Sacrament postponed due to lack of bread

Sacrament trays prepared with bread and water

We have the opportunity to partake of the sacrament every Sunday. I had never previously imagined being unable to do so because no bread was available to eat in remembrance of the body of our Savior.

Maybe that is why this entry recorded in the diary of my Great, Great Grandfather Frederick William Hurst during his mission in Hawaii in 1856 caught my immediate attention:

"January 6th:  The day has been very rough, raining nearly all day.  Owing to having no bread we postponed having Sacrament until next Sunday. Spent the evening talking and singing."

A couple years ago church was canceled in St. George due to an unusually heavy snow storm. I remember a time when a flood swept through town and meetings were not held so that everyone could help those affected by the flood waters. But never had I heard of church being postponed due to lack of bread.

Great, Great Grandpa Hurst mentions the sacrament thirteen times in his diary. I wonder how many times we mention this sacred ordinance in our journals. His mention of the Sunday without bread leading to a postponement of the meeting vividly teaches that a worship service without partaking of the sacrament loses its purpose. The covenant of the sacrament is the reason we meet; it is essential. This was a powerful lesson to me.

His description of ending the day with singing also instructed me. He writes of singing forty-four times in his diary, ten of which refer directly to the singing of hymns. This particular mention reminds me that although music is a very important element in our Sunday worship, and can certainly contribute to the spirit of our gatherings, it is only a part of a meeting that is held for the purpose of covenant making. Sacrament meeting could be held without music, but not without bread.

As the sacrament tray is passed today I will have new gratitude for the bread which enables me to renew my covenants. 

Almira Higgins Chase

On April 6, 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized. 

Nelson and Sarah Higgins

Fifty-two days later a baby girl was born to Nelson and Sarah Blackman Higgins. Little did the family know how deeply affected their lives would be by what had taken place those few weeks before.

Let’s take a quick glance back in time and learn of the character and fortitude of the young father, Nelson Higgins. When he was a young lad of ten his parents chose to migrate from their New York home in search of a more secure livelihood. For some reason they left their young son behind to live with his married sister. One year later the older sister passed away. Eleven-year-old Nelson set out alone to find his parents, working for nearly three years, at last locating them in Huron, Ohio, having walked some 400 miles. This inner strength and perseverance demonstrated at a young age would serve him well later in life. 

Orson Hyde

In 1833, when Almira was three years old, her parents were baptized by Orson Hyde. Nelson was ordained an Elder before September of that year. At the dedication of the Kirtland Temple he was ordained to the office of Seventy. His ordination certificate, signed by the Prophet Joseph Smith, is below.

We were surprised to see the name Thomas Burdick, recording clerk, on the back of the documents. I must investigate.

One family record states this about Almira’s father: 

Nelson was a close friend of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and on several occasions he and the Prophet engaged in wrestling bouts for amusement. At times Grandfather Higgins was heard to say that he knew as soon as he began wrestling whether he was wrestling with just Joseph (the man) or with the Prophet Joseph. If it were man to man grandfather was usually victorious but if Joseph was wrestling still under the Spirit of the Lord, grandfather was always vanquished. 

Several brothers and sisters were born to the family, but sadly her eleven-year-old brother Alonzo passed away in an accident. 

In 1841, the family moved to Nauvoo. Her father was appointed a Second Lieutenant in the Nauvoo Legion. It should be mentioned that he was not paid for this time in the Legion. The officers should have been paid from the State of Illinois as was done in other cities, but the State refused to remunerate the Mormons.

Almira’s family was respected in the region, with her father serving as a Justice of the Peace in Hancock County where he was authorized to perform marriages.

As had happened in Kirtland, the saints in Nauvoo began to suffer great persecution at the hands of mobs and ruffians in surrounding communities. Supreme sadness came to their home when they learned of the martyrdom of their beloved friend and Prophet, Joseph Smith Junior. 

Privations in 1845 led to the death of Almira’s baby sister Clarissa at the age of eighteen months. In October of that year the persecutions had risen to the level that the leadership deemed it necessary to sell property and depart from Illinois, once more fleeing from their oppressors.

Amidst trials, great joy came to the family in January, 1846, when her parents received their endowments in the Nauvoo Temple in the second company.

It is not known exactly when the family left Nauvoo, but they were among some of the first groups that crossed the river. As families prepared to leave, the scene was described this way:

At every blacksmith shop tense and eager men waited around the anvil watching the sparks fly upward as the iron rims of wagon wheels were pounded into shape, or shoes were fitted to the feet of all their husky horses.

In the houses women looked for the last time on cherished furniture, bedsteads, tables, and chairs for which there would be no room in the wagons. Some easily portable heirlooms were exceptions. They could be bartered for food and livestock along the way. Playthings were gently lifted from the hands of children and stacked in a corner, only beloved and perhaps battered dolls could be carried with them (Note: Some favorite things were buried in hopes that they may be coming back someday)… Hot stones were being heated (to insure warmth)…

Outside beside the doors, waited the wagons, covered at the sides and tops with yards of new canvas. Feather beds, linens and heavy clothing had been loaded into the vehicles, along with flour, corn meal, biscuits, meat, seed corn, seed wheat, buckwheat, rifles, muskets, pistols, powder, lead and shot. Ox teams stood solidly in their tracks and behind the wagons, sleepy cows were tethered together with horses, mules, and sheep, ready to begin the westward march.

Across the river: 

 

Smoke from a dozen campfires spiraled up through the bitter February night. The flames case a rosy glow on the thick crust of snow … As volunteer cooks prepared a warm meal, families gathered together to give thanks to the Lord for a safe passage over the water food, shelter and the prospects for a new life.

Huddling around the fires, the campers sang hymns and spoke soberly of the day that had drawn to a close.

The Higgins family made their camp along the trail not knowing what hardships or turn of events was ahead of them. The traveling was difficult and uncomfortable.

Brigham Young signing up voluneers

President Polk sent representatives to the camp at Winter Quarters requesting 500 volunteers, men aged 17-45, to march to California in the war against Mexico, a contingent that would become known as the Mormon Battalion. Many were the reasons why these men could have refused to be a part of this contingent. They had suffered persecution without governmental assistance or protection to the point of being targeting for “extermination” from Illinois. They had left their homes and possessions at great personal loss and were now taking their wives and families through sometimes hostile territories. Nevertheless, in obedience to the Prophet Brigham Young who foresaw the benefits from volunteering, five companies totaling over 500 men were mustered in at Council Bluffs, Iowa, July 16, 1846.

Almira’s father was among the volunteers. He was elected by the Battalion to be Captain over “Company D”. Some of the officers chose to take their families in their own wagons at no expense to the government, which the army permitted. Among these families were Sarah and the children. Some accounts report eight Higgins children accompanying the battalion, but I tend to believe that is an inflated number as I can only locate the names of 6 on the rosters. Orders were that up to four women could accompany them as laundresses, traveling with the company receiving rations and other allowances given to those in the army. Sarah and her daughters acted in this capacity. I truly can't imagine volunteering to to the laundry for hundreds of soldiers marching across rugged terrain.

The Mormon Battalion proved to be very beneficial to the church, providing needed funds to the destitute refuges forced to flee their beautiful homes in Nauvoo. They also gained approval as loyal citizens of the United States.

Our family benefited in a more personal way. Almira became acquainted with John Darwin Chase who was serving in the Battalion. He is my Great, Great, Great Uncle, the younger brother of Solomon Drake Chase, my Great, Great, Great Grandfather. Another Great, Great, Great Uncle, Abner Chase was among those who died of illness while serving in the Mormon Battalion.

Almira Higgins Chase

John and Almira were married while in Pueblo, Colorado. February 17, 1847.  She was not quite seventeen years old. John was thirty-one and had been married before but his wife did not wish to go west with the Saints. He had one young son, Amos, traveling with him in the Battalion.

At the end of their service in the Battalion, the Higgins family along with Almira, John, and his son Amos arrived in Salt Lake, July 29, 1847, five days after Brigham Young entered the Valley.

Hard work has unexpected benefits

It recently occurred to me that laundry played an important role in my Mom, Coila Ethel Speas McCracken's life. That sounds sad, but there are joyful laundry moments in the tale, as well as lessons in frugality and hard work.

Elva

In 1944, Mom and her best friend Elva Anderson (Butterworth) were sophomores at Shelley High School and like all teenage girls had an interest in fashion and clothing. They made a goal to earn extra money to buy new dresses for their junior year. Both were hired to work in the laundry at the hospital in Idaho Falls. I'm quite sure some of their earnings also helped out at home with family expenses.

The hospital where they worked was built and owned by the LDS Church and was located in a beautiful building on Memorial Drive, just across from the street from temple. It had been completed in 1923.


Mom and Elva worked at the hospital laundry for three consecutive summers. This high school laundry job became extremely important for Coila. 

Following her high school graduation, her previous summer employment in the hospital laundry helped her acquire another job at a laundry, the White Star Laundry. This was the biggest laundry in town and had a large customer base and booming business. Here are some examples of newspaper ads for the White Star Laundry in 1949. I like the advertisement for 20 pounds of laundry for $1.00. 

Because Coila was experienced, with three summers of laundry work on her resume, the position offered was that of desk clerk.

By this time my father, Harold McCracken, had been discharged from the Marines and was living in Idaho Falls working at Bonneville Lumber Company. He dropped by his bag of laundry at the White Star and noticed a beautiful girl working at the desk. Too bashful to approach her directly, he left his order, and promptly went across the street to phone the front desk of the laundry and find out the identity of the lovely girl.

She was as taken by Harold as he with her and their courtship blossomed. The rest is history. 

The moral of the story is that hard work pays off in unexpected ways.

Phone Calls and Rhubarb

We kept in close communication with my Grandma Speas, and she with us. It was a rare day that a phone call was not placed to check in on each other.
 
For some unknown reason my sister became tongue tied when on the telephone. When Mom asked her to call to check on Grandma, Sandi would invariably ask, "But I don't know what to say; what should I talk about?" 

Grandma waiting for a call

Mom's standard and may I say brilliant response did 
not rescue, but instead pushed her daughter to think for herself. She would chuckle and suggest, "Ask her if she thinks the frost hurt the rhubarb." Sandi would roll her eyes and come up with a topic of her own.

This mothering technique was effective, maybe too effective, for by the time Sandi became a teenager she couldn't seem to stop thinking of things to say while talking on the phone.

Cousins

In the post titled, “Too Cold to Sleep Alone”, I promised to unravel the puzzle of the Lavender cousins’ plural marriage to William Bateman. Here is chapter two in that saga.

 

James Lavender

Thomas Lavender

James and Thomas Lavender were brothers, born at the turn of the century in 1801 and 1804, respectively, in Cardington, Bedfordshire, England. Their father was John Lavender and their mother had the delightful name of Mary Mutton Lavender.

As an adult, James faithfully attended a church in Bedford which was presided over by the Reverend James Fielding. When Reverend Fielding met the first LDS missionaries sent to England, news of the restored gospel excited him and he invited them to come to Bedford and preach to his congregation.  

James Lavender was in that congregation and believed the preaching of the Latter-day Saint missionaries. He was baptized on Christmas day in 1837. Many others in the congregation were also converted to the faith and soon two Mormon branches were organized. James was ordained an Elder by Willard Richards to preside over the branches when the missionaries departed. Three years later James and his wife Mary Ann departed for America, arriving in Salt Lake City in about 1841.

It is unknown if Thomas was presented the gospel at the same time that his brother was converted, but he and his family remained in England. His conditions were described as “very well to do” and he held a position as a “fancy gardener”.

Fourteen years later James returned to England as the Mission President of the Bedfordshire Mission. Thomas opened his home to his faithful brother to use as the mission headquarters. The arrangement was positive and Thomas’s family was baptized in 1858. 

Histories state that when James returned to Utah at the end of his missionary assignment, Thomas sent his three daughters (Susan, Mary, and Elizabeth “Betsy”) with him to Utah, however, ship manifests lead me to believe that James sent the three girls ahead. They sailed on the boat “Underwriter”, departing March 30, 1860, from Liverpool and arrived May 1^st in New York. James' name is recorded on the ship manifest the following year along with the name of his brother Thomas.

After they arrived in America the three sisters crossed the plains to the West. Susan and Mary pulled handcarts, but Betsy was more fortunate. She was acting as nurse to a man’s sick wife, and was able to ride in the wagon most of the time.

In Salt Lake City, James had made arrangements for two of Thomas’s daughters to stay with families that needed domestic help. He had different plans for Betsy.

Sarah Lavender Bateman

Betsy Lavender Bateman

James had a married daughter, Sarah, who was in very poor health and was struggling to care for her large family of seven children. James had persuaded Betsy to become the plural wife of his daughter’s husband, William Bateman, to help care for her cousin Sarah’s children. It is interesting that histories don’t mention either William or Sarah’s feelings about this marriage; only that James felt it was the right course, making it sound like an arranged marriage. Betsy was fifteen years younger than Sarah. According to church custom at the time, Sarah, the first wife, would have given her approval of the union. William and Betsy were sealed in the Salt Lake Endowment House in 1861.

After the marriage, Sarah bore one more child and Betsy bore three children, bringing the combined total to eleven. The two families all lived together under one roof in very meager circumstances. Betsy labored diligently crocheting, knitting, sewing and doing everything she could to help make a living for the two families.

Less than six years later William passed away and Betsy moved with her three children, returning again to the household of her Uncle James.

Betsy later married Rosser Jenkins and bore two more children. This union lasted five years until Rosser died after which Betsy finished rearing her family alone, providing for them through frugality and hard work.

Betsy is my Great, Great Grandmother, the grandmother of my Grandmother Ethel Hurst Speas.