Grandma Jespersen's House on Swan Street

This was the only part of our field trip that Tracy and I had been to before, and it was a bit of a shock to see Grandma's house so many years later.  The owner of the house is a very nice lady who had recently remarried.  It happened to be her birthday, and the family was busy packing the car for a camping trip, but she was gracious enough to take us inside and show us the changes she'd made.  It was clear that she really liked the house, and it was well taken care of, which made us feel good.

Grandma's House on Swan Street. That's Gladys Moon's
house to the left; her daughter Delores lives there now.

The kitchen looks completely different!

Another view of the kitchen, with our kind homeowner to the
left and Shannon to the right.

Here's the living room.  It looks different without Grandma's
recliner, sofa and TV.

Here's the room in the basement; it's the master bedroom now.

The backyard is missing some trees.  They became diseased
and had to be cut down.

After the homeowner showed us through the house, she mentioned that Dee, who lived next door, grew up on the street and might remember our dad.  We went next door and knocked and it turned out that Dee was Delores Moon, and she remembered our family very well.  We spent the next hour with her listening to stories about Grandpa Jespersen, Grandma and Dad. It was awesome to hear how much she loved our family.  Tracy wrote down all the stories as we made our way back to Sandy.  I'll start posting them in the next blog.

The Hansen Homestead in Warren, UT

Tracy and I took the kids out to see the house where Grandma Williams (Luella Hansen) grew up. We called Uncle Ed and Aunt Jean to get directions, plugged it into the GPS and away we went.

Grandma described the house in her life sketch: "It was a big two-story house with no basement, with a large kitchen and a pantry, a large living room, two bedrooms and two walk-in closets. One of them had shelves and hooks all around for clothes, etc. There were double doors between the living room and front bedroom so that when it wasn't needed as a bedroom, the doors were opened so as to make a larger or double living room. The upstairs was one large room until I was about 10 or 11 years old. Then partitions were put in to make 4 rooms and two more clothes closets.  My brother Levi and my mother did most of the work on it."

The Hansen House in Warren

Tracy, Shannon and I looked around the front and backyard, after getting permission from the lady living there. It looked like a great place to run and play in, and I can see why Grandma had such great memories of growing up there.

The Hansen Family around 1924
Back row: Ed, Louis, Sarah, Reuben, Walter, Alma, Levi
Front row: Ruby, Orvel, Luella, Melvin and Clarence

The same shot of the house, with me and Tracy in front

The view looking west from the house. It was so peaceful here.

Little Leah Williams Runs Away

Continuing with the Family History field trip Tracy and I took the kids on last summer...

After we got over the shock of Grandma Alta Jespersen lying about her age so she could get married, we headed up to Ogden so the kids could see where Grandma Leah Jespersen grew up.  Ooops! No such luck.  It turns out all of Mom's houses have been torn down and replaced by a gas station or shopping center.  However, we did retrace the path she would have taken from her house to her grandma's house when she ran away.  Mom was only 4 years old when she decided things weren't going her way, and headed off to her Grandma (Harriet) Williams a few blocks away for some love and attention. We drove the distance in the car, and couldn't believe a four-year old made it all that way by herself.

Little house on Madison Avenue

We were taking photos of the house when the resident came outside.  We assured her that we were not stalkers and told her our great-grandparents had lived there in the 40s.  She was really nice and invited us inside to look around.  We could not believe how tiny the kitchen was; there was a tiny stove, a little sink and a small refrigerator.  No counter space!  The basement was maybe seven feet high; I can't imagine spending a great deal of time there, but Mom and Jay stayed there for four weeks when Grandma went to St. Louis to see Grandpa during basic training in WWII.

Our hostess was kind enough to take us into the backyard and show us the storage shed/workshop.  She had found an old toolbox with old square iron nails that the owner said belonged to my great-grandfather.  We collected enough nails for all the grandkids, but they disappeared at some point.  If any of the Byron Jespersens or Van Horns have extras, let me know.

John and Hattie Williams, ca. 1956

Grandma Lied!

Last August Tracy and I decided to take her two kids on a little genealogy field trip.  I realize that genealogy may seem a little boring to teenagers, so we were careful to keep it interesting.  Mark is 12 and Shannon is 16, so I thought a story about someone who was their age might make a good start. First up was a trip to the Davis County Courthouse in Farmington, Utah.

Shannon, Tracy & Mark

When we arrived, I told them the story of how Grandma and Grandpa Jespersen eloped to this very courthouse in 1918. That got their attention.  I told them that Grandma and Grandpa met while they were at the Smithsonian School in Ogden, where they were both receiving vocational training (Grandma's dad died when she was not yet 13, so her mother needed some help with the family finances).  Great Grandma Fox would not have been very happy to find that the daughter she had just spent all this tuition money on would be leaving the nest, so they ran off to another county to get married. Since Grandpa had to report for bootcamp the next week (he was drafted in WWI), I'm sure they felt some urgency to get married before he left; however, they were so scared of Grandma Fox, that they both went home to their own houses after the wedding and didn't tell their parents for a week!

We went into the courthouse, and a very nice gentleman who followed us in asked if he could help us.  I explained that our grandparents had been married here in 1918, and we were hoping to get a copy of the marriage license.  He told us that they usually just order up the digital file, but since we'd come all this way in person, he would retrieve the original document for us. He took us down the hall and opened up a little room in which they kept all the licenses and minutes of the county meetings. He climbed to the very top of the ladder and retrieved the marriage license.

Tracy and I each paid for a copy of the license, and with some excitement began poring over the document. We both looked at each other at the same moment when we read the age of our grandmother on the license.  Grandma lied! We knew they'd been married the day before her 17th birthday, but she stated on the license that she was 18!

After thanking the staff at the courthouse, we wandered around this beautiful building; Mark and Shannon were drawn to the stained glass windows and the memorial to the soldiers who have served from the county.

Mark expended some energy in front of the courthouse on this colorful bison.

Seeing the place where Alta Eugenia Miller and Arthur Henry Jespersen eloped was a great start to our field trip.