my first glimpse of shamrocks.

Saint Patrick...

Saint Patrick...

Patrick was a North Briton who was captured by a party of raiding Irishmen and brought to Ireland as a slave.  During his time in slavery he spent much time in prayer...praying as often as 100 times a day.  He tells in his "Confession" that he was able to escape after six years of slavery and hardship.  He boarded a ship and was soon reunited with his family.  One night he dreamed that a man named Victoricus handed him a letter headed "The Cry of the Irish."  He imagined that he heard voices calling him to return to Ireland and walk again among the people.

The Village of Downpatrick in County Down, Northern Ireland.

"Downpatrick" is from the Gaelic "Dun Padraig" which means Patrick's Stronghold or Fort.

In Downpatrick, at the base of the hill where the Down Cathedral is located, we visited the Saint Patrick Center.  In the center...interactive displays and diaramas with life-like human figures tell the story of Saint Patrick.  I was very impressed with the presentation...which made Patrick seem like a real person who did heroic things, rather than some otherworldly superhero.

Down Cathedral...Burial Place of St. Patrick

St. Patrick is believed to have died on March 17, around 460 A.D.  Muirchu...a biographer of St. Patrick...wrote this about the burial site:  "Let two untamed oxen be chosen and let them go wherever they will with the cart that carries your body and wherever they stand still, there a church in honour of your body shall be erected...untamed oxen were chosen and they steadily drew the cart containing the holy body placed on their necks and guided by the will of God, they went out to Dun Lethglaisse (Down) where Patrick lies buried."

Saint Patrick's Stone...a slab of granite from the Mourne Mountains.

Barely visible is one word...Patrick.

This plaque states that St. Brigid and St. Columba were reinterred there as well by John de Courcy in the 12th Century...fulfilling a prophecy that the three saints would be buried in the same place.

View of Downpatrick from the Cathedral

I hope you enjoyed this little visit with St. Patrick...I don't know why I never thought to write about this sooner.

Erin Go Bragh!

Some Pretty Travel Posters for a Vintage Irish Vacation!

Pilgrims and Pioneers...My Family History at Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving in old Alpine, Utah...

Autumn brings with it the desire to put away food, fuel, warm clothing and bedding, along with feed for livestock against the harshness of winter.

The days shorten and feelings of urgency grow stronger.  There are no longer enough hours of daylight to get everything done.  Many hands make for lighter work.  If everyone in the village helps out, there will be plenty for all.  When the work is done, there will be time for fun and celebrations.  A time of Thanksgiving.

The hardy settlers of Alpine and Highland, Utah found ways to mix work and fun during harvest time.  When the fruit trees in Alpine started to produce, those with orchards shared with others.  The ladies came with paring knives and pans and worked for hours preparing fruit to be dried.  It would be placed on clean cloths upon the roofs, slabs on sawhorses, or whatever else was handy.

The men brought their husking pegs and shucked corn while the ladies did fruit.  The children enjoyed these occasions and anxiously waited for the piles of corn shucks to increase, as they had several games they liked to play among them: hide-and-seek, run-my-sheepie-run, and tag.  At the end of the day, a delicious dinner would be served under the apple trees on tables made of boards laid on sawhorses.

Note: Turkeys in Alpine were raised by the Watkins family.  Hertha, left, is admiring that year's fine flock.

Other autumn activities which combined work and recreation were quilting bees and "rug-rag bees."  No materials were wasted.  If the cloth wasn't too worn it was patched into quilt tops.  What wasn't good enough for quilts was torn into rug-rags and the remaining scraps were clipped into small pieces to stuff bed ticks, pillows or cushions.

I remember some old quilts Grandma Zetta had from the time when her family raised fruit in Fort Canyon.  In those days whenever a quilt began to wear out, she simply recovered it in another layer of fabric.  Women like my grandmother definitely followed Brigham Young's counsel to "make it do, or do without."  They were born recyclers!  Those quilts were extremely heavy, though, as well as damp and musty.

When Thanksgiving Day came in Alpine, it was generally celebrated rather quietly.  People spent the day at home with their families.  Later they added an afternoon dance for the children.  An adult dance and ball game was held in the evening.

The Pilgrim...

Going back even further in time, I learned the First Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, was a traditional English harvest festival to which the colonists invited Massasoit who was the most important sachem (leader) among the Wamapanoag Indians.

The festival was celebrated in response to "God's favorable Providence" in times of plentiful game and bountiful harvest...with no little thanks to the Indians, who had introduced the settlers to native food plants and animals, and deserve much of the credit for keeping the Pilgrims from starving.

Among those gathered at the feast in 1621 was a man named Francis Cooke and his 14-year-old son John.  Francis' wife, Hester, was still in England.  She would follow in 1623 on the Anne with her three other children, Jacob, Jane, and Hester.

There isn't anything particularly remarkable about this family.  If Francis and John had not sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, no one would have remembered them at all, except maybe their descendents.  But this is where it gets interesting.

The Pioneer...

One of Cooke's direct descendents was a Mormon pioneer named John Joshua Tanner who came to Utah in 1851 and settled in South Cottonwood in the Salt Lake Valley.  The family of John Joshua Tanner now numbers in the thousands...hundreds of which live here in northern Utah County.  He is my ancestor as well.

Both men...Tanner and Cooke...were men of conscience and conviction, a remarkable family pattern to hold up over such a long stretch of time.  The Pilgrims were refugees from religious persecution in England, just as the Mormon pioneers traveled west to practice their faith in peace more than two centuries later.

I became a member of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers in 2003.  Since then I have learned many things about my pioneer ancestors.  Because of what I have learned, Thanksgiving has a special meaning for me.  Family history is kind of like an archealogical dig.  Among the dirt and stones a single golden nugget of information could be hiding.  Discovering my  family genealogy is a blessing for which I am eternally grateful. 

At the top of my list of things for which I am grateful this season, I am placing the names of Francis Cooke and John Joshua Tanner...the Pilgrim and the Pioneer.

Blessings to you and your families this Thanksgiving.


Note:  This is a repost from November 2011.

Vintage Vacations...Golden Spike National Historic Site!

May 10, 1869...
"What was it the Engines said,
Pilots touching, head to head
Facing on the single track,
Half a world behind each back?"
...Bret Harte, What the Engines Said

Being a member of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, the date of May 10, 1869 has special significance.  It is the duty of each Daughter to research and submit the histories of her pioneer ancestors.  We define "pioneer" as one who traveled to Utah, died on the trail or were born in the Territory before May 10, 1869...the date the final spike was driven uniting the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads at Promontory Summit in Utah.  1,776 miles of desert, rivers and mountains had been crossed to bind together East and West.

"THE LAST RAIL IS LAID! THE LAST SPIKE IS DRIVEN! THE PACIFIC RAILROAD IS COMPLETED! THE POINT OF JUNCTION IS 1086 MILES WEST OF THE MISSOURI RIVER, AND 690 EAST OF SACRAMENTO CITY"   So read the the telegram to President Ulysses S. Grant.  The Jupiter and No. 119 touch pilots at Promontory Summit, Utah.  Photo by A.J. Russell.

The Big Trestle and the No. 119.

Photographer A.J. Russell left his wagon below to capture this moment.

I don't intend to do the whole story of the Golden Spike event.  Here are two places you can visit for more information:  Day 18 , a traveler's blog and the official NPS site,  Golden Spike National Historic Site.  I don't think there is any thing prettier than an old steam train!

Road Trip...

Amber and No. 119

A few years ago our sweet daughter worked as a Ranger and Interpreter at the Historic Site.

This No.119 is a working replica.

There is also a replica of Jupiter.

Volunteers re-enact the driving of the Golden Spike.

The original spike is at Stanford University.

George and I took a drive out to the Golden Spike NHS yesterday to take a look at a small water tank at the Vistor's Center.  Our company will be putting in a bid to paint and refurbish it.  I love taking mini-road trips in the middle of the week.  I took a few pictures, but I already had the ones I posted above.  On the drive home we stopped at...

Maddox Steak House

Located on old Highway 89 in Perry, a small town in northern Utah.  Maddox is one of those places that are a "must visit" and I was excited to go there and sample one of their famous bison burgers. 

Maddox parking lot was packed even back then!

The restaurant has been expanded over the years...it seems the owner would just sketch out the new addition himself.  So you will find odd levels and little stairways linking everything together.  It's pretty pricy...but the tourists don't seem to mind.  I know my lunch was delicious!

Thank you for coming along with me on this Vintage Vacation!

  

More Time Wasters!

The Dog Ate My Homework...
When all else fails...blame it on the dog!  I am still procrastinating.  My pioneer ancestor report is due Thursday at 1:30 p.m.  Yesterday, I sat down and got a good portion of it written.  What discourages me the most, is that history seems to favor men.  Poor Grandma Sarah!  In all of my research, I found only one sentence that mentions her as a person rather than a statistic.  My story of her will be taken from what I could glean from her father's history and her husband's history.  She was too busy living in the background...cooking, washing, raising chickens and children.  I know she was there that hard winter when they camped at the base of a rocky hill and people were living in dug outs and wagon boxes.  She was there when spring came and the rattlesnakes woke up and invaded their beds and cupboards.  Somewhere between 300 and 500 snakes...depending on the account...were killed that first night.  No one was bitten...so I know Sarah wasn't bitten. 

Sarah was married to a jolly, popular man who loved to fish and play his fiddle for dances.  What did Sarah do?  She nagged the jolly man! In Grandpa Harrison's papers was found this single notation..."April 9, 1873 she got up jawing me because I spit on the floor and would not milk the cows."  One sentence!  Do you see now why I'm playing on my blog and taking pictures of Daisy Dog instead of finishing her story?  I'm still stuck on the rattlesnake adventure.  I couldn't even find a picture of her...just her headstone!  It's a very nice one...but I would like to know what she looked like.  Do I resemble her in any way?  When did she go from being Sarah to being "Sally?"  Was that Harrison's pet name for her?  Did she call him Harry?  These are questions that I have to wait until I meet her in Heaven to ask.

 Please Remember Me...

Sarah Shoemaker Fugate was Grandma Zetta's grandmother.  Zetta wrote a history of her jolly grandfather Harrison Perry Fugate for the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, but never got around to writing about Sarah.  It only takes a few generations before no one remembers what you were like.  I am making a promise to both my grandmothers that they will not be forgotten.  And I pray that my precious granddaughters remember me and how much I loved them.

Be sure and get a good picture taken...your decendants will need it!