Trip to Tennessee with Lela and Vivian and all the girls:)

This has not been as easy as I thought it would be.  First I have so many stories of my family that it is hard to choose.  Second most of my sources came from research that had to be pieced together to create the whole picture.  Going back and documenting my sources is next to impossible.  I now know that when we copy a page out of a book that it is critical to copy the title page also.  It has been fun and I have a feeling we, (my family and I) have only just begun to figure it all out.

Nine years ago my mother, Lela Carmon Smith Jones decided she was becoming aged.  She was then 78 years old she being born Sept.. 30, 1917 she is now 87.  She appointed me to carry the torch.  (I don’t know why, I am the seventh child of ten).   She and her sister Vivian Smith Broadway had worked together at genealogy for at least 40 years.  In their days of research there were no copy machines or computers.  They went to Salt Lake City to the Family History Library and made hand written then type written copies of their finds.  They made laborious trips to Tennessee and North Carolina about every ten years.  Along with some of their brothers and their wives they found most of the grave sites of their grandparents and great grandparents.    My mothers family had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the late 1920’s.  She was baptized when she was eleven.  The main reason they took such joy in the new church was because it sealed families forever and gave hope to them for the loss of so many of their family from TB.1    

Grandma Jones (my mother), decided that the first thing I needed to know was where all the cemeteries in Tennessee were.  These were important to her, the last resting place for so many of our kin in that far away state.  Thus in the spring of 1997 with Jacob (our second oldest son then age 24) Nathan (our third oldest son then age 22) driving an old motor home we set out.   We had Grandma Jones and five of the other younger children, nine total in that motor home.   Ray, my husband had to stay home and tend the water and our oldest son was married.  Our goal was to trace the Mormon trail all the way to New York.  Then go into North Carolina where Nathan had served his mission and where the trail ends in 1815 and 1816 for the Bunn side of the family.  

We found the places in NC where our Bunn ancestors lived in the 1830 census then followed them into Tennessee where they show up in the 1850 census.   As grandma showed us their cemeteries, houses, and their farms I too realized how important these places were.  We found the Tiphouse cemetery so neglected we couldn’t walk all the way through it.  This neglected spot is the resting place of two sets of my great grandparents.  I wanted to make it better but had no vision of how.   I came home with a need to share the experience with my brothers, sisters and any cousins that would listen.  I had a good reception with my sisters and a cousin Linda.  I thought it interesting that only the girls wanted to do anything about it.   

We planed another trip where all the girls and my brother Tom would go.  I couldn’t be gone long so most of us flew except Grandma, Tom and his wife.   They took the same old motor home.  Before the trip I decided to put together a booklet with all the research that Mom and Aunt Vivian had done along with the old family pictures.  I compiled a 70 page book and we  printed a two hundred copies.  We gave them out to our cousins, to libraries, and to anyone who wanted one.  It became our map.  We found cousins all over the place as they looked at the book and knew where they fit in.  It opened the door for much more research as we located the places and learned of the events of the past  that were talked about in the book.  The Tiphouse cemetery still looked like this. 

The trip was a great success, but we could only do minimal work on the cemetery because we had no equipment and it need heavy duty stuff.  We did get chiggers.  I had already learned about chiggers from the first trip.  Now everyone else could have the experience.   We took all the precautions of insect repellent and garlic.  Trust me nothing works.  Those of us flying had to catch the plane right after the Tiphouse so we changed our cloths in a rest room on our way to Knoxville.  As we put the dirty cloths in a bag and put them in our suit case Leila my sister made the comment as to what would happen to all the chiggers on the cloths in the luggage compartment that wasn’t pressurized, would they explode?  That made everyone at the station laugh and we realized everyone there had been listening.  I think we had entertained quite a few people on that trip.  We had fun. 

We needed to go again.  We had copied pages from books, censuses, and court records.  We pieced together information that we hadn’t even guessed.  We knew that Willis Webb had fought in the Civil War for the North.  He is in the Tiphouse with his wife Margret Ann Stewart.  His head stone had been broken off, now it was just gone.   (Later we replace it).  We find out that when he entered the army his two brothers and three of their sons joined with him.  Willis left his seventeen year old son home and they thought it may be safer to take theirs.  It was a hard time for the young men as well as the old.  Here is a story told by my grandmother about Willis’s wife Margret, and you will see what I mean. 4  

Siddie said she lived with her Grandmother  Margret Ann Stewart Webb at night after her husband  Willis Webb  died in 1890 he was born in 1819.  Grannie (Siddie)  said that  After they were married Margret and Willis moved to a farm a short distance from Mill Creek, Morgan Co.. Tenn. the house was built on a hill that dropped off straight down for fifty feet on three sides, called” Buzzard Cliffs” She lived there until her first five children were Born, they were Samuel born 1 Sept. 1842, Harm born 15 March 1846, James born 15 Nov. 1847, Nancy Webb born 9 May 1849, and Martin born 24 February 1852.

Around 1853 Willis and Margret moved to Glenmary ,Tennessee to the old home place.   Just after they moved there Willis bought Margret her first pair of “store bougten shoes” she ever had, she had always worn shoe that were home made. She could make shoes as well as weave cloth and make clothes. Willis worked on the farm growing what they needed and selling what he grew for what little money they had. With growing their own meat and vegetables and her making the cloth for clothes they lived.   It was a hard working life.   Not much time for reading or relaxing.   On the 22 Aug.. 1855 Hiram died, he was just nine years old, Willis and Margret put him in a wagon and took him back to be buried in the Nydeck Cemetery in Rugby Tenn. Which by today’s travel is only about 7 miles but in those days by wagon trail, I’m sure was a lot farther.  One time Willis brought home a tomato for Margret, she tasted it and thought it was awful and threw it out the window, the next spring she had tomatoes growing ever where. She soon grew to like them very much. 4 

When the Civil War started Willis joined the Union army.  Company B 2nd Tennessee Infantry. 5 The next 5 years were the hardest years of her life.  They lived on the border line of the war between the states, one time in the hands of the rebels and the next in the hands of the Yanks. When Willis left for the war he had their home nearly finished except for the windows and doors, the neighbor’s helped her put them in. Margret like her mother was the only one around who had any medical knowledge of that time and place. She was the herb doctor, and was call on to help the sick and deliver babies, Samuel was 18 at that time, he was at the age when if either side saw him they would force him into the army, there were several of the boys that age in the area, so during that time her and her neighbor’s sons were hid out in a cave above her house.   At night when her other children were asleep, she would slip out and get on the old white work horse and ride through the woods to take food to the boys.  She had to be careful and not run into any soldiers both rebel or Union for they were always raiding the farmers for feed, clothes, cows, or horses. The rebels were worse. Some of the rebels were good but most of them were bad.

When any of the army were in the area she would hang her red pettycoat on the line to show the boys there was danger around. When it was safe she would hang her white table cloth on the line. When the white table cloth was on the line the boys would come in and she would feed them a good hot meal. She had to keep her horse hidden to keep the army from taking it. One experience she had was with a neighbor named Redman. He was to old for the army and he was told that the Rebel’s killed all the men who were to old for them to use in the army. So when he hear that the rebels were coming, Redman and his wife hid out in the caves. When the rebels came to their home and found them gone, they told a Negro slave that if they were not back by morning they would burn their home and barn down.  The slave did not know what to do, so he came to Margret for help.  She went and got her old white horse where she had it hid under a cliff  and went to find them. As there were several caves in the area it took her a while, she found them and got them home just before the sun came up. The rebels let him live and never burned their home down, they told him, he had come back so they let him go.

In return for the help she had given them, they helped her kill her pigs and clean them.  Before she could kill and cure her meat, she had to have salt.   As there was a shortage of everything during the war and travel was dangerous, there was none available in town.   She had to get on her horse and with her baby in her arms travel over a hundred miles through the hills, hiding out from the army of both sides, to get to Somerset Tennessee to the salt.  She carried a bushel of salt home on her horse with her small baby.  After the meat was cured she would scrape the salt off the meat and use it for cooking, for salt was a precious thing and a very necessary one.

While alone during the war her children came down with the dipthirera. Her daughter Nancy died (on the 16 Sept... 1862,)  Nancy was 14 years old at that time. She got her ready to bury and the morning of the 18th she got up early to put her in the wagon to take her to Nydeck Cemetery at Rugby, Tenn..   Her son Samuel then 18 years old was standing at the door watching the sunrise, he turn to his mother and said, “Come see the beautiful sunrise,”  then he told her that would be the last sunrise he would ever see.   She put her daughter in the wagon and went to Nydeck, it was an all day trip. When she got back home Samuel was dead.   He died 18 Sept.. 1862, two months later on the 14 Nov. 1862 her son James died, he was only 15.   The road to the cemetery at Nydeck was a road of heart ache and sorrow. She did not even know if her husband was still alive or not.

By this time she had eleven children born to her, Martha born in 1853, then John Franklin born 26 Sept.. 1854, next was Mary in 1856, then William David made his appearance 22 march 1858, then Adline came along 26 Sept... 1860, Emiline came along about the time Willis left for the army in 1961.   Her 12th child Annie was born 28 March 1864 in Glenmary Scott Co.. Tenn...   By 1866 their first six children had died.   Franklin was born in 1866, then Amanda on 6th of January 1868, and Tabitha (Tilda) born 30 Oct. 1871, then came the baby and the 16 child Elizabeth Jane on 13 Mar 1876. Margret gave birth to Sixteen children in all.  

We found records of the civil war that one of the boys taken with Willis and his brothers died in the first battle and another died in the Andersonvile prison.  What a tragedy for those families.  Two of the three older men were wounded.

This story had always made me sad and I wondered if the children had proper headstones as no one had ever figured out where the Nydeck cemetery was.  My sisters and cousins and I have made four trips back to Tennessee so far, each time we took Lela (our mother) and her sister Vivian (cousin Linda’s mother) with us.  The third trip we finally found the Nydeck cemetery.   We didn’t do it the easy way either.  We were in Rugby, had asked directions, no one knew, (we had already found that no one in that part of Tennessee knew where anything was).   Mom wasn’t taking any chances.  We had passed a cemetery and she was wanting us to turn around and go back.  She is like the grand duchess.  Giving orders and expecting immediate action.   I was riding with Linda in a blue rented something.   Aaron, my 18 year old son had come along this time to take care of the grannies.   He was doing a very good job so the Grannies had him driving the white Grand AM.  My sister Terry was his co- pilot and the Grannies were in the back seat.  We had walkie talkies so with the order to go back Linda pulled into a long driveway and Aaron pulled up behind us.  Then he pulled out into the road to turn around.  As he was out into the other lane and was backing up a woman in a red car hit into the front bumper of the White Grand AM.  It scared us all.  Our 83 and 81 year old mothers were in that car.  The woman driving the red car was an idiot.  She had just bumped the car and moved it about five inches and no one was hurt.  She was smoking a cigarette and when we went over to her car the cigarette still had over an inch of ash hanging on to the end of it just to show how light the accident was.  The girl was shaking so bad I couldn’t figure how the ash had stayed on through the accident and now her shaking.   Her mother who was a passenger in the red car thought she was having a heart attack.  There was a nice older lady that came down from the house at the end of the driveway so we had her call for an ambulance for us.  There were log trucks hauling down the road and so Leila got into the White Grand AM and pulled it off the road.   The ambulance came and took the older woman.  When the Tennessee trooper came he was mad at us for moving the car.  He talked to the woman in the red car first then came over to talk to Aaron.  We were all feeling a bit defensive for Aaron.  Terry was feeling she should have been able to prevent it because she was the co-pilot.  Grandma was feeling she just wasn’t going to let the trouper bully her grandson.  Leila felt responsible for moving the car and wasn’t going to let him blame Aaron, and I was Aaron’s mom and just felt like defending him.  We were all standing there trying to tell him our side when he said in a rather loud voice.  “I don’t mean to be rude but I just want to talk to this young man alone!”  He then took Aaron over to his car and they talked for the longest time.  When they came back they acted like old friends.  It started to rain hard.  The woman in the red car wanted her car towed so the trouper called for one.  We couldn’t figure out why it didn’t look like there was much damage.  The tow truck driver was nice and fixed our bumper so we could drive our car.  The woman’s father came and wanted to know why she was towing the car.  After the trooper told them that they had to pay for the tow even if they didn’t have it towed they had it towed so the insurance would pay for it.   After we had every thing settled I tried to pay the tow driver and he wouldn’t let me.  Grandma gave him a hug and found out they were distantly related.  The trooper wanted to know what we were doing there and when I said we were looking for the Nydeck cemetery he said “Why are you doing that I know right where it is.”   He took us to the turn off and turned on his blue and red lights as a farewell and drove off into the sunset..  We drove right into the Carpenter Cemetery earlier known as the Nydeck Cemetery.  Celia and I walked right to the graves that were sticking out of the ground and there was the graves that we were looking for.  They were the children of Margaret Ann Stewart Webb some died during the Civil war while Willis  was away fighting the war.  Some died from other tragic reasons.    I was so emotional by now I couldn’t stay standing and my knees buckled and that’s where I sat for a long time.  

         It is one of the most beautiful places on earth.    It was only seven miles down the Nydeck road to Glenmary where Margaret Ann and Willis Webb and Cidia and Clemmons Bunn are buried in the Tiphouse cemetery.  We went on to there and fixed some of the markers that had been lost. 

The next time we went we were prepared.  There was eleven women with a mission.  That mission was to clean the Tiphouse cemetery and put the new headstone on Willis Webbs grave.   We hired a young man with a landscaping business to bring his equipment and he brought another friend.  When they saw that it was only women to help they almost left.  We worked them good.  This part of Tennessee has been having a problem with ticks.  There were so many ticks the evening before we were to clean the place that as you drove down the dirt track into the cemetery they were falling off the trees by the dozens and sliding down the windshield.  We almost didn’t get out that evening but we braved it then went  back to the old house we had rented and showered.  The next morning it was my turn to say the prayer.  I was extra fervent about the ticks not troubling us and the heat not hurting anyone.  As we got to the cemetery a light rain started to fall and that must have made the ticks stick to the foliage better because they were no longer falling on us.  The two young men told us they had been there a few days before and the ticks were so bad they didn’t even get out of the truck.  They said that they were surprised that they were better to day.  Someone told them that I had prayed them away and they shouted Amen!  It kept raining lightly off and on and kept us just cool enough.  A thunder cloud started to approach the hill we were on with lightning and thunder and we wondered what we were going to do.  The two young men got in their truck and we worried that we were in danger and should do the same.  They got out and told us not to worry they had prayed the storm away.  Amen! It went around us without bothering us.  We started wondering where the edge of the graves were in the woods so I got on my hands and knees and crawled under the brush and trees to find the end.  It was much bigger than any of us expected.  When we were getting close to the finish Linda had taken the two old ladies to Oliver Springs to get the headstone and they came back.  They were so surprised and Linda started to cry.  It was truly amazing.  I wanted to put a picture of the finished product in at this point but I couldn’t find the book they are in.

There side by side in that cemetery is Willis Webb and Margret Ann Stewart and Clemmons Bunn and Cydia Powell.  Willis fought in the Civil War and Clemmons and Cydia had three sons fight in the war.  Two for the north and one for the South.  We had been told the story from the time we were young that Clemmons had a farm in Tennessee that a big battle was fought on.  They were told to leave so they did.  All day and night they could hear the battle raging then when it was over they went back.  The yard and fields were covered with dead soldiers.  It was said that you could walk across the field on soldiers with out ever running out.  Clemmons was so concerned that he looked through all the dead to see if any of his sons were there.  They weren’t but he was so sickened by the experience that they left and went to Kentucky and never came back.  My uncle Kenny had a certificate for $500 dollars, damage done to the farm that had never been cashed in and he gave it to a lawyer to see if it was still worth anything in the 1950.  The lawyer never gave it back and said that it was worthless. 

While we were there we decided to see if we could find the farm.  It was close to Oliver springs.  We are fairly sure we did.  The local historian showed us where he thought it was.  His name was Sunny Harvey.  He took us out and showed us where the people who left the valley for the fight went and told us how they fed some of the soldiers during the night.  We felt sure that we had found the spot.  

We have learned so much about the history of North Carolina and Tennessee.  I sometimes get carried away with my passion for the subject.  One of my sisters has liver cancer.  Her wish is that we can go back one more time.  I pray with all my heart she will be able to go again.  It is hard to get every one scheduled that wants to go.  Most can’t go until August and I hope we can wait that long.       

Granny' Washing recipe from Dorene Willis

Washing clo thes Recipe......... 

Never thought of a "warsher" in this light before..what a blessing!

"Warshing Clothes Recipe" -- imagine having a recipe for this ! ! !

Years ago an Tennessee grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe: this is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook - with spelling errors and all.    

WARSHING CLOTHES    Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert. Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water.  

Sort things, make 3 piles  

1 pile white,  

1 pile colored,  

1 pile work britches and rags.  

To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.  

Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colored don't boil just wrench and starch.  

Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch.    Hang old rags on fence.  

Spread tea towels on grass.  

Pore wrench water in flower bed. Scrub porch with hot soapy water.  

Turn tubs upside down.  

Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs.. Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.  

================================================  

Paste this over your washer and dryer. Next time when you think things are bleak, read it again, kiss that washing machine and dryer, and give thanks.. 

For you non-southerners - wrench means, rinse ;)  

RAYMOND LARKIN SMITH

Have fun with this!

RAYMOND LARKIN SMITH
A simple life story written by his oldest granddaughter
Terrilynn Morris Johannessen

    Raymond Larkin Smith was born in a tent at Fort McKinsey on the 23rd of July 1915, in Sheridon, Wyoming.  Born to Andrew Jackson Smith and Siddie Margret Bunn.  He was the second oldest of eight brothers and sisters.  His family lived in many places throughout California and Utah.  Granddad grew up during the Great Depression and during this time went to many trade schools, learned electronics and many other things.
     During the Depression the family lived at a bad time, like most people, trying to feed their families. Granddad left home during this time so his mom and dad didn’t have to worry about feeding him.  With his friend, Carlos Lang, they went hoboeing, traveling from coast to coast.  Taking any job they could find, they were gone for one year riding freight trains, hoboeing, and asking for meals.  Granddad did tell his dad where they were going, of course.
One certain summer, Granddad age 21, his older brother Kenneth at age 23, and Lynn Asay at age 17 (Larkin’s future brother-in-law) traveled by train like hobos.  Traveling from Washington State to California where they worked all summer, picking fruit to doing any odd job that they could find.  They first traveled to Washington and had a job picking apples then returned home after earning about $150, which they gave to their family.
They bought an old Model A Ford and drove it to Utah until it broke down.  Granddad being handy said he could fix it.  It turned out that the bearings were worn flat. Looking for something to fix the bearings, Granddad suggested they use Lynn’s leather boot loop.  They put the boot loop in place and it drove fine until they got home, then they sold it.
    Taking Granddad Smith’s old truck with only .35 cents between them, they set off to find work.  Kenneth showed them what they would need to bring to go ‘bummin’.  They made small bedrolls with heavy canvas, some food, some utensils and one extra set of clothing.  They wanted to hop the freight, so they sent some guy home with their truck, who didn’t know how to drive.  Lynn said that the poor guy drove all the way back to St. George in 2nd gear.  Having very little money between them, Granddad told his brother Kenneth that he couldn’t have his ‘Bull Durham’s’ (cigarettes) because they just couldn’t afford them.  Kenneth agreed to stop smoking.
    In Moapa there were 100 men to every 1 job; which was how it was all over the country at the time.  What they would do is just bum for a while hoping that by waiting, most of the men would leave and sometimes they could pick up a job.
    While in Idaho a man was looking for 3 men to bail and stack hay, they just happened to be there and were hired.  Lynn’s shoes were pretty worn out by then and the hay was cutting his feet through the holes in his shoes.  The boss noticed blood all over the hay, so he told Lynn that he would go into town and buy him some shoes.  In the meantime he put his wallet in his shoe to keep it from getting worse.
    Next they went fruit picking in Oregon, then to Yakima.   Lark’s Aunt Bertha (last name of Prisbrey? or Brisbee?, and cousin Scott Prisbrey) lived there and she helped them get a job in an apple orchard “pickin’” apples.  They could get .03 cents to each bushel they picked.  They would compete with each other to see who could get the most bushels by the end of the day.  Lynn had won by surprise, being a scrawny 130 lbs. at the time.  Kenneth and Larkin were pretty big men, Granddad being the largest, and Kenneth being the strongest from using a jackhammer on previous jobs.  Both weighed a little over 200 lbs.  That was pretty big being that they were half starved that summer.  They then moved on to a plum orchard and worked.
    Wherever they went they would camp out in the woods.  For food they would have to steal fruits and vegetables from people’s yards or sneak fruit while picking on the job and hurry to eat it so the boss wouldn’t catch them.  At one time they were camping out and it was dark and Kenneth had found a chicken coop.   Kenneth grabbed a chicken, when the farmer came out after him with a shotgun.  He ran off with one chicken.  The trick was to grab the chickens by the neck to keep them from squawking.  They found a 5-gallon can, while one of them plucked and cleaned it. Granddad had found some carrots and peas. They cooked up 5 gallons of stew, and were able to live off of that for days.  At one time they noticed bees around them and decided they wanted some honey.  Kenneth and Lynn had worked with bees before, so they followed the bees to find their hives.  Waiting until night they went to take slats out to get the honey and didn’t realize that all the bees were sleeping inside.  Granddad was first and with his hand he took a big slab of honey with bees all over it.  The bees swarmed all over him as he ran as fast as he could through an alfalfa field swiping and hitting the bees off into the field as he went.  Kenneth put his hand in next, after Granddad, and took off running, straight into the bees that Granddad had just swatted off.  Lynn said he looked like he was running like a bat out of hell.  Lynn could see him running and screaming and thrashing around trying to fight off the bees, until he ran and jumped into a nearby river. Lynn and Granddad were laughing so hard.
    Later that night, they set up a campfire; it was a dark night.  They melted the honey down and poured it into three old whiskey bottles they had found.  Lynn said it looked so golden and pretty in those bottles.  Then a rather large man came up to them and told them he wanted one of those bottles, thinking it was actual whiskey.  They tried to tell him it was honey, but he was too drunk to listen or to understand.  He just wanted the bottle of whiskey, so he went after Kenneth.  Kenneth ‘clocked’ him hard and the guy fell over into some barbed wire fencing that was on the ground.  He was so drunk that he started to thrash around trying to pull it off of him, all the while getting caught and cut up more and more.  He thought that it was some wild grass that he was trying to pull off.  Kenneth was not someone to pick a fight with.  He was a big and strong man, used to doing hard jobs.  There were other hoboes out there that they shared their honey and chicken with.  They took off, running pretty fast, putting the bottles into their hip pockets.  There were many thugs and bums, so they always had to be careful with whom they talked to.  Lynn said most were in the same desperate situation, looking for work, the kind of men not to be trusted or keep company with.
    Lynn started to get a bad toothache.  He would pour honey and anything on it to try to get it to stop aching.  But nothing was happening.  Kenneth said that he would have to kill the nerve and that would stop the aching, but the tooth could still rot.  Lynn had agreed.   Kenneth had him lie down, while he put the tip of his knife blade into the middle of the tooth and hit the butt of the knife with a rock. He hit hard enough that Lynn felt the tooth crack.  Lynn said it hurt so badly when it cracked.  But it stopped hurting.  He didn’t have any more problems with it, it was taken out three years later.
     The peach orchards were the hardest jobs they had, because they would be out in the heat all day and get peach fuzz all over their bodies and inside their clothing.  They would itch so badly that they couldn’t wait to dive into the Snake River at the end of the day.  They only had one extra pair of pants to wear and would have to wash everything out and hang them to dry for the next workday.
    One time Kenneth had stolen a whole crate of cantaloupes, which weighed close to 100 lbs.  All three of them were hopping a freight train.  (Sometimes there would be crates of fruit or vegetables along side the tracks unloaded from the trains).  Kenneth spotted a crate full of cantaloupes by the tracks.  While he was hanging from a ladder on the train, he reached down and grabbed the crate with his right hand and heaved it up to the top of the train.  Just then Kenneth sees a ‘Bull’ (police hired railroad men to scare and pull bums and hobos off the trains) with a gun coming after him, running on the ground.   Kenneth takes off running on top of the train in the opposite direction, while Granddad grabs the cantaloupes and starts running opposite of Kenneth, by then the train was going too fast for the ‘Bull’ to catch them.  Lynn said that only Kenneth could heave a crate that heavy.
    After this they worked on a temple (I wasn’t able to find out which temple).
    Uncle Lynn said that they learned everything in their hobo days.  That was about 65 years ago.  Granddad and Lynn loved to talk of the old days and reminisce.  They sat and laughed while telling stories anytime they got together.  He said that it was one of the hardest things they did, because of being out there never knowing if you would have anything to eat each day.  Lynn said he never felt so hungry and starved in his whole life, during those days.
Granddad and Kenneth traveled by train down to San Diego looking for more work.  Shortly after arriving in San Diego, they were both arrested for vagrancy; for being caught sleeping in an old broken down car.  They laughed about that because there were lots of old trashed and abandoned cars there.  What did it matter if they slept in a car that no one owned?  After that experience they went home to give their mom all that they had earned for the family.  They were gone for about six months.
    Great-Granddad Smith and his Uncle Isaac taught Granddad how to play the banjo, it is said that they played the banjo beautifully.  I have heard Granddad play on his banjo, and the accordion; I remember the days that us grandkids would sit and listen to him play.  He learned to play the accordion from his father-in-law, Jerome Asay Jr.  His dad and he used to play for the Church dances; during this time, they danced the Virginia reel and the polka and many ‘old time’ dances.
    Ella Geneveive Asay was born in Clawson, Utah on 25th of March 1922 to Jerome Asay and Mary Louise Jensen.  She was the second oldest of four brothers and sisters.  At the age of twelve her family moved to St. George.  Grandma went to Dixie College for one year and took many courses in art; which became her biggest talent out of many.  She also took courses in Artesia, California.
    St. George was where she met Raymond Larkin.  Both their fathers and brothers worked in the coalmines near that area.  Grandma says at that time her family was living in one of Brigham Young’s old houses.  The walls were so thick that the kids were hardly ever heard.  Grandma would cough, but no one could hear her.  She was diagnosed with tuberculosis.  Because of the tuberculosis, she developed bad asthma.  Someone was needed to care for Grandma to recover; so Granny Smith (Larkin’s mother) would come and take care of her at the house.  Granny Smith would talk to her all day about her family and her son Larkin.  Grandma told me that she fell in love with Granddad Larkin before she even met him.   But Geneveive thought nothing could come of it because Larkin was 7 years older than her.
    They did finally get together and dated through part of the depression, they would go on dates taking a cup of sugar and some cocoa to a friends house to make hot chocolate or go roast marshmallows at a neighbor’s house.
    At one time Grandma decided to break things off with Granddad.  She thought he was wasting his time because she was too young for him.  One year later, Grandma had a dream that Granddad had gotten married to some other girl.  She panicked and thought that she had missed out on a wonderful man.  So Grandma told Granddad’s sister that she was still in love with him.  Granddad’s sister would later tell him what Grandma had said.  Granddad proposed through a letter from California, and Grandma accepted.  They finally decided to get married, Grandma was only 19 years old and Grandpa was 26.  They were married June 28th , 1941 in the St. George Temple.
    They bought their first house for $75 in Bellflower, California.  World War II had started and Granddad was called to go but received a deferment because he was needed to work in the defense plant at that time.  And also that he had three brothers and one sister serving in the war.  Grandma always worried that they were going to take her husband away to the war and leave her behind and alone with all their babies, but it never happened because of the deferment.
    During the war Granddad slept on the beach near Los Angeles, the Santa Monica area, living off bananas.  Bananas that would fall off the delivery trucks.  For two weeks he did this until he was able to get a job.  Then he sent for his cousin and brother and helped them get jobs.  By the time he got his first paycheck he had helped 18 other men find jobs and places to live.  Granddad worked as an electrician and would tell employers that these men had worked for him as electricians and needed jobs also (which they really had little or no experience as electricians).  After the war he helped 36 people build their own houses, by wiring their homes and laying the cement work with his old cement mixer.  He also helped do cement sidewalks for the Church.  He did all this for free; this is the kind of man that Granddad was, always giving and serving others.  The family moved to Henderson, near Las Vegas, Nevada.  Granddad and Grandma felt that the youth had higher standards than in Utah.  Granddad was inactive up until then because he always held jobs that required 16 hours a day work, everyday, because of the Depression and WWII.
    They both have had many church positions; Granddad received an award for ‘Man of the Year’ in the youth program, the Honorary Master MN award.  They both served a mission in San Diego in 1982 at the Mormon Battalion Visitor’s Center.  Grandma was embarrassed many times because Granddad loved to tell everyone that the last time he was in San Diego he was arrested for vagrancy.
    Marlan Walker, a friend of theirs (who was at one time their bishop and their stake president), traveled to Mexico with Grandma and Granddad.  They stayed in a brand new fancy hotel.  Apparently the owners had no idea how to turn on or work the air conditioner, so Granddad offered to take a look and turned it on for them.  During that same trip a bus full of people had broken down, so Granddad went out and fixed it.  Marlan Walker thought highly of Granddad for being so giving.
    Granddad and Grandma served their calling each Sunday, and had Sunday services at the convalescents home for the elderly.  And both held a calling in the Church Library for 13 years.  And for several years they worked in the Las Vegas Temple.
    Grandpa served in the Bishopric.  He served in his ward as a High Priest and attended to about 15 widows.  He would go and help them with anything and everything they needed.  They had an old refrigerator in back of the house full of old motors.  Grandpa would take some of those motors and get them working again.  He would use them to fix the widow’s washers, dryers, and appliances.  He would repair their fences, rewire their houses, and fix burners even though at the time Grandma had two burners that didn’t work.  Grandma later found out that Granddad even helped clip one widow’s toenails.
Many families of those widows came by to help carry off all the junk in their back yard that Granddad had acquired for nearly 20 years.  It took 5 large truckloads and a dumpster to haul it all off.  They did this to thank Brother Smith for all he had done for the widows in the ward.
    Granddad and Grandma can boast of their great posterity from eight children and a foster daughter who were all sealed in the temple.  They now have 60 grandchildren and about 120+ great-grandchildren.

Leila Jones Obray at 67 Remembers Tony

At the age of 67 I asked my self what do I remember about Tony. 

When we lived in colorado Tony was born on August 7 1961. At the end of a long hot summer.

For twenty nine years I knew where he was and who had him.  I guess you could say we were a pair like my hands and my feet. I never knew what his next adventure would be.  In so many ways he was very smart.  And in others he was very child like.  Tony would have been a high functioning Downs Syndrome child if he would have had better health.  He was not an angel and he was not a devil.  He was just a child and people loved him and he loved every one.  When he was 9 after long battles with the school board Tony was able to go to school in Gunnison.  Mary McIntosh was his bus driver and care taker.  She drove him and all the other handicap children from the valley to school then stayed all day as the teachers aid then drove them all back home again.  It took 45 minutes going and 45 minutes coming back. This she did for five years.  She was their buddy.  Then Connie Thalman took over.  the families of the handicap did fun things together.  One time we went to SLC to the Ice capadies. There was a bunch of us and we went on the bus.  Grandma Jones and we took Cindy as a baby with Christa a little older.  The thing Tony and I liked the best was the music.  There was a special number and it was "Send in the Clowns" that seemed so fitting for us.  We watched a beautiful girl glide across the ice in a gown fit for an angel.  Her graceful moves with the music made memories for us forever.  We did several trips like this and each one made memories for us all. 

Mother would accompany me most of the times.  We had some special experiences. Isn't it amazing that we can have a mother and a grandmother that can continue to give us support even beyond our and their years on this earth.

One time we were returning from the circus in the Salt Palice .  We were all on a buss with the normal kids from the school.  So there were the Special Needs Kids mixed with the normal kids from the school in Gunnison with the parents.  We were all on the buss headed home and some of the students started singing funny little songs.  It was just so crazy.  then it got to be just tony and and Brenda a special girl from Salina.  They started singing this same song over and over.  They sang in such an off key monotone and we could not get them to stop.  I would get "Tony to stop then Brenda would keep all the others singing then when Brenda's mom could get Brenda to stop Tony would start in over again.  this went on all the way home until Brenda got off in "Salina.  Everyone was holding their heads.  What made it so funny was Their broken language and flat sounds were sung with all the joy like they were the "Tabernacle Choir".

Thanks Mom,
 Love Leila

Welcome descendants of Andrew and Siddie Smith

Some of the cousins got together for a "family history conference" in St George and we were inspired there and one of the classes we attended taught several of us how to blog so we are attempting a blog.  We have high hopes that this blog will allow us to collect family stories. (we all know that we have the best stories)  We had Aunt Genevie, Danny Morris, Danny's daughter Terrilynn Johannessen, Lorri Bradshaw, Celia Monroe, Terry Monroe, Linda Foy, Twila Owens, Peggy Broadway, Carol Dopp, and Doris Moore. When the cousins got together in the evenings the laughter and stories were the best. After the first night Peggy got the idea to record the evening.  She bought a recorder at Staples and Saturday night asked everyone if it was ok to turn it on. No one cared, so now she has a recording of a delightful evening.  She is going to transcribe the recording so it can be shared with everyone that wasn't able to be there. 

We are still trying to figure out the blog and the details of how this will work so until we have a better plan and if you have a story we can post just write it and email it to cltpsmith@gmail.com

Disclaimer:
This is for stories and to bring us all closer together.  We know that everyone remembers things differently, if the story is different than you may remember it, you tell us the story again the way you remember it. That is what makes it fun.  We want to include everyone so please enjoy the stories and tell us how we can make this the best family blog ever.  We may want to turn it into a book later.  We want to use it as a reunion forum also.

Thanks from the "New Generation Aunties" aka the "Blackfoot Tribe" aka "Baldwin Sisters"