Henry Maiben ( 1819-1883 ) was an English convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, who came to America with his brother. He first married Caroline Penn while in England and later married Flora Louisa Maddison as a plural wife. He was involved in the early theatre and musical productions in the Utah Territories. Here is a copy of a program from the early year of 1863. Henry is playing the part of Glavis, as shown on the lower left.
Like most people who love family history, I love to visit cemeteries. No where else can you stand in one place and have so many stories swirl around you. I am drawn to the very old grave markers and the rows and rows of people who all died in the same year . . . usually from a spreading illness. I love the little family plots, surrounded by iron fences. I love the old sandstone and soapstone markers except when their words have been worn away.
This little cemetery is just outside of Copperton, Utah. Copperton was at one time a mining town, with rows and rows of little cottages. It is still a very charming place. As we passed the cemetery one day, after a drive to look for deer and elk, owls and eagles, we decided to stop, again. It had been some time since we had done so. This time there was a new marker which told us that a little, tiny cemetery had been moved to this, a larger cemetery. Beside the marker, stretched out for a block were many new markers which simply said unknown. One said “unknown male”. I am not sure that the “male” part is of much help when nothing else is known.
I assume that the records of the first cemetery are long gone. I wonder if there are descendants of those “unknown” souls who wonder where they are? Wonder how and when they died and where. Where they were buried. Buried with them are hopes for their life stories and contributions. Their hardships. Why they died where they did and how it happened. If they were men or women or children.
Since their bodies and their spirits are only briefly separated and will be re-united, one day their names will be spoken and written on the records somewhere. In that day they can tell their stories and be reunited with those who lost them and wondered about them. Each one represents a brick wall in someone’s quest to find their ancestors.
There were flowers on some of the “unknown” graves the day we came. I must have a kindred spirit who thinks about them, too.
Clara Lzina Barker Pugmire died in June of 1969. Her funeral was held in the Riverside Ward which was previously known as the 29th Ward. Her burial was in the Midvale City Cemetery in Midvale, Salt Lake County, Utah. Even after all of these years, and the focus on the casket, I can see Clara’s daughter Theora Pugmire Hammer on the right, and know that the woman behind her is the beloved Juanita Ruiz. Juanita was a next door neighbor to Clara for over thirty years. A photograph of the attendees and a copy of the funeral program are also on this site.
This keepsake photograph was taken in the lower level of the 29th Ward Chapel on what was 300 North and 1100 West in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1952. The 29th Ward later became the Riverside Ward. I do not remember the names of the children in the photograph except for me, in the center in the checkered coat and my friend Kathy behind me. Perhaps someone who is also in the photograph and doesn’t have a copy of it will find it and remember this event.
This keepsake photograph was taken at an unknown time. It appears to be Nancy Alice Barker Henderson Johnson, Clara Lzina Barker Pugmire, Annie Pearl Barker Merkley and her husband Marion Neils Merkley, Amos Eli Barker, Mary Elizabeth Barker Sorenson and her husband Charles Henry Sorenson. We assume that this photograph was taken at the funeral of a mutual family member. Likely, it was the funeral of John Thompson Barker Junior in 1953 in St. Charles, Bear Lake County, Idaho.
This photograph was likely taken in the early 1940s. Left to right: Justin Gerald Pugmire 1892-1949, his wife Clara Lzina Barker 1892-1969, June Leitzel Pugmire, a daughter-in-law of Justin and Clara and Glenn Donald Pugmire, a son of Justin and Clara and husband of June.
Thelma Bolton was born 17 February 1906 to Archie Bolton and his wife Nora. She was the oldest of two children born to her parents. Her brother’s name was Howard A. Bolton who was born in 1909 in Illinois, who married Cecylia Broniec in 1936 and who died in 1964 in Illinois. Thelma’s paternal grandparents were Randolph Bolton and Emma Reed. Thelma married Martin Kern Schillinger in about 1925. They became the parents of four known children. Through those children, Martin and Thelma have posterity to the present day while her brother Howard does not. This wonderful photograph was provided by a granddaughter of Thelma Bolton Schillinger. Vital statistics were provided by researchers interested in the ancestors of Thelma Bolton Schillinger.
Thelma’s husband Martin was the son of Albert Schillinger whose mother Caroline Watrous Schillinger was the oldest child of great great grandfather Jerome Timothy Watrous.
I thought that I had read every book on our bookshelves and some books more than once. As I put one book away, an old and worn book caught my attention. I reached in and brought it out. It was an old book and looked like it had been read and handled. It had a cover with raised designs and a title filled with gold-looking ink. The spine was weak and when I opened the book, I found that the Title Page, the Introduction and Table of Contents were all missing. The first page began with Chapter One.
I carried the book to a comfortable chair and started the read.
As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, I knew a great deal in general terms about the suffering of the early saints in many places. Not until I read this account did I fully understand these years from 1830-1839. I knew of B. H. Roberts whose full name was Brigham Henry Roberts, but I didn’t know anything at all about him other than I thought he was a Church Historian. I looked up information about him and found that he wrote this book in 1900. He was a fair-weather member of his faith until later in his life. He traveled from England as a young child by himself and walked the plains to meet his mother who was already in Utah. After 1888 he became a General Authority in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints and served in the First Quorum of Seventy. He was known throughout the rest of his life as a “churchman”, served many missions and served as an assistant Church Historian.
I was drawn into the story of these years and these events almost in the first word. His style reminded me of reading Charles Dickens or Nathaniel Hawthorne. When I have read either of these authors, I have had to take big breaths to be able to get through their long sentences . . . punctuated by a million commas. He has a beautiful style and a way with words. I think he used poetic license on more than one occasion because I am not sure how he could have known what he said he knew. But, he used journals. He talked to people who were still alive who had experienced the persecutions themselves. He researched only twenty or so years after the final chapter.
We have ancestors in our records who joined the people who sought redress for their losses from the State of Missouri and from the Federal Government. They became parties to the Missouri Redress Petition. We have ancestors who were driven from their homes in the dead of night in the snow and cold, who watched their homes burned to the ground with all of their possessions and who fled with their little children for their lives.
As I turned the pages, I marveled at the sacrifices my ancestors made for their beliefs. It seemed that even death did not deter them from gathering together to share the company of those who believed as they did. Then, I turned a page and out fell a columbine. It was flat and dry. It was a perfect bloom. Neither of us know where the book came from. We don’t know who it originally belonged to or how we came to have possession of it. As I read on, I stopped to share what I was reading. Some things were so profound. Some things so inhumane. I wondered how people could do what they did. Who were these people? The persecutors.
Every twenty pages or so, I came across another columbine blossom. Neatly pressed and perfectly preserved. I really do wonder who picked the blossoms and pressed them in the book. Who bought the book and what happened to the first few pages. How many hands handled it and where it had been in its journey. Perhaps it is a re-print but I don’t think so. It has all the earmarks of an early edition.
I finished the book with tears in my eyes and gratitude for the sacrifices of my ancestors. I would like to thank them someday.
This wonderful keepsake photograph was taken in Utah in about 1938. On the left is Lavon McKay Pugmire (1919-1991), his youngest sister June (1926- ) and their mother, my grandmother, Clara Lzina Barker Pugmire (1892-1969).
This keepsake photograph was taken about 1934 in Utah. It contains many members of the Justin and Hannah Pugmire family including grandchildren. Back row from left to right: Pauline and her husband Gerald Pugmire. Lloyd Pugmire, Farrell Pugmire. Middle row from left to right: Deveral Pugmire, Dorothy Pugmire, Justin Pugmire, his wife Hannah Winterbottom Pugmire and Pearl Pugmire. In front are Al and Guy Pugmire.
Gerald, Devearl and Farrell are grandchildren of Justin and Hannah through their oldest son Justin Gerald Pugmire. The rest are the children of Justin and Hannah.