SEPTEMBER 1991 NEWSLETTER It was nice to see so many of you at Copperton Park on July 27th. I am very glad I took my computer along as I was able to add 70 names to my Mower Master File, thanks to those of you who brought your genealogy records with to the reunion. Those of you who promised to send me names and dates on your families, would you please do so this month? I must make a contribution in September to the Ancestral File and your information will not be on it if you don't.
I returned to Utah in early August and spent several days researching at the FHL in Salt Lake. I now have alot more information which will help me make a rather large submission of our cousins this fall who belong to Sarah Mower, daughter of Andrew Mower.
Enclosed find another genealogist's report. He has been following leads of Maurers in Germany that he has uncovered this spring. The information is interesting. More work needs to be done and we are now caught up with him as far as our contributions go and hours that he owes us. In other words, we can use some funding.
I hope you are finding the spirit of this work contagious. The following story will interest those of your who are related to Elizabeth Hall, wife of Henry Mower Jr. To those of you who are not related, you will enjoy this story:
Elizabeth Hall was born in North Carolina, in 1820, joined the Church and moved to Nauvoo about 1840 and there was a seamstress. She said she was the seamstress who made the suit of clothes the Prophet Joseph Smith was wearing the day of the martyrdom. (I haven't been able to verify that, but it makes the story interesting doesn't it?)
Because she joined the Church she was disowned by her family and never had contact with them the rest of her life to my knowledge. In 1892, she went to the Salt Lake Temple and did baptismal and endowment work for her parents and both sets of grandparents. Since then, very little has been learned about her lineage.
Audrey (Mower) Rasmussen learned that some of her family ended up in Texas and Audrey made some limited contact with them about 20 years ago, but little new knowledge emerged. The line has basically gone nowhere since 1892.
Ruth Brinkerhoff of Fairview, Utah traveled in March 1991 with her husband to College Station, Texas. While her husband attended workshops at A&M University, Ruth visited the branch libarary of the Church in Brian, Texas, searching the Elizabeth Hall line.
A man staying in the motel in the room next to theirs "just happened" to be from North Carolina, and "just happened" to be very interested in family history. Although not a member of the Church, this man, Elvin Perkins Jr., was able to provide Ruth with a rich history, names and dates of Elizabeth Hall's family. Ruth was able to turn into the Church this August (1991) the names of over 1500 names of the Elizabeth Hall line!
Thank you Ruth for writing and telling me your story and may you find many more records on this line. If you will relay your information to me, I will see that it is put into this Newsletter for all to enjoy. That was a neat experience you had.