Day 46 - The Beast rides again after 25 years!

Friday, 07 October

Today we celebrated the completion of the restoration of my old 1953 Chevy Pickup, which I gave to Jayson a little over 7 years ago... It had been in restoration mode since 1986 when I gave it to a friend of mine to do the body work and paint, which never got done due to my friend losing his shop space... consequently, it sat in storage until Jayson showed an interest in restoring the truck... I let him take the truck back to school with him during his sophomore year at BYU... unfortunately, it had a major engine breakdown on the way (looong story)... due to money and time, it went back into storage in multiple pieces.

This year, I told Jayson about a guy that I met at a hotrod cruise-in about 5 months ago.  He looked him up and the restoration completion commenced... today we picked it up and drove it to the muffler shop for the final step of adding glasspacs and pipes to the new headers... they turned out nice and they sound great.

On the way home, it became apparent that something was wrong with the way the engine was running... the truck died a few blocks from home and we discovered that the fuel filter was obstructed because of rust in the fuel tank that was flushing out into the fuel line... after clearing the line, the truck would not start due to a dead battery (typical 6 volt problem), so we compression started the truck to get it home, where after a few frustrating hours of trying to locate a 6 volt charger (nobody seems to have one anymore and the one found at NAPA was $160.00), and performing some diagnostics, we determined that the generator was burned out!  This was very disappointing because Jayson wanted to drive the truck in the BYU Homecoming Parade tomorrow... We may be able to run off of the battery for the duration of the parade, but it will take about three days to get the generator repaired. 

Despite the setbacks, the truck looks amazing and sounds fantastic!  It was awesome to drive it again after all of these years... I hope I get to take Deb on a date in it just like the good old days before we go home!

Day 45 - Take us back to "Home On The Range"

Thursday, 06 October

We are back where we started 41 days and 7500 miles ago... Springville, Utah.  We just pulled into Joy's about 30 minutes ago and I am still recovering from the drive down I-15... The worst section of road we have driven in our entire journey was in the last 45 minutes between Lehi and Springville... ARE THEY EVER GOING TO BE DONE REBUILDING THE FREEWAYS HERE?  I was forced off onto exits twice, almost ran over by speeding drivers countless times, and forced to switch sides of the freeway three times in that distance!

We left Montana this morning, which was very hard to do... we loved it there (I want to go back)...

 This is what we had to leave... It is so majestic...

 We stopped in Bozeman for lunch... we saw a place called Sloppy Dawg and thought we would check it out... J Dawg has nothing to worry about!  This place was so expensive and did not hold a candle to our favorite Dawg place!

 Bozeman is an artsy fartsy college town...

 When we reached the border, the temperature dropped to 31 degrees and the snow was coming down hard...

It snowed all the way to the Utah border, where it changed to intermittent rain... We will miss the slow pace of life that we have enjoyed for the last month, but it is so good to be back with our kids and grandkids.  Tomorrow I am going to help Jayson tune the engine on the 53 Chev, something I used to love to do and I am looking forward to it.  For now, I am going to relax and try to go to sleep!

Day 44 - This Explains Everything!

Wednesday, 05 October

In our quest to discover information on my Fergus County, Montana ancestors, we kept running into grave markers and newspaper articles on members of the ABEL family... we have wondered if there is any connection to Deb's ABEL ancestors... that was until I found this photo in the history archives today...

 This is a party thrown by Miss. Abel (the one in the dark dress in front of the fireplace mantle), that was in the local newspaper!

The only other photo that I found that struck me funnier, is this photo of the police shooting class... Rule #1 ALWAYS KEEP YOUR MUZZLE POINTED IN A SAFE DIRECTION, Rule #2 KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF OF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO SHOOT, Rule #3 NEVER POINT YOUR GUN AT ANYTHING YOU DO NOT INTEND TO DESTROY...  It makes you wonder what the officer on the right did to piss everyone off!

Seriously, we finished our research today... We have been so blessed by the incredibly wonderful people here in Fergus County who have helped us.  I seriously thought the south was friendly (and they are), but the folks of Lewistown do not have to play second fiddle to anyone!  We are enjoying a fantastic lighting storm tonight... our car is getting a much needed bath and Montana is getting some much needed rain!  Tomorrow we are heading to Virginia City and then we return to Utah to see our family again before we head home.

Day 43 - Holy Family History Mother Lode!

Tuesday, 04 October

Today we hit paydirt in the Lewistown Public Library... They have the most amazing records on file and they are organized so well... I cannot believe the many records that we found today pertaining to my family history, Deb's family history, and Jennifer's family history.  I will not detail it here because it is probably only exciting to me, but we will be staying another day so we can continue our quest!

I do have to tell one story... It turns out that my great uncle Don married a girl by the name of June Hummer.  Deb's great aunt had a son named Al Nierstheimer. Al's wife is the sister of Ruth Hummer, so Don and Al are brother-in-laws! 

And if that is not crazy enough, Jennifer's ancestor's built the stone hospital that my ancestors died in and my father was born in... They also built the Carnegie Library that all these documents are now housed in (where we worked all day!)

Now if this place was a huge city I would not be so amazed, but this place is an out-of-the-way postage stamp of real estate... it it blows me away how they all wound up here and how we are related... my world feels really small today!

On the way out to visit a third cemetery that we found out about today, which is about 10 miles north of Lewistown, we were blessed with another beautiful Montana sunset...

Day 42 - Is there anyone who didn't live in Lewistown?

Monday, 03 October

Wow, what a day... my head is spinning as I try to figure out all of the connections we discovered today...

 We started the morning in the Fergus County Courthouse... this county doesn't let you search the books yourself, so we had to give the clerk a very long list of names that we wanted to have birth and/or death certificates for... She said we could leave the list and come back later in the day for the results...

 So we left the courthouse and went to the Calvary Cemetery to look for gravesites of our daughter-in-law Jennifer's ancestors... and we found quite a few!  (The world is starting to feel really, really small!)  After we left the cemetery, Deb went to the local Catholic church and found documents that went with the people in the cemetery. 

 Then we went to the history museum... I was disappointed to find that it was closed for the season!  But, true to the Montana cordiality, the woman in the Chamber office called the curator and she willingly came right down and opened the museum for us (another family history angel?)  Inside I found many books that had articles on my ancestors and the history of the area... I bought the books to share with my father.  In addition, there was a whole section of the museum dedicated to Jennifer's Croation ancestors... pictures, ducuments, etc.  Deb took photos like crazy while I picked the brain of the curator, who knew some of my family.  Jen's family came to Lewistown as stonemasons and built many of the early stone structures of the city...

 Tonight we drove around the city to explore... this is the old high school where my grandmother and other members of my family went to school...  It is now a condominium... kind of wierd.

 These are examples of the structures that Jen's ancestors built... this was the medical center...

and the man that designed and managed the build of the medical building lived in this house that he built next door...

The Carnegie Library was also built by the Croation stonemasons.

When we went back to the library, we found that the researcher needed more time to research the records.  We decided to stay in Lewistown one more day so deb can go to the library to look for obituaries in old newspapers (and they were not open on Monday), and I am going to see if I can talk to the people that lived down the road from my great uncle... I may also look up a guy in Moore that I think may be a shirt-tail relative.  I have to admit that this family history research is fun when you can actually see the places and things in real life!



Day 41 - Family History Angels...

Sunday, 02 October

We decided we would listen to conference on the way to the Lewistown Cemetery and by the miracle of satellite radio, we were able to do so.  It was a quiet, serene morning and as we approached the cemetery, we were greeted by some local wildlife.  We took some photos then began the slow and tedious walk up and down every aisle in the cemetery looking for markers of my family ancestors and Deb's family ancestors (yes, Deb's).  Her grandpa Rudolph had sisters who came from Illinois to Lewistown and married Neirstiemer boys and they are buried here!  Now, for the really weird twist... Jennifer (our daughter-in-law) has ancestors buried here also and her mom was born in Lewistown just like my dad!  Now that is a small world... tomorrow we are going to look for her ancestors.

Now my angel story (I am starting to believe)... We had walked for a couple of hours and had not even covered half of the cemetery, looking for ancestors.  My hips were killing me because the ground is so uneven and it was extremely difficult at times to walk the rows.  As I was finishing a section, an older gentleman drove by and asked if he could help... he explained that his wife was buried in the cemetery and he had a book that she compiled of all the markers and where they were located.  He left for about 10 minutes and then returned with a three ring binder full of page after page of alphabetised names and the location of the graves according to a system that she devised before her death.  I was able to locate all of my ancestors and Deb's in very short order with his information!  Debra just grinned and said she was not surprised he showed up to help us... an answer to her prayers...  It was pretty awesome.

After we left the cemetery, we got some lunch, took some photos of downtown Lewistown, then headed back to Moore Cemetery to look for another set of markers for another ancestor that I just learned about last night while doing some research on the web...  Tonight Jennifer called and gave us some information to look for and the names of her ancestors that are supposed to be buried here... we will go look for them tomorrow.  We are also going to spend time in the county courthouse researching documents tomorrow... I kind of like this detective stuff... don't tell my wife!

 Do you think Deb likes deer?

 The city installed hitching posts up and down Main street to accommodate the many Amish buggies that come into town from the outlying farmlands... all of the farms around Moore are also now Amish farms.

 Looking east on Main Street.

This is the school that my grandmother attended when she was a girl in Lewistown.

Tomorrow, the courthouse and the Catholic Cemetery...

Day 40 - Who Do Think You Are - Part 3

Saturday - 01 October

Today was a very special day... We traveled about 14 miles east to the town of Moore, MT, the childhood home of my father, grandfather, and grandmother.  My great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents also lived here.  My goal was to find the 360 acre Edwards homestead where they all lived (and my great-aunt Marian lived until she died this May).  The original house burned down and my great-uncle Harry had his wife's home (he did not get married until he was over 60 years old), brought to the property and placed on a foundation.  However, the building I was most anxious to find was the old miners shack that uncle Harry towed to the property for a little guest home... This shack was located at Rock Creek Coal Mine, my grandfather's mine and it is where my father lived until he was 3 years old!  I stopped at a local business in Moore and found two oldtime residents that were able to draw me a map that took me right to the homestead, where I found the miners shack!

After visiting the homestead, we went to the Moore Cemetery and found many gravesites of my family members... Most notably my great-great grandparents, great-grandparents, and some of my grandfather's siblings...

As we searched the cemetery, the weather changed dramatically and blessed us with a beautiful skyscape!

This is the sign at the head of the road leading up the canyon to the Edwards homestead...

 This is the house that uncle Harry moved to the site after the original home burned...

The old gate and boardwalk leading up to the home...

 

HE (Harry Edwards) and ME (Marian Edwards)...

Uncle Harry had a sawmill and sawed green lumber for income...

This is the miners shack that my dad lived in until he was three years old...

Uncle Harry moved it from the mine and remodeled it into a guest cottage...

Warning!

Great Grandma Minnie never had inside facilities... she went out to use this privy located behind her house in front of the chicken coops and started feeling ill, so she sat down on the back porch and that is where she passed away in 1967 at the age of 81 years...

Behind the house is this entrance to the side of the hill... the inside door was sealed so I don't know how far into the mountain it went...

It must have been a big explosion!

Montana homestead "fine art"...

Looking up the hill at part of the 360 acres...

The view from the main road...

This is the road leading up to the coal mine that my granddad owned and where my dad lived until he was three years old...

The view looking SW from Moore Cemetery towards the town of Moore...

I am standing next to the graves of my great-great and great-grandparents...  Uncle Don's veteran marker is in front of me...

Awesome skies...

This herd had about 30 head of antelope... they are beautiful animals...

This was a great day!