We don't do normal: Matheson Thanksgiving 2014

I mean, we all know that, but I thought it made an appropriate title, both considering the Thanksgiving details I highlight below, and what we learned about our ancestors, who possessed some abnormally high levels of gumption. 

Who would have believed it possible to have an outdoor Thanksgiving dinner in Enoch, Utah? That’s right folks, global warming did us good this year (I’m putting in a politically sensitive topic so people will comment with their disputes haha).

We had a mid-honeymoon visit from the our Italian lovebirds, Matthew Christiansen and his new wife Heather- she jumped right in to our shenanigans!

While most people nap and watch football as the tryptophan from the turkey sets in post-Thanksgiving dinner, what did we do? Help Matthew Matheson with his cool Eagle Scout Project of restoring an old Enoch historical sign that was originally installed by Grandpa’s scout troop decades ago (and we have the picture to prove it)! Here we are:

Our fearless leader, Matthew, directing traffic. Rich is realizing he should have been a dentist as he went to town on that sign with... pretty sure it was a tooth drill.

Many hands at work.

Gaylen and Amy did a fun Thanksgiving Quiz, which included some really cool unknown facts about our fambam going back in time. So we thought we’d share some of these on here. Some highlights:

The making of the Matheson dairy:

•       Before Enoch was called Enoch, it was called both “Elk Horn Springs” and “Fort Johnson.” There were 6 Native American boys who were friends of the original settlers, named Squint, Curly Jim, Merricats, Captain Pete, Tomat, and Comanche.
•       Grandpa’s father, Owen Evan Matheson “homesteaded” the square mile of land that Grandma and Grandpa Matheson’s and Gaylen and Amy’s homes are on in 1910. According to the source of all truth (Wikipedia), historical homesteading is defined as:

“Historically, homesteading has been used by governmental entities (engaged in national expansion) to help populate and make habitable what were previously little-desired areas; … in order to drive the populating of specific, national areas; with most being discontinued after a set time-frame or goal were achieved.”

• The Matheson dairy was started in 1952, and our Grandpa Gaylen settled the spot of land in October of 1964.

     Grandma Gay Matheson's birth: she was said to have been born "under the dump for a bucket of coal." "Under the dump" denotes where they were living, Tropic, Uth, which was known as being the place where commuters would dump their trash. The midwife was literally paid a bucket of coal. We like to say that with all of the heat and pressure of her life, she's turned diamonds!
    
     Great-grandma Alice Johnson had some pretty great sayings she would commonly use (I think mostly to whiney children): 

•       "Oh my finger, oh my thumb, oh my belly, oh my bum!"
•       "As a rule a man's a fool, when its hot he want it cool. And when its cool, he wants it hot. He always wants what it is not."
• 
  

     Joel Hills Johnson (Grandpa’s great-grandfather): we are pretty familiar with the fact that he wrote “High on the Mountain Top” in the LDS hymnbook, and let people know it! But, come to find out, his goal was to write over 1,000 songs, and in his lifetime he exceeded that, writing around 1,200 songs and poems.

   

     And I saved the best for last! Again, another doosy story that I can’t believe I didn’t know before! So Grandpa’s Great-grandfather, Alexander Matheson, and his family were one of several families called to move from their home in Parowan, over the mountain to Panguitch, Utah in 1863. They planted crops, but the growing season was abnormally short and they had an early winter with deep snow. They were quickly running out of supplies, but travel in the deep snow was nearly impossible. However, Alexander and 9 other men set out to save their families from starvation. The snow was waist-high, so moving was incredibly slow and difficult. They soon abandoned their oxcart and set out on foot. At one point, they laid a quilt out on the snow, and all knelt to pray for help. Upon finishing the prayer, they mused how kneeling on top of the quilt kept them from sinking into the snow. An idea struck them, and they used their two quilts to lay a path for themselves by stepping on one, then moving the quilt from the back to the front, stepping on it, and so on. They did this for the entire journey to Parowan, and again to return carrying the supplies by hand.

Alexander is quoted as saying:

"We decided that if we had faith as big as a mustard seed, we could make it and bring flour to our starving families.  So we began the quilt-laying in prayerful earnestness.  The return trip was harder with the weight of the flour, but we finally made it to our wagon and oxen and on home with thankfulness to the Lord for his goodness.  The whole settlement welcomed us,  because we had been gone longer expected.  There had been prayers, tears, and fears which turned to rejoicing and cheers."

THIS is our legacy! Some pretty good blood running through these veins, folks. Let's make em proud.

Christian Schneider... a true Aggie

As far as I know, I'm the first Utah State Aggie in my family line. Or am I? I wanted to find the answer to this question last semester, so I did some research. I finally discovered that my first ancestor to live in Logan was Christian Schneider, the father of Bertha Schneider (check out Melissa's post on her if you haven't already). Christian Schneider was an Aggie, not in the sense that I am as a USU student, but he was the real deal Aggie in that he was part of a Mormon movement from Salt Lake to the Cache Valley to do agriculture in the late 1800s . After getting married in 1870, he moved to Cache Valley where he purchased 180 acres of land. His home was on 500 N, which is also where I'm living right now. I wonder if I am sitting on what once was his property. Here's some interesting facts about him:

• He was a yodeler. But he didn't yodel to entertain, he yodeled to herd his goats!
• He first met his future wife, Susanna Klassner, in a Latter-day Saint congregation in Switzerland, and somehow he managed to follow her across the ocean on a ship and across the American plains to Utah. But Susanna never gave him the time of day until he let her ride with him on his oxcart as her feet were healing from intense blistering. After settling in Salt Lake for a couple years, they got married.
• Since he practiced polygamy, he had to go into hiding for two years in order to dodge federal agents on the hunt for him. Apparently Bertha and some of the other kids were successful in driving away one of the agents. Check this out from Bertha's diary:

We children didn't like to have papa have to hide from mama. We dislike the Federal agent. He rode around in a high topped buggy behind a span of fancy horses and the sight of him brought terror to mama's eyes and because of him papa couldn't come home and mama needed him. Her health was poor. We organized a group of children to heckle him and whenever he appeared, we shouted, "C.C. Goodwin will do as well, for to find a place in hell." This bothered the gentleman and he dodged we children as our fathers dodged him.
 When papa heard of what we were doing he looked sad and told us we should "condemn no one to hell." We should love our enemies and do good to those that despitefully used us. We obeyed papa and shouted instead, "C.C. Goodwin will do well for to find his place in Wupp."

 Sometimes I feel like I'm so secluded up here in the Cache Valley. But there's something awesome about knowing that I had an ancestor come here before me. So many things have changed since he lived here. Last week I rode my bike down the road to see if there were any remains of his house, but it's now a laundromat. But it's crazy to think that as I look at the 130 year old Logan Temple, erected by the saints in his time, that in many ways, not much has changed.

A picture I took on my way home from class

A family that runs together... gits er dun together: Super Archer 5k

Yesterday a big chunk of the Matheson clan came together to run in support of Archer Wagstaff, our little 2-year-old superhero who is currently fighting cancer. Decked in all sorts of capes and superhero paraphernalia, we all made it 5 whole kms on that brisk fall morning.  We are so glad to know that things are looking up for him (see here), and look forward to more such news.

When I talked to Sharon at the end of the event- all decked out in her cape- she related that a few weeks back, after an incredibly rough week with Archer's medical ups and downs, she came on to the blog here and read about her dad, Gaylen Matheson, in his life history that we posted. She said that she felt a huge sense of peace that he really was fighting for Archer on the other side, and she said that peace has stuck with her ever since. Let us all internalize that power we have to believe in and draw upon as Sharon has done, particularly in times of trouble and decision. That of our progenitors, who with or without our knowing it, are constantly working for our success and deliverance.

Both on this side of the veil, and the other, we are all in this for Archer!

Bertha's Sprinklings

Hopefully most of us know a bit about our great-great-grandmother Bertha Schneider, mother of great-grandma Alice Johnson. We will post her full story another time. But in short, she was a midwife in the prairies of Alberta, Canada, and was known as the “Angel of the Prairie” for both her skill and compassion in delivering hundreds of babies in those harsh conditions.

On a phone call with Grandma Matheson a couple of weeks ago, she began relating a story of Bertha that I had never heard before. Upon looking into it, I don’t think this is yet documented anywhere. And it is SUCH a cool story. Hold on to your seats, folks. Here goes: 

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In her profession of midwifery, one situation that did not sit well with Bertha, was the situation that occurred when stillborn babies were born to Catholic families. Since the babies were never baptized, the belief was that they were then damned souls and were not even allowed to be buried on the church grounds, but outside the church’s gates. Therefore, in addition to mourning the loss of their perfect little baby, they also carried the grief that the child was forever in a miserable state.

Bertha was a faithful latter-day saint woman, and believed that infants and children were blameless before God, and that baptism was therefore unnecessary for such. However, the pain of these Catholic families was so real. So, she approached a local Catholic leader, and *somehow * was granted the ability to baptize infants. Further, when a baby was stillborn, she would get a pot of extremely hot water and another of extremely cold water, and then would dunk the lifeless body back and forth until some slight flicker of a vital sign was shown—and baptize the baby on the spot. Though the baby wouldn’t live, the family then had the comfort of feeling that their baby was safe in the hands of God, and were able to give the child a proper burial on the church grounds.

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This story is such a beautiful indication of the compassion, tenacity, and grit of our dear grandma Bertha.