Comments on: With New Vision

By: lindberg

lindberg — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:50:35 +0000

Maybe I’m missing something — could they not have come to Salt Lake in 1860, lived in or near Salt Lake for five years, moved south in 1865, and then have this story set in 1867?

(Of course, if they’d spent that much time in the SLC area, you’d think the story would have mentioned it…)

Also, they were having a testimony meeting, but did not appear to be fasting (multiple mentions of preparing breakfast). Were there “testimony days” on non-fast Sundays?

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:27:36 +0000

Re-reading that, it looks like it was only Casper Bryner who had been south growing cotton prior to 1861, with the rest of his family and the other families living near Ogden until the call.

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:52:36 +0000

It looks like there were a few Swiss families, Bryner, Mathis, and Gubler, that pioneered cotton around St. George before the 1861 Cotton Mission call sent some other Swiss families there. Old Pine Valley Mountain to the east is hard to line-up with anywhere on the Virgin River. From St. George, it would be north-northeast.

“Swiss Saints in St. George”
http://www.cottonmission.org/?page_id=34

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:25:23 +0000

You’re on the right track, Alison, with the dating. The last handcart company crossed in 1860, and the Muddy Mission wasn’t begun until 1865. If the family lived in the dugout for two years, that still leaves at least three years unaccounted for (no big deal, except that writers are always playing the handcart card).

Another one: Fast and testimony meetings were held on Thursday at this period, not Sunday.

It seems common for descendants to refer to their grandparents by anglicized names. I’m not sure what names the emigrants themselves would have used. You’d think that within the family, at least, the older, more familiar names would be the ones used — I’m with you there.

By: Alison

Alison — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:51:39 +0000

I don’t know if it’s historical, and perhaps it was common for immigrants to America to anglicise their names, but if they couple in the story were from German Switzerland, would they not more likely to have been Hans/Johann and Marie/a? FWIW, I see from the LDS Church News Almanac that the first missionaries arrived in Switzerland in 1853. Perhaps that was later than the settlement of the area described in the story?

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:57:49 +0000

Even though I've heard of Juanita Brooks for 30 years, I'd never read anything by her, so thanks for the correction Ardis. I didn't know she wrote so well.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:12:56 +0000

There are several historical problems with this story — can you identify some of them? (I say that not to ridicule the author in any way, but to point out that even someone who turned out to be as great as Juanita Brooks wasn’t born knowing it all and had to start somewhere.)