Holding Hands

 Naomi is growing bigger and stronger. I love to see her and hold her. I know that too soon she will be running around and teasing her brother.

Naomi Arrives

 We are delighted to announce the arrival of Naomi. Katie and Tyler are always tight-lipped with name choices so we were surprised by the announcement. When Katie was an infant we would go visit Paul's Aunt Naomi (1914-2000) in West Point, Utah. She was an incredible genealogist so had books and books of her research. When she was a young woman she served in the Northwestern States Mission. 

Another Thursday baby! Paul stood outside the hospital room, waiting for crying.

What a beauty! She's even sleeping through Church.

Here's Naomi Willard (r) with her sister Emily.

One Last Grave

 We drove down to Salt Lake so Jackson could visit with Grandma and Grandpa now that he has returned from his mission and he has recovered his English ability.

On the way out of town, we drove east to Clarkston, Utah to visit the last of the Three Witnesses, the only one to come West. It is a darling town, but I can't imagine how cold it is in the winter.

A Little Assistant

 With all the remodeling going on, we need all the help we can get. Replacing a hot water tank, reworking the deck, and rebuilding stairs. It's all too much. So we enlisted Jim's help.

Teaching Quilting

 It's so fun to teach quilting to your friends. I volunteered to start a group that would meet at the church and make blocks. Katie and Jim came joined us today so we had two sets of 3 generations. That's how fun quilting is!

Trip to Nauvoo Day 7

 We parked near the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge and walked around downtown. The Missouri River divides Nebraska from Iowa and has riverfront parks surrounding the area. We found a veteran's memorial, a Lewis & Clark Trail Exhibit, and a load of sculptures.

The Sculpture Parks stretch across six blocks of downtown Omaha near the bank’s soaring headquarters, the state’s tallest building. Beginning at 14th Street and Capitol Avenue, more than 100 bronzed pieces reflect the city’s history as a gateway to the West. Four pioneer families set off in covered wagons hitched to oxen, horses and mules at Pioneer Courage Park. Five 8-foot-tall bison stampede down 15th Street.

Finally, we wandered over to Hyde Park. Hyde Park was a small farming community founded in 1847. It was named for Orson Hyde, an Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who took up residence here when he returned that spring from a mission in England.

In a meeting of Apostles held at Hyde’s home on 5 Dec 1847, the Quorum voted to call Brigham Young as President of the Church. Brigham Young had directed Church affairs after the death of Joseph Smith in 1844. The Quorum also ratified Brother Brigham’s choice of Apostles Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards to be his counselors in the First Presidency. But Brigham Young insisted that the general membership have the opportunity to vote.

They decided to build a large log tabernacle in Kanesville (now Council Bluffs) immediately. Just three weeks later, the new First Presidency was sustained by a conference of the general membership held in the new tabernacle. Hyde Park retained its prominence for five years. As wagons moved west, Orson Hyde continued to preside over the Church in Iowa. He and a majority of the Saints still in the area finally moved to Utah in 1852.

Trip to Nauvoo Day 6

 The sites of the Mormon Battalion Mustering Grounds are located near the intersection of U.S. 275 and state 92 in Council Bluffs. At that intersection, U.S. 275 turns west and U.S. 375 continues north and crosses Mosquito Creek.

Because I grew up in San Diego, I was often at the Mormon Battalion Historic Site and Visitors' Center. My Strong ancestors participated in the march west. So now I have been to both sides of the battalion.

We drove to the Kanesville Tabernacle. The missionaries working there said that Russell M. Nelson was there the previous week. And even he didn't know everything about this location.

The Kanesville Tabernacle was built in three weeks to have a space large enough for a conference for the displaced pioneers to sustain Brigham Young as Church president in December 1847 in the area of Council Bluffs, Iowa.

“It was rough-hewn. It was hastily built. It wasn’t built to last forever,” said President Richard L. Bennett, professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. “But what happened there would have a permanent impact on the history of the Church, in that Brigham Young is sustained as the next president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” during a solemn assembly on Dec. 27, 1847.

The Kanesville Tabernacle, one of the first tabernacles built by the Church, lasted a couple of years. It was rebuilt in the mid-1990s and dedicated in 1996 by President Gordon B. Hinckley. They let me play the organ in the tabernacle. It wasn't as old as the event, but built in the 1920s.

From here we went to the Mormon Trail Center on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River. It was a large visitors' center with an astonishing number of displays. They mentioned that there was a quilt exhibit happening in the basement, so I enjoyed an impromptu quilt show!

Across the street is the Winter Quarters Temple, the 104th dedicated temple is the only one with a cemetery on the property. Dedicated by President Hinckley in 2001, the groundbreaking ceremony was presided over by Hugh W. Pinnock. He said the following at that event:

"It would be impossible to discuss the Winter Quarters groundbreaking and the future temple to be located here without discussing Council Bluffs [Iowa] just across the [Missouri] river, the Mormon Battalion that was mustered there and that departed from that place. And yet, it's difficult talking about Council Bluffs without acknowledging Mt. Pisgah and Garden Grove, Iowa, which also provided temporary places of rest and consolidation for the saints as they left Nauvoo, [Illinois] and as we focus momentarily upon the many pathetic, painful problems the saints had encountered in Nauvoo which led to their expulsion.

The Mormon Pioneer Cemetery is located at 3300 State Street in present-day Florence at the north end of Omaha, Nebraska. The Cemetery is the burial site of hundreds of Mormon pioneers who lived in Winter Quarters, a temporary settlement that lasted from 1846 to 1848 as the settlers moved to Salt Lake City.

Records of the Church indicate that 359 Mormon pioneers were buried at the site. Remnants of three of the graves are visible today, uncovered during the erection of a commemorative monument in 1936. The monument, a bronze statue by Salt Lake City artist Avard Fairbanks, depicts parents who have committed the body of an infant to the grave.

Trip to Nauvoo Day 5

 We departed Nauvoo to visit Carthage, Illinois. The Church has built a beautiful visitors' center and meeting location at the site. Tours are held regularly. I learned still more information that I probably had heard before. We toured the actual jail cell and then went upstairs to the location of the martyrdom.

To sit in that room and imagine the commotion was overwhelming. The missionaries played a reenactment on a speaker so we could feel like we were there. We could feel the bullet holes in the door. 

We drove away toward Iowa, with the purpose to stop at every historical marker along the way. The first stop was Bonaparte, Iowa.

We got out and read every single marker for two days.

On April 24, 1846, emigrants under the direction of Brigham Young established a way station halfway into their trek across Iowa. This semi-permanent settlement was named Garden Grove because the entire grove was covered with wild onions as far as the eye could see. Within three weeks of their arrival, the pioneers enclosed and planted 715 acres. They founded the village to assist those who did not have sufficient means to continue their journey, as well as to support and supply future companies of pioneers.

Mount Pisgah was a semi-permanent settlement or way station from 1846 to 1852 along the Mormon Trail between Garden Grove and Council Bluffs, in the state of Iowa.

Mormon Trail Lake east of Bridgewater.

They blazed the “Mormon Trail” west, converging at Old Town and crossing the West Nishnabotna River at a limestone rock bottom trail crossing. That crossing later became the site of Old Macedonia. The Mormons continued west to the Grand Encampment on the east side of the Missouri River in Iowa and Winter Quarters in Nebraska.