Reunionization and Ancestor Quiz

What a great time was at at our 2015 Matheson Family Reunion June 26-28th on Beaver Mountain! Rich and Gaye- your hard work paid off, down to the little details.

Here are some moments captured from our hike:

And by golly, collectively, we are better singers than I expected! A little ode to our great-great-great grandpa, Joel Hills Johnson, who wrote the famed "High on a Mountain Top":

And finally, we now have exclusive access to the answers for the Know Your Ancestors Quiz that Rich and Gaye put together. Guys- READ THIS, and prepare to be astonished by the great blood we have running through our vains.

Name That Matheson Ancestor 2015

1.     Who was the oldest man who labored in the building of the St. George temple?  (Daniel Matheson)

2.     Who owned a dairy farm up Cedar Mountain that they called _______’s_ Palace?  Her first husband died when his horse team ran away on the mountain road.  (Hint:  Sue’s newest grandbaby has her name)  (Amelia Reese Williams Webster)

3.     Who buried her small hard earned treasure under the foundation of the fireplace on the outside of the house and the chickens scratching in the dirt found it and scattered it all over? (Catherine Treasure Matheson)

4.     Who left Panguitch in the dead of winter to go to Parowan to get food for their starving families?  It was so cold the men were forced to lay their quilts on the ground and walk on them so they would not fall through the crusted snow.  He was also lead a team of oxen across the plains and measured the distance. (Alexander Matheson)

5.     Who was grateful for his testimony and the “price he paid” to get it by crossing the plains as a part of the Martin Handcart Company? (Francis Webster)

6.     Who operated a steam engine that was used to pull a plow, power a power plan and run a sawmill?  He drilled most of the original wells in Cedar Valley. (Owen Matheson)

7.     Who was 12 years old when he was apprenticed to learn the iron business?  (John Pidding Jones)

8.     Who delivered over 500 babies in Parowan, Enoch, Cedar City and Enterprise, traveling on horse back or with a team a buggy?  (Helen Miller Davenport)

9.     Who played the fiddle for many a band and played and danced a jig on his 90^th birthday?  (John Lee Jones)

10.  Who led the Enoch choir for 50 years?  He could pick out any tune and whistle it for anyone.  He could pick up any instrument and play it by ear.  His favorite instrument was the violin.  He was also present at the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple. (Myron Simkins Jones)

11.  Her first home when she got married was a reconverted chicken coop.  She had the ability to make it a neat little home.  She was a master at churning thousands of pound of milk into “Gold Nugget” butter.  (Mary Elizina Davenport Jones)

12.  Who was called “That Freckled Faced Jones Kid”?  She also cooked delicious pies and knew how to purchase really good quality furniture.  (Verda Jones Matheson)

13.  Who worked at the plaster mill that made the plaster for the Hawaiian Temple?  He also loved to fish and was always there to help our family out in times of need. (O Evans Matheson)

14.  Who had a shotgun named “Old Bess” that was used to defend the Prophet Joseph Smith from a painted mob?  (Ezekiel Johnson)

15.  Who was the mother of 16 children.  She was baptized in the middle of the night to avoid publicity but this made her husband mad.  She has one of the largest posterities in the west and was one of the very early pioneers.  (Julia Hills Johnson)

16.  Who wrote “High On The Mountain Top” and was with the Prophet Joseph Smith with the Word of Wisdom was given?  (Joel Hills Johnson)

17.  Who ran away from her father when he decided to turn around and go back to England.  She and her sister supported themselves by picking up Buffalo chips and selling them to the railroad to be used as fuel. (Margaret Threlkeld Johnson)

18.  Who was a bishop in Tropic for over 18 years?  He was also the County Commissioner and State Legislator.  His father was 80 years old when he was born.  (John H Johnson)

19.  Who left Sweden to live in a dugout on the side of a hill?  Later, he helped build a beautiful temple on that hill.  He was the caretaker at the Manti temple?  He had several magnificent experiences.  One time he went to check on an open window and opened the door to one of the sealing rooms.  He saw a personage clothed in white robes, surrounded by a brilliant light that filled the entire room.  (Jons Peter Ahlstrom)

20.  Who was on a ship that was in such a storm that the luggage, which was tied to the posts broke loose and was hurled about, putting everyone in danger?  While in the middle of the ocean, a fire broke out on the first deck and burned through the second deck.  A few nights later they collided with another ship and broke a hole in their ship.  (Mary Larson Ahlstrom)

21.  Who helped build the railroad and was present when it was completed and the Golden Spike was driven in?  He was born in Switzerland and was on the same ship as his future wife.  He admired her from a far all the way to America.  He again met her when his ox team volunteered to help a young woman who was walking with a handcart and her feet were bruised and bleeding.  (Christian Schnieder)

22.  Who lost 5 babies to diphtheria while her husband was away on a mission? (Susanna Klossner Schnieder)

23.  Who stowed away on a ship at the age of 14, ate nothing but turnips for 6 days while he was hiding in the hold of the ship?  (Edward McCarthy)

24.  Who was a nurse on the Canadian Prairie, saved many lives and delivered hundreds of babies?  (Bertha Schnieder McCarthy)

25.  Who tipped their car upside down in a muddy ditch on her wedding day and made thousands of gorgeous wedding cakes?  (Alice McCarthy Johnson)

26.  Who left Tropic, Utah to go on a mission to Saskatchewan, Canada.  There he met his wife to be?  (Bernard A Johnson)

27.  Who taught us how to work hard and to pray even harder and could whistle so loudly and shrilly that our knees would tremble in fear?  (Gaylen J Matheson)

28.  Who is the queen of our family?  She says she was “born under the dump and paid for with a bucket of coal” but her worth is far greater than any diamonds or jewels.  (Alice Gay Matheson)

Joel H. Johnson: Bitter-Sweet Independence

I was looking for some patriotic poetry to share from Joel H. Johnson's archives of poems and music. I found what I was looking for, but instead of getting a taste of patriotic sentiments I was hoping for, these poems convey his bitter feelings of injustice that he clearly was experiencing from the US government at the time. I got these two poems from Joel H's handwritten journal:

 On attending the celebration of the 4th of July and hearing much about Liberty when there is none, Crescent City [1857]

Oh! Could our Fathers speak again
They'd cry "though we for freedom bled
Its shadows now our sons retain
While all its substance long has fled

Behold the righteous many years
By mobs and rulers slain for naught
While wandering long in blood and tears
And now again their lives are sought

Where is the Liberty? Oh! Where
For which we boldly fought and bled
Before high heaven we now declare
That from the earth it long has fled"

Uncle Sam [12 Feb 1858]

Ah! Since our Fathers all are gone
Who Founded this great Nation
The power of equal rights has flown
With just administration

 While the majority believes
In mobs and freely use them
Like him who for a dove receives
A viper in his bosom

One Hour All to Myself

Today I (Melissa) have been reading through some more of the stories in our family binder. This one really stood out to me, and helped me rethink my priorities and realize how stupidly selfish I am with my time. A simple and beautiful little gem of a story from Grandma’s life full of selfless giving and listening to that “still small voice.”

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"One Hour All to Myself" 

By: Alice Gay Matheson

It was a typical Cedar City January day, gray and overcast, with a light snow drifting down, not enough to stick to the ground but enough to make the day dull and gray.

I had errands to do and needed the car, and as we had only one car I had to go to work with Gaylen, bring the car home, do my errands, then return to the school where he worked in time to pick him up. I do not remember what I needed to do so urgently that day but I do remember the need to have the car.

Gaylen had a herd of cows to milk, feed, and take care of before he left, so he would get up at 2:30 or 3:00 am so he could be finished with all the chores and then et ready, have some breakfast and be to work  by 8:00am. He would work 8 hours then come home and repeat the process, so he would not get in the house to eat and rest until after 9:00pm. That was on a good day- on bad days anything could go wrong and cause him delays, so it was very important that if I took the car, I would not be late to pick him up.

It was 2:00pm in the afternoon, I had finished all my errands, I had cleaned my house, started supper, when I looked at the clock and realized that I had a whole hour before the kids would be home from school, and before I had to leave to get Gaylen from work.

It is hard to describe the feeling of having a whole hour all to myself- it is like having something very precious just for me. I debated with myself what I would do, and decided that to sit at the kitchen table with a good light, and read the daily newspaper, without any interruptions, would be a gift to myself. I got the paper from the paper box, and made myself comfortable, making sure the light was just right, the paper all spread out, then I started to read the headlines.

Being the mother of 9 children, I was used to all kinds of small voices asking me to do something, telling me something, demanding something, but at this time I was home alone, when a still, small voice said to me “You better go now.” I answered the voice without thinking and said “No, I don’t have to go now, I have a whole hour before I have to go” and I went on reading the newspaper. The voice said to me again, “Look outside, you better go now!” I lifted my head and glanced outside, the weather had changed, there was a regular whiteout blizzard going on, the wind had picked up, and the snow was falling in big white flakes, and with the combination of wind and snow, it was impossible to see anything. I quietly said to myself, “Yes, I better go now.”

I wrote a quick note to the children, telling them I had gone to get Dad from work, grabbed my purse, and left the house. I very carefully drove East to the Minersville Road, drove to the top of Minersville Road, which then makes a sharp turn, and goes past a Texaco Service Station and on to Cedar City Main Street. As I was approaching the Texaco Service Station, thru the storm, very clearly I could see a man leaving the station and coming toward me. He was a big, tall man, had a knit hat pulled over his head almost covering his eyes, along scarf wrapped around his neck and over his chin. He had on a long winter overcoat, heavy gloves, and rubber boots, and under his right arm he was carrying a big truck tire.

My eyes took in all this while the storm was raging on around me, and I was barely creeping along, when the same still, small voice said to me, “You know that man, he is your neighbor, help him.” I did not know that man, I was a woman, alone in a car, in a blizzard and I did not know him and I was scared. The voice said to me again “You know him, he is your neighbor, help him.” At the same time hands were placed over mine gently steering the car to the side of the road, where it came to a complete stop. I slowly reached over the passenger seat and lowered the window a few inches, and meekly said to him, “Can I help you?”

My back door flew open and the huge truck tire was thrown in on the seat, the front passenger door flew open and he climbed in beside me. I asked where he had to go, and he directed me to take the old highway out away from town. As I turned the car around, and started down old highway 91, he told me his story.

He was a young farmer from Paragonah, and seeing the brewing storm he decided to go to Cedar City to the Intermountain Farmers feed store. In wanting to get as much feed as he could in his truck, he had taken out the spare tire and left it home. Then he decided to bring his young 3 year old son along with him for company. Getting half way to Cedar City his truck had blown a front tire. He had no spare tire with him, so he had jacked up the truck, taken off the tire, locked the baby into the truck, put out his flares, and with fear for his son in his heart, hitched a ride to the nearest service station.

As he talked I could hear and feel the tension and fear in him, solely for his little son whom he had to lock in the cab of the truck because it would be impossible to carry the little boy with him in the blizzard. Also he was worried about leaving the truck jacked up on the freeway in the storm. It would be so easy for a motorist to crash into the back of the truck and kill or injure the baby. Also he worried about the terror the little boy would be feeling by being left alone in the snow storm.

About 7 miles back on the old highway 91, he suddenly said, “There it is.” Looking up the embankment, I could barely see the outline of the truck through the mist. I brought the car to a stop and he jumped out, grabbed the tire from the back seat, and started running up the freeway embankment.

I watched him as he threw the tire over the freeway fence, then jumped over the fence himself. I sat in a trance and watched until he had reached the truck and I knew that the baby was okay. Then it seemed as if the presence that had been with me all the time, keeping me calm and unafraid, left me.

All of a sudden I realized I was sitting in a parked car, on the old highway, in a snowstorm, and that I was late getting to town to pick up my husband. I knew he would be very upset, so I turned the car around and drove back to Cedar City as fast as I could. I also knew that the voice that had spoken to me was the Holy Spirit guiding me so I would be in the right place to get the young farmer back to his son. I was glad I had obeyed the promptings of the Spirit and left my home when I did.

I had just pulled into the parking lot of the school my husband worked for when he came out the door. As he approached the car he apologized to me, and said he was sorry for keeping me waiting, as an emergency had come up and he couldn’t leave sooner.

I know the Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, or still small voice, loves us and guides us. That he is looking out for us and trying to help us if we will only listen. I know it was the Holy Ghost loving, and caring, and looking out for that little boy and his father, that was urging me to leave the comfort of my home, to give up  my precious hour, to go out in that storm. I often think, maybe I was the only one who had an hour to give, at the critical time.

I know our Heavenly Father loves us.

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Ow, ow, grandma!