Thoughts and stories, by Pal

I am deciding something that I believe is wise.  I have truly enjoyed writing this blog, and in it I have written several family history stories which are already in the books we have published and given to our children and grand-children.  I realize they are very busy, and don't have much time to peruse these books.  Some of them have told me they really love these stories, and haven't known they already have them, -- but didn't know where to find them in the books.  I'll try to put pages in, so all you posterity can find them in our books! Wayne and I have been the Stake Indexing leaders in our Stake for over a year.  Wayne does a very lot of indexing, but I do some other things also, and haven't been doing as much indexing as I did before I began writing the blog.  I believe I need to be more diligent doing that, and so I will cut down the number of blogs I do -- each week I plan to do at least 3 blogs, probably Monday, Wednesday, and Friday .  Su...

My second great grandfather on my mother's side lived quite an amazing life.  He had many health problems in his life, and yet he became strong enough to be one of the Prophet Joseph Smith's bodyguards in the last years of the Prophet's life.  His Gallitan, Missouri, fight incident is well known in Church  history.          John Lowe Butler, was born Apr, 8, 1808, in  Kentucky, to James and Charity Lowe Butler.  He was not a healthy child.  When he was seven years old he was stricken with inflammatory rheumatism which spread over his body from his toes to his fingertips.  This disease returned once or twice a year until he was 20.  When he was 19, the pain settled in his left side and his thigh and his arm began to fail him.  John became so frail that his mother could carry him about in her arms.  In spite of his long, continued illness, he stood six feet tall when he was 22. His extensive autobiography shows...

I read an interesting article on Facebook, and copied it to be used on my blog.   We raised our children in the late 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's mostly.  We lived in a neighborhood where most mothers didn't work.  We had 9 children, but in our neighborhood our neighbor to the left had 9 children, the neighbor on the right had 7, and the neighbor across the street had 10.  (Of course this was during the same years we were having our family.)  Also in the same ward a neighbor half a block away had 10 children, and another half block south another family had 9, and over a street another ward member had 10 children.  One of our daughters had 22 girls her age in the ward!                    Wayne and me on our honeymoon, in September, 1955, in Zion's Canyon. So our large family wasn't unusual.  Our children played together a lot, and it was safe in those days -- we could let them go to a nearby field...

We are very blessed to live here in St. George, Utah, where there are many wonderful and inspirational activities to go to.  On Wednesdays, here in the Tabernacle, they have a program, usually quite musical, and on Friday nights, they have an inspirational lecture by a well known person.  On Saturdays from 12:15 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. they have an organ recital, or other musical recital.  Many other nights they have concerts by local choirs and musical groups. This is an amazing building, to realize it was built in the desert small pioneer town of St. George, when people were so in need.  My grandfather, William Gustavus Miles, was a stone cutter on that very building.  It has a magnificent interior, and has spiral staircases, and a balcony on 3 of its walls.  I have enjoyed accompanying many talented people in several concerts there.  It has a lovely Steinway piano! Tonight we went to a wonderful program by Clive Romney.   It was his great gr...

This article was interesting to me, and gave me thoughts about reasons it is good to take care of our health --- not only for ourselves, but for our families.   The article below came from Meridian Magazine, today.  I have condensed it.  I've put in photos of members of our family, to show some of the people that are my reason for living.    It's A Family Affair: The 5 Best Ways To Lose Weight For Good  By Carolyn Allen Could it be that what we need most is to gain a testimony that to embark on and embrace a healthy lifestyle is  not so much a personal matter  but a  priceless gift for our eternal families  that adds value, protection and joy to the present  and  future? Let me explain what I mean.  Years ago, a friend was in the hospital for a short stay and shared a room with a woman that was battling lung cancer.  She was an unwilling witness to a heart-wrenching conversation where the woma...

      First -- it is interesting to know about how surnames started -------      Prior to the dark ages, the Roman civilization identified people with only one name.  By 1100 A.D., the European population had increased so that many villages found that many of their male population had the same name, John, William, etc.  To distinguish one John from another, a second name was needed.  As people started using a second name they came from four sources: Occupation:  Names such as Carpenter, Cook, Miller, Taylor. Location:  The John who lived over the hill became John Overhill, or near a stream could be Brook, or Atbrook. Patronymical: such as Williamson, Jackson, etc. Characteristics:  A small person may be Small, Short, Little, or Lytle.  Large may be Longfellow, Large, Lang, or Long.  Persons with animal characteristics could be Fox, Fish, Dove, etc. It is thought the name Atterbury evolved from atte Borough -...

Today, I want to tell the story of Wayne's great great grandfather, Phillip Kirk, and his wife Mary Ann Taylor.  The story comes from the book we have written about Wayne's parents and ancestors.  Mary Ann was 17 years old when she married Philip Kirk, 20 years old. They had 10 children, four of whom died young. Early in the 1840’s, Mormon missionaries had been sent to England to tell the people there of a new religion in America.   In 1849 some traveling Elders found the Philip Kirk family in Arnold, Nottingham, England.  He was then a baker with a pastry shop.          His conversion to the Latter Day Saint religion was the result of a dream.  He dreamed that as he was standing by his gate, he saw two men coming down the road toward him.  He then awoke.  Several days later he saw the two men of his dream coming down the road toward him as he stood by the gate.  They told him they had a message for him and he asked t...