Sons of Utah Pioneers

Transcription

1 Old Zion Park Stake Center Sons of Utah Pioneers October 2017 Volume 5 Number 10 Hurricane Valley Chapter Newsletter September s Activities: National Convention: This year s convention was held in Centerville, Utah. It was very well laid out, and seemed to be carried off without any hitch. Those attending from our chapter were David Hinton, Than Naegle and their lovely wives. Besides three incredible dinners, we were entertained by Fire On the Mountain, a BYU group that has performed nationally for 33 years. Friday night we were treated to a brilliant and emotional musical play adapted from the Nauvoo Pageant on how each generation is intertwined with the others. On Saturday morning we enjoyed a performance by the star of Promised Valley during the 70 s and 80 s, and his daughter who has performed in that same production. The treks to Antelope Island, The Church Museum in SLC, Hill Air Force Base Museum, and Echo Canyon were most interesting, with amazing tour guides to help us understand what we were seeing along the way. All of this was capped by an wonderful talk given by Glen Rawson, who told us some amazing pioneer stories that are not well known, but should be! All in all, the convention made one grateful that they were members of the

2 Page 2 HVSUP October Newsletter 2017 Sons of Utah Pioneers. Hats off to the Centerville Chapter for a Wonderful and Memorable experience. (Our conventions from now on will be titled Encampments ). Dinner Meeting: We were fortunate to have Dawn Humphries, and her husband Buck, speak to us about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Dawn is the Granddaughter of the famous Mormon author, Juanita Brooks. She began her presentation with a comparison between the attack of 9/11/2001, and the attack of 9/11/1857. Although the attack at Mountain Meadows began on September 7 th, it was culminated on the same day as our modern-day attack on the World Trade Center 147 years earlier. In this report, an attempt was made to help us understand how it was possible for such a horrendous event to occur. She spoke of events that were occurring at that time, and that had happened several years before at Haun s Mill. Some, in the Fancher party, were bragging that they had been participants in that event. No excuses were given for the acts of hostility at Mountain Meadows, but circumstances given to show how the situation could have become so volatile. With Johnson s Army descending on the Mormons, and threats that the Fancher party would return from California with another army certainly helped incite what happened. No matter the reasons, what happened was a dreadful no win for those involved. Blame can be found on both sides of the issue, but judgement should be left to the Lord. Calendar of Events: October 19 th : Our speaker will be John Naegle. He grew up in Toquerville, and attended school in Hurricane. He teaches Institute at Dixie State University. He will speak to us about John Conrad

3 Page 3 HVSUP October Newsletter 2017 Naegle, who helped to settle this area. It will begin Thursday the 19 th at 6:30 p.m. at the Legion Hall, and our meal will be pot-luck. We hope to see you all there. November 16 th : Come and listen to President James McArthur from St. George, He served as the president of the Nauvoo Temple from He also served as the president of the Fukuoka Japan Mission from , and was the Japan MTC Mission President from January 2008 until December The dinner will be on the 3 rd Thursday of the month, and will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Legion Hall. The dinner will, as usual, be pot-luck. December 1 st : Our annual Christmas Dinner will be held at the Hurricane Stake Center, on the first Friday of the month, which is the 1 st. It will begin at 6:00 p.m., a half hour earlier than our regular meetings. The entertainment will be provided by Casey Lofthouse. The dinner will be provided by the chapter board, headed by David Isom. This dinner will aid us in raising funds for various events and scholarships. Our new Chapter Presidency and board for 2018 will be sworn in. Trivia: Many of our chapter members grew up here in Hurricane. Can you name the members, whose pictures are shown below? Some are deceased now. a b c d e f g h I j k l

4 Page 4 HVSUP October Newsletter 2017 m n o p q r History of LaVerkin Cont.- Like her sister-in-law, May, Susanna Gubler was not one to wait around for men to get a job done. Even though the new home Henry was building was a simple rock structure, it was preferable to their temporary quarters and when it was near completion, Susanna went into action. She hitched the team to the wagon and moved their belongings by herself. They owned a fine, big, and very heavy, "Home Comfort" wood-burning cook stove that she needed right away. No one was available to help her load it so she cut a broom handle in two to make rollers and proceeded with the task herself. The secret of just how she got it onto the wagon remains a mystery; but it was all two men could do to get the stove off the wagon and into the new home. Nobody picked quarrels with Susanna after word of that got out. The Gubler brothers missed a lot of sleep during their first years of running the farms and dealing with the ditch. Adding excitement to their efforts were rattlesnakes that frequented the canal bank and the village itself. Joseph related that many times he raced up the canal bank at night barefoot to divert water back into the river channel before it did further damage to the channel inside the tunnel. Retracing his steps at daybreak, he would encounter rattlesnakes coiled up waiting for the morning warmth, or he would see their trails in the dust. He marveled that none ever attempted to nip his ankles as he went by in the night--at least none of which he was aware. He finally concluded that they were going to leave him alone and that he might as well reciprocate, so he quit killing them. In fact, he developed quite a charming peaceful co-existence with some of them. Later in life, he kept beehives and had the extraction equipment in a little

5 Hurricane shack Mesa on & the Zion hillside. Cliffs Lyman Gubler, a grandson, recalls that a huge rattlesnake called the shack home. It might be stretched out on the floor relaxing and Page 5 HVSUP October Newsletter 2017 digesting its most recent mouse or rat while Joseph stepped over, or around it as he went about operating the centrifuge that yielded liquid honey. Young Lyman found it a fascinating sight, but one he was content to view from a distance. What little that was left of the LaVerkin Fruit and Nursery Company ceased to exist in 1902 and from then on the canal was operated by a new organization, the LaVerkin Bench Canal Company with Thomas Judd, President; Henry Gubler, Vice President; Riley Savage, Secretary-treasurer; Allen Stout and James Naegle, Directors. The board did not always agree on how to deal with problems as we learn from reminiscences of Henry Gubler, dated 1935: My brother and I had farmed and built irrigation ditches all our lives and we believed that it (the canal and tunnel) could be fixed all right. We didn't always agree with Brother Judd on the way to manage the ditch to control the water. I wanted to shoot some rocks at the head of the ditch that were giving us trouble. Sometimes the water hitting against them eddied and filled the head with sand and debris, and again, it would wash out the ditch. I had to get all the owners to vote against Brother Judd once to do this. He didn't think we could control the river. He meant well but he just couldn't see how we could do it; but I guess I knew more about ditches. It, my plan, worked fine, and when the Light Company put more water in the ditch they shot a lot more rock into the river. Brother Judd finally admitted I was right, but first he used to say, You'll never succeed. a. Vard Hall b. David Isom c. Buck Humphries d. Darwin Gifford e. Than Naegle f. Kelly Dutton g. David Hinton h. Dell Stout i. Antone Bringhurst j. Gail Hinton k. Tom Hirschi l. Durward Wadsworth m. Lynn Sanders n. Clark Campbell o. Wynn Stout p. Clayton Beatty q. Rowland Hinton r. Carl Wadsworth Historic Pictures of the Eastern Washington County Communities: Winery in Toquerville Gene s Theater

6 Page 6 HVSUP October Newsletter 2017 LaVerkin Hurricane Bridge Grand Opening Hurricane Library & High School Petty Store, and Clark Pharmacy Old Relief Society Building River s Gorge Jailhouse Rock in Toquerville I am always looking for old pictures of this area, from Hurricane to Springdale and Zion. If you have any such pictures, and would be willing to share them, would you contact David Hinton at: dthinton@dreamwire.net, or If you have better pictures of the ones in this newsletter, would you please share. Thank you!