I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
3 John 1:4

Monday, October 29, 2012

Family History Miracle

    I found Edwin Samuel Kemmerer’s parents today.  In our Stake Conference we were encouraged again to find our own family names to take to the temple.  We have most of our immediate lines done except for those that go back before coming to America.  With our upcoming trip to Seattle I decided during the meeting today that we should go to the temple in Seattle to do baptisms.  I had found a family last year to do temple work for, but those names were almost complete now. 
    I opened my family history files on https://new.familysearch.org wondering who to look for.  I always go to Dad’s family, usually the Ross line.  I went down a line that I have been working on for years.  The Silvius line.  It was Martha M Silvius’ brothers and sisters that I found last year.  Her youngest sister, Minnie J Silvius was married to Edwin S Kemmerer.  I decided to try to find his parents. 
    Looking at the records it appeared that Minnie had died a month after delivering three baby girls Minnie, Marcia and Myrtle, all of which died within the next year.  Minnie had an older son that was 10 years old at his mother’s death.
    I began searching on https://familysearch.org/ looking through census records for the Kemmerer name.  There are millions of new names on this site because of all the indexing going on.  I found the 1900 Census first that listed Edwin and Minnie with their son Ralph born 1898, 2 years old at that time. 
    I needed to go earlier to find Edwin’s parents. I found him on the 1880 Census with several siblings, 13 years old and his parents were listed as Samuel and Sophia. That was very exciting, but I wanted to confirm that it was really him.  I saw that his sister Emma Werkheiser was living with them with a baby Edgar 10m. Emma was listed as Widowed.  I searched for another hour trying to find something more, putting in different names.  I finally tried looking for Emma Werkheiser and up popped the 1910 census that listed a Emana E Werkisin living with a Ralph Renner whose parents were Ed Renner and Ida M.  It said that Ed had been married twice and Ida just once.
    Not at all what I thought I was looking for, but as I looked at the actual image of the census I could see that it said Kemmerer as the last name and the head of the household was not Ed, but E S.  I have been doing indexing and arbitrating for years and it was clear to me.  I can’t fault the arbitrator too much, it was hard to discern.  I knew what I was looking for and I think Edwin wanted me to find it.  It seemed miraculous to me. 


    I searched the new.familysearch records to see if anyone had entered the family either under Kemmerer or Renner and found nothing.  I put in the family last night and printed the temple sheet to take it with us to Seattle. 
    This is the family as I believe it to be.

Samuel Kemmerer
Sophia
    1 Emma Kemmerer Werkheiser (husband unknown)
        Edgar Werkheiser
    2 Alice Kemmerer
    3 Malinda (twin)
    4 William (twin)
    5 Edwin Samuel
        Wife 1-Minnie J Silvius 1864-1903
            Ralph
            Minnie
            Myrtle
            Marcia
        Wife 2 -Ida M
            Harold S
            Robert A
            William
   6 Charles

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Brigham City Temple

It was Peach Days in Brigham City with one of the biggest car shows of the year.  We took the trailer camper and the Z car and spent the night.  We arrived Friday night and decided to go up to the temple grounds.  We had tried to get open house tickets all week, but they weren't giving them out.  The worker we talked to said they had not been planning to do regular scheduled tours, but at the last minute they did.  There was no line, so we went right in.  We all felt just a little bit uncomfortable because we hadn't dressed up.  It was wonderful anyway. We're glad we got to go through.






Monday, September 24, 2012

Bountiful Harvest



 I had to pick the peaches early because the yellow jackets were eating them and making homes in them.  I made two batches of sliced peaches and two batches of jam.


We made apple pie filling next which turned out yummy.  We've already made a pie with it.  This was the first year that we had enough apples to make it.


We have had lots of grapes and tomatoes again this year.  We have eaten lots of fresh salsa and will be able to enjoy plenty of jelly and juice through the winter months.

Eight pints of jelly and five quarts of juice. . . so far.

Picture Day

 July 28 we had a family picture day.  Here are some of my favorite pictures that didn't make the portrait wall.  Obviously Alleah stole the show.





My lovely daughter. . she might hate me when she sees this one.