Tickets

Dearest Hon and Sister: thank you for the phone call Thursday evening, and for the invite this Monday to go with you folks to the Zoo and Heritage Park- sorry to not be there- also for the date changes on your family reunion in July- 

You will be receiving 2 tickets in about 10 days from the ticket office at the Conference Center for the evening program with the week of Family History convention. The program on Thursday evening is under the direction of President Henry B.Eyring. The tabernacle choir will perform- the guest speaker on Families through the generations is- David McCllough. 

The program starts at 7 p.m.- the doors open at 5:30 p.m. A ticket is required but it is open seating so the Brother who took the order said the earlier you come the better choice one has. This should be really a special evening. This is on Thursday 29th April. Will talk with you about it as the time gets closer. Pray David and family will really enjoy their new opportunities. 

Have a special Easter/Conference week-end coming up. Love you all much. Helen

Children

My children are, in order of birth: Shawn (wife Kimberly), Melanie (husband Howard Bolton), Todd (wife Amy G.), Eric (wife Amy J.), AnnMarie (husband Brandon Howard), Julie (husband Jim Jones), Kirsten (husband Jared Waite), and David (wife Arbree).

Grandchildren: (Shawn) Brigitta, Dane, Toren, Sorina; (Melanie) Siovhan, Braden, Benjamin, Mikaela; (Todd) Michael, Tyler, Emily, Hailey; (Eric) Jason, David A., Maddilyn, A.J.; (AnnMarie) Alyssa, Kyle, Megan, Matthew, Rachel; (Julie) Mary, Christene, Stephanie; (Kirsten) Whitney, Emaree, Ryan, Jacob; (David) Erin, Donovin, Caydin.

David works for the cable television division. He is a fiber-optic technician. He does trouble-shooting and major line repair (not at homes).

Now it is your turn. Please list your children and spouses. 

Thanks. I love you, M

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From: alan.r.pitts@boeing.com
To: mandlht@msn.com
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:56:07 -0700
Subject: RE: David is Moving

Thanks for sharing this information.

Who is David, I cannot keep track of who is who and where they belong as I would like. What does he do for Time Warner?

 

Al Pitts 
Manufacturing Engineering 
Ph. (206) 544-3098 
alan.r.pitts@boeing.com 
M/S 4F-14 

David is Moving!

Mid-April, David and family are moving to El Paso, Texas. His new job starts on April 23. He will still be working for Time-Warner but the job conditions will be much improved as will the pay. In addition, there will be room to move up the ladder. Where he is, that is not going to be possible. Everyone there is there for keeps. It is further away for us--about one day's travel--compared with just a few hours. It is WARM, which David prefers over 30-degrees below winters.

David,

I was just down in San Antonio last month and it was nice, although that is a distance away from El Paso. Congratulations David. I bet you and your family will really enjoy it down there. 

You probably already know this, but you will be right by White Sands National Monument and Lincoln National Forest. Sand dunes and forest within miles, kind of reminds me of Nephi. The sand is gypsum sand, and is white, but it is nowhere near as cold as the white stuff you have been working in. It also looks like there is plenty of fishing and camping in the area. Hope you like bass and other warm water fish. You and your family are going to have lots of fun down there. Interesting also is that the state gemstone is Blue Topaz. Unfortunately, not any of that around Nephi, ours is all amber or bleached clear. Finally, you will be within miles of Juarez City, Mexico also. Guess you will have to get your passports.

To me it is interesting that you will be also be within 200 miles of Colonia Juarez and Colonia Dublan, Mexico, which are Mexican towns or colonies that were established by Mormon Emigrants in 1895. The Mexican Revolution started some 15 years later, and during those dangerous times (following the killing of some colonists) many of them fled to El Paso, Texas (1912), then returned several years later when tensions had calmed. That area of Chihuahua, Mexico is still largely populated by their descendants, and probably has the closest Temple to where you live. I saw a short show after a recent Conference on the area, and found that interesting. Sometimes things like that seem so long ago, and they didn't mention it during the show, but there are probably a couple of people near their hundred year birthday that were alive at that time.

Love you all,
Shawn
____________

John Kienke‏ From Marcus Smith

Marcus Smith wrote:
We are related, after all! But it's way back for many, many generations. In your pedigree there is a Searle family. We connect, it appears, at a John Searle who married a woman whose maiden name was Channon. But the ancestral file contains some spurious dates. Otherwise I'd feel more confident about mapping out the connection. In more recent times, my great-grandfather John Kienke was involved in an event during the Utah War of 1857 that involved, apparently, eight Mormon men: John Smiley Lott (your ancestor), John Murdock, Porter Rockwell, Sylvanus Collett, John Kienke (my ancestor), Samuel Pitchforth, Homer Brown, and (I think, if I remember, Absalom Woolf. This event came to be known as the "Aiken Massacre," or "Aiken Murders." I've been working on this story for a long, long time, as part of my family history. I knew Shawn and Todd best in the BYU ward. Eric was there for a while too. There was a night when a bunch of us from BYU dropped in on your home, on the way either coming or going to the Grand Canyon for a hike. Could have been Zions or Bryce. We did a lot of hiking back then.

Myrna Trauntvein wrote:
Oh, my! I would like to know what you have found out about the "Aiken Massacre." Would you mind sharing your information with me. You are a great genealogist. Of course I remember the group stopping at our home. I think you were hiking in Zions. There is a peak there named for one of my ancestors. Are the spurious dates on my file? If so, I need to add that to my list of things to correct. I should get things done in a more timely fashion. My husband and I are ordinance workers at the Manti Temple on Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons. You would think that would mean that I would hurry and get all of my names submitted and all of my dates corrected. I need to work harder. I I need to work harder. I have several in the hands of my grandson, Braden Bolton, Siovhan's brother. he was recently endowed and wanted to do the work for some family names. He is at BYU currently and is getting ready to leave for a mission in April. He works at the bookstore.

Marcus Smith wrote:
I'm working on a biography of John Kienke. That's a project now going on 15 years!!!! And with four children at home ages 7, 5, 3, and 1, you can imagine that it's almost impossible these days to devote any long stretches of time to research. That would be abandoning my poor wife! Anyway, what I think you should do to follow the story ... at least to get a toe-hold on th events, is to read Harold Schindler's chapter on it in his biography of Orrin Porter Rockwell. Since he wrote that chapter, there have been some new developments that correct or amplify some of his interpretations. But the basic gist of the story is there and is, I think, basically correct. I think it lacks some important war context, however. I think that on the myancestry chart there is a giant leap in some missing generations on the Pitts line, jumping from a birth around 1800 back to the 1600s. The problem on the Searle line is that the dates in familysearch show generations too close together, with John Searle who married the Channon having a soon born to him when he is only about 10 years old. So something is going on there that is a problem too. I don't have them at my fingertips, but those were the things that lept out at me at a glance. Wow .... working in the Manti Temple must be wonderful. Are some of the sessions there still live?

Where is Harold Smith?

Gordon: He lives in Brookside subdivision in Springville.  He just got out of the hospital, and a rest home.  He is starting to get his strength back.

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From: mandlht@msn.com 
To: gf_smities@msn.com



Myrna: Where is your brother, Harold?

Article About World War II with Charles Edwards (Eva Responded)

Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2010 11:20:39 AM GMT -07:00 US/Canada Mountain
Subject: Charles Edwards


Utah WWII veterans share shattering memoriesBy Scott D. Pierce
Deseret News
Published: Sunday, March 7, 2010 4:41 p.m. MST
Utah WWII Stories: Untold Stories" isn't a high-gloss, highly produced documentary.

What it boils down to is members of the "greatest generation" sitting in front of a camera, telling us their stories. And yet producer Elizabeth Searles and her team have once again handled this project practically perfectly.

This is important history presented in a way that's thoroughly compelling. These are stories prompted by the success of the four-part "Utah World War II Stories" that aired in 2005-06 — additional stories that were shared by Utahns who saw that fine documentary series.

And some of these previously "Untold Stories" are shattering. Like the one shared by Jack Tueller, who piloted a P-47 against German tanks.

"At a thousand feet looking through the gunsight, I saw a French mother and her three children. She was trying to cover their bodies with hers. They were being held up there as human shields. And every tank had these on. Innocent civilians," he says.

He didn't open fire but was ordered to return and carry out his mission — civilians or no civilians.

"So for 65 years ago this last June, I live with that image," Tueller says. "I think that's what breaks my heart more than anything."

Not all the stories are tragic. Mark L. Heyrend tells a funny story about his first encounter with Gen. George S. Patton. Stanley Boyd Nance recalls his service in the "ghost army" — inflating rubber tanks to deceive the Germans.

Not all the stories are what you might consider traditional war stories. Roberta Windchief recalls Native Americans who served in the armed forces. Nell (Mickey) Stevenson Bright recalls her service in the WASPS.

Werner Sommerfeld, a "young Mormon boy" who lived in Hamburg, recalls being pressed into service in the Hitler Youth and training with boys as young as 12 as live ammo flew over them.

"Some, they got up and got shot and some got killed. And some cried for their mother," he says.

Tosh Kano, who was in his mother's womb at the time, tells of how she survived despite being only 800 yards from the epicenter of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Charles Edwards tells of jumping out of foxhole after foxhole, narrowly avoiding death by grenades while others died.

After the fourth time, "I guess I felt like I'd had it, and I started to cry. I don't know how long that lasted, but it was probably good for me. But I was so unnerved at that point that I just couldn't help myself."

The "Untold Stories" are accompanied by period photos and stock footage of combat, but it's the voices that count. And they count more because even the best writer can't capture in print the tone, timbre and emotion of those voices.

And, nearly 65 years after World War II ended, we're quickly running out of time to hear those voices — so KUED has done a great service in preserving them for us.

It's hard not to wonder how many stories we haven't heard because we didn't know to ask. Like the one shared by former Deseret News managing editor J Malan Heslop.

I met Heslop a quarter of a century ago when I was a young reporter and never had any idea that he was a combat photographer in World War II. That he was there taking pictures when the Ebensee concentration camp in Austria was liberated. Or that those photos are in the Holocaust Museum.

"As I remember, I photographed it rather matter-of-factly. I'm here doing a job," Heslop says. "It wasn't until sometime later that I really felt the impact of those people."

And you don't feel the real impact of that declaration unless you hear him in "Untold Stories."

On the web: www.kued.org/productions/worldwar2e-mail: pierce@desnews.com© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved  

To: L H TRAUNTVEIN
From: Eva Dixon

I know Tosh Kano very well.  He came to the County when I was working there  and I was involved with him in some things.  Also, I am going to copy this to give to a family I Visit Teach with the name of Nance.  Edwards' response seemed very real to me.  Thanks.  Love you.  Eva                                          

Now We Are Being Funny!

Julie: For many years, Dad said he was going to bury you with your stacks of newspapers. Now that they are not around anymore, maybe we should bury everything else with you. Isn't that what the Egyptians did? Ha, Ha.


Shawn: The newspapers are gone? How is Mom going to keep warm? I guess I could loan her a sleeping bag. Now the pharaoh didn't even have a nice sleeping bag to travel with. What were they thinking back then? He was probably so cold that he was huddled up and shivering as he left the cold dark interior of the pyramid and walked off to the afterlife, and that is why he couldn't carry the food that they left him. What a waste.


Myrna: There isn't a grave big enough. It would take a pyramid.


Eric: I want the top soil from the grave of stuff for my garden and yard. E.

Melanie Comments

I've never really thought about this subject. I would hope that the love that we have for each other would help us to divide up the personal belongings. We love our parents...not their things. I would think if someone wanted the slides, photographs, your poem journals, paintings or whatever, they would allow us to take copies, make prints, etc. We would know that we could borrow things, talk about things and enjoy the stories that come from the items. 
 
Mel


Myrna: Some families handle it well and others do not. I think Dad's family handled it well but, as you know, my one sister did not. It probably pays to talk about things in advance and then everyone knows what is what. Grandma T had a plan and everyone followed it. I have so many things that I just don't know. I am certain you will all want something from Dad. You know, we all hope we will live for many years but, in my experience, just about the time you get to feeling that way (that someone will be here longer); bam! someone has moved into the next world.

Kirsten Comments

Why don't you and dad come up with a list of items?  Then we can all openly discuss.  

Like I said, I think the furniture (piano, curio, table, etc.) might be something to discuss, as will the guns, fishing poles, work benches, poetry journals (originals can definitely be made into copies) and family history documents.  But I also think most of the family history things should be passed down like in days of old to oldest boy/girl... with copies for the rest of us.  

I think it would be wise to list it out and just see.  I'm sure there are things I haven't mentioned that others would love to include (like Grandpa T's old mining shovel and stuff like that), or your artwork, or the dolls and old pottery... your old newspaper journals, yearbooks, all books...

What does everyone else think?  I'm sure Ams would have suggestions on how she normally advises families to take care of this...

You and dad should do a "walk through."  Walk through the house and see...  Start room by room.  I think it will take a great deal of time, but think how much easier Grandma T's estate was to divide because she had dotted almost every i and crossed almost every t, down to her figurines...

I agree, Melanie.  The things I cherish most are not really things...  they're memories!  When it comes to dividing... I just want copies... copies of dad's slides from his mission, copies of birth certificates... copies of pictures from those old family photo albums... copies of your recipes, poetry.  I think we can all reconcile with each other... I think dad and the boys should work out the guns thing though...  we don't need one; no one here knows how to use one. :)

What other "things" do people want that would cause issues?  I think most of us have a piano... now if you would have kept your old water bed, I might have had to fight for that one... (hehehe)  Grandma's curio, etc.  I wouldn't know how to divide those items or who is most sentimentally attached to them.   I hope we each saw how giving you and dad both were upon your parents' deaths and learned how to also be charitable.  It is the people we will miss the most and the items, however wonderful they are, cannot replace the person.

Kirsten

Myrna: OK, the plan is that I make a list. It is back to my ballpark? How about if, when many of you are here, you help make a list? I'll start and then you fill in. See, I wouldn't have thought about the fishing poles. 

Shawn Trauntvein Comments

I know that I appreciate even small things, even things that others might think could have been DI’d or so forth. Grandchildren too often like something that they know was their grandparents. I remember going though Grandma Smith’s button cans and admiring the buttons when I was a child. I also got a pen that had belonged to Grandpa Trauntvein so many years ago, but now that I am older I regret that I asked Grandma for it at that time, and that I wasn’t more considerate of her feelings and needs following the funeral. I feel now as though I had ransacked her house (somewhat akin to plundering an archeological site), since she obviously was more closely connected with him than was I. I became ashamed of that as I grew older, although I never thought of it when talking with her, or I would have asked for her forgiveness. That is one of the many things I will still want to ask her forgiveness of if I am able to see her when I pass from this life. But returning to the subject, though I haven’t figured out what I did with the pen when I went on my mission, I still remember it (maybe it is in with my jamboree souvenirs, I’ll have to look). I know that recently I got something that was considered by someone else as nearly worthless, and was bound for the DI or trash. And, as embarrassing as it is to admit, I know that Melanie sent me a check for my birthday once, which I forgot to cash for too long. But I carried it around in my wallet for years as a reminder of how thoughtful she was. I have kept some things that David gave me for a birthday when I was in college many years ago. I have other things that others of you have given us, so the list goes on. Of course, my children would have no idea why I hang on to a plastic cup with pictures of antique automobiles on the side. There is often a longing in each of us for those things, physical or otherwise, that tie us to those whom we love.

But the physical things are perishable, and will be exhausted as the number of descendents multiply over the years. Although I want to know that things that remain will be well taken care of where at all possible (remembering it may be slightly out of our control as I learned from an elderly brother from our ward whose home was damaged by the Teton flood so many years ago), it is the pictures and stories that we can pass down to an unlimited amount of our descendents. So copies of these are always so vital. I think of Mom and her longing for anything, any picture of, or and tidbit that belonged to her mother who died when she was but an infant. Maybe that is one reason she didn’t ever want us to lose buttons from the button can, because she knew some might have belonged to her mother. Perhaps she even knew which ones. Fortunately we have been taught of the spirit of Elijah, and are wise enough to be aware that the longing that the Lord has put in us, of turning our hearts to the fathers, can (as many blessings) be used by Satan and combined with greed or pride, to turn to the hurt of others, similar to the story cited. As long as we communicate and share, we will come through all the better. The thing that is more important is that we come through making sure we care for the feelings of each other, and forgive if we somehow feel offended. But in the end, on this or any other subject, if I am a cause of offense, rather than feel that you are first required to forgive me, please talk to me first, hopefully you won’t feel you still need to forgive me when we are done. If I have learned anything of love and regret, it is that we become more astutely aware of both as we age, and all of the middle ground seems to fade.