P. T. Reilly correspondence with George S. Tanner, 1983

Copies of typed letters from P. T. Reilly of Sun City Arizona, to George S. Tanner in Salt Lake City during 1983. Topics include Pearce's Ferry, Jacob Hamblin, John W. Young's journey to the Little Colorado settlements, the James S. Brown diary, John Mills Whittaker, the United Order, Lee's Ferry and Emma Lee, John Bushman's diaries, as well as current events and politics. Includes a map showing the location of the Pearce ferry, a transcript of John W. Young's 28 Jan. 1878 letter to John Taylor, and a letter from Tanner to Reilly dated August 6, 1983.

Dear. George, February 3, 1983 It was heartwarming to receive your telephone eall last night although most distressing to learn of the monumental loss on December 23 of your dear Mildred. Perhaps the Lord sends such Christmas presents to those who have the character to bear them, and I am sure you do. Nevertheless it is shattering to lose such anchors and we grieve with you. But we are comforted by the knowledge that you have two children close by. It is a great human tragedy for a parent to die With out achild near by and one seldom appreciates this until he experiences it. It will mean more to them as time goes by. I was not able to call Wallace O. last night as only his office phone is listed; the residence is not. I got his secretary this morning, gave her the message and s~id it was not necessary for him to call me back. She found a note on her desk saying he would be away until next week. She knew about Mildred. No one answered at Donnette Fuller's number, either last night or 9:go this morning. I will try again. As a matter of reference, I have the following: The John_Tanner Family Colonization on the __ Li ttle Colorado, the Joseph_ Ci ty~ Regi.Qn John Tanner and his _Family The Autibiog:r;:g12hy of Mary Jane Mount Tanne.r. John Bushman TS, Diaries for all of 1876, 1877, 1879, and Jan. 1 to May 3, 1878 You are wise to assuage your grief by involving yourself in a phase of pioneer history which concerns your people. Pearce Ferry got so little travel that no one was stationed there permanently. Harrison Pearce lived in or near St.George and if wagons intended to cross, he went along. No cable was ever installed as there was no solid rock for anchorage. There was a gravel bank on the river's right bank, a low gentle slope on the left. The crossing was at Mjle point 278.9, now under Lake Mead. The miss~elling of Pierce instead of Pearce bothered me for many years and after Lorraine Arnell sent me a xerox copy of his letter asking for release, I sent it on to the Board on Domestic Geographic Names in Wash.D.C. Pearce's letter was dated 10 Dec 1882 and he was 64 years old at the time. Kilmartin ~ejected my request for the change in 1969 but it was accepted in Decision Li st Number 7304, p.2. This list was for Oct. thru Dec. 1973. As far as I know, there are no ~hmmagraphs of the actual Pearce Ferry in operation but I have a photo by T.H. O'Sullivijn October 4-6, 187! and another by E.G. LaRue on October 15, 1923. The latter shows wall fragments on the left bank, and the old dugway can be seen along the right bank. The crossing was just below a low-water silt bar, the site of a pre-Anglo Indian trail. In some very low water it might have been fordable tho it was relatively quiet and the Indians could have crossed by raft. I have May Larson's story, also the John Tate diary. If you need a map I'll be happy to draw one for you. We have discussed this previously. I am making pretty good progress on my Lee's Ferry text, finally getting it the way I want. I hate to tell you how ~uch I've rewritten it but it must have been meant to be this way or I would have charged ahead and never been happy about it. All is well with us tho we are antsy for the weather to warm up. We did not get the hard winter I thought would be due. Temp has not fallen below 36 for the third year in a row. We hope y our mouth heals quickly. If not, buckle on your revolver and exact your pound of flesh from that so-called dentist. Our boy Benson is going strong. I loved Pat Buchanan's comment a b out the ( e ver) Washington press corps having 35 dollar haircuts on 15 cent headso Ta~ care - and love from us both , P . T . Reilly 1 7 February 1983 Dear George, Your letter of J February, mailed the 4th, arrived on the 7th . My letter of the Jrd probably reached you Saturday or today. In case it did not answer your two questions--a t least to your satisfaction --I will fire right back o You are correct; I did think you meant an overhead cable and I am positive that one was never installed here . Nettie Rencher's description is quite interesting but I would like to be more familiar with her objectivity as a witness before I accepted her opinion . A young child could be told anything, which could be repeated as fact , The Pearce rerry was propelled by oars but there could have been cables at each end of the boat to take it out of the water at the end of a season and put it back at the start of another . They would not dare leave the boat tied up because the river could rise 15- 20 feet between fall and winter when travel was done and the peak runoff in June . My guess is that they hooked up a team and dragged it about 25-JO feet up the dugway before tying it up during high water . I enclose two of my file shots which will tell you much . I want these returned because their absence leaves a void in my photo files. I~ you want either G572 or 80-2 I will have prints made up for you . In LaRue 489 (my number G572) the view is looking upstream. You can see the old dugway coming down the right bank (left side of the photo) . The crossing was just below , or toward The river was over 100 the camera , from the low silt-bank in midstream . a cab l e', or even a heayy and field, yards wide here, or longer than a football was no place for the There . 1-inch rope, would not have been very practical . Photo 80-2 is sharply rose bar team to pull on the right bank as the gravel 1120 feet . elevation at was Mead an aerial of the same place, taken when Lake them . over gone has water and The spillways at Hoover Dam are 122 . 6 feet, the that means which occasions The lake has been over 1200 feet on numerous even cases--and such On . 1923 view has been under 80 to 100 feet of water 50 feet lower--the silt dumped into the Pearce basin, as my aerial shows . In other words , the crossing and last mile or so of the dugway do not exist any more, being covered by a hundred feet of silt . The old road still exists above maximum reservoir elevation of 1223 feet. The little truncatedi co, ·e a kalf-inch under the Min Mead in my aerial photo is the same shown right of center in LaRue's view . Last June we came into Pearce with water over 100 feet higher than 192J. In Pearce's day and season , the river was very quiet here, with barely a current of less than one mile per hour . There was no appreciable difference in the water in LaRue's photo than when Pearce was there 1876-1880 . Question No . 2 ; I have used the old green Tanner book a great deal, even tho pages 321 to 352 are missing . There are enough pioneer Tanners in my work that it has proven useful . I think only one Tanner fell in the missing pages when I tried to look him up . When I finish Lee's Ferry I will go to work on either Moenkopi-Tub a City or the cattle in HouseRock . Seth Band his family of your folk are my main focus . If you think the new Sidney Tanner book would help me, I'd be pleased to have one . Only this morning I referred to Jay Redd's book on L.H. Redd, and I know the Moenkopi-Tub a Tanners will occupy me . I loved your humor re your fundamentali st sister and we know what you mean . We free spirits can only suppress so much . I take it that this is the gal I ' ve been trying to call . Still haven't made the connection . I think she must spend a lot of time at the Mesa Temple for she sure doesn't spend it at home . Good idea on the penci l and pad when making a phone call, espec ially when the talke rs ramble over a wide range as you and I do . Today also broug ht a letter from Karl Larson and I am elated that it reache d me becau se he used my teleph one numbe r in place the stree t numbe r . Did my ego no end of good . I have an old cowpoke friend of who once got a letter addres sed "Mr . Sid Wilso n , Arizon a . " Nnw that is being really wellknown, much as Goldw ater or the Guv . If you do visit Donne tte and feel things closin g in on you , remem ber that you have a damn good friend in Sun City who is loaded with citrus and not funda menta list at all . Best of every thing , P. T. Reilly P . S. In case Ev Cooley wants to rectif y his miss of a couple ago , A. Karl Larson lives at 534 Simoro n Drive Dr ., Ogden . 84404of. years lives with Judith and Gene Schne iter . Ev was going to send a teamHe to tape him but never got around to it . I hope Karl isn ' t too old there for it now but it is worth a try . I I I' I April 12, 1983 Dear George, The rise in lake elevation is making waves in places other than Utah, if you can believe the enclosed item from the LA Times of a month ago. Susie's brother sent it to me, knowing of my interest in SLC.and the people there. If our weather charts are accurate, you have not had much drying out. Even at that you are not as bad off as central California. They are so wet there that a fungus has destroyed the entire orange crop. And you are better off than people in Miss. and Louisiana. A friend who just retired from the Calif. Water Resources Dept. told me that the winter of 1981-82 broke a 100 year old record for precip, and that the winter of 1982-3 broke that. Makes two biggies in a row. We've had about 5 inches of precip since Jan.1 and normal is 2.0. The Lake Bonneville of 20,000 years ago was due largely to glacial melt and we don't have those today as they were then. We too listened to the telecast of the spring conference and were not surprised that SK did not attend. A couple of prior notices in out paper said he probably wouldn't. Again I was struck by the age of the leadership. It seems to me that the greatest issue facing them today (after the Manifesto and the Declaration) is to change the rules of succession. It will take an equally courageous leader to broach it and I don't think ETB is the one who will step up to it, We got only two hours of the Sunday AM session (10:00 to 12:00). This has always puzzled me because the Valley TV feeds Mesa. However, there is a new LDS Church in Ffq#ia and I note a 6 or 8 ft. dish in the yard so assume they are hooked up to KSL via satellite. I,too, was surprised at some of the quoted figures. Of course more members means more power but I don't approve of proselyting missionaries and think it is a crippling burden on the families. There are other ways for the young people to obtain equivalent experience. We watched a few BB games. We rooted for U of U to beat Susie's alma mater UCLA and they did so convincingly. All UCLA does is ask us for money, and their one-time high academic standards have been shot to hell in favor of the athletic buck. Many UCLA athletes do their thing for four years and still can't read or write (literally) or do so at the fifth grade level, Athletic recruitment is the disgrace of our times, The B~acks brought so much pressure to bear on the A.D. that they got a Black coach but even he can't handle the prima donna players. They even succeed in freezing capable White players out of the starters, It is a very bad situation. USC is just as bad off and I expect coaching changes there, too. More power to BYU! If you have my letter of March 11 around, I suggest you read the second paragraph. It refers to a letter signed by Jacob Hamblin,dated Sept. 19, 1873 and was in the BY incoming files. You gave me page 1 in 1977. I would like to have page 2, or possibly 3, If you have a stray ~page or two in your Hamblin or BY files, it could be what you missed giving me. Corbett prints this on pp.339,40,41 but he changed a little in the part I do have and I suspect him of changing even more. What a lousy historian he was! You seem to be adjusting to the loss of your Mildred and I know the nearby presence of some of your children is a great help at this difficult time, Do you cook for yourself or eat out? Did you know this guy Geo.Hansen, Rep. of Idaho? He certainly manages to get ink from his mistakes. I held my breath for fear the Iranians would hold him hostage. Cheer up--the sun is bound to dry things up eventually. It is even colder and wetter than usual in Ariz, I watched the Masters in Augusta the last couple of days and those guys have to make a lot of money from the looks of their hairdos and wardrobes. Best regards, f:_:f Dear Georg e, March 11, 1983 I enjoye d your letter of Feb.27 even tho I clon't under stand your positi on a couple of items. But first I have a proble m which y-0ur may or may on not be able to solve . Back in Septem ber of 1977 you gave me page l of a letter from BY's incom ing files. It was writte n from Jacob Hambl in to BY and dated Sapt. 19, 1873 D.N. 22:560 or 570.( overs trike) . There was a page 2 of the letter which froM I didn' t get and I wonde r if you have a stray p.2 or 3 in your files. I'm sure you would have copied the entire letter and think maybe you neglec ted to send the rest of it. The letter is impor tant tho not everyo ne would realiz e that. I alway s note the source of a gift and the date I get it on top of the page so I can keep ttrack of my credi ts and future proble ms. You didn' t send shock waves thru me but I was rathe r surpri that you regard the SL Trib as anti. I know it starte d out that waysed but thoug ht the policy gradu ally shifte d to one of "accom odatio n" since 1912. Sever LDS ha~e stated that the book publis hed by UHS is quite objec tive andal good readin g of the book confir ms this. In additi on, I have never seen anythmy I could consid er anti on the occasi ons I have read the paper and I get ing every day when I am in SLC. I think some LDS are parano id and see anti a copy wnehe ver they aren' t on the receiv ing end unend ing and lified praise . Actua lly Mormons are not very differ ent from non-Mormonunqua s, tho they proba bly have a highe r percen tage of funda menta list-bo und minds . I see an awful of Trib mail tubes in front of many LDS homes and I thoug ht the paper ly lot s~cep table to all but the most faithf ul. I'd wager that its LDS circuwas runs 2 to lover the D.N. The book claims the Trib stress es the publiclation intere st over all else, but I guess you can see sublim inal anti-M ormon ism where 1 would n't. Regar ding the polyga mous cop, he starts out with a false premi se. They are not going after him becaus e he is polyga mous any more than they are the Short Creek ers. He simply was not qualif ied for the job which he slippe d into and the mistak e has been rectif ied, Nobody is persec uting him. This best can be summed up by the old adage "you can lead a horse (or jackas s) to water but you can't make him drink ." We can expose them to educa tion but it doesn 't alway s take. I don't care perso nally wheth er the SOB drinks or goes thirst y excep t that they breed .ike guinea pigs and many dig into the welfa re trough . No, you never told me of your taping by BYU for life in a polyga mous family . If you have a spare I'd appre ciate having one, or even the loan of one that I could xerox . I have some choice comment about life in the Johnso n and Emett homes , both pro and con. You build quite an imagi native case around Pearce Ferry but I'm afraid that you don't under stand the matte r as thorou ghly as you think you do. Geolo change is taking place const antly but the change is much slowe r ' tb humangical perce ption than can be imagin ed. There is no discer na~le differ ence in the settin g there betwee n T.H. O'Sul livan' s photo (Whee ler Survey ) of Octob and LaRue •s photo of Octob er 1923. I have made quite a study of locati er 1871 ng and dupli cating Powel l Survey photos of 1871-7 2, Stant on's 1889, Stone 1909, and Kolb 1911-1 2 with my own traver ses jn the 1940s , 50s, 60s, and '82. Very little change is discer nable and most of that due to rockf alls the gorge s. I s~w sever al fresh rockf alls which had taken place betwee n 1964inand have photos to prove it. The USGS gave Fowle r a grant to condu ct the 1982 and ~tudy_ a few years ~go and he ?ame to the same conclu sion excep t he didsame' ident ify as many sites as I did. What you hypot hesize could have happen not the chance s are 99.9% that they didn' t. The Pearce Ferry had very littleed but travel and was made obsolete by the Bonelli Ferry below the mouth of the Virgin. river at Pearce Ferry was very quiet or that large silt fiat would never ha\ been deposited. There was not nearly the need for more propulsion power at Pearce's as there was at Lee's, not a hundredth of the travel and it took JO yea~s to get a cable in at ~ee's where the sexting was much more favorable than at Pearce's. Best regards, ,;, Dear George, February 19, 198) I was really bowled over by the last sentence of your letter of Feb.12-that the owner and editor of the Tribune is a Mormon hater. I gather that you don't think much of the book, The First One Hundred Years, put out by USHS about ten years ago. At that time Gallivan, the nephew of Sen. Kearns, was the owner, and relations with the Saints were so good that many people thought the church owned the paper. The little rhubarb at BYU made one edition of our paper but I doubt that anyone outside of the faithful and the gadflies would pay much attention to it. Isn't Huffaker an LDS? Regardles s of whether he is or isn't, I can't see that anyone is interferin g with his right to print what he wants, but the school certainly is not obligated to distribute his stuff on campus any more than it is to show porn movies. Some of these young liberals have to have a cause, and if one doesn't exist, they will create it. The polygamou s case is just as simple. If I were judge I'd uphold the firing of the SOB. Since when are individua l officers given the right to delineate which laws they will uphold and which they won't? They take the oath to uphold the law and that means all of the laws. He either lied on the oath or someone did not investiga te his background when he was hired. Neither is Bro. Potter a justice on the Supreme Court and he appears as unfit to interpret laws as he is to carry them out. Fire the SOB and forget about him. Some of the brethren lean over backwards toward the fundament alists anyway and most Mormons sympathiz e with polygamis ts and fundamen talists secretly. I have had "good" LDS state this sympathy openly in recent years. Your reaction to the picture of the Pearce Ferry crossing was rather surprising. How could you look at the photo and decide that a team had room to pull a boat across the river? The pull would have to be 90 degrees, or nearly so, to the current, and there simply was not room. The right-bank dugway was cut into a sand and cobble bank that sloped 50-60 degrees. The left-bank landing was a narrow beach about J0-40 feet wide at low water. The 192) survey shows the river to be as I quoted, not a half-mile . The simple truth is that after Bp. Roundy was drowned in May 1876, everybody was scared to death of the Colorado and exaggerate d its size and intensity along with their own magnified fears. May Hunt Larsen apparantl y was more objective . Nettie probably didn't know a half-mile from ten rods. If there was any cable on that ferryboat , the chances are 99 J/4 to 1/4 that it was for the purpose I stated. Since-the ferryman did not live there, how did he get the team to the left-bank hookup? Did he keep teams on both sides in that feed-poor desert and cross by skiff? I enclose a couple of cartoons by Benson, a good article on freedom of the press by Kilpatric k, and an article on Kiki Vandeweig h. I think Kiki is my favorite LDS athlete at present. We hope you are adjusting well and making out OK. Best from us both, PTR ,/ 8 7 11-~ 6: f3it R~ Rcf~etv T { ~Q~T 0f"' .0Y8JP I f,J 7Zr:J-C§' sev, 1. r 0 fT1 ::0 G) ::0 )> z -; fT1 5 G) 0 ::0 G) fT1 La$f Ch anceR a , ///5 AVERT/NE M SPRINGS z -;,;;;...---.lUl..ll:: L..-.._ _ _ _ Z. I ,,, d~---_ fil.l~~ ---D I 21 SHEETS (14 plans, 7 profiles) 3 0=================4:i,OCXJ~===============:i8,000~Feet Pr1nted 1924 Rep ri nted 1943 Dear Geor ge, 26 May 1983 Your lette r of May 16 arriv ed here three days late r and then your follo wup with clipp ing came the 21st . Afte r the long drou th I felt espe ciall y favo red. How ever. I was start ing to worr y abou t you as there had been no reply to my lette r of Apri l 12. If you were inca paci tated , no one woul d noti fy me and I'd even tuall y conc lude that you had passe d to your rewa rd. You have a good idea abou t orga nizin g share rs. Just think , Big Labo r, Big Busi ness, and Big Stoc khol ders .in a threeowne -way conf ronta tion. What woul d We use for a big stick ? In union there is stren gth but we have to have a weapon when the othe r two don' t roll over . Woul d we dump our stock all at once? It woul d only drive the price down and the new owne rs woul dn't be in our unio n. But you can coun t on me if you get the deta ils work ed out. I woul d gues s that your son who has a fund amen talis t wife just has to work on her with the patie nce of Job ••• just as you do your Gett ing them to think is the firs t step . Faith is a Sund ay Scho ol class o wond erful thing but too often it serve s as a crutc h for not think ing. .. The gene ratio n gap is anot her probl em in many lies. The abil ity to become biolo gica l pare nts does not mean that a fami coup le is qual ified to raise kids , and many aren 't. That is why peer pres sure too often overc omes fami ly loya lty. When pare nts shirk fami ly rela tion s, they expe ct kids to raise them selve s--an d they usua lly do. Our pape r had abou t the same criti cism of er that the Tribu ne had, and I can' t think of an insta nce when a guyFras was more dese rving . That dream boat did his best to price U.S. labo r out of mark et and now he is head ing for the same well agai n. The Japa•nese willthenot stand for it. If our ma'n agem ent had the guts of a piss ant, we would not be in this mess and the UAW goon s woul d be getti ng· abou t one- third of what they now make . Ther e are wors e thing s than strik es but it has been too easy to give in and pass it on. The main thing is, don' t let it tear you apar t beca use there is littl e we can do abou t it. This Bens on lad step s on some tend er toes but he is getti ng to be recog nized as the most bril lian t guy in town . Peop le discu ss his carto ons every place we go, and he real ly hits thing s on the head . You shou ld love his bit on the Team ster situa tion . · weat her has warmed up here . It was 108 in Phoe nix today and 99 here on our patio . Stil l have plen ty of grap efru it, oran ges, and lemo own toma toes for three week s and zucc hinn i ' for ten day. ns. Have had our Gues s Danny Aing e learn ed that if one play s with the anim als he is liab le to get bit by them . Hey, how abou t those five LDS who sued the Chur ch? ilk. Have they been excom muni cated yet? . They must be of your Best rega rds, PTR --- Dear George, l 19 August 1983 Your letter of Aug. 6 was received on the 10th, longer than usual in transit. Gla{/ the JWY ts reached you in good time but am sorry that you were disappoin ted in his descriptio n of Pearce Ferry and the southern route. If you ever run across a better one, please let me know as I'd like a copy. I regret that he didn't.com pile his dictation to describe his activity at Fort Valley and on to B!lgh~~ City and Sunset. I'd have been overjoyed had he carried it on until he reached Kanab, as this was the trip that led him to establish a wool business and mill at Moenkopi and to see the possibili ty of Lee's Ferry slipping out of Mormon control. I rather think he made an on-the-sp ot log of the entire trip and read from this to the scribe. Now if Dean Jessee could only come up with this fragment! I have a copy of Forty Years among the Indians, by Daniel W. Jones, pub. by Westernlo re Press. In past years I have entertaine d myself by comparing his introspec tive myopic view of certain events with those of A.W. Ivins, etc. Did you ever read the opinion of Erastus Snow about Bro. Jones? Is there another version of Jones besides the Westernlo re item? Thank you for the xerox copy. Did you ever hear that Nathan returned Sis. Hickman's oxen? He must have been aware that Hickman was a good shot1 and not overly concerned about legalitie s. Hickman and Porter Rockwell were a pair. Did you ever hear how JWY took advantage of Port's widow in a horse deal and nobody said a thing? Another good yarn is the time Port got drunk at Pipe Spring when he was a member of BYs party in 1870 (the time BY selected the Kanab townsite and the fort location at Pipe Spg.). He was in BY's carriage and stuck his head out the window whooping it up and shooting while BY looked straight ahead as if nothing was amiss, and no one dared say anything. I have read a few Patriarch al blessings and yours is as good as any. If it affected you it was good, but I suspect that your character was determined more by a good home life and upbringin g than what the patriarch said to you. I had not known that the office of patriarch of the church was hereditary . Stake patriarch s are nor hereditary but usually are selected as being among the most faithful and aged in the stake. Jody Johnson was a patriarch and appointed after I first knew him. You forgot to answer whether you had seen the JWY letter of Jan. 28, 1878 from Sunset, but I ran off a copy for you anyway. You are right about the brethren in the Little Colorado settlemen ts considerin g themselve s as being in the United Order before JWY came along. This was because they all came from communiti es that had the order before they went to Arizona. It was like a man leaving one stake to join another--h e needed a recommend. Many of the orders in Utah never got organized to the point of the people putting their property into •·'i t, so they had no withdrawa l troubles when they moved. One of the specifica tions for the Arizona Mission was that the people live in the U.O. but they had not formed a formal organizati on until JWY got there. This was made to order for Lot Smith. Of course you have to appreciate JWY's attitude too . He was unsure if John Taylor and the Twelve would push his father's concepts which he considered sacred. At the same time he wanted to convince them that he was working for their inte·rests when actually he was a wheeler- dealer on the make and trying to help himselfo There is no doubt that the brethren at S.t. J.oseP.h had more pure idealists and sincere men than the other camps, which 1s why they survived. I ~~n•t know how closely your paper has followead the Phelps-Dodge strike ,t Morenci and Ajo, but it is front page stuff here. Those goons shot a strike-breaker's child in the head and were banging cars with baseball bats like crazy. They threatened to break the fence and destroy the company. The governor has called out the Nat'l Guard and police reserves, and the goons are finally intimidated. Now they jail a guy for having a bat or pipe in his possession. The company has fired a couple of dozen that were identified as being violent , and gave the rest a chance to return to work or be fired. About 400 have crossed the picket lines. If you think the UAW is overpaid, what about the Ur!M? Where else can a 6th grade dropout earn $36,700 a year? This ignorant bunch of goons has really turned public opinion against them. I expect the union to be broken, and it couldn't happen to a better bunch of slobs--Fitzpatrick notwithstanding. Do you happen to have a copy of John Bushman's 1884 thru 1887 diaries that I could borrow to copy? You gave me his 1876, 77, 78, and 79 diaries previously and I have taken excerpts from other years, but something keeps me wanting to check him in case he departed from his usual style. I'm interested in the trip he made with Jesse N. Smith, Joseph Fish, John Standifird. L.H. Hatch, and Lot Smith and,your father in December 1884. They layed over at the Ferry Dec. 15, 1884. What do you think will eventually be done with the fundamentalist polygamy problem? I don't see how they can find enough women stupid enough to put up with it. When we attended Jody Johnson's funeral in Kanab, we all gathered in the home of one of his daughters, and his brother, LeRoy Johnson--the present prophet at Short Creek--spent about an hour inside while six women, two of whom I recognized as his wives. sat outside in his Cadillaco He Did you know Stanley Ivins? slipped Jody's widow a $100 bill. Well, I 've about run down. Weather here is fine and a lot better than Nebraka or the east . Have had a couple of intense electrical storms and two days of rain. Temps rather low, down to 74 last night. Best regards, P. T. Reilly IVS -78 1 1237 John W. Youne; Bx 5 fd 8 Copied by P. T. Reilly "Sunset City Nr Sunset Crossing Little Colorado Yavapai Co. Jan 28, 1878 Prest John Taylor and The Council of Apostles Dear BrethrensIt was my intention to write you from St George, but at the last, press of business prevented me, & I now do so but will make my letter brief because of time. In the three days we have remained he r e, the Brethren of the settlement in this vicinity have almost beseiged me, so constantly have they kept me answering questions necessary. We start North tomorrow. My party consists of Jacob Hamblin, hateman Williams(of Ordervill Stephen Taylor, M0 siah Hancock (of Leeds), Brigham I. Young (my nephew), & Sildon Clawson, son of Sister Alice. Brother August Wilchen has traveled with us from St George. We came from St George south through the Grand Wash via Hualapai Valley, Hackberry, Truxton Springs, Youngs Springs, Spring Valley, & San Francisco Mountains. We have had some snow, but it seems as if we have been favored by special Providence & we came through safely, thanks the lord. That rout can be shortened some fifty miles & the roa d greatly improved between here & St George. I will not not /sic/ now go into detail but wait to make a full report on my return. 1 I found the cams needin an organization ery badly & upon their omited ? rols, were considered above the select on of thel r oIT1cers to me I have g i ve_n them a teml?~rary organlzation ~xcep_ting _their p;-e~~9.eni._ Lot Smith with Jacob Hamblin as 1st counselor, both of whom I _have set apart, expecting to meet Bro. t.R. Hatch between here and t he MoancoEP. e & set him apart _g_s 2nd counselor..!.. ft seenled absolute'T,yn ecessary_ :to g ve some feature of ermanancy to satisfy the'- eo le & !a> gl.v~ i_he Brethren all the strene;th & power of the calling & so I sea~ed the powers of the _affair u~on themo Th High Council & Bishops I have left together with the officers of the different Towns/?? to be ordained when so~e of us visit here in the springo There ar~ many things I would like to write about but a full & _ __ iqea, I will be most happy to give on any action. We have all enjoyed our journey altho it has been attended with the expense of a trip in January. I agree on the Great Work & my prayers are _ _ constantly for you my dear Brethren. May the God of Heaven bless & guide you in the great responsibili ti descending upon you. The brethren here have been waiting to take this. 22 miles to the post office in order to get the mailo Bro Smith & all send the kindest regards Ever your Bro. Jno W Young Excuse great haste in which I have written. L r~ote by PTRs the trip I seek should be in this folder, but it'is •not.J Dear George , June 15, 1983 Your letter of June 8 was received two days later and it came just as I was beginning to get apprehensive about your welfare . After losing a mate, lonliness becomes a monster that must be overcome by one means or another . Individulas handle this differently, and with your background I have faith that you will come up with a good solution . The point of church regression is a great danger at present and I can just see ETB licking his chops at how things will return to the days of Heber Grant and A.W. Lund as soon as he gets in the saddle . I am thankful that I got in the research I did in HDC as probably it would be closed in the future . It is a sad day for academic liberty and editorial independence and could set the Mormon image back to the dark ages o I doubt that L.A. would attemot to dam the flow of reactionary thinking or he would find himself outside looking in . The TV coverage of the floods in SLC was something.I never thought would happen . I saw a river flowing west on N. Temple that was unbelievable , al~o one flowing south on State St . I knew that your location made you relatively safe. The flood came off the south slopes, and the closest to you face face NW and thus got less sun to speed the melting of snow . The flows of your creeks don't mean much to me , except that they are impressive in cfs, because I don't know what is normal or extreme for each. In case I never told you , your Little Colorado book has been much more useful to me than the one Charles wrote . His is slicker and has more polish but yours is far superior when it comes to dispensing honest information . What happened to the James S. Brown diary when Louetta died? I hope it wound up in a suitable repository . I have thanked you more than once for taking me with you that night in 1970 . I was hunting thru some journals recently and wonder if you ever saw this item, The date is June 8, 1876 and BY Jr . , D.H. Wells, and E~astus Snow were returning to Utah after visiting the new settlements at Sunset, Allen ' s camp , and Ballenger's . Brown was off staking claims along the L. C. bottoms and was absent when the party was at Moenkopi . BY Jr . wrote: .... . left a letter for Bro . Jas . s. Brown signed by bros . Wells, Snow & myself . Also wrote out copy of note sent him by father that he had nothing to do with directing the 4 companies of 50 each sent out to Colorado Chequito but the Indian Mission-Nava jos & Oribas and to council harmoniously with 4 captains , Lot Smith, Geo . Lake , Allan & Ballenger~/s ic/ The only question that remains is , did BY deliberately give conflicting instructions to JSB or was it carelessness? The Trtacy Bank letter gives good sound opinions as far as I am concerned . You would be surprised how many strong union men claim dogmatically that wages can be raised without affecting the cot of the product . As the old farmer would say, B. SZ I hope you don ' t let your hatred of unions tear you apart . I did what I could when I was in a position to act, but the problem is so big that only a superman could solve it. There are responsible union members but the great majority are like a bunch of little kids,poorly educated, strong in human weaknesses, and with poor powers of reasoning . I back Reagan and his labor and Black policies all the way . But there is little you and I can do about it and the main thing is not to get worked up to the point of having a stroke . The Mexicans are trying to emulate the success of the Blacks in putting pressure on Whitey . If they ever get all the illegals organized, the SW will revert to Mexico . If you haven't been close to Mexican gov•t bureaucracy , you don't know what corruption is . I have sworn off going to Mexico. There is a lot of crime by illegal Mexicans in the Phoenix area . Keep dry and don't neglect your exercise . Best regards , r-- f? . July 8, 1983 Dear George, Your letter mailed June 28 reached me two days later, the day of Elna Miller's funeral. Thank you for sending me her obituary. She was a very fine person and a credit to everything she represented. Had I known earlier I would like to have sent her flowers. They need more Saints like Elna. I imagine you will be reading an obituary for our good friend A.Karl Larson before too long and hope I learn of his passing in time. I wrote him at his daughter's place in Ogden but I didn't expect him to answer, and he didn't. A time like the present enables us to separate the sheep from the goats. The henhouse brethren, realizing that SWK is on his last legs and knowing that ETB could become Profit, Seer and Revealator any hour, are really pushing the reactionary line. To your list of ETB and Mark Peterson, I would add Boyd P cker. My brother-in-law sent me a very good and lengthy article in The L.A. Times of June 26, 1983, titled "Mormons--Change is in the Wind." It quotes Packera "That historian or scholar who delights in pointing out the weaknesses and frailities of present or past leaders destroys the faith ••• One who chooses to follow the tenets of his profession, regardless of how they may injure the church or destroy the faith of t hose n ot ready for 'advanced history' is himself in spiritual jeopardy ••• Warts-and-all church history is acceptable, but not 'allwarts church history." They are jumping on the bandwagon rather early, and the program of silencing the thinkers could set the church back a century or more. Can't you just see that old buzzard A.Will Lund kicking the foot out of his coffin in sheer joy? I return your article as requested, tho I'd have kept it if you hadn't. Too bad you forgot to date it. Count me with Dean Newell and Prof. J.D. Williams. Wish I could share your optimistic views re the effect that ETB will have, but I can't. I doubt very much that I would be allowed entry to HDC under the present changed condition. I always had the idea that my article on John R. Young gave me a blackball. I have always tried to be fair even when I reveal some of the warts. They seemed to accept that until that article came out and Loyd Young went to Dilworth to get me kicked out of the church. I have copies of some letters, including a soft-soap job by Glen Leonard to Loyd Young saying that I was prejudiced. Stan. Layton admitted that he and Mel Smith had been pressured but maintained their editorial integrity. Yet I have hesitated to offer them anything else. I have meant to get a copy of Giant of the Lord, but never did. Next time I am in Deseret Books I will. You gave me aop!es of Brown's diary and journal. I have done a little more review of the Pearce Ferry matter and I find that there was a rope stretched there. But it was a pull-rope with fixed ends and not used with a team. They pulled the boat across by hand aboard the boat. I'm sure you have seen the letter by J.E. Stevens from Hackberry, dated Ivlarch 2), 1881, to the Deseret News, p .. 127. He tells how two Paiutes· were pulling the boat acr os s when the oxen being crossed crowded to one end and caused the boat to s"nk . The Indians went overboard, made shore, and landed the water-logged boat after the rope pulled out on one end. There is another account that I read but never copied in full, and I wonder if you could help. I'm sure you could get a xerox but doubt if I could even1 get in now. It is a very long accou~t by John W, Young who left SLC Dec.8, 1877, went vis Kanab to St.George . He crossed Pearce Ferry Jan. 7 & 8, 1878 and arrived at Ballenger 's Camp on Jan. 25. I ran onto this late in the day, meant to copy it in full but never got back to it. This was the best account of the southern route ever written. It is in the J.W.Young 1877 folder of Box 2. The handwritin g is very legible but if you can get us a xerox, I'll make another xerox and make a typescrip t of it for each of us. They let me xerox some pretty good items on my last couple of visits. Don't know why I never got back to this. John w. says the ferry consisted of two plankedl skiffs, lashed together with cross beams and a double floor of 1-inch boards with a railing on each side. He said it was tolerably safe for one wagon of not over 3000 pounds or four animalso As far as I know, this is the best descriptio n of the ferry there. Your Sen. Hatch was in Phoenix today. He is very well thought of here in Goldwater country. I suppose you heard that the union struck Phelps-Do dge. I think it will brea~ the union as about 40 percent refused to strike, and many others have crossed the picket lines to return to work after the company got a restrainin g order to limit the number of pickets. Serves the bastards right. They fired a bridge to Ajo. The BurRec is catching hell for not releasing water this spring, when a high runoff was imminent. The SRP began releasing water in March, so why was ,, the BurRec asleep? Of course the idiots should not have built in the floodplain, and San Bernardin o and Riverside counties in Calif. and Mohave and Yuma in Ariz. should not have been so greedy to enlarge their tax bases by giving them permits. The lower river is one big series of casinos with boat docks on the river--or used. to be. Now the water is six feet or so deep in the lower storeys. I guess your trouble is past by now. I hope you can get to HDC to get JWY's account. I'll pay for the xerox. I am so busy trying to get my work finished that I won't get anyplace this year. I would have loved to get to Lee's Ferry when the high flows were released so I could get photos of the condition s when Roundy was drowned. I have the , spot located and have an approxima te flow of 83,000 cfs. They released up to 92,~OO cfs this week but it's down to ?2,000 today. It got rather warm on the 5th July, with 116 in Phoenix and 103 on our patio. However, today was down to 96 and cloudy. Also a little sticky. We still have plenty of oranges and grapefrui t. Did anybody ever try to loaate Ida Hunt's diary that May used to write her story of the trip? Davis Bitton doesn't list it. We are both fine except Su e had to get glasses. My B/P read 122/76 this Hope all is well with you. AM so I guess I'm fine too. Best regards, P. T. Reilly Dear George, July 17, 198J I appreciate your interest and promptly reply on the JWY lettero I carr't add much to what I told you on July 8, but I c•n add a little. Incidentally, Don's name is Schmidt , the normal German spelling of Smith. He has I first ran across always been very nice to me, from his days at BYU. the JWY account on 29 Sept.1972. It was late in the day and I knew I didn't have time to copy the full letter, but I did read it. John W. had married wives number J and 4 about the time of his father's death, 29 Aug. 187~, and was hedge-hopping all over Utah with the women to keep the Feds fromfeizing them as material witnesses. The church was not sure of Emma Lee's devotion to the Mormon cause after her husband's death and wisely chose not to Put all their eggs in one basket. A route to the L.C. settlements had to be maintained, he~cre the promotion of Pearce's Ferry. When word got out of the tough trip your folks had in March 1877, no one wanted to take the southern route. John W's choice to go via Pearce's was to give that road a much needed boostt, but he also had a rough time and returned via Lee's Ferry. His companions were Jacob Hamblin, Bateman Williams, Mosiah Hancock, Steven w. Taylor, August Wilchen, and two of his nephews, Brigham s. Young and Seldon Clawson. They had J vehicles and lJ animalso Left SLC Dec. 8, 1877, went via St. veorge, crossed P.F. Jan. 7 and 8, 1878, and arrived at Ballenger's Camp on Jan. 27. This was the trip when he organized the brethren in the United Order and the Arizona Stake of Zion. He also changed the names of the camps to Brigham City, Sunset, St.Joseph. He wrote a letter to John Taylor and the Twelve on Jan. 28 and said he was starting home tomorrow. I can give you a copy of this letter if you want it~ (MS 1 1237 Bx 5 fd.8) Somehow, I didn't get back to John W. until 4-28-78 and when I got the , above box, the account of the trip was not in it and I assumed the material had been reorganized because it had been in the 1877 folder of Box 2. The chronological dates of the material were all I had to go by. HDC should Bear in mind that have the record of how the material was reorganized. the letter is lengthy (20-30 pp.), starts in SLC and covers the entire tripo J.W. became the second Mormon leader to encircle Grand Canyon. I thought the account might be in either the 1877 folder or 1878, but found it in neither. I would suggest Don find out who reorganized the file and how it Good luck . was changed. I wouldn't think of writing Sis. Ellsworth about the Hunt girls. I merely thought that Ida might have included description in her diary that May did not consider important but that P.T. would. Few people hold identical values, but detectives such as you and I can glean information that others deem unimportant. I'd still like to read Ida's passages that May used. Yes, they used sweeps to cross in May 1877--no pull rope. It was a very quiet section, almost a lake, despite the variation of individual ideas of a rapid. What little current there was, was in mid-stream, with still water along both banks~ I love the action of the people in Louisiana. We have that law . in Ariz. now but there has to be evidence of forced entry and the defender has to shoot the intruder in the front and be in fear of his life. I feel sorry for anyone breaking into my house if I'm here. I have three handguns at convenient places and know how to use them. I'd like to see such a federal law but I return a few clips to give you a do-gooders in Calif. will resist - it. lad. that love We again. it at is Benson chuckle. regards, Best Schmidt. Push hard on Don P.S. Is there any truth to the rumor that Leonar rrington has been relieved? Dear George, July 27, 1983 Thanks for the effort. You can bet your last two bits that I won't hold my breath until the JWY copy arrives. Why don't you discuss this matter with Helen Warr? I think she has more knowhow and know-where than many of the youngsters with degrees. She has· obtained some JWY material for me that is unbelievable. You should remember that after BY died in August 1877, the church was governed by John Taylor as head of the Twelve. Since there was no president. the seven counselors had no official job so JT and the quorum made D.H. Wells and JWY counselors to the apostles. Geo. A. Smith was dead and BY Jr. and the other counselors were out in the cold. When JWY wrote letters he usually used the inclusive salutation of John Taylor and the Council of Apostles. The account I saw was not in the hand of JWY because I know his handwriting. It could have been that of Steven W. Taylor, August Wilchens, or Bateman Williams. It was written like a journal of a trip, not addressed to anyone, as I remember, but it was written as if JWY were writing but not in l!nis hand. I went through most of the JWY collection in 1978 and the item was nowhere to be found. I also went through the John Taylor letterbooks and it was not there. Obviously it is filed somewhere else. • I am sorry you had such a frustrating experience and sorry I led you into it. Since I failed to get it on my own, I figured you could if anyone was able. Have you seen the letter from F,M. Lyman to the Deseret News dated Kanab, Oct.2, 1880 •••• "we drove Oct.8, 1880, which was printed Nov.3, 1880? over a continuance of the same heavy kind of road to Bro Tannets home, newly established where we leave the river and took dinner with Sister Tanner." He was heading from Black Falls to Moenkopi and this would seem to establish roughly the date Seth B. moved to his lonely site by the Little Colorado. Then there is this item from the journal of Jesse N. Smith who was heading toward Snowflake from St. George via Lee's Ferry': May 12, 1880 •••• "Drove on about 3 miles to where the feed was good, passing the place where Seth Tanner was planting corn and making improvements. It seemed to me a lonesome place." (p.242) don't be bitter about HDC. It couldn't possibly be as bad as when Will Lund was there. I think it more likely that a state of flux exists and the cracks in the bureaucracy are showing. I take it that Leonard Arrington is out and can't figure out why I never heard about it, He was the brightest academic light they ever had. N0 w Oh yes, I looked up JWY's collection in Davis Bitton's "Guide" and found it very cursory. It ~· now~ere near covers the material I know to be in the collection. There has to be some way to crack this problem. But come on, tell me about L.A. and I don't mean Lewis Allen. P.S. Karl Larson died about noon 23 July 1983 at Ogden. His daughter Judith telephoned me that PM, He had a stroke and heart attack, Services will be in St. George on Friday, July 29. Best regards, P.T. Reilly \ ' 4545 South 27/:IJ -East City, Utah 84117 Lake Salt August 6, 1983 Dear P. T. I wa.3 surpris(,,d wh t.m ..he t,,ail came today to get your packet with the typescript. You did not waste much time getting this typewritten. Your comment about l eading a horse to water but not being able to make him drink rmninds me of an i teu, in DAN JONES about trying to get his jackass to drink at a spring. Do you have a copy of Dan Jones'l I own one but it is loaned out and if I succeed in getting it back I will give you. It is really a rare thing. You have convinced me about the 'rapids in the river' but JWY surely gave a bad description. Let me know if you have a copy of Dan Jones. The s.:opy I have ! s all to p i ece s but usable and could be recovered. I may have a few other things which mi 6ht do you more good than anyone else. I think I told you I have a copy of a letter written to 'Brother Tanner' by BY. The original was sent to me by Earl Pingree Tanner of Magrath, Canada to identify the Brother Tanner. This was easy for me as I knew where each of the Tanner men were. All but one of the Tanner men - John Joshua - came into SLC in the fall of 48. 'fhen in 1 51 all those in Salt Lake except Nathan ri1>ved to San Bernardino. 'fhis wakes it easy to say with some certainty the letter was sent to Nathan, and the letter was found in the possession of Nathan's descendants. N.E. T. is in this line. A Dig fine family. I hesitate of William I awarel those oxen to make any comments about the letter as I imagine you know the reputation Hickman better than I do. Do yourself a favor is older slang than I was imagine Brigham knew Hickman better than Nathan did. I can see him hurrying and cows back to Sister Hickman. The Patriarchal blessing I told you I had was given when I was in SLC on my way to my mission. It was given by the presiding Patriarch of the church at the time. I think ne ,':Jrly all the depan,ing 1,.issionaries got a blessing from the presiding patriarch. You know the patriarch was a hereditary thing. And the church has had quite a lot of trouble finding suitable men in thiJrer di tary line. There is no presiding patriarch at the presont time and I doubt this office will oo perpetuated. They do have stake patriarchs though. I think they have a couple in this stake but I do not know them. My mother had her bles ,., ing and t11entioned a few of the promises in it like going b ;, ck to Jackson County to help build the glorious temple. As she grew old she worried some about this - rrore than she worried about the rapids in the BIG COLORAOO. I never did read her blessing but I imagine I could get it by paying a fee at HDC. I have been told they rnake a copy for you for a dollar. One of these days I think I will see. Oh yes I have a copy of 11.y older brother Tho111as W. Tanner who went on his mission with me to the sam e mission. If I have two copies I will send you one1ou mi ght want to compare them. In your recent correspondence you mention a couG_le of times that JWY set .!:£_ the United Order in Sunset when he was there in January 1878I don't know just what script you refer to but I think the Saints along the river - Joseph City, Ballenger and Sunset felt that they had been in the UO long before JWY came along. Allen (Joseph City) organized in 1877 and my father was 11,ade secretary. I have their minute book by the way. '- Nobody quite knew what constituted a UO but, they were working on it all the tiriie. Lot ::i, .. ith apparently felt that the long table where all ate together was the c enter of the UO. Brighau, Young am.I his sons were p ush i. n 6 r.,his idea. When JWY ca11,e there in January 1 78 he got hold of Joseph H. Richards a nu John t3ush111an fron1 Allen's and urged thew to push for the long table - said if they wante J to th ~y could put tliis over. Richards polled his group and fo und only about JO% who were willing. He and Bush11.an decided not to I stean. roll the thin g at Allens. Wilford Woodruff told the ,Joseph City 6roup the long table was no nore an ess ,nr.,ial to th0 UO that all slL:eµing together. It is inttiresting that the two colonies who used t.h0 1011g table went out oi' existence and li . , tle Joseph where they had a little de11Jocr:1 cy anu consul l,ed the people were able to 11,ake a 60 of it. JWY 11,ay have • tolu s01"eone he set up he UO at Sunset but that doesn'-t u,ake it so. Enough for this time. 'I 'hanks for your part in ge tting the JWY report into ,ey J __ v, - ha»j - ' - - - --.,,_..~.,._,.--L--,~ / +• .... ~! \ )Ff ~/J j~ - I '''\~,,r::;~~~""~ . I I fl N--r: Tr:?0 HISO C... L UA F2Cff ( 8-?Z lJ 6-&rJG V 0-1 C'AL Scale a ~ o 2S'v R'VEJ.r' Contour Interval 250 f'eet • I /" ,, j . ,,J j Dear George, September 17, 1983 Yours of the 1st, mailed the 2nd, arrived on the 6th--somewha t longer than usual. Always glad to hear your words, whether I agree with them or not. I took your advi~e and reread your letter but must retain the view I expressed. I enclose a xerox of your letter and underline in red the reason for my reaction. I think now that you didn't mean it, but you said it. If you still mean it, perhaps you can give me a reference to a better description of Harrison Pearce's ferry. I think you will agree that the four camps were operating under the concept of the u.o. as established where they came from but had never effected a formal organization of it on the Little Colorado. JW did this perhaps to justify his trip and to hide the real reason for a final personal look for his wool business at Moenkopi and getting a ranch or two in No. Ariz. He was trying to curry favor with John Taylor and the Twelve because his insurance had expired with the death of his father. If you read the journals of John Mills Whitaker you will learn that John W's families were big spenders and spoiled rotten. They were always coming to him for money. They lived and ate high on the hog. Old Will Lund caught me reading them and raised hello The reason I advanced has to be correct. The handwritten report is not in JW's hand but in the hands of two unknowns. I reiterate that when he returned to SLC he dictated to a scribe in one session, to another in the next, but never got back to complete the job. He must have had notes. We appear to view patriarchal blessings from the same rock. I would like to hear the instructions given to a new patriarch and I' d wager they emphasize to be general and not specific. An individual rationalizes the applications . It is difficult to be openly objective about these things because many good people put high stock in them and should not be offended. The give-in by AT & Twas disgraceful and a good example of just what I have been telling you for a couple of years. It is too easy to settle and pass it on to the consumer. I think you said you hold AT & T stock as well as GM. If this is true, you might find the enclosed useful. Bl>-t I say Boo to AT & T, but orchids to Phelps-Dodge . The P-D stand is one I have advocated for years, which is why I hate a company sell-out of the entire economy for labor peace in their own bailiwick.- Of course our rates will go up, not only for the union settlement but from the divestiture. Do you think the Anti-Trust outfit is really working for the people? If so, they got suckered and maybe there is no sin in being big. I wouldn't think of asking you to mail me your bound volume of the Bushman Diaries and neither will I brave the parking situation at ASU. Parking there is much worse than at U of U because ASU has grown so fast. An outof-state license plate could get one about two miles away, but an Arizona car makes parking within two miles impossible. I'll do without until I can get to Tucson. Thanks anyway. I thought you might have some of those mimeographed copies by year like you once gave me. Bushman sure wrote from duty. I was surprised that he sided with Lot Smith in the settlement. Yes, your Dad tried to get over Buckskin Mt. when the snow was too deep. He came back to the ferry and met Lot Smith and Jesse S. et al and they all got over by double-teamin g and taking turns breaking track. I'd love to take you over this old road. .. debacle • You are right, Gov. Pyle lost his job as a result of the Short Creek .... Cteek Short polygs. the handle to how on slant You could have the right is thriving now. Best r e g a r d s ~ .t 'Puc Tf{ (S () F0 Tffr? BA~K () F fl 6v eDlTo~cAL Tf/AT VC)CJ NtGHT FIND IN ~e-qtµ G" P. T. Reilly . ~AlO Monday, September 1%, 1983 . THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC· tt. . . , EUGENE S. PULLIAM Pre,ident DARROW TULL V EU<iENE C. PULLIAM 1889-1975 Publisher 1946-1975 ' . PubllahM PAT MURPHY . AL~ M.OYEA Editor ,/ ' Manaolno Editor Bi.L SHOVER ~.,.. :L..-------~~o,'."."' ·,e-:c~to-:ro=-f-Op:...e".""rs_ti""'.'on-:•-=Di:-·,ec_tor-:-of":""Sa:--,.-:-'---:-:-m-::::":-.ct-:-or-:-:-:-ol---Commun-:-~'-IY_~_~•;;) Where The Spirit Of The Lord Is, There Is Liberty-a Corinthians 3:17 WM.A. HOGAN I' '., . CONRAD KLbH ' ' :.-; MOSCOW SMUG )The .Russian Shooting Gallery {':'·,, ' • 0 wonder the Soviet Upion is so smug t.;,1 and remorseless about its 1nissile attack ~,)on· the Korean Air Lines jumbo jet, and the . killing of 269 passengers and crew. : : One need only read the history of Russian :~. attacks on other nations' airplanes - mostly ·; -outside of Soviet ·airspace - and the veritable ~:-Soviet shooting gallery the · Russians have operated since World War II with little more : .than transient international anger .that eventu:': ally died down. . · ;, ·, U.S. News & .World Report magazine.has gone · ''through the files and found more than two dozen . incidents in which aircraft have been shot frpm the skies by Russians: · April 8, 1950: Unarmed U.S. Navy Privateer .patrol plane with 10 crewmen shot down an~ lost :_in international waters in the Baltic Sea. ,; Nov. 6, 1951: U.S. Navy Neptune weather ·aircraft with \0 crewman shot down by Soviets ))ff Siberia in international waters. June 18, 1952: U.S. recon plane missing , ~ft.er encounter with Soviet planes over J,pan. June 16, 1952: Russian jets shoot down ',)narmed Swedish military plane over interna- 1 -tional waters in Baltic; 7 crewmen rescued. • , Oct. 7, 1952: Unarmed · American B-29 '.bomber and 8 crewmen vanish when fir~d on by . ,Soviet planefover".Japan's·Ktµ"ile Islands. ·. ,.March 10, 19iSS: U.'S. Air Force F-84jetshot ,4°'{11 by two Soviet MiGdn Germany. , ~arch· 12, 1953: Soviet MiGs sho6t down British bomber over Elbe River Valley at German frontier; 5 crewm~n perish. March 15, 1953: American B-29 recon plane fired on by MiG fighter 25 miles off Soviet Siberia coast..No injl!ries. , July 29, 1953: American B-50 bomber shot J:'.: .down by MiGs over Sea of Japan; 16 die. '"' Jan. 22, 1954: U.S. recon plane attacked by 8 MiGs over Yellow Sea. No casualties. ;·, March 12,1954: Two U.S. military planes ~i .flying near Czechoslovakia attacked by MiG. ·; .~ Both land safely. · June 3, 1954: Belgian transport carrying : ~" cattle firecLon over Yugoslavia by MiG; 1 -_ ·· crewman killed, 2 hurt. . .. .,,. . , '.....,, N. ' - .._., ,., - I .. ~•• Sept. 4, 1954: U.S. Navy Neptune patrol plane ahot down by Soviet jets 30 miles off. SU>erian ~ t in internationwal watersj 1_killed. · Nov. 7, 1954: B-29 shot down over northern Hokkaido, Japan; 1 dies. May 10, 1955: Eig~t U.S..fighter planes on patrol over ·international- waters off Korea attacked _· by _MiGs. No ~~lties. · . · ' May 22,· 1955: U.S. Navy patrol plane ~ttacked by Soviet planes near St. Lawrence . Island in Bering Sea; 7 c_rewmen injured. , June 27; 1958: \Jnar_med U.S• .transport plane shot down over Soviet Armenia during s~rm; 9 airmen iretumed ~y Soviets. Sept. i, 1968: U.S. C-130 traniport ahot down by Soviets near·Turkiah·border; 17 die. . .Nov. 7, 1968: MiGs attacked US. recon jets over Baltic and Sea of Japan._ . June 16, 1959: U.& Navy patrol plane attacked by MiG over Sea of Japanj one crewman wounde~. . . May 1, 1980: U.S. U-2 apy plane downed over Russia; pilot Francia Gary Powers captured. July 1, 1960: American B-47 recon _e,lane shot down ih Barents Sea; 4 of 6 crewmen killed. -Nov. 20, 1963:' Soviets shoot down Iranian plane after it strays into RU88ian airspace and . attempts to flee: Jan. 28, 1964: U.S. jet trainer -ahot·down over East Germany; 3 Americana die. · · . ·· • ·, March 10, 1964: U.S. bomber shot'down by Soviets after cr088ing East German frontier. No casualties. · April IO, 1978: .8outh·K~an airliner shot· down in Rusaia; 2'pauengen killed, 13 hurt. July, 1981: Argentine··cargo plane crashes after colliding with pursuing Soviet plane over Armenia. ' Nowhere in the record does it show that these acts, some of them clearly involving illegal aggression, resulted in the Soviet Union being deprived or punished. . Beyond that, however, is a question that should be ~ersome to everyone. . And that is, who's next? --- Dear George , Octobe r 10, 1983 Your interes ting note of Sept.19 arrived the 2Jrd, and your letter of Oct. 1 came the 5th o I'll reply to both now. Appara ntly I erred in assumin g that you knew more about the genera Ferry area, John w. Young' s charac ter, and river lore than you do. l Pearce It almost seems that you want a rapid to be below the ferry site in order substa ntiate the Hunt girl, whethe r there was one or not. How did she to define a rapid? I had a couple of section s of two of my old maps xeroxed to help your unders tanding . Howeve r, they are made on differe nt scales . The smalle r sheet is from the 1892 map, which has one mile= ¼ inch. The art has advanc ed consid erably since WW2 and the 1892 map is consid ered inaccu rate today. But it shows the old road your folks used,th e draw down which it came and the wash by which it left. The river had not been veyed by 1892 and Powell did not have the true distanc e betwee n PearcesurFerry and Grand Wash, making it about half what it really is. The longer sheet is from the 1923 river survey which is the Bible for river mileag e, side canyon s, and elevati ons. It does not purpor t to show much away from the river. The scale here is , 21 inches = 1 mile, with contou r interv als of 50 feet. The solid lin~c ross the river nt one foot of drop in the river bed. The balloon s with a line to represe a point ·•. on the river represe nt river miles below Lee's Ferry. At the risk of being redund ant, allow me to explain some things that I had previo usly assume d that you knew. Silt or sand bars occur in a river when the veloci ty of the curren t slows to the point that gravily pulls the partic les down faster than the flow moves them downst ream. Such bars in sluggis h portion s of a river, never in the fast water. There are noform silt bars in the Marble -Grand section s except along the sides where slow water allows the partic les to settle . When the Colorad o emergethe s from the Grand Wash Cliffs , actual ly at about mile 277, the gradie nt of the bed barely provid es enough drop to keep the river moving . Belwee n the Pearce Ferry crossin g at mile 278.9 to the mouth of G«_and Wash at mile 284.7, the river falls less than 8 feet, really 7.93 feet, in 5.8 or 1.379 feet per mile. Thus no rapid can exist because there miles, is no sudden drop in the river bed. I have passed through that section on severa l occasio ns when Lake Mead was very low and the river was flowing severa l miles past or below Grand Wash. Rapids occur at the mouths of side canyon s when detritu s washes down the tributa ry and constr icts the river channe l. This increas es the veloci ty of the water and results in faster abrasio n of the river bed and a rapid. 1 Boulde rs washed into the rapid merely compli cate it but do not cause it. If you will examin e the 1923 section you will see that the road came down a low wash to its mouth, then turned upstrea m a quarte r-mile to the ferry. It never got closer than a quarte r-mile to the river before turning east. Even when you were young and keen-ey ed, how much detail could you see from a quarte r-mile? Neithe r could JWY or anyone else. There was a little stretch of ripples betwee n miles 279.5 and 279.8 where the divides around a silt bar, but the ripples couldn 't have been over 6river inches high, and made no sound. Young got there about dark and if there was any sun left, the angle would have been low, throwin g the ripples into relief, a quarte rmile away. Bear in mind that Hambli n, Gibbon s, and Greeley took an open skiff from the mouth of Grand Wash upstrea m to the future site of Pearce Ferry in 1863, so these ripples couldn 't have ammounted to much. The rapid at Grand Wash fell less than 5 feet but it made a little noise. Young never got closer to it than 5 miles, and he couldn't have seen it unless he used the Urim and Thummi'tl'\. I have walked over the lower portion of the Pearce road that is above elevation 122).6 (the highest elevation Lake Mead has ever been) and you can't see any part of the river until you get close to the mouth of the tributary mow named Pearce Wash. The old road is still plain. The walls at the mouth are about 150 feet high. Do you really think those old Mormons would have been stupid enough to locate a ferry above a rapid? They did so at Lee's Ferry only because they had no choice and entry and exit had to be made. They had miles to choose from west of the Grand Wash Cliffs. Hamblin first came all the way down Grand Wash (Isaac Riddle drove the wagon), put the boat in above and crossed. They then traveled along a steep, rough talus for about three miles before they could hit Grapevine Wash. When they took the boat upstream in 1863, those on shore had a hard time getting horses along the bank, so after the crossing was located (the Indians told them about it) they merely went down Grand Wash to about 7 or 8 miles from its mouth, then climbed out to the bench which eventually came down Pearce Wash to the river. You should know JWY well enough to realize that he added color to his writings. He usually added whatever he deemed best to build his case. Jesus said to render unto God that which is God's and unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. I say to you to apply this principle by recognizing what JWY actually saw and what he reported to exist to add color to his text. I think you confuse the two. Young never let objectivity get in the way of making his case. ~ost of his letters and writings show a tendency to add subjective color to help make his point. To answer your question, I never said that JWY made a good description of what he didn't see, only that he made a good description of the ferry. He described the ferryboat, not the site, and he saw only a small stretch of the river below, and that from a quarter-mile . I stand by my statement. We can get into semantics by asking what did Young or the Hunt girl define as a rapid? Certainly his definition and mine would differ. To the best of , my knowledge, he had never seen anything more intense than the minor Pahreah rapid at Lee's Ferry. This rapid falls 7 feet in one mile, or slightly less than the average gradient of the Colorado from Lee's Ferry to Grapevine Wash. The elevation of Mile Oat the Ferry .is 3115 feet above sea level; at the mouth of Grapevine Wash it is 900 feet. The reason that there are 18-24 inch waves in Pahreah Rapid is that the fan constricts the channel and pushes the current toward the left bank. On a scale of 10 Pahreah is hardly a 1, but no one is going to row a skiff upstream against its current. I don't know how the Hunt girl defined a rapid but it is clear to me that she didn't have much to guide her. Possibly she thought a rapid occurred if the water wasn't as smooth as glass. We have to consider the motivation for Young's trip to Arizona. Why do you think he made it? I think he made it for his own interests, not to set up the Little Colorado Stake, although that was the reason he advanced to JT and the Twelve. His father's nepotism had pushed him as far as he ever got, but with BY's death he lost his insurance and position. He was struggling to hold his position to justify his authority. The crap he peddled to JT was just that--bovine extract. His real interest was getting a string of ranches and the water at Hackberry Spg., the meadows below . the San Ffancisco peaks, and to set up a wool-buying business and woolen mill at Moenkopi. I have never found that he had designs on controlling Lee's Ferry but he c ould have. When they put him on trial for not obeying counsel in the RR business, JT accused him of wanting the ferry for himself, tho JW denied i~ 1 he didn't add anything except the prestige of his august presence at /unset in late January 1878 . Maybe they needed him to set up the stake, but Erastus Snow could have done it better. Have you read JWY's letter to JT of Jan . 28, 1878? He wrote: "I found the camps needing an organization very badly .•. • I have given them a temporary organization excepting their president Lot Smith with Jacob Hamblin as 1st counselor, both of whom I have set apart, expecting to meet Bro . L.H . Hatch •• •. It seems absolutely necessary to give some features of permanancy to satisfy the people & to give the Brethren all the strength & power of the Calling & so I sealed the powers of the affair upon them " There you have it--right from Mt. Olympus . Now I know what he did and didn i t do and I hope you do, too o He was merely trying to wrack up points and give a logical justification for the trip. Of course the brethren were living in the UO because they had been before they went there, had promised to live it there, but they had no formal organization such as at Kanab , Orderville and all the places in Dixie and elsewhere. JWY said the brethren needed organization badly . My point was that JWY helps us by describing the actual ferryboat, while you picked flyspecks out of what he didn't see but said existed . He had no idea what the river was like below the mouth of Pearce Wash except what he could see from a quarter-mile away . If his eyesight was that good, those counselors must have had special powers. I tell you in all sincerity that you could run the riffle at the mouth of Pearce Wash (Young's "easy Rapids") on an air mattress and. never get your back wet . I agree in general with all you say about the unions,but remember that the employees would not be so overpaid if the companies had not given it to them in the past. Now the trend is toward getting salaries and wages down. We can ' t con tinue to give those greedy children what they a sk and pass it on to the consumer or inflation will kill us . A responsible company has to take on a strike to keep the situation in hand, but it is so easy to give in . Viva Phelps-Dodge! I doubt that Orderville was very efficient if you listen to the yarns of how the ignor~t brought it to its knees . It lasted longer than the rest because they had more "have nots" who had no way to go but up . The people of means and responsibili ty remained in Glendale and Mt . Carmel o Dean May whitewashes the thing so completely that a reader can ' t believe it failed . E~en there the big shots,just as with Lot Smith , got away with the lion's share of the resources o JWY wound up with the Orderville range . You tell me how? The people had been so brainwashed by BY that the UC was the way to go, that JWY and BY Jr. couldn't believe that JT would not follow through . Confusion regarding the Order always was one of its weaknesses, as I brought out in the Kana b UO text . Nobody knew where they were going or how to get there but they sure moved a lot of feet and elbows in the effort . The effort of BY to force the people into the UO scheme is not a bright spot to his memory . I agree with you that JWY was "all wet " in his claims and think that he probably "sold" his trip to Arizona on the need to organize the brethren , while he hid his main objective. JWY never let a fib get in his way. Don't you think it was already determined that Lot Smith would be stake president? In other words, the choices were made in SLC, not by JWY at Sunset, including the counselors . Young left Bro . Kimball at Hackberry for a couple of months to get a ranch for him . Weather here is super but the poor people in the SE corner of the state are still catching it. Our winter garden is even doing well. I can ' t help you on the weather problem . Attribute it to El Nino moving north . It is surely different . Best regards , p:1 - ---- November 16, 1983 Dear Geor ge, I have gott en into the habi t of My apol ogie s for not repl ying befo re this .er and our even ing walk , and afte r savi ng my corr espo nden ce unti l afte r dinnwrit ing. Your pack et of Hunt a full day I don 't alwa ys feel like more than k you for thin king of my need s. Girl s' mat eria l arriv ed Oct. JO and I"Our Move From Utah " by May H. Lars on, You alre ady had give n me a xero x of ing and adde d a litt le to what I but the addi tion al vers ions were inte rest 11 pp of Ida Hun t•s,s tarti ng had. I xero xed 4 pp of May Hun t's Jour naln. and seem s to be the basi c on p.9 and wher e Ida stop ped and May begag itThis unde r sepa rate cove r, alon g docu men t. Also BY'$ lett er. I am retu rnin with my tha nk s.~ /(_(flJ, {~. the 28th , and your most rece nt one Your lett er of Oct. 25 was rece ived on 11th . I will star t with the earl iest . (und ated but mail ed Nov. 8) came on the grad ing your IQ, or deme anin g Firs t, I was not talk ing down to you,todown me that you are not as fam iliar with your educ atio n. It simp ly occu rred too much. If I went to the othe r rive r lore as I am and that I assum edicul ty is larg ely a matt er of sema ntics extre me, I'm sorr y. I thin k our diff on of the ferr y, I mean t the ferr ybeca use when I refe rred to JW's desc ripti desc ripti on to the ferr y cros sing . boat , whil e you appe ar to have appl ied his on of the cros sing was nonWhil e it was obvi ous to me that his desc ripti ybo at was exce llen t. Of cour se you exis tant to poor , his pict ure of the ferr ds, so it's easy to see real ize by now that the Hunt girl did men tion rapi how our sem antic s fork ed. · Emma Lee, JW recommended that Inci den tally , afte r he made the deal withPear I s boat d igge outr o t--tw ce's craf the ferr ybo at be rebu ilt afte r Harr isonhad mer I'd like to trac e the conn ecte d by a plat form , and the idea t have it. from brai ny old Eras tus orig in of this desi gn and thin k it migh inal lycome in 1876 , one skif f was orig Snow. Wha lJaco b guid ed Pear ce ther e Ham men to the left bank . his blin and buil t imm edia tely and used to cros s the plat form by him self. and skif f Afte r he went on, Pear ce buil t the seco nd St. the job had to have ge, Geor Sinc e they brou ght lumb er with them fromhave work er at Lee' s Ferr y bett ed been plan ned ther e. This desi gn woul d up with . How ever, it was Snow and than the clum sy 49-f oot scow they came the larg e boat , much to John son' s othe r auth orit ies who had insi sted on cons tern atio n. perc ent of the acti on. All one You ask my view s on G~en ada. I appr ove 100 to see that the Sov iets egge d Cast ro has to do is look at a map and it's easy ada. The airs trip was the cent er into leap frog ging the othe r islan ds to Gren ico. If they cut off our to communize Ven ezue la, Cen tral Ame rica, eandtheMex ian Gulf , we and the Pers oil ther e, and got Iraq and Syri a to closleas t pric e-w ise. Our expe rien ce Wes tern worl d woul d be in a bad way, s atour gove rnme nt jitte ry over a poss ible in Iran with host ages natu rally make a if that happ ened . Main ly, tho, repe titio n. What a fiel d day for the medi subv ersio n at area s I see itt a the acti on as a stop per to Sovi et-C uban vita l to our inte rest . go to Hell . They neve r were elec ted I also appr ove of tell ing the medi a to mili tary acti on repo rted as it is by anyo ne and I have no need to have a busi ness the repo rters such as happ enin g. Let' s face it; n8\&lsis show are bask,etba ll goon s, and I'm sick Rath er and his ilk are as over paid as ic opin ion agai nst our gov •t. Whe ther and tire d of them tryin g to form publ n't mat ter. The six the host age pos sibi lity was real or imag ined does comm unizi ng of the islan d Cari bbea n islan d -nat ions aske d us to stop the reac tion , but they appe ar to chai n. I am very disa ppoi nted by the Eng lish I 0e coming around to our side. The lousy media can't figure out the public is for the gov't and agains t them. I'm with Pat Buchan anwhy all the way. Thank God we have him to stand up to those libera l asses who would weaken us nation ally in favor of social giveaw ays. Thank you for the Bushman offer. You already have given me xerox copies of his 1876, 1877, 1878 Jan. 1 to May 3, and 1 879. I had talen selecte d entries in the 1870s, 80, and 90s before we were acquai nted. I got to wonder ing about my treatm ent of a certain phase in 1884-85 and wonder ed if Bushma could shed more light on the matter . After writing you I decided to letn well enough alone and drive on. My needs at the time concern ed trip he made to Utah in Dec. 1884 and his return in 1885, and I though t the you might have the sheets held by a staple , in which case it would be easy xerox but since they are bound, let's forget it. There was consid erableto drama the episod e, as Lot Smith saw that Chris Lingo's feet were on the ground , in the weathe r was below freezin g, and ice was in the river. Lot gave a pair of shoes. Bushman tried to break track over Busksk in Mounta in Chris but was turned back and reached the ferry just as the others (Fish, J,N.Sm ith, L.H.Ha tch, Lot Smith etc.) were about to press on to SLC. I was hoping to get a descri ption of conditi ons when Bushman turned back but I'm past even polish ing that part and would hate to rewrite it again. • • • • '71l r?cJ N THU .Bot-t,B T1--=:>tJCK • I think I must disagre e with you that it took guts~a gainst our marine headquarte rs in Labano n. Those people are Moslem fanatic s--true fundam of Islam. They believ e that if they die fightin g the enemy, they go entalits their heaven to dwell with Allah. SiX to eight hundred years ago they to got high on hashis h, then charged with nu restra int. Their attitud es are difficu for the wester n mind to unders tand. Doping them up is nothing new, Pancho l:'.T Villa got his troops high on marijua na before a battle and they charged the gov't forces the same way. Fundam entalis ts of any religio n are usually fanati cs, and freque ntly nuts. Eviden tly G~eyhound took out the full page ad in every major city in the country and ·~1 think it was timely . Howeve r, I have to ask how decent manage ment could agree to a previou s contra ct that raised wages any and benefi ts a third higher than the rest of the indust ry. The strike rs are idiots to think wages can only go up. It all goes back to when LBJ was presid ent and we got the idea of "merit raises" shoved down our throat s. What a misnom er! There was no "merit" to it. as a warm body got it as sure as a guy really deserve d it. The company can beat them if they stick to theirwho guns, and I hope they break the union. But driving a bus is not like driving a car. Phelps Dodge just about has their unions broken and it couldn 't happen to a better bunch of goons. I hoped Chrysl er would hold out but they didn't never did read the settlem ent. The compan ies usually settle too easily .. I While I have known quite a few respos ible stock-o wning union member are in the minori ty and get shouted down by the rank and file. They s,arethey in the skilled trades- -toolm akers, etc.- never or rarely among the produc tion worker s. I always consid ered the averag e union member as a greedy child who has to be reasone d with and treated like one withou t his being aware of it. The trouble has been that there are too many dumb manage rs who are too eager to adopt the confro ntation al attitud e. There is no substi tute expert manage ment, but few outfits have it or use it when they do. Tooformany politic s in management develop ment. The climate coming out of the admin istratio n is very helpfu l in restori ng balance to labor-m anagem ent relatio ns, and it's long overdu e. Even at that, we are far ahead of the people in the T~e Brits seem to have the idea that the gov•t owes everybo dy a living UK. . This feeling is in Canada , too. We should have stopped it long ago. That SOB LBJ gave it the big push it needed . Winter garden in and doing well. Citrus late this year, still hasn't turned color. Best regard s, December lij, 1983 ·*. Dear George., The annual Christmas tide and my own efforts not to let it interfere with the work too much have delayed a reply to yours of December 1, I don't send clippings to many., but when I do I try to pick things which I judge will interest that particula r person. I have a friend in England who likes the Grand Canyon, the peculiar moral climate of Nevada., and U.S. politics. Mike Harrison., an old NPS ranger and Indian agent likes Navajo and Hopi news. Ruth in Escalante likes unusual items of general interest, and so it goes. My brother-in -law is interested in college sports, especially football in Mormon schools., which is why I asked you for the descent of Steve Young, the BYU quarterbac k.(You forgot to answer). Jim is so disgusted with "affirmat ive actl.on° and the manner in which most schools use Black athletes for four years then let them loose, unable to read or write or count. UCLA is very bad at this and they are always asking us for money to help recruiting and their stinking programs . I don't know enough about the Flake case to give yo an opinion but from the items in the paper., I would judge that his ancestor would be very disappoin ted in his behavior. I'll clip the major stories for you. Snowflake is far from being the nice little Mormon town you once knew and it appears the brethren own their share of the joints and beer parlors. fursuit of the buck overshadow s virtue. We get occasiona l items about your snowpack and the rising level of Salt Lake. The faithful know it will come out OK or God would never have told However., it is Brigham that"This is the place." the low spot of the Great Basin and there is no ·*. no outle t to the sea. If the "gree nhous e effec t" takes place and the lake conti nues to rise. it could once again grow towar d the onetime size of Lake Bonn eville from the prese nt remnant. The enclo sed item in Wedn esday 's paper won't be new to you but it indic ates your probl em is not confined to the SL Valle y. Diet, weigh t contr ol, and prope r exerc ise are more impo rtant as we age. We watch ours close ly. I'm up 4:50 every day, do calis theni cs. set the table and at read the morni ng paper . We walk a mile and a half after break fast. I work until 5 FM. watch TV news and eat at 6. After dishe s we walk again , then eithe r rea play Scrab ble, or watch TV. To bed at 9PM or short ly there after . Routi ne, but it works for us. I try to handl e my corre spond ence in the eveni ngs. I am dead set again st bindi ng arbit ratio n. In the vast majo rity of cases it is settl ed in favor of labor . The comp anies have been too soft right along givin g in to demands and passi ng the raise on to the, consu mer. This has made us non-c ompe titive in world mark ets, creat ed infla tion at home. The child ren (spoi led) who comp rise the bulk of labor union s think they have a raise comin g at every new contr act. "Incr eased produ ctivit y" is a myth and "mer it s" are a joke. It looks to me like Greyh ound gaveraise in too soon and I'd like to have seen a tough er settl ment. Phelp s-Dod ge is doing it corre ctly and that eunion is just about buste d. I think the recen t airli ne settle ment of profi t-sha ring will be the ultim ate answe r to it all. Keep your eye on it. It is too bad that NET is gone becau se. throu gh him, you might have sugge sted a "Pres ident Emer itis" plan where by succe ssion would bring in young er men while retai ning the advic e of the older oneso Sure the ii ·*. M e'fku Clt/rMt'll(fJ}. !Ju™, t1IB goutlwieAt ! ( t1 ( 1 fl a t m u a u I y1 wl rE church has too much money. They should reduce tithing and missionar y activity because both are hardships on the members. A financial ly healthy membershi p is a precious asset and I know several LDS homes where both parents work to bring in enough money. Lifetimes are short-\ ened, homes-eve n Mormon homes-dis rupted. Helen Warr sent us a nice letter and a copy of the book on her late husband. She certainly did a complete job on him. She is a dear person, and may be distantly related to Susie from Mayflower days. I gave her a few names to check. Except for a 25-mile jaunt into Phoenix for dental checkups in April, we have not been away for 18 months. I won't complete this year but should by spring. At least that is a realistic target as of now. Would you be available for a critical reading? Are your days of long trips over or should I plan to come to SLC? I want to discuss parts in person, not by mail. I know your Christmas won't be the same without your Mildred but we hope you can gather most of your brood around you and enjoy a family Christmas with those at hand. You are luckier than we, our kin are all in other states. Best of all, tho, we have each other. The happiest of holidays to you.