76. More about family secrets ! (Real life is more interesting than fiction!)

I WANT TO BEGIN WITH A QUOTE I REALLY AGREE WITH!

Pres. Thomas S. Monson (quote below)

Don’t be afraid to walk out of a movie, turn off a television set, or change the radio station if what’s being presented does not meet your Heavenly Father’s standards. In short, if you have any question about whether a particular movie, book, or other form of entertainment is appropriate, don’t see it, don’t read it, don’t participate.  (This isn't about the following story ------  Just WISDOM! )

An interesting situation with Wayne's father Roy 's family.  We told about him and his parents and grandparents in yesterday's blog.  John Emanuel Wengren Eckman and his wife Margaret Turnquist, Roy's parents, came from Sweden with one child.  They had a second child in Sweden who died at about 2 months old, and she had a child shortly after they came to Utah.  That child lived only 6 days, possibly to the difficult trip they had coming to Utah.  Later, they had 7 more children born in Utah.  One of these was August.  The oldest son Carl was born in 1881, in Sweden, and came to the United States with them.  He married, and had a daughter who died the day she was born in 1906.  He died in 1908 and his wife Mary Olson died in 1914.  We found a few years ago that his Temple work was done, but his wife Mary's had not been, and we had them sealed, and the baby daughter sealed to them. 

  August, born in 1885 in Utah, married, and he and his wife had a son.  But August's wife was in poor health and she and her husband were having problems together, so they gave the baby to Margaret to raise when he was 1 month old.  She raised him, Albert, as her own son, and he never knew he wasn't her son.  He was about 10 years old when his grandmother Margaret  died in 1920 in the aftermath of the flu epidemic.  He overheard the family talking in another room about "What would they do with Albert?" as he wasn't her real son.  He overheard it and was devastated.  He had thought she wanted to tell him something a few times, but she never did tell him herself.

Wayne wrote the following, in the book of his ancestors, page 47.

There are some interesting items of interest from Albert’s journal that I will include here.  Albert was my father Roy’s nephew, the son of his brother, August, and he had one of the most adventuresome types of life imaginable.  He rode the rails from place to place wherever he could find work.  He was a rustic God-fearing man with high principles and saved quite a few lives of men in peril in mines where he worked as a laborer.  I am proud to claim him as a brother.  He was raised by his grandmother, Margaret Christina Turnquist Eckman (mother of Roy, and my grandmother) when his parents separated when he was one month old.  He was born August 19, 1910, at his grandparent’s home.   Both of his real parents died in 1919 in the flu epedemic.  He had left home by the time Wayne and Blaine, the twins, were born in 1930, but he came back often to visit.

     At his grandmother’s death in 1920 he was orphaned and moved in with my folks (Roy and Gladys) and finished high school at Murray High School before hitting the road or rails on his own.  An interesting thing about him is that he thought his grandmother was actually his mother until after she died.  The truth came as quite a shock to him.  Just before Albert was born, his parents had separated and his real mother was living in West Jordan. 

 Albert was born in 1910 at the grandparents home, and his mother had trouble getting well, and she figured she had to make a living somehow on her own.  As she was not too well, she asked Grandmother to take Albert and give him a home, as she didn’t think she could, and a month later he was adopted by his grandparents, my (Wayne’s) grandparents.  (Roy was about 12 at that time). Albert’s parents did eventually get back together and had three children, but both parents died in the flu epidemic in about 1919, before Margaret the grandmother did.  Those 3 children were adopted by different families.

      By the time Roy's mother Margaret passed away, and Albert was about 10 years old, he came to live with Roy and Gladys (Wayne, my husband's parents) who were recently married. They raised him as their son, and he considered himself a brother in the family.  We went to visit him years ago, when he lived in Nevada City, California.  It is a beautiful city, and settled among tall pine trees.  The pine trees were everywhere in the city, and houses were build around them.  He had a big swimming pool in his back yard, and our older children probably remember visiting him.

          For many years he wasn't active in the Church, and after his wife died, he moved in with his daughter in Nevada.  But he did get active in the Church and went to the Temple after he turned 90 years old.!  He has since passed on.

     Below is a picture taken at Grandpa Roy W. Eckman's funeral in 1975 -- with Albert sitting on the grass with Wayne.  As you will notice the 3 brothers on the top row have all passed away, and 2 of the sisters.

Top row, left to right, June, Shirlene and May (both deceased), Ruby, Joyce Marie, and Blaine, Ronald and Floyd, all deceased.

This blog is long enough, so next I'll write about them going back to Sweden, and the key harp Wayne's grandpa played, and actually constucted a few.  Aren't people's lives interesting?  !  I love history!