Blog – Page 8

Brigham City Temple Walls

May 27, 2011 by rickety 8 Comments

Brigham City Temple installing an upper panel on the south side

Installing an upper panel on the south side of the temple

On Wednesday we saw a continuation from a week ago of the installation of the exterior panels of the temple. As a tribute to Brigham City and the pioneers, living peach trees will be planted in the grounds. The precast concrete panels have a peach blossom motif that will also be continued for the interior design, etched into the windows, stained glass, and other artwork. You can see the peach blossom motif on the walls in the photographs (click to enlarge).

Brigham City Temple from front of tabernacle

View of the temple construction from the doors of the tabernacle

Brigham City Temple one upper panel from afar

The first upper panel to be installed

The installation of an upper panel on the south side of the temple

The second upper panel being installed

Three upper panels installed

Brigham City History

The Co-op (continued)

Not all Co-op enterprises were in Brigham City. For example, the dairy was established in Collinston, about 20 miles north of Brigham City. Christian Hansen managed the dairy. His wife Elizabeth, who had made cheese in her native Denmark, supervised the dairy’s cheese production. They asked farmers to give the dairy use of their cows in the summertime in return for cheese and butter. Between 300 and 700 cows were left there each summer.

Brigham City’s Pioneer Days celebration in 1875 featured displays from 29 cooperative departments. The Brigham City Co-op became a model for other Mormon settlements to follow.

The Co-op maintained a high level of success until the late 1870s when a series of disasters occurred. Some of the problems were crop failures due to drought and grasshoppers, destruction of the woolen mill by fire and loss of the saw mill to the federal government. In 1878 a federal tax was levied on local currency used for trade, and $10,200 had to be borrowed to pay the assessment.

The combined losses were so great that after 1878 only the mercantile business remained in operation. In 1884 the federal government returned some of the tax money, and the new Brigham City Merchantile and Manufacturing store was built and opened in 1891. It continued to operate until the Co-op closed down in 1895. (From: Brighamcity.utah.gov)

The north side of the temple

Brigham City Temple construction worker on the roof

I wouldn't want to be the construction worker on the roof of the temple

Brigham City Temple parking construction

The parking garage under construction

Brigham City Temple from side of tabernacle

View of the temple construction from the south side of the tabernacle

Photo Credit: Jill Willoughby

Brigham City Utah Temple Walls

May 18, 2011 by rickety 2 Comments

It is exciting to see the walls go up. One can be forgiven for missing the shiny new roof

It has been almost two weeks since we last had photographs of the Brigham City Temple. The news last time was the beginnings of the west spire. But just today the walls of the temple were being attached to the frame. Jill tells me that yesterday they were not in place.

I didn’t know that the walls were prefabricated offsite. Anyway, enjoy the photographs. I expect that the next visit will show an even more startling transformation.

This closeup of the side of the temple shows a prefabricated wall in the foreground

Heavy rain fell all day

The west spire now has as much completed as the east spire

Brigham City History

The Co-op

In 1865, Lorenzo Snow asked all the Brigham City merchants to unite their businesses for the common interest of the community. The purpose was to provide jobs for everyone and to make the people self-sustaining. Most supported the request, and on December 7, 1865, the cooperative enterprise was formed.

Lorenzo Snow, Samuel Smith, William Thomas and Alvin Nichols were the first stockholders. Stock was sold at $5 a share, and produce and labor as well as cash, were accepted. The first business was a mercantile store. When the store had made enough money, the association established its first industry, a tannery.

To comply with the Territorial Incorporation Act of 1870, the cooperative was incorporated December 15, 1870 and became the Brigham City Merchantile and Manufacturing Association, commonly known as the Brigham City Co-op. Almost every resident of the community was involved in some way.

The cooperative grew quickly during the 1870s adding such departments as a woolen factory, planing mill, boot and shoe shop, farms, harness shop, carpentry department, butchery, saw mill, adobe and brick yards, and a dairy. (From: Brighamcity.utah.gov)

I am not sure what the construction in the foreground is all about

Grandson Bryson on the grounds of the Box Elder Tabernacle

Photo Credit: Jill Willoughby

Spiral Jetty

May 15, 2011 by rickety 11 Comments

Spiral Jetty seen from the shore

Last November Paul and I visited Spiral Jetty at Rozel Point. Then the Jetty was several hundred feet away from the waters of the Great Salt Lake. Yesterday Paul revisited Spiral Jetty, accompanied by Megan, with Julie and Dan. They found the Jetty almost submerged. Compare the photographs of the Jetty from November of last year with the ones that are published here.

Daniel standing on the outer spiral of the Jetty

The graph below shows a year of daily readings up until Paul’s visit yesterday. The water level has risen over a foot from the same day last year and nearly three feet from our last visit in November. NGVD 29 is the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 and is a hybrid model closely representing the mean sea level. Note that the equipment malfunctioned near the low readings and appears to have taken at least two weeks to repair.

Readings from 14 May 2010 to 14 May 2011

The historical average level of Great Salt Lake is 4,200 feet. Spiral Jetty is only visible when the level of Great Salt Lake drops below 4,197.8 feet. The maximum elevation of the lake was 4,211.6 feet, seen in 1986 and 1987. The minimum elevation was in 1963 at 4,191.35 feet.

Megan stands at the center of Spiral Jetty

Great Salt Lake is the largest U.S. lake west of the Mississippi River and the 4th largest terminal lake (no outlet) in the world. It is about 75 miles long and 28 miles wide, and covers 1,700 square miles with a maximum depth of about 35 feet. A remnant of Lake Bonneville, a prehistoric freshwater lake that was 10 times larger than Great Salt Lake. It is typically three to five times saltier than the ocean.

Spiral Jetty is almost submerged

Paul reports that the rough trail to Spiral Jetty has been graded and resurfaced and is now a smooth drive. A parking lot has been built near the Jetty. I suspect that those who do not visit the Spiral Jetty soon will have nothing to see for perhaps another three decades.

This may be the last you will see of Spiral Jetty for a time

Credits

Photographs: Courtesy Megan Street and her iPhone
Graph: U.S. Geological Survey
Hat tip to Paul for the idea of a follow up Spiral Jetty post

North Fork Park

May 14, 2011 by rickety 4 Comments

North Fork Park campsite

I believe this is the first time that Jill and I have been camping with all our grown children at the same time. Plus their spouses were with us as well as all three of our grandchildren. We did not go far, just to North Fork Park.

Bryson and Aurora enjoy giant marshmallows

Cassandra

Our children’s spouses are fun to be around. Jill and I are glad that they are a part of our family.

Derek

Rachel

Adelaide

The sunglasses that Adelaide is wearing remind me of the ones Jill wore back in the early 1980s.

For cooking, we had Derek’s smoker, which provided us with some great chicken. Sarah cooked our evening meal using dutch ovens. The campfire was used to roast marshmallows and a homemade cooker, made from a 12 ounce can, carboard, and candle wax, was utilized to cook our bacon and eggs for breakfast.

North Fork Park Derek and smoked chicken

Derek attending to his smoked chicken. Mmm...tasty

Dinner, clockwise from left: Paul, Megan, Jake, Rachel, Dan, Steven, Aurora, Adelaide, Cassandra, Rick

Dan: Marshmallow, anyone?

For entertainment we visited around the campfire, played with grandchildren, and identified the stars using Google Sky. There was also…

moose watching...

music...

Jake making faces at Cassandra...

and smoke avoidance

The moose were just hanging around the campground.

Sleeping was uneventful except for Jake eating too much dinner and bursting his sleeping mat. And lastly, the mandatory group photograph, click for a 4000×3000 version.

We heard a loud bang late last night. It was just Jake and his exploding mat.

Rear: Jake, Paul, Dan, Steve, Derek, Rick. Front: Jill, Aurora, Rachel, Megan, Bryson, Cassandra, Ada, Sarah

Edith Andersen Holst

May 8, 2011 by jill 2 Comments

Edith with her mother and brothers

My guest writer is Jill Willoughby, oldest grandchild of Edith Andersen Holst.

This is the first of three parts of the history of my grandmother, written by her on 21 May 1960. I have included Edith’s handwritten history in this post.

Edith Andersen Holst, born 25 March 1908, died 10 August 1966, age 58.

Edith Andersen Holst

I was born 25 March 1908, in Brigham City, Utah, a second child of Louis and Zina Jensen Andersen. I was raised and lived in Brigham City, Utah all my life.

My first home was in the first ward on 2nd East and 1st South, then we moved to 1st North & Main in a large red brick home. I remember cleaning the long stair case with a nail, brush and rag and taking all day to do it. I attended the Lincoln School for 6 years and it is located on the corner of 1st West and 3rd North. I went to Box Elder Jr. High 2 years and High School three years.

I quit school and went to work at Andy Pathakis Bakery. Spending most of my money on shoes and pretty hats also presents for Ben who was operated on his face and was very sick for a long time. A spider bit him and he had a tube in his cheek for a long time. He was the baby brother.

I also have 4 brothers and one sister who died when she was about 6 years old from typhoid fever. We had the funeral on the front lawn. My older brother is Edwin Lewis Andersen, Glen Lewis, Raymond Lorenzo and Benjamin Rex Andersen, I was the 2nd child and Alice was the fifth.

Some more photographs of Edith, when she was young.

Life History part 1

Life History part 2

To be continued.

The Edith Series

Posts in the series will be added here as they are published.

Till Everything

May 7, 2011 by rickety Leave a Comment

When I am out in the garden I till everything. Today as I was tilling I noticed that the width of my tilling had suddenly extended by another foot and a half, mowing down some flowers that weren’t scheduled for destruction. Until the flowers began to shred, I hadn’t noticed that a tomato cage was mangled in the rotors, sticking out of the side. It took me quite some time to extract what was left of the cage. I need more practice till I can get it right.

At the time there were not any tomatoes in the cage, and now there never will be. Oh well, till next time.

Brigham City Temple West Spire Beginnings

May 5, 2011 by rickety Leave a Comment

With the east spire well under construction, the west spire has its beginnings

Thursday found me in Brigham City for the funeral of Kamdyn Ross Brown. I was a little early so I stopped for a few minutes to take photographs of the construction of the Brigham City Temple. My last post about the Brigham City Temple construction was 15 days ago. Then I focused on the east spire. Today one can see the base of the west spire appearing and also part of the roof of the temple. The temple’s angel Moroni will be placed on the east spire.

Two of the photographs, when clicked, will show the same view, only much closer. Let me know what you think of the larger format of this post over a regular post. While the photographs are larger it can be annoying reading text that is spread so wide.

The base of the west spire takes shape

Brigham City Temple workers atop east spire

Construction workers can be seen at the very top of the east spire

Brigham City History

Colonization (continued)

All the people were poor and worked hard, but they found time for rest and recreation. The young girls made games involving their work, such as competition between neighbors to see who could produce the whitest laundry. They organized spinning clubs where each girl would bring her wheel and yarn and visit while she worked.

The women also mingled work with play as they gathered husks to fill mattresses and held quilting and rag bees where everyone quilted or sewed carpet rags for homemade carpets. These work socials often ended with dancing and singing.

Lars Mortensen frequently invited neighbors and friends to the two largest rooms in his home for dancing. Parents would bring their babies and tuck them away on top of clothes in closets while they danced. Lars Christensen played his fiddle, and refreshments were always home-made rootbeer and molasses cookies. Tickets were bought with a few potatoes, corn or other produce.

When Lorenzo Snow learned that two brothers, Peter and Alexander Baird, had organized a dramatic association in Perry, he asked them to come to Brigham City to play and entertain people. They did this during the winter seasons for many years. (From: Brighamcity.utah.gov)

Brigham City Temple construction seen from the south east corner of the lot

The beginnings of the temple roof is visible between the spires

Brigham City Temple concrete pump truck boom frames east spire

Concrete pump truck boom frames the east spire

Photo Credit: Rick Willoughby

Family Home Evening Treacle Toffee

May 2, 2011 by rickety 1 Comment

One of the main ingredients for Family Home Evening must surely be the treat. On Sunday, I spied an old can of Lyle’s Black Treacle (by appointment to Her Majesty) on the pantry shelf and prised open the lid, which had printed upon it, “BEST BEFORE OCT 2001” and “DISPOSE OF ON EXPIRY.” The contents still looked quite serviceable to me so I searched the web for a treacle toffee recipe.

Melt 4 ounces of butter in a pan and then add 1 pound of dark brown sugar, 4 dessert spoonfuls of treacle, 4 tablespoons of milk, and 2 tablespoons of water. Stir until the sugar dissolves, turn the heat low and boil for 30 minutes. Pour into butter-greased pan and place in refrigerator to harden.

I only had 0.8 pounds of light brown sugar but when you are using treacle 10 years past its expiry, who cares? Another google gave me the insight that a dessert spoon is of a size between a teaspoon and a tablespoon (but closer to a tablespoon). So I merely dug out 4 tablespoons of treacle with an extra scoop to empty the can — after all, it was past its expiry.

The 30 minutes of boiling wasn’t working for me so Megan put a candy thermometer in the pan and we waited until the temperature reached 270 degrees Fahrenheit. That fixed it and I poured most of the gooey mess into a large flat baking dish and saved the rest to fix the leak in the roof.

On Monday, after hardening, I broke the toffee in pieces, ready for family home evening. Paul had some of his tasty cookies as backup, in case I burned the treacle.

100 Years Ago: War On Mormons Is Waged In Britain

May 1, 2011 by rickety Leave a Comment

The following was adapted from the Improvement Era magazine of April 1911

Investigation of Mormon activity

Investigation of “Mormon” activity in England will be made by the House of Commons. On the 6th of March, Secretary Churchill stated that the attention of the government had been attracted to recent allegations that young girls were being induced to emigrate to Utah, and that the matter was causing deep concern. He therefore proposed to investigate the subject exhaustively, with a view to bringing out the exact facts.

Hans P. Freece

President Rudger Clawson, of the European Mission of the Latter-day Saints, welcomes the investigation, as do his co-laborers in that country, for they are confident there can be no other outcome before a fair judicial tribunal than a complete vindication of the actions of the Church. It has nothing to fear from an impartial and honest investigation, for its emigration affairs, as well as its missionary work in Great Britain, have been conducted in a manner that will bear the closest scrutiny. The Church has nothing to lose and everything to gain by the action which the home secretary has recommended.

On the 6th of March a demented man broke the windows and door of the mission house in Liverpool, “for God’s sake,” he said.

War On Mormons

Meanwhile the New York Times was reporting the story thus:

War on Mormons Is Waged In Britain

The crusade against Mormons initiated by the International Reform Bureau at Washington is being actively pursued in Great Britain.

Hans P. Freece, the bureau’s special delegate, has arrived in London after a 10 weeks’ tour in Scotland and the north of England, during which he succeeded in locating about 100 Mormon meeting places and 325 American Mormons engaged in inducing young women to emigrate to Utah. He also collected the signed statements of parents whose daughters had been enticed to America, and is in possession of irrefutable evidence that the Mormon church is in the habit of paying for the transportation of converts from England to Utah in violation of the United States immigration law.

Mr. Freece entertains great hope of succeeding in getting a bill into Parliament prohibiting American Mormon elders from proselytizing in this country—in fact, the same law as that adopted by Prussia and Hungary not long ago.

Although Mr. Freece declared his mission to be unofficial, he said he believed that should such a law, cutting off British-Mormon immigration to America, be passed, the Mormons would lose the control of Utah and a Democratic Representative might be expected to be sent to Congress at the next election.

[Hans P. Freece, an apostate, lectured the people against the dangers of “Mormonism,” and sought to prohibit them from preaching in the United Kingdom. A number of those who attended the lectures expressed themselves as being very much disappointed in them. They expected to hear something new from this man, who claims to have been born in the Church, of polygamous parents, but instead he had only the same false stories that have been retold so many times by others.

The International Reform Bureau was founded in 1895 and was known from 1924 as the International Reform Federation. Today it supports those moral and social reforms on which the churches generally agree, focusing especially on drugs and the spread of legalized gambling.]

Sources

“Passing Events”, Improvement Era, Vol. XIV. April, 1911. No. 6
“War On Mormons Is Waged In Britain“, New York Times, February 5, 1911

Grand Canyon Addendum

April 29, 2011 by rickety Leave a Comment

Family members who have seen this video have requested that I post it. A kind of Grand Canyon addendum to our recent trip. I about fall over laughing every time I watch Jill’s little stumble.

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