cc: file, Mom, Sara and Des, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Darrell Krueger,Charles and Diane Cluff, and Claude and Forest Warner
"It was nice to hear from cousin Chuck, on the Hafen side, and Uncle Lloyd, on the Nelson side, both related by marriage. Kind of interesting that other than Paul's note, you kids have not yet reacted to Dad's latest project. I will assume busy times at the first of a new school year, and not take `no comment' as a rejection. There is also the simple fact that the three kids at home don't know how to read and respond to their e-mail yet. They soon will.
I was very touched by Uncle Lloyd's comments, as I often have been when we have had the opportunity to talk. Then I got thinking about how his message arrived in my e-mail box. It was sent to from Pakistan to Roice in Austin at rnelson3@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu, who forwarded it with the words: `I don't know if Lloyd was sending me a copy of this or trying to write you with the wrong address. Better safe than sorry, though...' The email name mixup reminded me of a little experience in 1979 which has had a tremendous impact on me.
I was working for Mobil Oil in Field Operations and they sent me to Cedar City to check the acquisition quality control on a seismic crew that was being run out of the old Coke-a-Cola bottling building on main street. It was in the spring and I had made several trips from Dallas to work with this crew, always staying out at the farm with my Mom and Dad. I had complained to Dad about how cold it was running a seismic line through the mountains south of the Parowan Gap that winter. He said I was just getting soft and my blood had thinned out after years in Texas. The bear tracks and the snow, the cold and my first reading earlier in the winter reading of Bengt Nelson, Jr.'s history about living his first married winter in a dugout by Iron Springs had laid the mental groundwork for the spring day I am writing about.
We had shot the seismic line across the mountains to the east, and were going through the fields between Summit and Parowan. I was working with the drillers, and we were quite a bit ahead of the shooters. We used backpack drills to drill about 5 foot holes, dropped about a quarter of a pound of dynamite down these holes as the seismic source, and set up the wires so that it could be fired at the appropriate time. We were quite a distance ahead of the rest of the crew and so I was walking back to see what was happening when I met a farmer out irrigating. I stopped to talk for a few minutes.
He asked my name. I said `Roice Nelson.' I remember he was physically moved by hearing the words. He said, `Are you related to the Roice Nelson I know?' I explained he was my Grandpa, but that I had never met him because he had died in the farm accident before I was born. His response was something like `You will be quite a person if you are half the man your Grandfather was!' He asked what we were doing, and then based on the fact that I was now recognized as family, started to tell me the most intimate details of his life. During that half-hour I learned how he had dedicated his life to keeping as much of the land as possible together for the day when the saints would need it to move back to Zion and have a new home in preparation for the millenium. More important than the land was the water necessary to allow all of the saints Brigham Young had prophysied would move into the area between Cedar and Parowan to do so.
He talked about a dream, where he saw his Great-Grandson, the son of the young man who had dropped him off and who had just returned from a mission, taking people on a tour of all of the new homes being built up against the mountain climbing out of the valley until it is cut off by Fiddler's Canyon. He said the homes in his dream were different than anything he had ever seen before. Today I would describe them as what Mic Patterson of Advanced Structures calls `a prefabricated kit-of-parts,' designed for a very quick assembly. He told me someone on the tour asked his Great-Grandson if the millenium had started yet, and was told `No, but we expect it any time and as you can see we are very busy preparing for it.' My mind was racing because of all of the time and thought and money Ray Gardner and I had put into what Ray called `The Intelligent Habitat Project,' and what I called `Designing 3-D Intelligent Cities.'
I don't remember his name. I doubt if he is still alive. There was no questioning the sincerity of his words, the impact Roice Bengt Nelson had played in his life and in the life of so many people of his generation, and the fact he wanted me to know I have a very big name to live up to. After our conversation, as I walked over to the doghouse (Seismic Recording Truck), the importance of Grandpa's reputation and of me living up to the name I had been given was overwhelming. I thought of a recent priesthood lessons where I had taught my class about a Grandfather coming back in a dream to one of the prophets when he was still in his youth, saying `What have you done with my name?', and the joy of this young man in being able to honestly respond `Nothing you would be ashamed of!' I set this as a goal on that day.
I now realize, 17 years later, I havn't done as good of a job as I intended or expected. It is easy to rationalize, having heard stories by Grandpa's children about how being late from a lesson he left them on standing on a corner on Main Street and they almost froze to death. He was a hard man. He did have a wonderful reputation for integrety and hard work. A couple of years ago, when we closed on the lot on Leigh Hill, the Real Estate Agent kept talking about how many times he had come across the name Roice Nelson on old records. When we went to church in the Cedar ward where the lot is, there were older people that said with similar reverence `Oh you must be related to Cedar's Roice Nelson!' So my thoughtlet this week is that we each get to decide how seriously we will take our heritage and our name.
I realize you all know what I'm going to write next, but sometimes it is good to remember. Rob, your name comes from your Mom's Grandfather, Robert Llewllyn. He was a good man who worked for the U.S. Post office his whole life. Grandma Llewllyn spoke of him with the same kind of reverence I have tried to describe. Sara, your name comes from your Aunt Sara and your Great-Grandmother, Roice Bengt's wife, Sarah Catherine Hunter, as well as her daughter Sara Stella Mendenhall. Ellyn is your mother's middle name. Melanie you are named for your mother's hero in the book and the movie `Gone With The Wind.' Robbyn comes from your Grandma, Robbye Cloe. Paul, your name comes from my Grandpa and hero, Paul Adolf Hafen, as well as my cousin Paul Nelson and the ancient Apostle Paul of Tarsus. Frederick is your Grandpa Emmit Sharp's middle name, a World-War II pilot and PhD Sociologist. Ben you are named for my heroes Benjamin Franklin, the scientist and statesman, and King Benjamin of the Book of Mormon. We did find a Benjamin in our family history, but I do not know anything about him yet. Bengt was my Grandfather's middle name, and his father as well as his Grandfather's first name. Roice your name comes directly from my father, and, of course, my Grandfather. We have an absolutely wonderful heritage. As we make choices I hope we will each realize the impact those choices have on our family mobile. In short, I hope we each realize the importance of a good reputation."