Yesterday, October 11, 2009, descendants of John Hamilton and Helen Melvina Groesbeck Morgan gathered in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. They included 2 granddaughters, 2 great grandsons, 4 great granddaughters, and one great great great granddaughter. We had a perfect autumn afternoon to become acquainted and renew with one another. We visited the grave sites of John Morgan and his loved ones, paying tribute to them and reviewing their histories. Thank you Cousin Karen M. for your beautiful pictures and recollections, two hours sped by.The Prophet Joseph Smith’s contemplations of his own father from last Sunday’s Teachings of Presidents of the Church, Joseph Smith, “Family: Sweetest Union for Time and for Eternity,” Lesson 42, pgs. 484-5 are applicable.
“I love my father and his memory; and the memory of his noble deeds
rests with ponderous weight upon my mind, and many of his kind and parental
words to me are written on the tablet of my heart.
“Sacred to me are the thoughts which I cherish of
the history of his life, that have rolled through my mind, and have been
implanted there by my own observation, since I was born. Sacred to me is his
dust, and the spot where he is laid. Sacred to me is the tomb I have made to
encircle o’er his head. Let the memory of my father eternally live.
…”
We visited the grave sites of John Hamilton Morgan, Helen Melvina Groesbeck Morgan, and children John, Elizabeth, Flora, Ruth, and Eliza; Mary Ann Linton Morgan and son Harold, his wife Jessie, and additional family members; Annie Smith Morgan, and children Annie Ray Morgan Heislet, Joseph Smith Morgan and their spouses. We visited Groesbeck grave sites; Nicholas and Elizabeth Thompson, and more children and descendants than I can number.
Grave sites of Nicholas G. Morgan Sr. and his wife Ethel brought to mind gratitude for their inclination to gather, preserve, and share John Morgan’s journal, papers, pictures, etc., and their descendants' inclination to do the same.
I took this picture in 2008.
I failed to mention Marie "Polly" Bovee Groesbeck. Her marker is in the bottom right corner. She is Nicholas Groesbeck's mother, and traveled to the Salt Lake Valley with him and his family in 1856. Look for a biography of her in the very near future.
ReplyDeleteIt was a wonderful day. Thank you for blogging about it.
ReplyDeleteI actually had time to catch my breath this morning and catch up on your blog. I love the Frazier entries and how they all helped each other. I was impressed they cut a 3rd crop. Is the Nick mentioned Nick Churnis?
ReplyDeleteNick Churnis? I just wouldn't know. It sounds like a name I could have heard in the Frazier kitchen. Can't find the name in "The First 100 Year's in Woodruff" book. Are their Churnis descendants up your way? You pick out the most interesting points, Nancy, thank you for your comments. "Cut a 3rd crop!" I think they worked everything they could out of that land.
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