bathing beauties

Yea! Hurray! It's only taken 3 days, but inbetween doctors and surgical procedures, I have managed to find the same 3 photos that hang in my bathroom. I wanted to share them with you. They are so utterly fantastic! Imagine these three women being photographed back in the day when scandalous photos as these just WEREN'T shown. They had to have been strong women. Women to whom I have had as role models. Women to whom I still revere and look up to as I hang on with this cancer. If they could do something so everyday strong as this. I can keep hanging on, too.

Here's my Grandma Helen Anna Sanders Madsen (Mom's mom who with Grandpa, raised 8 children during the depression) - she's in the front & right in this photo at Utah's Great Salt Lake:



This one is my dad's step-mother's mother: Nellie Arnett Cheesbrough. She was a Wyoming school teacher from a wealthy family in Illinois. She married John Cheesbrough and created a cultured haven out in there in the wilderness! This photo must have been taken at one of the Great Lakes


My husband's family wasn't exempt! Here's his great grandma Jennie Eliza Jane Calkins Rickords at Soap Lake, Washington


Hope you love them as well as I do!

Web Page...

Dad and I are working on a web page for Thomas Harward V (1826-1901). It uses a template from "The Next Generation of web pages." Pretty basic, but I'm excited! Every day we get more up and going on it!!

Solved!

Dad solved the puzzle below. He said it's the word "Course" which fits just perfectly in the phrase "Course of four lectures"

Yea Dad!

Ebenezar Chapel Broadsheet

This broadsheet advertising the re-opening of the Ebenezar LDS Chapel in Rugby, England was just made available to me - it's a copy from the Church History Library in Salt Lake. My ancestor was the bishop of this ward and is listed as the last speaker for the series.
I'm wondering if anyone can read the cut-up phrase in the center. Some letters are missing from a word and what is left reads: "_ours_ of four lectures." Being British, the "u" may be extra. The word "series" would fit nicely, but I've never seen it spelled that way before.... Does anyone have a crossword puzzle dictionary that can interpret this for me???

Back from Salt Lake!

I spent the last week and a half in Salt Lake - mainly for an uncle's funeral, but also to use the family history library.

I stopped in Weiser, Idaho (where my dad's step-mom, Joan Cheesbrough, was born in 1912)

I loved being with family and being at the Family History Library. I was there on five different days (47 hours) and the Church History Library for two days (9 hours.) Dad and I looked at 39 microfilms and perused 12 wills/documents/books. We were mainly looking for Harwards. I had contacted a sweet lady, Cathy, from Mapleton, Utah, who has written a book about my ancestor's (Thomas Harward) brother William. She met up with us and had dozens of documents for us - wills, histories, vital certificates! We also got to meet with one of dad's cousins' wife, Mary Jane. We scanned in dozens of photos - of her father-in-law, Art Harward and her own family. She was a treasure chest of information! We got to meet her son and daughter-in-law who have the recipe for very tasty frozen pops. And lots of ancient genealogy! I took lots of photos of family and the Rockies. I would LOVE to live down that way to have access to all those microfilms. I paid for my trip two times over by checking the microfilms in person instead of renting them at $8 a piece.

Dad and I decided that we want to put together a Thomas Harward web page.
(Thomas Harward photo I got from Cathy.)
I've collected so many documents on the Harwards and I just hate to see people doing research/church work on Harwards using wrong dates, estimated times and places! I want to share them with everyone.

Some of the things we found while down there: Thomas Harward (1826-1901) probated estate(FHL microfilm #1,654,620); some of his children's probated estates including Ozias Strong Harward (1862-1917)& Sabrina Harward Draper (1860-1944)and son-in-law's estates: Jabez E. Durfee (1828-1883). I found some naturalization dates on Harwards, Broadheads, and George Mason who was a good friend of Thomas Harwards. We also found the best microfilm: #577,577 - it has (what is readable, anyway) Harwards and Griffins and Harris' back to the 1500's in Hartlebury, England. This is the church records including births, marriages, burials. It is definitely one that I will be permanently renting so that I can use it frequently! (p.s. If anyone really wants to low-down on Harwards, check out Utah Digital Newspapers website. I got dozens upon dozens of newspaper accounts of all kinds on my ancestors - with plenty of closet skeletons to go around as well! The LDS church's pilot.familysearch.org site is also plentifully filled with actual death certificates of Harwards.)

FINISHED! And, computer-literate ancestors...

I finished my History 400 class. It's official title is: Family and the Law in American History. It was a good class for me. I found out where I am in the levels of family history studies. I actually was familiar with everything - self taught - except the probate and court records and how to access them. The course also had us do locality studies where we researched the places where our ancestor lived. This put a lot of things into perspective for me.

But the most exciting thing happened this week. My paper, written about my Harward ancestor, (80 pages when you add in the family pedigrees and my 120 sources and notes!) got 259 of 260 points, giving me an A in the course! Yippee.

Then, 3 days ago I got an e-mail from a distant cousin. She was getting a final count on a book she's written about my ancestor's brother - from whom she's descended. I e-mailed back that I wanted a copy! I asked her if she wanted to see what I had put together in my report. She did. Then, after a few more e-mails, she stopped the press on her book and wanted everything I had. I have gladly shared with her. What is interesting, is that neither one of us can figure out how my name ended up on her mailing list. Neither of us knows the other from Adam! And, after more of my questions, she replied that I obviously hadn't received her first e-mail - the flyer advertising her book. Nope. I'm not on that list. Just this last e-mail to get a final count on her book. So, which ancestor upstairs is familiar enough with computers to have pulled that stunt???

History 400

I am determined to finish my History 400 class. I started it almost a year ago and left it for a while. I had breast cancer and underwent chemo and radiation. Now I'm getting back up to speed and have actually turned in the assignments for lesson #3. I had been researching my great grandpa Heber Harward and his father Thomas Harward. This class will give me the impetus to dig deeper and get more accurate information on the two of them.

Dad was raised in Wyoming and Utah in part by his step-mother Joan Arnett Cheesbrough Harward and his father Eldon Harward (Heber and Mary Jane Broadhead Harward's 10th of 14 children.) That is, when he wasn't being passed around from relative to relative. He finally was on his own before he was sixteen years old. He worked at Hygia Ice in Salt Lake and attended South High School. He was introduced to Mom at the ice rink and the two of them made a great team - getting to know each other as they skated in flourishes. They married before Mom graduated from high school and Dad joined the army. They were together at Fort Leonardwood, Missouri before Dad was sent to Okinawa for two years. Mom worked at the telephone company as an operator while waiting for Dad's return.

Dad claims that he didn't hear much about his grandparents and great grandparents. Just that Heber Harward was a teamster and freighted supplies back and forth and occasionally took his son Eldon with him. He had heard the ever famous story of Thomas Harward's: that after joining the LDS church, his father disowned him. BUT..... any Harward who will deny the Faith and return to England can claim a huge inheritance. Many stories like this abound. I've read about them in the histories published by members of the DUP - other "cousins" who heard the same stories.

My diggings will hopefully uncover more of the history of Thomas and his families of Harwards from Hartlebury, Worcestershire, England. (There are Harwards in North Carolina, but they aren't directly related to us. Possibly they are related a few hundred years back.....)