Jens Gunderson & wife Bertha Marie Petersen Home ~ Researched by Tudy Barentsen Standlee

Ina Seely Morgan Celebrates 100 Years

Left to Right:  Louise Johansen, Esther Rasmussen Christensen, Ina Seely Morgan and Alice Peel Hafen

Ten years ago a Birthday Party was held for Ina Seely Morgan when the above picture was taken.

Last Saturday another Birthday for Ina was held as she reached 100 years.  What a wonderful and delightful lady she is.  She and these women were friends for their entire lives.  Now, Esther, Louise and Alice have all passed away.

Approximately 1922 at Hamilton Elementary

More on Ina below:

99-year-old woman has been to all 79 of the Ute Stampede Rodeos

Wilford Hafen and Carrie Nielson Get Married

Mt. Pleasant Pyramid ~ July 25, 2013 ~ A Genuine Legacy of Love

Dear Editor,

A Genuine Legacy of  Love

In 1859 a little band of Mormon  pioneers decided to settle here on the  banks of what is now known as “Pleasant Creek”.   Some of these pioneers had left their homes in Europe, some from back East.  Most had no hopes of seeing their families that they had left behind ever again.  They came to a barren wasteland full of sage brush and cedar trees.  And then, local Indians turned against them and the Black Hawk War was fought. 

 In 1909 the city council of Mt. Pleasant and other appreciative descendants decided to put up a monument to honor these original pioneers.  That monument stands in front of our Carnegie Library.  

After the success of this monument building, this same committee decided to take it a bit further and form an Mt. Pleasant Pioneer Historical Association.  They went through all the procedures necessary and then they encouraged the citizens of Mt. Pleasant to bring in photos, histories, genealogies, artifacts,   etc. to honor the pioneers even more.  They stored these items in the basement of the Carnegie Library and another storage facility on West Main Street.  In 1946 the William S. Seely home was purchased to house these relics and other memorial items in hopes that all future generations could view them and be appreciative of what the pioneers had done to make Mt. Pleasant City the pleasant place it is today. 

 It is very appropriate to house the items  in the  Seely home because William S. Seely was the first mayor and bishop of Mt. Pleasant. The Mt. Pleasant Pioneer Historical Association still exists today.

Not everyone is appreciative of this history.  Some have said that the next generation won’t “give a hoot” about the early pioneers or our founding fathers.  I sincerely hope they are wrong.    But many good citizens don’t take what they have today for granted.  They know it came by sacrifice, faith and love.

I want to tell you of another “Legacy of Love” that has happened in Mt. Pleasant.  I recently went through the logbook to count how many hours of volunteer work has been donated by more than fifty volunteers. 

 This volunteer work includes both work-related projects as well as hosting at the Relic Home. We were told to keep a log of these hours by the Utah Museum Association because they can be counted as “in-kind” donations for many government grants.   In volunteer hours there are over 10,000  in the past five years. That is a modest estimate because many hours were not logged.  In the number of visitors, the numbers keep rising as more people become aware of the many family history type material we house there.   The working-blacksmith shop attracts even more and serves several communities with live demonstrations educating young people as well as old.

 To bring this into the present focus let me tell you of a family from Texas. They spent three days in Mt. Pleasant, staying at a local bed and breakfast   They ate their meals at local restaurants, they shopped here, bought mementos and enjoyed their time here.  Their purpose was to do family history work. They wanted to walk where their ancestors had walked.  They wanted to get a feeling as to how it was to live here in Mt. Pleasant 150 years ago. The volunteers at the Relic Home were able to supply them with all the needed information as well as take them around town to show them where their ancestors lived, where their businesses were located, and out to the cemetery to find their ancestors’ graves.  This example is just one of the many that have been rewarding to both visitors as well as the volunteers.

As was stated in the July 3^rd newspaper, the Relic Home is in much need of repair.  The Relic Home and Blacksmith Shop  qualified for  Mormon Pioneer National Heritage funds  more than any other entity in Mt. Pleasant.  We let Bob Bennett, the author of the MPNHA bill, as well as local administrators aware of our needs    We did this from the very beginning when these funds were first available and even before.      U.S. Senator Bob Bennett’s bill passed and the MPNHA was awarded $10,000,000.00 in annual installments of $1,000,000.00 with a local citizen as Executive Director.

  When my husband asked the Executive Director why we haven’t been included, he said: “Oh, I forgot”.  

The $5000.00 offered to us last week was to be divided between the Relic Home and the Depot south of town.  The $5000.00 amount is only a pittance of what has been spent on other so-called historical projects here in town.     Millions of dollars have been spent on projects that really have no “Mormon- Pioneer” focus 

The Executive Director of the MPNHA has received many awards for his historical buildings preservation work.  However, he has totally forgotten the Mt. Pleasant Pioneer Historical Association’s objectives and needs. He has forgotten what the statue in front of the library represents. I hope Mt Pleasant citizens and administrators who believe this Executive Director is such a wonderful asset to our community, remember the people who really have performed a “Legacy of Love”;  that is our pioneer forefathers who had the real struggle in making our community livable and a great place to live.  I hope Mt. Pleasant citizens and administrators will remember the Black Hawk War soldiers who lost their lives, lost limbs, left widows and children to fare for themselves all because of their faith and their courage.  

There was good reason for the Pioneer Board turning down the monies offered.  Details may come out in the future, but the entire board resolved to not make it a political matter at this time because of our 501c3 status that we have struggled so hard to get.  I am not siding with anyone.  I am on the side of those people who have gone before us and lived their lives so that You and I, as well as future generations, can have a pleasant community in which to live.  I hope and pray that future generations can feel a sense of gratitude by walking where their ancestors walked, and get a feeling of how it was even more than 150 ago. 
   

 The following quote comes from Steve Berry author and founder of History Matters an organization dedicated to aiding the preservation of heritage:

“History comes alive when someone is able to not only read about the past but also able to visit the places, see the artifacts, appreciate the images, read the actual words. For most people, history starts with learning about their family or their community. Imagine trying to discover your genealogy without anything tangible to search. Preservation of our heritage is a vital link to cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, and economic legacies — all of the things that quite literally make us who we are. History plays a vital role in our everyday lives. We learn from our past in order to achieve greater influence over our future. History serves as a model of who to be and who not to be — of what to champion and what to avoid. Every day, decision-making around the world is based on what came before us.”

Yes, History matters to me and my family.  Does it matter to you and yours?

I sincerely hope so,

Kathy Hafen

Silk Worm Industry,School of the Prophets, Electric Lights and Hogs in the Cemetery ~ as remembered by Arla May Stansfield

Abram Jarald Burton and wife Carole Augusta Jones Home ~ Researched by Tudy Barentsen Standlee

Old Rail Road Poster

Happy 24th of July

William Levi Shelley ~ taken from History of Mountainville compiled by Melba Shelley Hill

Helena Christensen Shelley ~ From Mountainville History compiled by Melba Shelley Hill

A Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Joseph A Bagnall ~ Joseph A. Bagnall Considers Her One of His Most Inspirational Figures

Hilda and Friends ~ From the Johanna Madsen Hafen Collection

Hilda Madsen Longsdorf is the author of  "Mount Pleasant History".  She served as the Secretary of the Mount Pleasant Historical Association for over 40 years.   She had many friends and loved to entertain.  These photos come from her own photograph album which was passed down to Johannah Madsen Hafen then to JoAnn Hafen Granger, who has donated them to the Mt. Pleasant Historical Association.  If you recognize anyone within  and would like a larger copy, please let us know, and we will be happy to recopy them in a greater resolution for you.  

Hilda and Friends and Parrot

Photos are perhaps from a play.

Tournament of Roses New Years Day Post Card

Alice P. Hafen Carrot Cake

3/4 Cup Oil - 1/4 Cup pineapple juice

2 Cups of sugar

3 eggs

2 Cups shredded carrots

2 tsp. vanilla

1 small can of crushed pineapple juice (drained 1 cup)

1 tsp. cinammon

1 Cup choppd nuts

1 Cup raisins or dates

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. soda

3 Cups of flour

Beat oil, sugar and eggs, add carrots, pineapple.

Sift dry ingredients and add to first mixture

Add vanilla, nuts, raisins

Bake in 9x13 pan that has been greased and floured

Bake at 350 degrees  for 45 minutes

Carrot Cake Icing

4 ounces of cream cheese (room temperature)

1 square of margarine or butter

2 Cups of confectionary sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 to 2 tbs. of milk

Mix til smooth and spread on cooled cake

Roaring 20s Advertising

Lee R. Christensen

 Two Photos.  Trying to help King Felix win one>?  I’m sitting one seat left of the left field foul pole (yellow   line ).  My high hard   one is not what it once was but the flutter ball still fools them.   lee

http://mlb.si.com/2013/06/21/king-felix-and-teammates-pay-classy-tribute-to-yocum/

Photo Submitted by Lee R. Christensen

KATHY; Until a year or two before WW2 the National Guard Officers wore this uniform. Both Univ of Utah and Utah State had ROTC programs and their grads would wear this uniform. I do not recognize this officer but two who were in the Guard, there were others, that I do remember were Ray Tanner and Harold Frandsen but would not recognize them.



The building bricks look like the Library>? lee

Can You Identify These Ladies? From the Johanna Madsen Hafen Collection

Wedding Reception Invitations

James Monsen History ~ Advent of Mowers, Hay hauling ~ One Trip a Day

Denmark Crest ~~~ From the Johanna Madsen Hafen Collection

The Building of a Temple .....Courtesy of Mt. Pleasant Pyramid July 9, 1981

TWO WARS-TWO TROOPSHIPS-TWO SINKINGS ~ Submitted by Lee R. Christensen

Lee R. Christensen has shared both Hamilton School Photos, Military photos as well as allowed us to post quips and memories from his book, "You Knew Me As Buddy".

TWO WARS-TWO TROOPSHIPS-TWO SINKINGS

World War One SS Tuscania

When the United States declared war on Germany in April of 1917, my father, L R Christensen, was herding sheep for his father, J W Christensen. When the Draft Act passed a few weeks later he became a prime candidate, age 27 and single, to be drafted. He started looking for a military unit he could join that would take him overseas. At some point, he heard about an engineer unit recruiting experienced mill and forestry workers to cut and mill rafters and planking for the trenches. He had worked for his father at his mill up Fairview Canyon and this experience qualified him for the 20th Engineers (Forestry). He reported to American University, Washington D C, December 1917 where the unit was mobilizing. The unit did not spend much time on military matters; they were, after all, going to do in the military what they had been doing as civilians. They sailed for France on the 24th of January, 1918 on the SS Tuscania. Their troopship was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland, early evening 5thof February. This disaster is covered in detail on the internet. Go to:

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~carmita/

To read my fathers’ biography on this website: click on “Archives”, click on “24 January Passenger list”, click on “20 Engineers Co F”, scroll down to Utah and click on “Private Lee R Christensen”

Private Lee R Christensen December, 1917

(center, with receding hair line)

World War Two His Majesty’s Troopship Rohna

Just as in WW 1, it was the passage of a Draft Act that got my father back into the active military. He had been a member of Mt Pleasant’s National Guard unit, Btry D 222nd FA Reg since it was reorganized following WW 1. The Draft Act of August 1940, some 15 months before Pearl Harbor, called for the drafting of men 21 – 35 and the mobilization of all National Guard units. Mt Pleasant’s Btry D with the rest of the 40th Div Utah/California National Guard was called up 3 March 1941 and reported to Camp San Luis Obispo early April just as carpenters drove the last nail completing their mess hall.

A renewal of the Draft Act of 1940, passed in August of 1941, gave the military permission to send draftees and National Guardsmen overseas. The ink on this new Act was barely dry when the 2nd Bn of the 222nd FA Reg that included Btry D was alerted for assignment to the Philippine Islands to sail from San Francisco 10 December. In preparing for this overseas post a number of the older officers considered too old for a combat unit were transferred. My father was one of them.

After Pearl Harbor, and following a number of assignments that included Ex officer of the MP Bn at the Japanese Relocation Center, Santa Anita, he was assigned to train and take overseas a stevedoring Bn (men that load and unload boats). They trained spring and summer of 1943 on the Seattle docks and sailed for Oran, Algeria late September. After a short stay in Oran where the war had moved on, they sailed for India with sections of the Bn on a number of different troopships. My father and his staff were aboard the Egra directly behind the Rohna with a clear but nervous view of the sinking. Like the SS Tuscania in WW 1, this troopship disaster is covered in detail on the Internet. Here are links for more information on the sinking of the HMT Rohna.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMT_Rohna



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glide_bomb

KATHY:  I have now heard from the American Battle Monuments Commission.  There are thirteen Utah  men MIA from the sinking of the troopship Rohna, none from Sanpete County.  lee

  Eleven of the thirteen MIAs from Utah who went down with the troopship Rohna belonged to the 853 Engineer Bn, Aviation.  They were headed to India to build landing fields for our flyers flying the Hump to China.  Newel Nelson, Hamilton grade school class of ’34, flew the Hump.  lee 

Rasmus Anderson and wife Annie Brotherson Home ~ Researched by Tudy Barentsen Standlee

This Day In History ~ Cloudburst

Ferdinand Erickson and his first wife, Clementina Morrison and baby Beatrice

Neils Rolph Home ~ Researched by Tudy Standlee

Duty ~ A Poem by Ellis Reynolds Shipp

To those of you who may not know the story of Ellis Reynolds Shipp, she came across the plains as a child with her father and mother. Their first home was in Pleasant Grove, where her mother passed away, her father remarried. They later moved to Mt. Pleasant. Everyone who knew her knew she had a great gift. She learned fast, remembered everything. She was obviously very intelligent. When Brigham Young came to Mt. Pleasant for a conference, he asked to meet with this young girl. After visiting with her a short while, he invited her to live in the Lion House with his family where she could get the best education possible here in the Utah Territory. She prayed about it and worried some about leaving her father. Her father encouraged her to go to Salt Lake and take advantage of Brigham Young's offer. She was tutored with the children of Brigham Young. One of her tutors was Karl Maeser. She later married Milford Shipp and ultimately gave birth to ten children. Four of those children died in infancy. Milford had entered into polygamy and married four more wives. Brigham Young announced that women would be sent east for training as doctors so that they could return to Utah and serve as physicians. Ellis left her children with her sister wives and went to Philadelphia to study medicine. After three years, she returned home and set up her medical practice in Salt Lake. During her career she delivered more than 5,000 babies. She also served on the Relief Society General Board. Amongst everything else she accomplished in her life, she wrote a book of poetry entitled "Life Lines".  

DUTY

Oft we ask ourselves the question

What list for us to do?

What in life the best vocation----

Best for woman to pursue?

Shall we be the dolls of Fashion?

Loved and flattered for a while,

Simply live for passing passion,

Sycophantic smile;

Shall we live for vain ambition?

Live to gain life's wealth and power?

Feast on words of adulation,

on the friendship of an hour?

Shall we live for public duty?

To reform low and vile?

Shall we stake our all on beauty,

Or to add to Mammon's pile?

Shall we live for home's fair altar?

Ne'er to pass beyond it's shrine?

Shall we put our hearts in halter

of mere Fashion all the time?

To these queries, what's the answer?

Duty at the time is all!

Let our thoughts and feelings center

On our Duty !  That's the Call !

Know it, love it, act it bravely,

Wheresoever o'er the path it may lead,

For 'twill bring so perfect pleasure,

And at last the richest meed.

Past Fourth of July Celebrations in Mt. Pleasant, Utah

 Hazel (Jensen) Anderson dressed for 4th of July in Mt Pleasant circa 1904.

 We always looked forward to getting ready for the big Fourth of July parade.  Mama always made a really nice dress out of embroidered material for each of us girls every summer.  We got new white long stockings and nearly always a pair of black patent leather slippers.  All the kids in the neighborhood had aboout the same type of clothes.  The night before the Fourth of July, about eight or ten of the girls around the block slept together on the Lund's upstairs porch.  It was really awe inspiring to watch the heavens, and once in a while the stars fell and left a streak of light across the sky.  We listened to the sounds of the night that were so eerie, but we eventually fell asleep. 


The next thing we knew the cannons in the hills were shooting off with a boom that fairly shook the earth around us.  Then we listened for the sound of music; the town band got in a hayrack or some other vehicle that could carry them and rode through town playing.  It was wonderful, so exciting; soon they came past the house, and we went home to get ready for the big parade and the rest of the Fourth of July festivities.  All the kids planned how much money we would ask for to spend on the big day.  One day stands out in my mind as a really special day because we asked for and received ~twenty-five cents to spend!  We decided to spend a nickel in the morning at the parade and then in the afternoon go up to the drugstore and have a BANANA SPLIT, which cost $.15.  Then we still had another nickel to spend at night when we saw the fireworks shot off on the corner below the big schoolhouse where a monument stood.  It was a thrill to watch the fireworks, especially when we were sure the sparks hadn't caused a fire anywhere in town.






THE FOURTH OF JULY SHOW Elizabeth Jacobsen Story Cheyenne, Wyoming 
Even now I become emotional and fearful when I remember the 4th of July show in 1920 when I was a child growing up in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. It was the glorious 4th of July celebration and I was five years old. This year I had been chosen along with many other South Ward Primary children to put on costumes and ride on a horse-drawn wagon in the 4th of July parade this early morning. My mother had dressed me in an authentic costume for the occasion. I was wearing long socks, high-buttoned shoes and an off-white coat with a bertha collar trimmed with fine lace. The bonnet I wore on my head was a lovely blue bonnet which was trimmed with blue ribbon bows. It tied under my chin with two steamers of blue ribbon. All the costumes and children were adorable. We were an excited group of young children really having a great time. Then it happened. There seemed to come out of nowhere some riders on horse-back who looked exactly like wild Indians with feather headdresses and all. They rode close by the wagon and were whooping and hollering like Indians. Then one of them came close to our wagon and grabbed me about the waist and dragged me from my place on the wagon onto his horse, and we rode off.

I was screaming and kicking and struggling with all my might and all the time remembering tales of Indian massacres and torture that I had been told. I was absolutely terrified. When eventually the Indian imposter let me down into the arms of a strong bystander and I was asked my name and who my parents were, I could not speak a word. I was hysterical. When somehow my father found me in the crowd and I felt safe again, I could the speak, but only softly at first. Today at present

I have found in an old photo album with pictures taken by Kodak in the 1920’s a small picture of the two men dressed as Indians and myself dressed as the little Pioneer Girl. I do not look too happy in the photo about the whole thing, but a thought now occurs to me as I recall this day. Yes, I had really been the star actress this day. I had played the role of a frightened little five-year-old Pioneer girl as if it were for real, and even though I had been an unwilling actress in the drams, I had played my part very well without any rehearsals. It must have been the best performance of my life on any stage or in all the other parades I’ve been in since. I had played my role with feeling. I, along with the other actors, had pleased the watching crowd in this ‘The Fourth of July Show.’

Reverend Martinus Nelson for the Women's Home Missionary Society ~ Researched by Tudy Barentsen Standlee

THE MT. PLEASANT STORY ~ United States Department of Agriculture ~ A study done in 1850