Wessman 3: Hazel Jean Hayward Wessman

b March 30, 1887 Salt Lake City, Utah
m 25 November 1908 Salt Lake City, Utah
d 19 October 1959 Salt Lake City, Utah
Parents: Henry John Hayward; Elizabeth Ann Pugsley
Husband: Henry Richard Emanuel Wessman

Into a small cottage on First North in Salt Lake City, Utah was born a daughter to Henry John Hayward and Elizabeth Ann Pugsley. She was given the name of Hazel Jean but was always called “Jean.” Four older brothers and sisters had died as infants in diphtheria epidemics but a brother Philip was living. When ten years of age Philip died leaving Jean and a sister, Merle. Later two other children, Elizabeth and John were born, making nine children being born into the family.

Next door to our home was the home of our paternal grandparents where we children spent many happy hours. Later we built a home in Pugsley Court near our maternal grandparents where we lived until shortly before my marriage. Here my sister Merle died of typhoid fever just leaving the three of us home.

A clipping from the Deseret News from April 14, 1906 telling about the Women's Democratic Club celebration of Thomas Jefferson's birthday. 

I attended Washington School and West High and also studied the piano. After graduation I continued with my piano studies. We moved into a home on 2nd North and 2nd West where I continued with my music and from which I left for a year’s study in Europe. I went abroad with Rita Jackman [1886-1970, a piano teacher of note in Salt Lake City for many years] and her aunt where we resided at Bamberger Straße 5 in Berlin. My teacher was Alberto Jonas and we practiced four hours each day. There was quite a colony of Utah music students in Berlin at the time so we had a very enjoyable year. My father, my sister and my Aunt Clara came over to come home with me.

While I was attending school I met Henry Wessman to whom I was married soon after my return from Europe. We were married in the Salt Lake Temple on Nov. 25, 1908. For a few months we lived in Ogden, then we returned to Salt Lake to make a home. Later we moved to Provo and Ogden. There were 14 children born to us. In 1932 our husband and father died after which we returned to Salt Lake where we have since resided. As the children married some of them moved away as far as New York and Los Angeles.

During the second world war eight of our nine sons were in service, all returning safely. My oldest daughter Merle, died in April of 1945 in Salt Lake City, while we were living at our home at 184 E. St. which we purchased on returning here to live after Henry’s death. The boys and girls all worked to help keep the family together. As they each married they made homes of their own.

My life has been mainly domestic with music as a side-light. My church has been a wonderful activity also and I have been organist in most organizations, both ward and stake.

Wessman, Hazel Jean Hayward. “Hazel Jean Hayward Wessman Written by Herself."

Wessman 2: Henry Richard Emanuel Wessman

b 7 February 1885 Göteborg, Sweden
m 25 November 1908 Salt Lake City, Utah

d 15 March 1932 Ogden, Utah
Parents: John Bengtsson Wessman; Amanda Matilda Hall
Wife: Hazel Jean Hayward

 In Göteborg, Sweden, on February 7, 1885 was born a son to John and Amanda Hall Wessman. At this time there were two older sisters and a brother, two infant children having passed away. He was christened Henry Richard Emanuel Wessman, the latter name [Emanuel] being given as a baptismal name in the Lutheran Church. His father was named John Bengtson but had been legally been given the name of Wessman as there were so many of the name Bengtson on the ship where he worked as a sailor. His mother Amanda Hall had become a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so other members of the family were also baptized into that church. The two older sisters Fanny and Bertha came to the United States when they were about 15 years of age with other members of the church as converts and went to work as maids in homes of church members when they reached Salt Lake City. When Henry was eight years of age he and his brother, Herbert, came to Utah with other converts to the church. His sisters took care of him and Herbert until the mother arrived later.

As they were all anxious about the husband and father who was in Sweden it was necessary for them to work to earn money to help him earn passage money. Life was hard for them as their younger brother Joseph was only five years of age when he came with his mother. Later the father came over but lived only six months after his arrival, dying in Kamas, Utah where the daughter Bertha and her husband were homesteading. This necessitated Mrs. Wessman’s working in a tailor shop to support her three small sons. The boys knew poverty and were not able to stay in school until they graduated, except Joseph who was the youngest and whose brothers helped by working to keep him in school. Henry clerked in a man’s clothing store, worked in a printing shop and there became apprenticed in a linotype shop where he learned machine work and type-setting. He became an expert in his line of work and worked hard at his trade.

He was married to Jean Hayward on November 25, 1908 and went to Ogden for a short time, later coming to work at the Salt Lake Tribune. As 14 children were born to this marriage he worked at various printing plants in Provo, Salt Lake and Ogden and bought a linotype machine on which he taught the boys, his two oldest sons, the trade.

He passed away on March 15, 1932 when his baby was two years of age making it necessary for the older children to work to help support the family. After his death we sold the typesetting machine and moved from Ogden to Salt Lake City where we have since resided.

Wessman, Hazel Jean Hayward. “Henry Richard Emanuel Wessman.”

Daguerreotype (Posting Photo for Link)

Happy New Year!

2010. Wow. With the turning over of the calendar, it is time to start posting about the Wessman family.

First is Henry Richard Emanuel Wessman. After telling about him, I will trace his family back to Sweden and cover all the information I have about the family and their ancestral home in Göteborgs och Bohus before switching over to tell the story of his wife, Hazel Jean Hayward, and her ancestors. Most of the lines in the Hayward family trace back to southern England.

After joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and moving to America, most of these families lived in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, so the time on these lines will mostly be divided between Sweden, England, and Salt Lake City.

The histories normally post Monday through Friday at a rate of 10-20 posts a month. As always, I appreciate readers sharing pictures or histories, comments, stories, recollections, etc. I try to preserve a bit of privacy for living people and those who have recently passed away.

Every post has one or more tags, and if you read down the "Index" which is right below the search box on the right side of the blog, you can select a name and bring up all the posts in which the person or topic is named. In addition, there is an "ahnentafel" list of all the ancestors in the Wessman line way down in the right sidebar.

I enjoyed researching in Swedish records when I was in college and am looking forward to reviewing the research once again. It will be a great start to the year!

The photo of the castle in Bohus, Sweden, is from www.flickr.com/photos/-pebe-/2521517076/. The photo of the rocky beach and boat at Deal, Kent, England is from www.flickr.com/photos/katphotos/2904871509/. Both photos are in Creative Commons and are available for use with some rights reserved by the photographers, including attribution of the works, which is why I include a link to the photos on flickr.

Morgan 8 & 9: Garrard Morgan III and Eliza Ann Hamilton Morgan, Part 4

John visited his parents and family from time to time but they were not interested in joining the church, although his brother James moved out to Manassa, Colorado. John recorded these visits in his diary and the accounts are found in posts on Ancestral Ties. He saw his parents in November 1883.

Garrard Morgan III

Garrard died April 10, 1889. The family genealogical files do not include data on his burial location, and I can't find the information in online cemetery records in either Mattoon or Greensburg.

Eliza Ann Hamilton Morgan

 

 Leonidas Morgan

Garrard Morgan IV

Luella Morgan

Eliza spent her last years living in Middletown, Henry County, Indiana, with her son William. She died April 18, 1901 and was buriedthe next day in South Park Cemetery in Greensburg, Decatur, Indiana. A note in the family history states that she was buried in a plot belonging to her brother David W. Hamilton.

The 1900 census notes that David N. Hamilton, born Dec 1817 in Kentucky, was living in Greensburg, Decatur, Indiana, with his wife Julia. They were married in 1864 and had no children. His father was born in Ireland and his mother was born in Kentucky. If this is Eliza's brother, and if the census information is correct, then the father's birthplace of Ireland contradicts Mary Linton Morgan's research into the family origins of the Hamiltons which claimed that they tied into an old Kentucky family. Once again, more work needs to be done on these lines.

The 1900 Greensburg, Decatur, Indiana census showing David and Julia Hamilton.

Looking into the family has left me with a lot of questions. Many birth, marriage and death dates, particularly of John's brothers and sister, need to be tracked down. Additionally, here are a few questions I had as I looked at records:

• Did Garrard Morgan I fight in the Revolutionary War?
• What were the family's religious experiences in the Second Great Awakening?
  
• Were the Kentucky Morgans slave holders? (Some Morgans show up as slave owners in the 1850 Nicholas County Slave Census, but I have no idea if they were relatives.)
  
• Why did the Morgans move to Indiana?
• During their Civil War service, did John and Will Morgan have to fight any of their Kentucky cousins?
• Who's going to do all the nitty-gritty research and track down all the records?

The pictures are from Bessie. Thanks!

This being the last day of 2009, I am going to start posting stories and information from my Wessman family. I will continue to post from the Morgan and Tanner families as I have time to research and information to share. Happy New Year!

Morgan 8 & 9: Garrard Morgan III and Eliza Ann Hamilton Morgan, Part 3

The Life and Ministry of John Morgan notes that Garrard and Eliza moved their young family to a farm at Summit, Coles, Illinois, which was about a mile outside Mattoon, Coles, Illinois, when John was ten years old (about 1852). The book notes that they moved to the area due to the railroad being located at Mattoon.

I cannot find any historical proof of the place name "Summit" in Coles County. There is a Summit Township about ten miles away in Effingham County, but that's quite a stretch to be "a mile."

Perhaps their neighborhood was briefly but never formally called Summit.

In 1853, surveyors from the Illinois Central Railroad and the Terre Haute and Alton Railroad realized that their railroads would cross at Mattoon, and a land rush began. This is when the Morgan family moved to the area, and young John Morgan would have seen the construction of the two railroads, and all the excitement surrounding which railroad would reach the Mattoon area first. This was undoubtedly the beginning of his lifelong love of rail travel.

The town site was mapped out in 1854, the railroads crossed in 1855, Mattoon became a village in 1857 and a city in 1861. Local farmers produced record amounts of corn and broom corn. Once again, the Morgans participated in the life of the community, including attending the Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate in nearby Charleston, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln's father and mother-in-law lived.

On August 2, 1861, John's older brother Will Morgan joined the 38th Illinois US Infantry. A year later in August 1862, John Morgan joined the 123rd Illinois US Infantry. John Morgan served for the duration of the Civil War, and Will probably did as well, although I cannot find his discharge record since he joined the Signal Corps in November 1863. Here are some posts on their Civil War service.

During their Civil War service, did John and Will Morgan have to fight any of their Kentucky cousins? John Morgan spent good parts of his Civil War service chasing Southern General John Hunt Morgan around the South, but I cannot find any proof of the two families being related.

John and Will returned home to their parents after the war with many tales to tell, but John left soon afterward for New York, and Will returned to live in Indiana.

...to be continued...

Coles County Illinois Genealogy and History. Illinois Genealogy Trails.

Photo of the old train station in Mattoon from www.flickr.com/photos/bap824/3511767568/.

Morgan 8 & 9: Garrard Morgan III and Eliza Ann Hamilton Morgan, Part 2

Garrard Morgan III and Eliza Ann Hamilton were born in Kentucky and married in Kentucky or Indiana, as mentioned in Part 1 of their history. (The Life and Ministry of John Morgan notes that they were married in Kentucky.)

Their six children were born in Indiana and Illinois:

• William (1840)
• John (1842)
• Luella or Sarah (1845)
• Leonidas (1847)
• James (1850)
• Garrard IV (1854)

A history of Decatur County, Indiana tells that in this early period of settlement in Indiana, children were educated at subscription schools, with parents paying a fee for each child they sent to school. It was not until 1853 that the Indiana legislature established free public schools.

The usual school term in Decatur county during the early days was three months, and the school day began early in the morning and lasted until sundown. The teacher would be at his desk at sunrise and the first pupil to arrive at the school house would be the first to recite. This privilege of reciting first was much sought by those more eager for knowledge and there was usually keen competition among the star pupils, and consequent early rising. There were a few drones, however, who cared little whether school kept or not, and therefore, as if to show their contempt for learning, would come straggling in about ten o'clock, or in plenty of time for the noon recess.

Early schools were held in vacant log cabins, chinked with mud, provided with puncheon seats and oiled-paper windows. Text books were the American Primer, Dilworth's and Webster's spelling book, Guthrie's or Pike's arithmetics, the English Reader, the Bible and, sometimes, Weem's Life of Washington. This last book was a novel, but won a place in the list of text books because of the excellence of the moral carried by the cherry tree story....

Sometime near 1840 Miss Jane Bartee taught a school in the southern part of the county. She must have possessed an ear for both rhyme and rhythm, for she gave her school rules a metrical embodiment. The following classical fragment is still extant:

"No rippin', no tearin'.
No cussin', no swearin',
No clingin', no swingin', to trees."

The father of this poetical school ma'am was a justice of the peace, and, by virtue of that office, a member of the county board, which performed the duties of the present-day county commissioners. When the board met in Greensburg, Mr. Bartee would walk thither, barefooted and garbed in undyed homespun, and, thus attired, enter upon his official duties with all due dignity.

Along with a man named J.S. Grant, Garrard Morgan was one of the first teachers of the school outside of Greensburg, Decatur, Indiana.

In the early days, not much preparation was required in order to "teach school." The pedagogue looking for a school for the winter, with an opportunity to "board round" and so eke out his scanty earnings, went to the township trustees, applied for a place, and if they liked his appearance he was hired without much of an examination into his qualifications. In most cases, the trustees themselves were men with very little education and would not presume to question the ability of anyone seeking a position as teacher.

During spring, summer, and fall, Garrard would have carried on his pursuits as a farmer, on his farm about a mile south of Greensburg, but come winter, he taught the three month school term.

Somewhere along the line, Garrard's son John received enough education to write beautiful although not impeccably-spelled or -punctuated letters (at the age of 20, a letter to his father, and at the age of 21, a letter to his mother) and eventually became a noted author, teacher, lecturer, and public speaker.

When John Morgan arrived in Salt Lake City in December 1866 at age 24 with less than a year's study at Eastman Business College (not Eastman Commercial College, as previously stated) as the grand total of his advanced education, what could have induced him to start his own school? First, due to this note in the Decatur County history, we know that he had seen his father serve as a teacher, and, second, he had attended the business school that Harvey G. Eastman had established a few years before John Morgan attended the very successful school. The bar for establishing and running a school was not as high in the mid-18th century as it is now, and John Morgan had found his calling in life, and was widely influential in his role as teacher and business school administrator.

...to be continued...

Harding, Lewis A. History of Decatur County, Indiana: Its People, Industries and Institutions, with Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old Families. Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen, 1915, pp 182-184.

Richardson, Arthur M., and Nicholas G. Morgan. The Life and Ministry of John Morgan: For a Wise and Glorious Purpose. : N.G. Morgan, 1965.

The picture of Southern Indiana from www.flickr.com/photos/32955736@N00/2182429350/.

Jens Christensen and His Family

As my dad went through his aunt's genealogical papers, he found a copy of a history written by a woman named Lena Marie Hansen Pack. The history is called Kirsten's Courage and Tears: The Story of Kirsten and Anders Christian Christensen Jensen and Nicolena Christensen and Charles F. Nelson.

Jens Christensen and Karen Marie Johannesen Christensen were from Denmark. As mentioned previously, their daughter Mary married Ove Oveson and Mary and Ove were my grandfather's great-grandparents. Jens and Karen's adopted son Marinus married Fanny Thomas. They were my grandmother's grandparents.

Anders was Jens Christensen's younger brother. Anders and Jens and their wives and children left Denmark and came to America in 1866 in the ship Kenilworth and traveled in the Scott company to Utah.

Lena Pack notes that Anders and Jens' father, Christen Jensen, had died in Denmark in 1862, and that their widowed mother, Christiane Christensen, came to America with her sons and accompanied Anders and his family to Brigham City, Utah, where she died over 30 years later.

This ship record shows a Christian Christensen who traveled with Jens, but the Kenilworth ship register notes that this person was a 59-year-old male farmer.

Unfortunately, when I copied this record off Ancestry.com, I did not know that the people listed in the bottom of the image were family members of Jens, so I do not have a copy of the entire family group, and I don't currently have an Ancestry membership to be able to look up this record. I'll try and look it up next time I have access.

Jens Christensen and one of his two daughters died on the plains.

His widow and two surviving children, Mary and Marinus, settled in Ephraim, Sanpete, Utah, where Mary married Ove Oveson. Mary's mother Karen lived with them until she died in 1874. Marinus was raised in the Overson family along with their twelve children, and accompanied them to settle in Arizona.

Meanwhile, Jens' brother Anders and his wife Kirsten took their children and Anders' widowed mother to Brigham City. New Family Search claims that Christiane Christensen died in Brigham City in 1865 or 1896, and Anders died in a farm accident in 1867, and all contact between the family in Brigham City and the family in Ephraim and later Arizona was lost until Lena Pack wrote Kirsten's Courage and Tears and tracked down Jens' family.

Kirsten's Courage and Tears has a number of touching stories. A copy is available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Here is the catalog entry:

Anders Christian Christensen Jensen (1836-1867) married Kirstine Marie Pedersen in 1857. They became Mormon converts in 1864, and in 1866 immigrated from Denmark to Brigham City, Utah. Due to the change of Danish law regarding patronymics, he used both surnames (first Christensen and later Jensen). One of their daughters, Nicolena, married Charles Frederick Nelson (1853-1913) in 1875 and lived in Brigham City. Descendants of both families lived in Utah and elsewhere. Includes ancestors in various parishes in Århus, Hjørring and Viborg counties in Denmark. Includes Burt, Hansen, Roskelley and related families.

As a curiosity, the book tells an interesting story about Danish patronymics. Patronymics is a system for giving names. A Danish son would take his father's first name as his surname and add -sen to the end. A daughter would take her father's first name as her surname but add -datter to the end. Danish women did not take their husband's names when they married. This system started to change in the nineteenth century. Anders Christensen died when he was 30 years old. His wife lived for 50 years after that, and as was the custom in Denmark, she kept her father's name, Jensen (alternately Jensdatter). The family hereafter assumed that Jensen was the family name of her husband, which complicated their genealogical research.

Merry Christmas!

How has our family celebrated Christmas over the years? It has been a time for celebration, and also a time for starting journeys.

James Glade, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1870s-80s

He spent long hours at his baker’s bench, often 12 hours a day. He always had good work. He and his wives were industrious. They had a good home life.

For special occasions like Christmas, James baked fancy cakes and candies when sugar was $1.00 a pound. The nuts had to be shelled and raisins and fruit cleaned. The family sat at the table working and whistling to keep the children from eating the nuts and fruit.

Ove C. Oveson, Ephraim, Utah, December 1865

This Month not much of Ennyting, I workt in Town. and tended Mitings as before Chrismas Day the Soldier Celbrated with musick and Drums & fifeyrs and Shuting to Honnor the Captain.

John Tanner and family, Lake George, New York, and Kirtland, Ohio, December 1834-January 1835

On Christmas day he commenced his journey, a distance of 500 miles, with all his earthly effects and in the dead of winter. He reached Kirtland about the 20th day of January 1835. On his arrival there, he learned that at the time he received the impression that he must move immediately to the body of the Church, the Prophet Joseph Smith and some of the other brethren met in prayer meeting and asked the Lord to send them a brother or some brethren with means to assist them in lifting the mortgage on the farm upon which the temple was then building. ... [Description of amounts loaned and given to the work.]... His open-heartedness was a very striking proof of his confidence in the Prophet and in the validity and importance of the work he had embraced.

George and Ann Jarvis, Woolwich and London, England, December 1848

While here he met Lorenzo Snow and Franklin D. Richards, Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He went home that night and told his wife what he had heard—That an Angel had appeared to Joseph Smith and that the Church had been organized as it was anciently, and now Missionaries were visiting the people, being sent out as the Apostles of Christ were.

Ann listened intently to all he told her and then said “George, it’s True.” They were both baptized by Ira Bradshaw on Christmas 1848, in the Thames river.

Beverly Wessman, Salt Lake City, Utah, December 1942

Grandmother Green and May her daughter were waiting for a bus to go to the Layton family to see their Christmas. John Wessman was a friend of theirs in the 20th ward. He drove by and asked where he could take them. So he took them to the Layton home on Christmas day 1942. The Lucile and Lester Glade family was there as they always got together on Christmas morning to see each others presents and have breakfast together. John was invited in and met the families. He then took May and Grandmother to the Glade home. As I was showing off my Christmas I'd steal a glance at that good looking John and wish I could date him.

John Wessman, Salt Lake City or Ogden, Utah, December 1929

When I was twelve years old, I received for Christmas a small, 12-bass accordion, along with my brother Paul. He didn't enjoy it, but I learned the technique of playing it; after considerable practicing, I became accomplished with it and Wilford Kapp, a friend of mine in the same grades at the Burch Creek School, also acquired one and started to learn it. We both became able to play together, and soon joined a couple of other boys in the school to make a small orchestra; one was Jack Solomon who played the piano, and the other was Jack Everett who played drums. We become known throughout the county and were called on to perform on programs, occasionally being called to play for dances.

James and Mary Hamilton, Paisley, Scotland, mid-1800s

Christmas was celebrated with the same customs as here. Stockings were hung up, but the exchange of gifts was reserved for New Years Day.

Shortly after the New Year had been heralded in, visiting one’s friends was next in order. It would have been very absurd to have gone to a home empty handed, the usual packing being: a man, a bottle of wine; the woman, a cake of shortbread. It was considered lucky to have a dark-complected and favored person first to cross the threshold....

Elizabeth Hayward and her parents Philip and Martha Pugsley, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1850s

At Christmas time a common gift was an apple and a homemade doll.

Sarah Hayward, San Diego, California, December 1900

My Dear Harry & Lizzie

They have all gone out to the ranch; Sarah, Frances, Libbie, Ernest & the two boys so there’s a jolly crowd of them, so I preferred to stay at home and write a few letters to those who have so kindly remembered me. I thank you both for your good wishes and Christmas gifts and wish you a happy and prosperous new year. We have been having it very cold the past 3 weeks but it is warmer now and to day it is beautifull [sic], we spent Christmas at the ranch had a sucking pig, plumb pudding & ec. [sic] had a pleasant time would liked to have had more of my family with us but that could not be so we made the best of it.

Jessie Morgan, St. Johns, Arizona, early 1900s

We would hang up our stockings and my brothers would hang up their pants. They would tie the legs at the bottom. They got a .22 Rifle once. The card said that it was to both boys. We owned a half of a block in town and down below was just the alfalfa and over to the side was the corral and then the wood pile and then the house....

Dad said he was going to go out and show the boys how to shoot by the poplar trees. So he told them to do just as Daddy did. They went out in the poplar trees and he was going to show them the gun and how to handle it. Just as he shot, the old milk cow, Bossy, walked out. She fell down and all her legs went up in the air and she was dead. The neighbor across the street came over and they skinned the cow and brought into the house a big chunk of meat and my mother said they could just take it out because she wasn’t going to cook old Bossy.

The photos "Christmas 1946," "Christmas 1944," and "Ann at Christmas 1947" are from my parents' collections.

In the Days Before Email

This is a 1958 letter written by Lois Jarvis Graham to her sister Margaret Jarvis Overson discussing family matters (page 1) and the Jarvis Family Organization and Reunion (page 2).

And here is a picture of Margaret and Lois with their sisters Annie and Stella:

Standing (L to R): Annie Prior Jarvis Overson (1880-1968), Stella Jarvis Peterson (1883-1974), Lois Jarvis Graham (1894-1985). Sitting: Margaret Jarvis Overson (1878-1968).

They all had large families. Margaret had one daughter and eight sons, Annie had nine sons and three daughters, Stella had nine daughters and three sons, and Lois had four daughters and three sons.

Margaret, Annie, and Stella spent most of their lives in St. Johns, Arizona. Lois accompanied her mother Margaret Jarvis to Salt Lake City for obstetrical training and later returned there to nursing school and married a Scottish returned missionary named Hugh Graham and, as far as I can tell, spent much of the rest of her life in Salt Lake City.