Choices

 

 

“… it often isn’t the events that haunt us, though those hold power and can harm us, it is the choices we make within those events we carry all our days.”      Katherine Reay 

Celia's Scrapbook and Rabbit Holes

This week I've spent many hours with Celia Sconce Cathcart Holton and her scrapbook from about 1913-1917. She captioned many of the pictures and included names of some of the people. Her writing is difficult to read and the ink has faded over 100+ years. Our digitizer/archiver advised me to write the captions in darker ink so they can be read when the pages are digitized. 

I'm trying to identify as many of the people and places as I can. Rabbit holes are around every corner. I go down some of them deliberately. Others I fall into accidentally. I don't always find what I was looking for, but I always find something that's interesting and somewhat related. I'm spending a lot of time in newspaper archives - publications from Illinois Woman's College in Jacksonville, Illinois where Celia was a freshman and sophomore, 1911-1913 and  Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois where she was a junior and senior. 

Questions and answers from this week-

A number of Celia's classmates from Illinois Woman's College also transferred to Northwestern. Many of them joined the Alpha Phi and were active in YWCA, Young Women's Christian Association, as was Celia.

Grandma, Florence Fisher Clark Holton (Toots) was also an Alpha Phi, in YWCA, and graduated the same year Celia did, 1915. 

There are many sorority pictures, such as the one above. I don't recognize Grandma in any of them. Did she not take part in the picnics, slumber parties, and so forth? She, her parents, and brother lived in Evanston, not far from the university where her father was a beloved professor. He died from appendicitis in 1911. 

In one of the publications I found an article about Celia's grandmother, Emma Sandusky Sconce, donating $5,000 towards a new music and arts building for Illinois Woman's College. That was a lot of money in 1907. 

In another search on Celia's name, I noticed an article from a Skagway, Alaska newspaper in 1909. I checked it out and found out Emma Sconce was the "Grandma" that accompanied Celia and her parents on a trip to Alaska in 1909. See blog posts about part of that trip back here (check out multiple posts in August and September 2015). 

I enjoy Celia's comments and pictures that reveal what college and small town life were like in the early 1900s. 

Sconce Rough Riders

  

Isn't this a great picture? It's from Celia Sconce Cathcart Holton's scrapbook. Above the picture she wrote "The Sconce Rough Riders." I'm pretty sure the boy is James Silas Sconce because a similar looking boy  was labeled in another picture. I was puzzling over the girls and it suddenly came to me that these are probably his sisters - Emma Frances Sconce and Marietta Louise Sconce. 

Trust in the Lord

 In these days of so much chaos and unrest, I’ve been pondering faith and trusting in the Lord. Faith and believing in God are choices we make based on knowledge we’ve gained from study, prayer, and experience; the desires of our hearts; and remembering the times we’ve felt God and his influence in our lives. 

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3: 5-6

Evening at the Park

A musician was playing in the pavilion. A young girl danced to the music. 

A sailboat went by in the distance. The sun was setting.

Show Up, Listen, Ponder, Act

  

Therefore, go ye unto your homes, and ponder upon the things which I have said, and ask of the Father, in my name, that ye may understand, and prepare your minds for the morrow, and I come unto you again. 3 Nephi 17: 3

 

Christ has spoken to his disciples. He counsels them to go home, ponder what he's told them so they can understand. Then, prepare themselves for the next day when they will hear more from him. 

This is the pattern we follow for our church's semi-annual general conferences. We show up (or tune in). We listen. We go home. We ponder so we can understand. Then we show up again to hear more from Christ or his servants. 

Then it's important that we act on what we've heard. 

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only James 1: 22

October Rose

 

Impulse Buys

  Look what's in our neighborhood grocery checkout line for impulse buys. Someone has decided these are the items that tempt the shoppers in this store.

organic gummy bears

roasted seaweed snacks

Clif energy bars

Easter, Fridays, and Sundays

 Fatimah Salleh gave a wonderful talk about Easter using the account in John 20. 

On Sunday morning, Mary went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, saw the empty tomb and ran to tell Peter and the others. They came, saw the empty tomb and then went “unto their own home.” Mary stayed. She weeps. The angels ask why she is weeping, She tells them it is because someone has taken her Lord. Then she see someone who is Christ but she doesn’t recognize him. He asks why she weeps. She tells him the same thing. Then he says her name “Mary” and she knows it’s the Lord. He tells her to go tell the others that he has risen. 

Salleh’s comments - Easter morning is about showing up, early. It’s about grieving, wondering what’s happened, where God is. The angels and Christ ask Mary why she’s weeping and they wait for her answer. How many times have we wept and wondered where God is when he’s standing right beside us? Mary is the first missionary of the Resurrection. Of all the people Christ could select to be the first witness to his resurrection, he chose a Hebrew woman. 

Salleh’s comments reminded me of a talk by Joseph Wirthlin, Dark Friday, Bright Sunday. Friday was dark when the Christ hung dead on the cross. “It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God…. But the doom of that day did not endure. The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.” 

Then Wirthlin says. “Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, in this life or the next, Sunday will come."

Faith and Light amidst Heartache

Kim Olsen White, a young mother battling cancer, was asked “How do you still have faith with all the heartache that surrounds you?” Her response - “Because faith is what gets me through these dark times. Having faith doesn’t mean nothing bad is going to happen. Having faith allows me to believe that there will be light again. And that light will be even brighter because I have walked through the dark. As much darkness as I have witnessed over the years, I have witnessed far more light. I have seen miracles. I have felt angels. I have known that my Heavenly Father was carrying me. None of that would have been experienced if life was easy. The future of this life may be unknown, but my faith is not. If I choose to not have faith then I choose to only walk in darkness. Because without faith, darkness is all that is left.” 

Sadly, Kim died on Valentine's Day this year. She is now seeing the light on the other side of the veil. The family she leaves behind continues in faith. 

(story shared in talk by Gary Stevenson)