Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Extracting a Silver Dollar
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Wednesday, March 9, 2022
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Ministering
We invite you to minister with your powerful influence for good in strengthening our families, our church, and our communities. You are a much-needed force for love, truth, and righteousness in this world. We need you to nurture families, friends, and neighbors. It is through you that God’s perfect love for each and all of His children is made manifest. Silvia H. Allred
Thursday, February 24, 2022
Friend of God
A friend of God - what a wonderful way to be and great legacy to leave behind.
Sunday, February 13, 2022
Saturday, February 5, 2022
A Fun Rabbit Hole
Recently I found the death record for Gabriel Cathcart. I decided to find his death place on Google Maps.
William Cathcart Holton/ Celia Cathcart & Caryl Ames Holton/ William Gabriel Cathcart & Anna Sconce/ John Marshall Cathcart & Sarah Alexander/ Gabriel Cathcart (1817-1902) & Hester Marshall
This record* states that Gabriel Cathcart died April 18, 1902 at 19 Pakenham Street, Belfast, Ireland. He was a widower, 84 years old and a retired farmer. Cause "senile decay." His granddaughter Hessie Walker was present when he died. Gabriel was living with his daughter Charlotte Cathcart Walker and her husband Samuel Walker.
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Swing Set
Sometimes when we’re bad, my mother goes downstairs and silently exits through the back door. We press our noses against the bathroom window upstairs, the one that looks out on the backyard, watching her. We turn to each other and say, “She must be so mad!” Then we watch, cannot help but watch, as she goes over to the swing set and sits on the black rubber seat.
Her legs never leave the ground, she just pushes herself back and forth, straightening and bending those hourglass legs. And then, maybe it is condensation on the window or maybe something else, but we think we can see tears rolling down her cheeks. When she buries her head in the crook of her arm, it is over. Lisa Van Orman Hadley
The author went on to say her mother was punishing herself after she'd punished her children. To me, it feels like this mother of six children was seeking solace and pulling herself together so she could go back and mother her children.
Saturday, January 29, 2022
Light and Beauty
Friday, January 28, 2022
Kirkland's Mandarin Duck
Read more here about one person's quest to see the duck, along with stunning pictures.
Friday, January 21, 2022
World Traveler in the 1830s
John was quite the world traveler. According to information in "Descendants of John & Matilda Judd," written by Lysle Jacobs in 1978 - John Judd, born 1809, was a cooper in Hartford, Connecticut. "In that capacity he shipped aboard an outward-bound whaler, and for three years followed the sea, visiting the Portuguese island of St. Helena, doubled Cape Good Hope, & fished in the Straits of Mozambique and Madagascar, visited the coast of Africa, and was twice shipwrecked, barely escaping a watery grave."
Thursday, January 6, 2022
Pooh to Piglet
“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you.”
Monday, January 3, 2022
Mary Elizabeth Neely Todd Pepper
Mary Elizabeth Neely Todd Pepper
1905-1983
Joe called her Maude or Maudie.
Saturday, January 1, 2022
Thoughts for the New Year
The Luke 2 account of Christ's birth is full of words and ideas that are wonderful to incorporate into thoughts and goals for a new year.
glory of the Lord
tidings of great joy for all people
multitudes praising God
going with haste to see the Lord
sharing the good news with others
treasuring these experiences in our hearts
giving thanks to God for what He reveals to us
Thursday, December 16, 2021
Our Ancestor from Germany
Jane Judd Bowman & John Boman/Bowman
JOHN BOMAN
John Boman was born April 18, 1831, in Bavaria, Germany, and traces his ancestry among the wealthy representative people of their time, and is the only member of that family who has adopted this country as a home, excepting a nephew, Godfritz Happ, who accompanied Mr. Bowman on his return to America from a visit to his native land. At the breaking out of the German Rebellion, in 1848, Mr. Boman was drafted to serve in King Ludwig’s army of Bavaria for a period of six years. Soon after joining the command to which he was assigned, the entire regiment forsook the king’s cause and joined the revolutionists. After a brief struggle they were compelled to seek safety in another land. Still following the fortunes of his leaders, Hecker, Carl Schurz, Sigel, and others more prominently known in this country, he came to America, arriving in New York, Aug. 1 1850, a stranger in a strange land, with only one dollar, one-half the sum of his available possession. He came to Buffalo, N.Y., where he succeeded in finding employment at four dollars per month, and continued in that vicinity for a period of four years, when with his accumulated wages he purchased eighty acres of his present property.
The following year he came to Michigan, working at lumbering and also making some small improvements upon his farm. On July 19, 1857, he married Miss Jane M. Judd, the history of whose family is given in this work. Together they began the labor of subduing the forest and establishing a home. We need not comment upon their success further than by calling attention to the view of their home presented in this work. In politics Mr. Bowman was Democratic, but at the breaking out of the Rebellion enlisted in the Second Michigan Cavalry, participating in several small engagements, and was discharged with the regiment, thoroughly convinced that the party and principle that had so successfully closed the struggle should be sustained, and when elections occur a straight ticket can be counted upon from him.
Mr. Boman is not a church member, but favors the Methodist Episcopal Society, of which Mrs. Boman is a member, and has been since her girlhood days. Together they have contributed largely to the building up and sustaining that institution in their vicinity. The family consists of six children, - Louisa and Alice, dying in infancy; Matilda, born Oct. 2, 1858, wife of A. Campbell, and resides in Saginaw; Charles, born Sept. 23, 1867; Ida A., born April 9, 1869; Jamie, born Dec. 8, 1877.
Monday, December 13, 2021
Interruptions - Making Room
We do things differently at Christmas time. …. We interrupt the ordinary rhythm of life to make room for something holy. We make room for remembering, for giving, for forgiveness, for hope, for love. We make room for Jesus. Just like those first witnesses when he was born. The first Christmas was an interruption that made room for something more, something better. If you could choose to have been there that night I wonder who you would choose to be. Would you be the tender Joseph who approached the night with quiet care? Would you be the gentle mother who pondered the things of holiness in her heart? Would you be the humble shepherds and run with the sound of good news or the wise men from the East journeying far to worship. Each of them experienced the first Christmas differently and their stories remind us that anyone may serve as a witness, …. We can all add our voices, just like that first choir of angels did. Perhaps you would choose to be one of them. … Together they sang the song that still echoes through hearts today, a song inspired by a gift. And Christmas is a time of gifts. ….
What makes Christmas so special is it was the giving the most unobtainable gift of all, the gift of a baby boy who’d offer his life for all of us. … Sent straight from heaven, wrapped in swaddling clothes on that first Christmas… . May we all acknowledge and share our witness of the greatest gift the world has ever received and may that gift interrupt our lives and lead us to live differently.
David Butler in closing remarks for “Witnesses of Christ”
(starts about minute 43)
Saturday, December 11, 2021
God Through Us
Observe!
A woman who knows heaven
better than I do said to me;
God does not come to you
God comes through you.
....
And when I hear God say: Observe!
I notice, and I, the little particle, become a wave
as God comes not to me but through me
and we move.
.....
And I hear and I see, and wavelike I move
for I have learned the movements of God
who comes through me
Thursday, December 9, 2021
Monday, December 6, 2021
Christmas Message
When we sing “Silent Night,” we know the life of that Babe of Bethlehem did not begin there, nor did it end on Calvary. In a premortal realm, Jesus was foreordained by His Father to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of all humankind. He was foreordained to atone for us. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5).
He came to make immortality a reality and eternal life a possibility for all who would ever live (see 1 Corinthians 15:20–22; 3 Nephi 27:13–14).
At this sacred Christmas season, we testify that our loving Heavenly Father “so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).


