Honeymoon Hotel

This is many years after the event, but this is a picture of the cabin next to the Conjos River just below the Dunn family cabin. This structure is now gone, but this is where Arlo and Gatha spent their honeymoon.



Dad told us about the night they spent in the cabin and the noises they heard during the night. He claimed that it sounded like a woman screaming. In the morning there were cougar tracks on and around the cabin.

Yes, Santa came by Ford Sleigh...

We saw Santa in St. George as he was making his way home from his busy night....

Here he is with Grandma Gatha.

It was a fun time spending a few minutes with him, Mrs. Santa, and his elves!
We also noticed how he resembled Uncle Don...

This is what Kanab looked like on Christmas Day. The kids had fun riding in a sleigh pulled by the four-wheeler! Dad/Don and Troy helped shovel off the snow at our neighbor's (Lu) driveway.

Hands tell us so much

I loved to study my father's hands. They were unlike any other hands I have ever seen. They were covered with freckles and they were cracked from the work he did and most of the times they were stained. The grease and oil from the garage was ground into the cracks of his skin and for many years, they were stained yellow from his tobacco usage. I feared those hands when I misbehaved as a child, but as I matured, I was fascinated by his ability to turn a wrench in the most awkward of places. He loved to work wood and in his later years, he often stood in sawdust as his hands fashioned frames and toys from the wood.

This last year, Betty and I have had a rare opportunity. We have been learning to talk to a dear friend, Mattie, who is hearing impaired. Her hands gracefully move as she forms the words and thoughts she wants to convey. She has been patient with us as she has helped us learn how to form words, and phrases and sentences. We have learned to say simple prayers and express affection.

In church, we watch as the talks and hymns are interpreted from vocal expressions to graceful poetic manual ballet. We can't understand it all, but slowly we are beginning to learn. We don't have to understand every word to appreciate sign language. We do understand enough to get the general idea.

Another pair of hands that I love to watch are my sweetheart's. They are beautiful to me. I see her use her hands as she creates beautiful cards for friends on special occasions. I watch as she does the many things around our home and am grateful for the things she does. Her hands are dainty, but are beginning to show signs of aging. Her wedding rings no longer fit comfortably over her arthritic knuckles, and they don't open jars as easily as once they did. Her hands tell me that she loves me by the things that she does.

What I do with my hands also relays a message to those I love. I make a living for our family with my hands and there are times that they ache from over use, yet I feel a need to continue to use them to express the feelings of my heart. I love my family and find that I can use my hands to tell them so. I can also use my hands help Betty with her household chores, or I can while my time away putzing around on the Internet. I need to be careful about how I use my hands and how I use my time.

I went through my pictures looking images of people's hands. I believe that the ones that said the most to me were the one of Larry and Jeanette's hands when they were married, and this one. These are the hands of my Mother and my Father. Their hands in this photo symbolize unity and love and caring. I pray that I can keep my hands busy, keep them clean, and keep them ready to serve my family for the rest of my days. I hope that my hands will tell my loved ones the things that I would want them to say.

Christmas 2008

On Christmas Eve Larry, Jeanette, Debra and Eric came to St George and took me back with them to Craig and Brina and their boys, Bradly and Luke's home, to spend Christmas with them. Julie and Clint and Leslie and Arlo and Austin came and we had a delicious meal and I gave them the gifts that I brought with me. They also exchanged the presents that they had for each other. We visited until late in the night. That was fun.

On Christmas day they opened their presents and Brina fed us wonderful meals. We visited, played games and some of them made snow men. It snowed a little bit, but there was already quite a bit of snow on the ground. It was perfect to make snow men. The also slid down an incline, on a sled. It was a lovely day.

Larry and Jeanette brought me home on Friday. Don and Gloria and Marcy, Troy, Jason and Becky came from Kanab and Bonnie had prepared a meal for all of us. It was nice. Shandi, Todd, Amber, Michael and Meagen, and Monica and John Henry were there. Santa Clause made an entrance and that was fun. It was a wonderful Christmas.

John Robert Dyer and Barsheba Tharpe (Part 6)

Valley of the Terrapins, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

adapted from a manuscript by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt

(Part 6)

John James Dyer came next in 1851. He first married Elizabeth Ferroba Spears, but then they separated and he brought his little boy James Wesley to live with my Grandmother Elizabeth Frances Beals when he was only 3 months old. Later John James married Mary Jane Luster and had one little boy David Robert born in Tennessee. They joined the LDS church and went to Colorado in March of 1889 with the other folks. They had four more children in the next six years. A little girl, Mary, was born just six months after they got there. They had twin girls, Flaura and Laura two years later and a little boy John Leland born in 1894.

Just the next year, Uncle John James passed away leaving his young wife in a new country with five young children and a teen aged step son. Aunt Mary Jane's parents, David Luster and Emmaline Demaris Bowyer Luster, took their whole family with them to Colorado too. Mary Jane's mother died just before Mary Jane's last baby was born in 1894.

Uncle John James died the next year in 1899 and her brother Pat Luster's wife who was Barsheba Tate, who was Aunt Polly's daughter, died leaving a family of young children too. So that makes six grownup deaths in the little band that came from Tennessee in just a few years.

When my father, Charles Mitchell Beals, told me about Uncle John James death he said, "I remember my Uncle John James was real sick and he had terrible pains in his head and in his chest. I had to take a job out of town, so I went and him good-bye. I got on my horse and went on to work, but in a few nights I had a terrible dream and dreamed that Uncle John James had passed away and that they had to bury him without me being there because they didn't know for sure where I was or didn't have anyone to send after me on horseback. I felt so bad that I quit my job and went home. Sure enough that is what had happened. I felt so bad just like I did in my dreams. He had died of pneumonia." I have often wondered about the young children of John James.

Mary married and I met her in Colorado in 1946. She was a pretty, attractive woman. She died the next year in 1947.

Laura, I don't know anything about except she died in 1926.

Flaura was married and lived in Miami, Arizona in 1922. When Uncle Henley Beals died, Aunt Mildred stayed all night with here there. Flaura died in 1942.

He's coming!

Yep the white beared man is on his way.... MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Yep!

Yep! I can still make a snowman!
Can you believe it! right here in Kanab! It was a fun morning.

John Robert Dyer and Barsheba Tharpe (Part 5)

Valley of the Terrapins, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

adapted from a manuscript by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt

(Part 5)

Charles McKinney Dyer was born to John Robert and Barsheba in 1849. He married Jerusha Jones 24 December, 1872.

When Aunt Jerusha, or Aunt Sis as everyone called her, was about twelve years old, she went to stay all night with a friend. The confederate soldiers in the civil war came through and hanged her friend's mother and her friend. They started to hang her, but someone said, "Oh! she doesn't belong here, let her go." She ran and hid until the soldiers left. She came out of hiding and cut down her friend and her mother and saved their lives.

Uncle Charlie and Aunt Sis only had one child. They named her Malissa Cordelia. She was nicknamed Cordie. Aunt Cordie told her children about the negro mammy they used to have in Tennessee. She was real good and they thought a lot of her. When they would sit down at the table, they would ask her to come and eat with them. She would say, "Oh, no, no you wouldn't like this old black face sitting with you white folks. No, I will eat here in the kitchen." And she always did.

Cordie also told her children about when she had typhoid fever. She was about 14 or 15 years old there in Tennessee. She had been awfully sick but was getting better. She was still quite weak and shaky. She said her father had a garden and had some beautiful tomatoes. One day she saw her mother had picked a big basket full of tomatoes and was taking them to the store house. She asked if she could have some. Her mother answered, "Heavens no! They would kill you."

Cordie said they looked so good and she was so hungry, that later she slipped with a salt shaker and went down to the store house. She ate three or four big tomatoes. Just as she was finishing the last one, her mother walked up. She said, "Oh! You will surely die! What have you done?" Aunt Cordie said that she never felt so good in all her life, with her stomach full of tomatoes. They never hurt her. In fact, she said that was what made her well.

Uncle Charlie and Aunt Jerusha and Cordie left Tennessee with the rest of the folks in March of 1889 on the train. When the railroad forked at St. Louis, they came on to Pima, Arizona. Uncle Charlie had a store there. They never had any more children but Cordie grew up and married Squire Enoch Reynolds. They raised a big wonderful family. There is only one son left, Lincoln Reynolds. Their other children were Alfred Rufus and Annie, Esther and Ruth.

They also have a great posterity of Grandchildren. Some of them are Dr. Earl and Sandra Bleak who just returned from Tarpine Valley, Tennessee. They visited Ira and Ernestine Luster who were cordial as ever with fried chicken and all of the trimmings.

could it be a fish story?

The other day Don got a big one! He got hooked at home by his own fly hook! It seemed the rod got put up on a shelf and fell somehow catching him in his right arm. We called the registered nurse next door to help remove it from his arm. It was quite an ordeal, Don's skin was pretty tough when it came to removing the barb hook, and easy to get inside! That is the biggest catch which he caught that I know of !

The Old Opera House

I did a Google search to find something from Manassa that I could write about and found this picture with a title, School. The building may belong to the school now, but when I was a boy, it was the Opera House.

I don't know when the building was built, but I was in this building a lot of times as a child. I believe it originally belonged to the LDS church. I took two tap dance lessons from Elsie Brady in this building. I practiced basketball in this building with the Elementary school. I can't remember the coach's name, but I do remember the talk he gave me about working hard at being good at something. I should have worked harder with both of these endeavors.

Mother worked in the kitchen of this building when the school used the building as the school hot lunch building. Mom would bring home cans of leftovers for her four little pigs.

I would have liked to attend an Opera in this building when it was really the Opera House.

John Robert Dyer and Barsheba Tharpe (Part 4)

Valley of the Terrapins, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

adapted from a manuscript by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt

(Part 4)

After my grandmother Elizabeth Beals had liven in Pima for a few years, she wrote to her nephew Billy in Tennessee, and asked him to make her a hickory stick walking cane. She gave explicit directions to Billy. He was to cut a green hickory stick, tie it and keep it covered with ashes for one year. Months later when he sent the finished cane it had a piece break off the top of it. Grandma said, "Well, if he had followed my directions, it would never have done that." She was quite perturbed.

I don't know what happened to the oldest son John R.

In 1841 a boy child was born and named Lewis J. perhaps after Barsheba Dyer's father. He never married. I think he stayed at home there with Great Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Eliza. He served in the Civil War and fought with the rebels from the south. I don't have his death date, but he is buried in the Dyer graveyard upon the little hill above Tarpine Valley.

Louisa Jane, whom they called Aunt Eliza, was born in 1844. She never married either, but she helped take care of Great Grandpa and Grandma and she helped do the work. She helped with the washing, the cleaning, the cooking and the weaving. (She sounds so precious to me.) She went with Great Grandmother Barsheba on the long cold train ride to Sanford, Colorado 7 March 1889. She lived 8 years after she got there. She had what they called dropsy and died on 21 October 1897, just before my Grandfather Beals moved his family to Arizona. Aunt Eliza is buried in Colorado there by Great Grandmother Dyer.

The eighth child was my Grandmother, Elizabeth Frances Dyer. She married John Simpson Bales 29 Nov 1866. (This couple are the great grandparents of Donald Arlo Vance,) They had a family of eleven children. They owned this farm next to Elizabeth's family in Terrapin Valley. They had two little baby boys die there.

Then the most wonderful thing happened. Two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints came and brought with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This wonderful messaged changed their whole lives. My Grandfather John Simpson Bales was the first convert in that vicinity. Soon, they sold their farm and home and all of their possessions except what they could take on the train and moved to Sanford, Colorado. All their children went with them.

Their oldest son Robert and his wife Jewell Luster and their two little girls, Cora and Dora, went to Arizona. Grandma and Grandpa Beals lived in Colorado eight years before coming on to Arizona in a covered wagon in 1897.

They were only in Pima, Arizona seven years when Grandpa Beals passed away in July 1904. Grandma lived in the little lumber house grandpa build for her and the family. She passed away in December, 1928. She is buried in the Pima Cemetery by Grandpa. He was one of the sweetest kindest men that ever lived.

John Robert Dyer and Barsheba Tharpe (Part 3)

Valley of the Terrapins, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

adapted from a manuscript by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt

(Part 3)

Polly and Caswell Tate's daughter "Toad" married Pat Luster in 1879. They moved to Colorado and had a young family. They had six children born in Tennessee and five more born in Colorado. She had eleven children in fifteen years and four of them died as infants. Her husband Pat came to Pima, Arizona later and married again. The children grew up there in the valley. They were : Laura Maud Luster who married Robert Edge Reed, Ira Carpenter Luster who married Bertha Emmaline Kirby, Mary Emaline Luster who married Benjamin Russell, Malissa Jane Luster who married John Reynolds, Samuel LeRoy Houston Luster who did not marry, Bathsheba Luster who married Charles Boyle, Charles Walter Luster who married Chloe Curtis. These children grew up to be fine outstanding citizens and raised good families. A lot of their descendants are leaders in our communities and still live in Pima, Arizona and around the state.

I used to ask my father "How is it we are related to the Lusters?" and I never really understood. In writing this history I found that my grandmother Elizabeth Beals' sister, Mary or Aunt Polly married William Luster. My Grandmother Beals' brother John James married Mary Jane Luster then aunt Mary Barsheba Tate and her sister, Jewell Luster, married her husband's nephew, Uncle Robert, Bob Beals. The Luster and Dyer descendants are "truly related" wouldn't you say? Would someone please tell me what relation uncle William Luster is to these later Lusters?

In 1839, Barsheba and John Robert had another little boy. He was given the name of Richard Fain. They called him Rich. He married Hila Couch and they had three children, John R in 1860, William in 1868 and Isabell in 1872. Great uncle Rich served in the Civil war with the North. He brought his family to Arizona in the early 1900's but went back to Tennesse because they didn't like it out here. Isabel married Bud Jeffers but were never blessed with any children. Billy never married. In 1946 we visited them and they lived not far from Tarpine Valley but we had to swim or take a ferry boat to get across the river and walk a few miles. They lived in a little log cabin down by the river. That is where they passed away.

John Robert Dyer and Barsheba Tharpe (Part 2)

Valley of the Terrapins, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

adapted from a manuscript by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt

(Part 2)

On the 13th of Dec. 1831, John and Barsheba dyer had a little boy. They named him Augustus W. This oldest son, Augustus marrried Lucinda Woods of Hawkins County, Tennessee in 1849. They had 8 children in the next 11 years. The Civil War begain in 1861 and, of course, the families were all involved. In spite of the fact that they lived in the South, most of the people in this area of Tenessee sympathised with the Union. One of John and Barsheba's son's, Lewis, however, fought on the side of the South, which must have caused heartbreak in the family to have some sons fighting with the North and some with the South.

Augustus, like others in the family went to war. He must have been injured or shellshocked for it was said that when he returned from the war he was never the same. Not everything was damaged, however, for he and Lucinda had three more children! Their 8th child, Malinda, was born in 1861, the 9th, Margaret or Mary Ann, in 1865, so Augustus must have been at war between 1861 and 1865.

See the previous article, Uncle Gus.

The 2nd son of John and Barsheba Dyer was William T., who married Suzan Webster in 1834. This couple lived in Hawkins County. They had 4 children, James , John, Mary and Lucy. The tragedy of the Civil War engulfed them too. William went off to war after Lucy's birth. The family never heard from him again, and had to go on without a father's love and protection, never knowing what had happened to their husband and daddy. It was later found that William was killed during the battle of Strunton, Virginia.

The third child was daughter whom they named Sara Ann, perhaps after John's mother, since indications are that her name was Sarah Taylor. All that is known of this child is that she married Clinton Luster and had 3 children.

Great grandpa Dyer was a blacksmith and hired boys to work for him in his "shop". We know they raised sheep and cattle too, because we have what they called a coverlet that Grandma Dyer and her girls made. They raised the sheep and sheared them. They washed the wool and corded and dyed it. They spun it into yarn. They made the first layer of linen from flax.

Flax is a plant that they raised. They made thread out of the fiber of the flax plant and then wove it into linen. They wove the wool yarn onto it to keep them warm as we would use an afghan today. It took a lot of strange flax tools to work the flax and it takes a lot of hard work to make flax into linen and wool into yarn. We have a piece of their work. Isn't that wonderful? This piece of cloth is over 100 years old. The dyes are all natural, made from plants and roots. The deep blue is from indigo root, which was one of the staple crops of the old South.

In 1837, 2 years after Sara Ann's birth, John and Barsheba had another little girl. They named her Mary, but called her Polly. She married Caswell Tate, a carpenter. Polly and Caswell had a little girl born in 1862. Her nickname was "Toad". When "Toad" was 18 months old in Aug. 1863, her Daddy left to serve in the Civil War. One month later, Polly had another little girl. She named her Worthy Malissa. They called her "Nig." Polly's husband never returned and the family never know what happened to him.

Later, Polly married William P "Bill" Luster and they had two little boys, Caswell and Clint. They lived in the Terrapin Valley. Bill was working in Virginia and was accidentally killed. Cousin James Wesley Dyer had gone to stay all night with Caswell and Clint when a man brought Polly the news of Bill's death.

Uncle Jim as we called him recalls the terrible experience in a letter written in 1926 to Grandma Beals and I quote, "A Mr. Everett came quite a bit before daylight and called to Aunt Polly and told her of the accident. She was almost prostrated at the news and all of us were much upset by this terrible tragedy. It was awful! I shall never forget it. The body was brought from Virginia and arrived some time before daylight. It was sure a sad and pathetic case." For many years the family has grieved for he was grossly killed in a sawmill accident. I remember my father telling me his Uncle Bill Luster was killed in a sawmill. His body was chopped to pieces.

Great Aunt Polly stayed there in Tarpine Valley and raised her little family. She has a grandson, Ira Luster who still lives there with his wife Earnestine. He is 83 years old and his wife is 83. (I don't know how old this manuscript is.) Ira's father, Clint, (Aunt Polly's son) came out West in the early 1900's and went to Idaho and visited the Dyers and Beals in Pima, Arizona. Then he went back to Tennessee. He did a good job of raising Ira for they are always so cordial to everyone who visits them.

We visited them in 1946 and again in 1949. they showed us that gold ole' fashined southern hospitality. Ira's laugh was truly contagious. He would "get tickled" and his whole body would laugh, drawing in everyone around. He was full of funny stories and has an outstanding memory of almost everyone who lived in the tarpine valey. Everyone who ever visited Ira and Ernestine leave with fond memories.

In 1946 we took my father and mother to see them. My father enjoyed it so much and Ira went with us and showed us where everyone lived and where they used to live, and what happened to them and where they are now. In the words of my mother, "Papa never quit talking about that trip the rest of his life."

John Robert Dyer and Barsheba Tharpe (Part 1)

Valley of the Terrapins, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

adapted from a manuscript by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt

Part 1

It is with great humility that I am trying to compile the history of my Great Grandparents. I have prayed earnestly and humbly for my Heavenly Father to help me with this assignment. The latest research I can find shows John Robert Dyer was probably born in Greensboro, N. Carolina between 1813-1818 and Barsheba Tharpe was born on 8 Sept. 1813. We think her father's name was John or Robert Lewis Tharpe but we are not positive. We think his mother's name was Sarah or Sara Taylor.

John Robert and Barsheba were both orphans. They met when both were working, where they fell in love and got married. They started housekeeping in a one room log cabin with a dirt floor and not a stick of furniture. They gathered some fresh pine needles and piled them in the corner for a bed.

It took a brave woman to go into the forest with her man and raise a family. She faced odds that would frighten most people, like the quiet of the forest with no neighbor close to talk to or give the assurance of help in an emercency or sickness. There was no one to have a little womanly talk with as the long days went by. The only sounds were those that came from the forest, a panther's scream at night, a wolf's howl, or an owl's hoot. My Grant Grandmother Barsheba was one of those brave women. She had neither a parent nor an inlaw to turn to, no one but her husband.

Since Great Grandpa John Robert was a farmer, history tells us he would have been busy clearing the land, making a crop, hunting the meat in the forest, making a shelter, and protecting his home.

People in those times did not have too much time to think about educating the children. In fact the schools were so far and few that many of the backwoods people did not learn to read and write. There was a lot to learn about life and survival that couldn't be learned in books, however, and this kind of education was important as "booklearning" in thos dayes, if not more important.

Later, roads were built and the community grew until there were close neighbors. The soil was virgin. The trees were big and the forest stretched so far it was more than a man could do to clear his land. He had to girdle the trees with an axe and let them die, then cut the trees and roll them into a heap and chop them to burn during the winter to keep warm. This took strong, courageous men. This is the kind of a man my Great Grandfather, John Robert Dyer was. It is said that the name Dyer is an occupational name from the old English word Deagre meaning "dyer" -- one who either processes the dye or one who dyed the cloth. The motto on the Dyer Crest means "I do not Fear. I will not affright." Our ancestors were poor in the things of this world, but there was no poverty of spirit.

They kept the fields fenced with split rails, the cows, hogs and sheep ran outside in the woods for pasture. In the spring they would round up the cattle except the milk cows and sheep. They usually let hogs run wild in the mountains. They would take the sheep and cattle to the mountains for summer pasture, going out about every two weeks to give them some salt and check on them.

They grew corn as a main crop, pulling the blades from the stalks in the fall and tied them into bundles and put them in starks or in the barn for winter feed. They grew their own potatoes, cabbage and beans and the produce they used on the table. They dried apples, dried green beans, dried pumpkin, made kraut, made hominy, then they gathered the herbs for their medicine, all for the winter use.

They went to the spring or a branch to wash clothes, boiling them in a big iron pot, beating the dirt out with a "battling" stick, and washed with home made lye soap. They carded wool to weave cloth for clothes for all the family, and knit all the stockings from wool. The shoemaker took tanned cowhide and made shoes using wooden pegs to hold the soles. They made quilts from lindsey wool cloth and wove all of the blankets.

A big fire was kept in the house all winter, if they had two chimneys they kept a fire in both, one to cook on. The children went to school about one month in the winter when it was too cold to work on the farm. They had school in the church house or log house by a fireplace, then later a "pot bellied" stove.

When a preacher would visit the community to preach, they would go to church. Mostly in the summer time they would have a "Protracted Meeting" after the crops were "layed by" for about a week in each church. They never thought of going to the store for anything but things they could not grow or make on the farm: coffee, soda, salt, sugar, some medicine, turpentine, salts, linament, camphor ice to make a bottle of "Campfire" with whiskey to sit on the "fireboard" for use when aches or pains came on. All the family worked six days a week after about six years old, no time for play or foolishment."

BLOG Bound in a Book

I compiled the articles and comments into a bound volume 8-1/2 by 11. The book can be acquired from LuLu.com, as can some other BLOG compilations. Follow the link below to my store front. You can select the Arlo and Gatha Vance Family BLOG 2008 and then purchase it online from LuLu.

My LuLu Store Front

Elizabeth Frances Dyer and John Simpson Beals

On 29 Nov, 1866 Elizabeth Frances Dyer married John Simpson Bales (Beals) in Hawkins County, Tennessee. They had a family of eleven children: James Robert, Mary Barsheba, Caswell Alxander, William Thomas, Charles Mitchell, Joseph Jashua, Sarah Martha, Hila Ella, Richard Francis, Eliza Frances Bevan, and John Luis Hendley Beals.

They owned the farm next to Elizabeth's family in Terrapin Valley. They had two little baby boys, Caswell Alexander and Joseph Joshua, die there. Then the most wonderful thing happened. Two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints came and brought with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This wonderful message changed their whole lives. Our third great grandfather, John Simpson Bales was the first convert in that vicinity.

Soon, they sold their farm and home and all of their possessions except what they could take on the train and moved to Sanford, Conejos County, Colorado. All of their children went with them. Their oldest son, Robert, and his wife, Jewell Luster, went on to Arizona. Great Great Grandma and and Grandpa Beals lived in Colorado for eight years before moving on to Pima, Arizona.

They were in Pima for only seven years when Grandpa Beals passed away in July 1904. Grandma lived in the little lumber house build for her by her husband until she passed away in December, 1928. She is buried in the Pima Cemetery by Grandpa. According to Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt, he was the sweetest kindest man that ever lived.