Thankful for Blessings in Hornell

One of the greatest blessings that come from our service here in Hornell is seeing the hand of the Lord in blessing people we have come to love.

A little over a week ago, Kenneth Potter was baptized into the church. He loves the Gospel and was searching for a church to join. This was back in the early summer, I believe. As he chose to take a walk (not a normal thing for him to do) and then to change his mind in what direction, we chanced upon the Elders, who also were not where they usually were wont to be. Ken loved hearing the lessons and wanted to be baptized early on, but was not able to attend Sacrament meetings because of work requirements. He was a dish washer at a local restaurant of a nationwide chain of restaurants. His hours were limited, so he had little choice of when he could work. As he attended the meetings he could, he loved being with us all and eventually as he showed faith and worked towards becoming ready for baptism, he was blessed with more hours to work and eventually a change so that he could at least come to the first part of the church meeting time and attend Sacrament Meetings with us. The day he was baptized, he came out of the water and exclaimed, "I've never felt so clean!" That very afternoon, he was given the chance to prove himself at work and did well and within a few days was promoted from being a dish washer to becoming on track to a position as assistant manager in that area. He is amazed at the blessings that came his way (as are we).

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday visiting our daughter and family who live in Medina. About a week later, we invited a number of people to a turkey dinner at our place. We visit several people who did not have much of a Thanksgiving of their own. (We also missed having our own left-overs, so that was another reason to have another turkey dinner ;-)

Of course, our two Elders (Webster and Lawrenz) were invited. Four of our guests are not members of the church. These people are some of our dearest friends here in Hornell. It was a wonderful experience.

The Lord truly blesses us!

Autumn in the Southern Tier

This part of New York is called the "Southern Tier," meaning that this is the south part of Western New York. It is quite rural and is beautiful with all the rolling hills and thick forests covering them. One genealogical site is named for it, The Painted Hills, referring to the beautiful Autumn colors here. They tell us that this year is not quite as vivid as last year, because it has been a wet year. It is still very beautiful.

This blog entry is a collection of photos of the area, and some of our work here and of family.

 A sunrise view as we are coming into the Cohocton valley.

 In the hills near Loon Lake, in the area of Wayland and Dansville, New York

 The hills near Andover, on the way to Wellsville, New York

 The hills behind the village of Canisteo, New York

 The view of the hills east of Dansville, New York

 Near Loon Lake, the trees are showing a very thick collection of pine cones

 We visit a family on a road named "Hungry Hollow" near Hornell, New York

 This gravestone in the Hornellsville Hope Cemetery is remarkable, but we are unable to learn more about this child who died in 1841 at age 9

Our granddaughter, Tova, returned from her mission to Argentina. This is a picture of the missionary board in the Lockport Ward, New York

Change and Permanence - Things that Matter

I woke up in a nostalgic reverie this morning. I have always been a person who appreciates the past and love to read and to record history. This morning my thoughts were directed towards understanding the impermanence of what I had always considered solid structures of my past.

As I grow up and live, some things are just assumed and seem to be the stones of the foundation of life: the schools I attended, the churches, friends, family, even the experiences in missions. What brought this on (this reverie) is the change that just took place in our old ward, the West Jordan 4th Ward, yesterday.

We lived in the West Jordan 4th ward from October 1980 until we sold our home there in August 2017. Yesterday, that ward was basically broken up and became parts of three other wards. The new arrangement does away with the numbers (4th, 11th, 29th, 43rd and 44th wards) and now what was once the West Jordan 4th ward is now parts of the Coppergate, Camelot Park and the Meadowlands wards of the stake. I assume that eventually the name of the stake will be changed from the "West Jordan Utah East Stake" to something that makes more sense.

Then I thought about all the changes of the past: The Computer Center at the University of Utah was dissolved and much change has taken place with what I knew in all my years at the U. My High School, Granite High, once one of the two largest high schools in the state, no longer exists and the buildings are being or are already torn down. My elementary school in Park City, Marsac Elementary, is not a school, though the building is still being used (as a city office building). Many of the houses I lived in are no longer standing. My grandparents' home in Oak City was torn down many years ago. Even a number of the people we came to know and love in our recent missions have since passed away and they are now just fond memories.

But that leads to what really matters.

We have such wonderful associations with people, family, friends and associates.  In everyday, even casual living, I have come to know so many dear people. Some connections still exist, but many are not still connected. Family is much stronger, though still it is hard when a child no longer communicates with us. Still, we cherish our dear loved ones and even though we are apart, we still connect through means of modern technology. Perhaps the lack of actual, physical presence of family is affecting me. We are so glad to be near Mary and her family. That is one of the blessings of this mission. We just miss all the others so much.

I had better stop and appreciate what I do have here. We love the work with these wonderful people here in our mission. That is what counts. I need to enjoy what I have in the here-and-now, and know, through faith, that all things will be made good, through the grace and mercy of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Trust in Him. Rely on His perspective and realize that my perspective is so limited. Yes, life moves on. Change is inevitable. Love still abounds.

I love you all!

People, Places, Elders and a moth

This blog entry is mostly in the form of pictures. We enjoy working with investigators and members as well as closely with the full-time Elders. Here is a pictorial view:

As we enter our city, we see this sign. At this end of the city it is very near our home.

We visited the Sacred Grove with Tatika and her daughter. It was a great experience.

This young man is one of only a couple of youth in our branch. We love their family. In this picture, he wanted to try out Shauna's hat. He is a lot of fun.

We had the privilege to attend the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Here we were with some family and one of the actors.

Shauna made a dress for Mary and they are posing together as "twins."

We have district meeting at the Hornell church. Here we are just before transfers. Elder Case is the tall one.

District meeting in the Wellsville chapel.

The Elders have an interesting way of parking sometimes.

The beauties of the area are astounding.

The small hamlet of Rexville is barely out of our area, but we visit some wonderful people here. This is a building near their home. Troupsburg in a small hamlet south of Hornell and is in our area.

This is Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes. It is in the village of Hammondsport in the Bath Branch.

As promised. A moth. (on our front step - it looked like a dead leaf)

We love the work and the people.

The Story of Lottie Still - from Find-a-Grave to family connections

One of the activities we do here, basically at times when we have a little free time, is to photograph and transcribe gravestones in a local cemetery and adding them to the Find-a-Grave repository. Consider this something like the process of indexing that we do for FamilySearch genealogy service, only among gravestones. When we started the Hornell Rural Cemetery a few months ago, the list of memorials for the cemetery was about 7000, with most of them only dates and names and not pictures of gravestones. Now, after our work there, having finished about a month ago, there are 9770 memorials for the cemetery with 75% having gravestone pictures. We are now working on the Hornell Hope cemetery, which is about the same size.

One interesting aspect of this work is when we have a feeling of focus on individuals whose gravestones we record. In researching a bit further, especially through Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org on some of these, we find that we are related to many of the people buried in these cemeteries. This is primarily because many of our ancestors came from early times in New England and these people here also have the same background.

One such person of focus is Lottie Still.

As I was going from stone to stone, I photographed this stone. Later, back at home, I tried to figure out who the person was and find them in the directory. He name is on the top of the stone, barely readable, and the dates: 1875  and 1901 on the front side. That is all. I had to return and by closer examination and feeling the raised letters on the top, determined this to be Lottie Still. She died here at age 26. I dutifully entered the information into Find-a-Grave.

Somehow, Lottie did not leave me alone. I felt that I needed to get more about what happened. I kept searching records off an on for a few weeks and came up with little. I found other people with the name of Still in the area, but nothing seemed to match. I could not connect her to anybody here or to our family.

After a while, I found an obscure reference in a New York City newspaper mentioning a major train accident in Kansas City, Missouri and one of the victims was  Lottie Still from Hornellsville, New York. It appeared that she and a friend were traveling from Hornell to San Francisco and happened to be in the train when it was hit head-on by another train and many were injured and a few perished.

Then, a later date, I was visiting the Hornell City library and asked the head librarian about their genealogy references. I was not thinking at all about Lottie at this time, but for casual interest. But when she mentioned that they had microfilm copies of the local newspaper, and that of that, all had been digitized or indexed except for the year 1901. That triggered the thought that I might look for something about the train accident. After going through a lot of turns of the crank, I come up with the date and found several references to the accident and the mention of the local woman Lottie Still. The first accounts mentioned her as injured, then as seriously injured and then as having died - all in the hospital in Kansas City. The later article said she would be brought to Hornell for burial.

In another article (I almost missed it), Lottie was reported to be only having lived in Hornellsville for about 8 months, living with her uncle, Rev. W. H. Manning. That was a breakthrough. I love doing family history research as it is really like detective work and when you have a breakthrough, it is exciting!

Through more research, I found the sister to Rev. Manning and that she was born in Massachusetts and moved to San Francisco. In more research, I discovered Lottie's brothers and her mother's records, but never her father. Then, in a simple Google search, I found in a California Supreme Court record as issue of inheritance concerning Lottie's brothers and it mentioned the name of their (and Lottie's) father, Alden Peasely Still. Now I know that Lottie is the 9th cousin of my great-grandmother, Annie Isadore Roundy. We have been working on temple work for her and her family.

When we were in the Palmyra temple a couple of weeks ago I baptized Shauna as proxy for Lottie and did the confirmation after that. I felt a distinct feeling of celebration from the other side of the veil.

Recap of the past two months

I have basically relied on Shauna reporting our activities in her weekly mail messages. I know that many do not see her messages, so I apologize for not posting much here. This summarizes the past two months in a lot of pictures.

We have been busy with helping the Hornell Branch members and investigators in visits to their homes and taking some to the temple. We also have enjoyed having Mary and her family close by so we can get together. We feel so blessed to be here and to share in the Lord's work here in this beautiful place.

This area is referred to as the "Southern Tier" and is really a place of beauty and a place of a much slower pace of life. The people learn to get along with little and still find ways to help those around them and show kindness to others. Unfortunately, most of the people are very cautious when dealing with us and the missionaries because of the strong bias of the local churches against us and our religion. Still there are many who welcome us and our message. The Lord will help those who sincerely are seeking to the truth.

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Our first two elders - Smith and Wagstaff, as we have lunch with one of our sisters of the Branch

The son-in-law of that sister was baptized recently. This is him and his family and the Elders who were involved.

At the Palmyra temple with one of our dear sisters. She came to do the work for her mother. It was a very spiritual experience for all of us.

This mother and her daughter come with us to church and other activities.

We help out at a weekly luncheon for the disadvantaged people of the city of Hornell. It is sponsored at this Presbyterian church and different denominations help each week. Our branch provides food and services about every six weeks in rotation.

We had a fun branch activity at this property of one of our members in Canisteo. The pond (above) and the eating area (below).

One of the people we met at the ecumenical lunches (mentioned above), and his dog, Badge, at his home in South Hornell. I did some research and found that he is my 13th cousin (the man, not his dog).

The elders with an investigator walking and talking on the Hill Cumorah.

Our current elders - Elder Larson (from Draper) and Elder Smith (from Safford, AZ)

In the Elders' apartment is this famous "Deer Elder."

Our grandson about to eat the "Mojo" burger at Rudys in Medina. Those who accomplish the feat get to write their names on the wall (see behind him for part of that). A closeup of his previously earned name-on-the-wall is below.

A granddaughter in the tree at our park near our home in Hornell.

We joined the family at nearby Letchworth State Park.

This is the Genesee River and falls in the park.

Here we are at the Stony Brook Park (even closer to our home) in the Dansville area.

A month ago, we went with other senior missionaries to Watkins Glen and on the the Priesthood Restoration site in Pennsylvania. This is Watkins Glen.

Here we also visited the Josiah Stowell and Joseph Knight homes.

On our way to Palmyra from Hornell, we pass by the beautiful Canandaigua Lake.

From a hill area north of Hornell you can see in the distance the many windmills in the Cohocton area.

Hornell is famous as being the home of actor Bill Pullman. This is the house that belonged to his parents. The owner is a member of our branch (she wants to sell it if you are interested). She has spoken with Bill Pullman when he visited the place.

 The political leanings here are fairly pronounced (below is an enlargement of the sign in front of a home at the hamlet of Loon Lake within our branch).