History of Millard County

  

           We had some thunderstorms this week that were rocking the trailers so much so that many of the missionaries commented on their lack of sleep because of it.

            When I first started writing this I was a little concerned that I could not think of very much to write about.  Then I reviewed in my journal the events of the week and I was surprised at how quickly I forget the good things that happen in my life.

            A week ago today, while I was in the fort giving a tour, a lady who I had taken on a tour a month or so ago stopped to drop off a book for me.  It was the about the life of Nicholas Paul who was the head stone mason here at Cove Fort.  I think that I wrote about him when the lady first stopped here.  Anyway, I’m rather fascinated about his life and death so I was very happy to have a chance to read the updated version of the book.  The author has been adding to the original work for thirty years and there were more than two hundred additional pages.  Nicholas Paul was the 2^nd convert to the church in South Africa and then immigrated to Utah.  He built a lot of the buildings that are still standing in Millard County, bridges, and kilns.  At one point he became displeased with the way two of his daughters, who had married polygamous men, were being treated by their husbands so he began to turn in the polygamists in his town when the federal marshals came hunting them.  You may surmise that he was not well liked by his neighbors for that.  He died a mysterious death on his way to visit two of his daughters living just over the border in Nevada.  He was traveling alone by horse and buggy.  Anyway, his horse returned but he did not.  They sent out search parties to look for him but no one could find him.  This happened May/June 1901 and his “body” wasn’t found until the following January by some sheepherders.  In actuality, they only found a few of his bones and the remnants of his clothing which held papers that identified him as Nicholas Paul – very odd.  Anyway, the lady returned on Thursday and I had to give it back but I’ve got Cory looking for a CD copy at the BYU archives for me.

            Monday night we had a great Family Home Evening. 

Instead of having our typical lesson format, we had a lesson on how to put a tire on a wheel.  That is an iron/steel tire on a wooden wheel.  The Pratt brothers live between our trailer park and the fort and they are blacksmiths and makers of restorations (such as the Granville Press in Palmyra).  So they came to the fort and taught us all the steps about how to make the tire fit the wheel.  I had imagined that building the wheel was no big thing but after listening to these two men talk, I know that I was definitely wrong.  They had built two wheels for a trek wagon that someone had ordered.  So here are the steps to get the wheel and the tire together.

1. Measure the outside of the wooden wheel around the fellows.
2. Measure the inside of the tire.
3. Tighten down the wheel using a hub nut.
4. Build a bonfire and put in the tire.
5. Push the coals up and around the tire.
6. When a hardwood handle will just slide along the tire then it is hot enough
7. Lift tire out of fire and put on wheel.
8. Hammer down the tire on the wheel to make sure it is even.
9. Pour water on the tire (not the wheel) to cool it down so the wood doesn’t catch on fire.
10. Release the hub nut and take off the finished wheel/tire.

At the end one of the brothers bore his testimony how all of these things we had talked about are just things.  What is important at the fort and in life is how things relate to the gospel and how we utilize them for good in our lives.  I’m very glad that I was there.  Some of our missionaries that have served in Nauvoo said that they never saw anything like this back there.  When all of the work was done, we broke out the wienies and marshmallows and had a very pleasant late dinner of hot dogs, chips, watermelon, and s’mores.

  

     We did a historical tour of the area on our P-day on Tuesday.  I’m not sure that Stephen was all that excited about what we did, but he still went along with it.  We stayed in Millard County but drove north and west to some of the smaller towns.  We started in Deseret so that I could see the remains of the Deseret Fort that was built there.  The walls were made from adobe so that were not as durable as our volcanic rock at Cove Fort.  There were some of the walls still standing but a lot of them had crumbled.  Then it was off to Hinckley.  How could we serve a mission at Cove Fort and not make a trek to the town named after the Millard State presidents who served for fifty years (I’d read that it was named after Ira Hinckley, but then saw something while we were out and about that claimed it had been named after Ira’s son Alonzo who had served as stake president after Ira).  Other than the Post Office and the Sinclair station and mini-mart, we couldn’t see any other businesses in town.  When I stopped at the Post Office, I mentioned that we were serving at Cove Fort and that it had been built in the middle of nowhere.  The lady corrected me and said that the actual middle of  nowhere was Hinckley, Utah. I almost had to agree with her.  From there we drove up to look at the remains of the Topaz Internment Camp.  It was easy to see why the government picked this spot for the camp as it is desert (OK it is really dry grazing land – although I don’t remember seeing any cattle) and there is nothing around it for miles.  All that was left were a bunch of signs (placed as part of an Eagle Scout project) and some foundations.  We had to drive into Delta to get more information about the camp.  There was supposed to be a former barracks in the town but since they are in the process of rebuilding/enlarging the Great Basin Museum it was not available.  We went in and looked around the museum anyway.  They had it set up with little scenarios that I really liked so I got to pretend that I was a telephone operator and a dental patient.  Way too fun.

This was a great week for getting news from our kids.  Cory and his family stopped by on Tuesday on their way home after a visit to Suzanne’s mom in San Luis Obispo.  They wanted to get home before dark so we only had time for dinner and a short visit.  The grandkids were excited to be able to pick their own piece of obsidian to take home.  Ashley wrote a long, informative email that caught us up on what they had been doing this summer.  Then yesterday we were pleasantly surprised to find a letter from Jared and Clara in our mailbox.  It was a very happy day because they even sent us pictures of Elise and Andrew that we can put on our refrigerator.  It is actually beginning to feel like home here as we begin to get an assortment of family pictures on display.

            There were several good tours this week.  Probably my favorite was with a family who had just dropped off a son at the Missionary Training Center in Provo.  I was amazed that all three of their sons had challenges in their lives.  His two oldest sons were hearing impaired and the one boy they had with them had Downs Syndrome.  For a little while, it made me feel like I was back in my classroom teaching.  It made me realize I miss associating with people with special needs.  We were sitting in the Missionary Prep Room, when a couple stopped by that had a service dog.  I was so surprised when the missionary asked if they could take the dog into the cabin and even more surprised by the comments made by the other missionaries.  They thought that she could probably leave the dog outside – WOW!  I was ready to jump up and advocate for the woman if they tried to separate her from her dog. 

            Friday, while I was waiting for my tour, I overheard a woman say that she was from Visalia so I started paying attention.  Then I looked at the guy who was sitting next to her on the bench and thought he looked familiar.  He walked away to make a call and I heard him speaking to “Jackson” on his phone.  After a moment or two something clicked and I asked the woman if she happened to know Jaxon and Becky Shiner from Clovis.  I was pleasantly surprised when she said yes, in fact, she had just married Jaxon’s brother, Gates, two months ago.  No wonder he looked so familiar. 

            Then there was the tour with a senior couple who were not members of the church and were on an extended trip to visit several of the presidential libraries.  He was a docent at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley.  As they were leaving he gave me some money as a donation.  I thanked him kindly but returned it .

            I drove up to the fort by myself one evening to help Sis. Christensen with a problem she was having with the internet.  I offered to drop off a package to our next-door neighbors that had been sitting in the office for a day or two.  My evident mistake was not going into the house first and alerting Stephen that I was back.  Instead I marched over to the neighbors’ trailer to deliver the package because he was sitting outside as I drove by.  I somehow got caught up in a conversation with him and his wife and the time passed.  Before not too long, I noticed that Stephen was driving off in the Prius.  It clicked after a few moments that he was probably going down to the fort to look for me.  I had to sprint from the trailer next to ours to the far end of the court to be able to catch him before he left.  What I have learned from the experience is that I must always check in before doing anything else.

            What started out as only half a page has now morphed into something longer than I intended.  Sorry to have kept you for so long.  We are still loving what we are doing and trying to do it better with each passing day.