Comments on: Mormon Kid Art, 1919

By: Eric Boysen

Eric Boysen — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:55:02 +0000

As an alumnus of the Pershing Rifles, I greatly appreciated the short note on JJP. It gave me a chance to test my memory for the dates I had to memorize as a pledge. On the sesquicentenial of his birth I will NOT be celebrating as I did in college, with a beer for each year consumed by our membership, nonetheless I will remember the General and appreciate that I will wake up on my wife’s birthday without a hangover.

By: Bruce Crow

Bruce Crow — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:58:35 +0000

Ardis & Researcher,

Her location at Sanford did indeed help. I don’t usually go around looking at anyone with the Reed last name assuming they were related to the Reed family of Lexington, Tennessee.

By: Researcher

Researcher — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:46:12 +0000

Sigh. I mean Pershing led an amazing life. Darn antecedents.

By: Researcher

Researcher — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:44:52 +0000

Bravo, Bruce! What a wonderful connection.

I like the poem from the girl in St George. It seems like the inhabitants of that corner of the state had a perfect passion for poetry.

My g-grandpa served under Pershing on the Mexican border, and then later in Europe. He really led an amazing life.

And, for the record, I am not commenting out of pity! It is a lovely post.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:00:01 +0000

I am IMPRESSED, Bruce, that you know your people so well that you could make a connection between this girl and your Tennessee history (I suppose her location at Sanford helped). It is further evidence of one of the traits I like best in Mormon history: everything is connected to everything else. These aren’t just isolated particles — they all tie together, somehow.

By: Bruce Crow

Bruce Crow — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:50:16 +0000

The father of Lura Reed, author of “A New Year’s Surprise”, was in Lexington, Tennessee when Robert Edge made his now famous visit. She even had an uncle named Robert Edge Reed. The whole family moved to Colorado before she was born.

It was probally another uncle or perhaps a cousin who this poem was about. She had no brothers old enough to have been coming home from France in 1919.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:13:53 +0000

Thank you, Maurine and kevinf, for taking pity on me and commenting. I rather liked this post, but alas — {sniff} /taking out lace-edged hankie to dab away a tear/ — it doesn’t seem too popular. Nevertheless, I’ll probably subject you all to some more of these, especially when the kids write about what have become significant matters of history, like the evacuation from revolutionary Mexico and the old Muddy Mission.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:05:35 +0000

The 10 year old writing about St. Thomas on the Muddy River was prophetic when he claimed that Sister Felt, coming to visit, could hardly find her old home due to the changes in the town. He just needed to wait a couple of decades and the town was submerged under Lake Mead, following the construction of Hoover Dam.

I understand that in the last few years that as the water has receded somewhat, parts of the old town have reemerged. My wife had some ancestors who lived there for a while.

By: Maurine

Maurine — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:49:33 +0000

These were very interesting. I could feel the sadness of the boy writing about the pony brought out from Mexico.