cc: file, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner. Diane Cluff, and Andrea Shirts
"Recognizing The Mountain Meadow Massacre is an unusual topic for a Thoughtlet, I hope you will find some useful information this week. As I look back over last week, this was the one common theme of the week. So let me start this thoughtlet off with an abstract of what happened back in the fall of 1857 in a rocky and grassy meadow between what is now Enterprise and St. George.
A family context is that Bengt Nelson Sr. had immigrated to Utah the fall of 1856, and had been recruited by Bishop Klingensmith of Cedar City to come and take care of the church's sheep. Bengt married Ellen Johnson on 16 November 1856 in Salt Lake after trecking across the plains in the same company of saints she was in. For those of you old enough to remember the musical your Mom and I wrote called `Swedish Roots,' this is the couple we wrote about. They spent their first married winter in a dugout in the side of a creek bed at Iron Springs. You might recall an indian came and drew his knife across Ellen's throat and wanted her food. She refused because she knew she would die if she gave it to him. He left her, and her first child, Caroline Nelson was born the following 20 December 1857, about four months after the Mountain Meadow Massacre.
The Fancher company, which called themselves the Missouri Wild Cats, included men who bragged they `helped to mob and kill Joe Smith,' and said `I would like to go back and take a pop at Old Brig before I leave the territory.' When an indian refused to let one man examine his bow and arrow and jabbed an arrow into the man's breast, he pulled out a revolver and shot the indian. They poisned a spring, a number of cattle died around the spring, and some indians died from eating the meat. They named two lead oxen Joe and Hyrum and whipped and swore at them as they went through each small town in Southern Utah. Towns where lived suvivors from the Haun's Mill massacre, the Missouri burnings, and other atrocities of the 1840's. It was emotionally out of control, like the night I got so mad at you kids because one of you had been playing with my stereoscope and had lost one of the pieces to it. Just as there was no excuse for my temper tantrum that night when Forrest Warner lived with us, there is no excuse for the murder of 120 California bound emigrants in the Mountain Meadow Massacre. It was as bad as human's can be, because it was calculated murder.
As the Fancher company followed Father Escalante's trail from Cedar City to Pinto (.../9836.html) to the rim of the Great Basin at Mountain Meadow they found themselves stalked by the indians they had upset. The settlers in Parowan and Cedar City were concerned about the indian's getting out of control, as is shown in Ellen Nelson's biography. The Parowan militia leader and Stake President organized the church members. There were supply lines all the way from Parowan to Pinto, and the Fancher company was told they were being taken to safety. The men were separated from the women and children. At a prearranged signal the guide next to each of the emmigrants turned and killed the person next to them. The ground is very rocky, and shallow graves were dug and the bodies burried. Some of the youngest children were taken into the homes of local families for a few years, and after the horror of the action become known, they were returned to relatives in Arkansaw and Missouri. There is still tremendous bitterness about what happened. If you are interested in a balanced and accurate historical report I refer you to Juanita Brooks' book titled `The Mountain Meadow Massacre.
Monday morning I packed, dropped off closing documents at the lawyer's downtown, and got to Hobby Airport about 11:00 AM. I checked in, and had an hour to read. I am trying to finish a book about how the first missionaries went into Russia before Paul gets home (`Russia and the Restored Gospel' by Gary Browning). As I read, I was amazed at how often this first Mission President in Russia mentioned the main knowledge about the church in Russia was Sir Arthur CoConan Doyle's first book about Sherlock Holmes, `A Study in Scarlet.' Evidently this book had been made into a movie, which was widly shown in Russia during the cold war. I remember when I read it, feeling like it was an anti-mormon tract based on the Mountain Meadow Massacre. And I really enjoy the Sherlock Holmes stories. This is a nice example of where my ability to hold two apparently conflicting concepts in my mind and still function has been of great benefit. Like with my approach to reconciling science and God, I truly believe that at sometime in the future we will see the whole picture and the reconciliation of the differences we now make a big deal about will be obvious. The concept is called `faith.' Sort of like when I got to Las Vegas, found out I didn't have a reserved rental car at Budget as I had been told, and it still worked out OK via AllState Rental. I stopped and saw Mom, then spent Monday night at Grandma's.
Tuesday morning Andrea got to Grandma's at 8:00 and we went to a temple session together. It is so nice to be able to go to the temple with someone who enjoys it, and has a testimony. We took Mom to lunch, and went over to see Andrea's brother Russell and his family. Russell pulled out all of the maps of his son's recent Eagle project. It was based on using the Washington County GIS (Geographic Information System) to scientifically show where the Mountain Meadow Massacre actually occurred. It was neat to look at the different air photos, to realize where the rim of the Great Basin sits, to relate Pinto and Calf Springs Ranch, and to put the whole event in a spatial context. I tend to think spatially anyway, and so this fit my model of conversation. We stopped and looked for some yarn for Grandma Hafen, and I bought some new running shoes. We got to Cedar about 6:30 and took Brian and Matt to see the movie `Mighty Joe Young' at the Cedar Theater. It was the first time I had been in that theater since Thanksgiving of 1973, when I took your Mom on a date there after going to a Nelson Reunion. Some of my cousins threw pop corn at us all through the movie. Sara and Des and Bridget were in Las Vegas, and I stayed with Brian and at their house the rest of the week.
Wednesday Andrea and I drove to Filmore for our second planning meeting with Roice Krueger and his colleague Steve Joseph. Fun meeting. We named their new operation Synergistic Projects. I really enjoy these two guys. Steve is Lebonese, and at one point in the conversation, even though there was no conversation about Steve's origins, I recall thinking we all have a Mountain Meadow Massacre in our history. What is key is how we go forward with our lives. As I write this I recall a key concept presented at PAIRS:
We spent Wednesday evening at a Shirts family dinner at Andrea's house. There were two stuffed turkey's, mashed potatoes, yams, salads, pies, candy, drinks, and about 30 people. It was a lot of fun. Randy and Kathryn came down from Provo, Russ was up from St. George, Steve is in town, and only Robert and his family were not there. Russell had a new e-mail about a meeting between the descendents of those not killed at the Mountain Meadow Massacre and President Hinkley. Russ is on the Board of Directors of this society, representing his deceased father. Morris Shirts spent five years of his life researching the event, making friends with those still angry at the church, and getting the new monument put together. Kathryn is just finishing editing a book on the subject to be published posthumously by Andrea's Father. After these discussions there were white elephant gifts, and talking, and a good time was had by all.
Thursday we watched the BYU football game with the Shirts brothers at Steve's house. Then Matt, Andrea, and I went over Cedar Mountain and down to Zion. There are about 80 new photos from this trip and the stuff we did on Friday at http://www.walden3d.com/photos. Look under Zion..., MountainMeadow..., CalfSpringsRanch..., etc. Matt and I played like we were the Lion King (.../Zion31Dec98HMatthewRoice.jpg), even though he didn't like the height. It was an absolutely beautiful day. I recalled the night Roger Anderson and I discovered dynamic hydrocarbon replenishment at the old Landmark Office back in 1988, and as we sat on the hood of our car at about 10:30 that night and looked up at the stars, Roger said, `It doesn't get any better than this.' Well between Christmas last week with you kids, and all of the fun stuff this week, I have had several of those `it doesn't get any better than this' times recently. It is nice to be on the otherside of the pain. We got back to Cedar City just in time to pick up Grandma Shirts and Rachel and then the six of us met Des and Sara at the Fiddler's Theater to see `Patch Adams.' After the movie, Andrea and I went and played Scrabble and Boggle with Des and Sara, and went back to her house to be with Rachel and Matt at midnight.
Friday we went to St. George to take Mom to lunch, and ended up eating a holiday meal at Porter's. One of the `inmates' had sent a petition around to get a holiday meal, Mom had signed it, and so we stayed and had a very nice turkey dinner with Mom. We also visited briefly with Grandma Hafen. And since since the topic of the Mountain Meadow Massacre had come up in our Tuesday afternoon visit, Grandma shared a footnote in Juanita Brook's book with us:
So after lunch we drove back to Cedar City via Mountain Meadows, and the new monument. As referenced above, there are photos of the monument on-line now, and they include the inscriptions which Andrea's father wrote. There were several people at the monument, even though it was cold and windy. Since we were so close to Calf Springs Ranch, and since the road was still passable, we also drove the seven miles south of Enterprise into Calf Springs Ranch. I told Andrea different stories about stuff that happened to me there, and we walked up to the upper pond and the apple orchard. It is a beautiful place, and based on this visit, if it becomes available for sale again, I would like to make an offer. I expect I will be able to meet their asking price within a couple of years. Maybe we will have the big family gathering I wrote about in my song `I Once Saw A Family' at Calf Springs Ranch someday? When we got back to Cedar, we had a mini-dinner. Andrea's married daughter Heather came in from New Harmony again, and Grandma Shirts came over, and we had a nice dinner. Then Russell and his family and Matt and Audrey came down from snowboarding at Brian Head. I sang `Froggie Learns The Gospel,' Audrey and Andrea and Rachel each played the piano, and it was a fun evening. Suprising how fast time flies when you are having fun.
Saturday morning, as we had Thursday and Friday mornings, Andrea and I went for an hour walk. Cedar is beautiful at sunrise and especially so with a fresh sheen of snow and a full moon. It was hard to say goodbye after a wonderful week and knowing I would be alone in Houston. I went back to Sara and Des', shaved and showered, stopped and said goodbye again to Andrea, then drove to St. George. Grandma Hafen had a copy of the Southern Utah Spectrum with a front page article about President Hinkly and the Mountain Meadow Massacre Association. A photo of the article is posted (.../photos/MountainMeadowLDSnewspaper02Jan99A.jpg & B). The key quote from the article is:
I stopped and said goodbye to Mom. We talked about power and Ph.D.'s and putting stuff behind us. As I drove to Las Vegas, I couldn't help but integrate thoughts about the Mountain Meadow Massacre, and specifically about the Prophet's words `We all need to put this behind us.' I thought about friends who made mistakes in their youth (often sexual), who were afraid to talk to their parents or Bishops our spouses for fear of rejection, who are very angry and refuse to face the pain, yet when they have opened up to me or to others have truly found joy and peace on the other side of their pride. I hope each of you can face the Mountain Meadow Massacres of your life, and I hope each of you know I will be there to help you in any way I can, if you will let me."
