Our big fun for the week: we got a dog. We’ve talked about it for a while, and promised the boys we would do it when we returned from Israel… but since that didn’t happen, it was time to do it, to get things settled down before the baby comes. We adopted a dog from the Humane Society, after watching their website for new dogs. We ended up with a 8-month old ‘puppy’ who has already been house- and crate-trained, which is very nice. So far everyone has had a good experience. I expect this will be good for me, too, as she has quite a lot of energy and needs to be walked/run daily.
We finally had some rain last week, only to return to 100-degree weather this week. I went to the Stake Farm for service on Saturday morning at 6am — I was not thrilled with going so early, until it started getting real warm around 8am. It would have been much less fun if we had not started until 8am. But it was very enjoyable to serve and to associate with other members of the ward and stake. There is so much truth to King Benjamin’s statement that for every bit of service we think to render to God, He blesses us many times over.
I returned from the Stake Farm and walked to the swimming pool just in time to see the last 10 yards of Caleb’s last event of the swim meet, as he came from behind to win his relay race. Just one more meet to go and swim team will be done for the summer. Afterwards, Caleb and Trent each had friends over from the team, and they enjoyed water balloon fights in the back yard and on the trampoline.
The discussion in Priesthood today was on our spiritual heritage, and what it means to appreciate that, and use it as a source of strength and inspiration. Dana wrote recently of the great experiences she and Rob had doing a mini handcart trek with the youth of their stake in the Boston area. The pioneer heritage is a great source of strength for us in the church — even though the majority of the church membership has no direct pioneer ancestry. We read the pioneer stories, we re-enact their struggles and accomplishments, and in the process, we learn some of the same lessons and feel connected to those previous generations.
It is very much the same with our family heritage, and ties in with the lesson of the previous week on journaling and record-keeping. I am making more of an effort as an adult and a father to understand the history of my own family, and also to teach that to my children. In the process of learning and sharing those stories, I understand who I am, and I’m also better able to recognize the ‘tender mercies of the Lord’ in the lives of many generations before me. I hope I am able to convey some sense of that to my children, that their hearts will also be turned to their fathers.
In that vein, here’s a story I recently received from my mom about my great-grandfather, Edward Lofgreen (as told by my Grandpa Lofgreen’s sister Ola Lofgreen Timmons in 1986). When I shared this story with Kim and the boys, we all had a good laugh:
THE APACHE KID
On April 6, 1885, a seven year old boy by the name of Edward Theodore Lofgreen, along with his mother and some of his brothers and sisters, arrived in a small Mormon settlement in southeastern Arizona which was called St. David. Edward’s father, Peter A. Lofgreen and his brother had left Huntsville, Utah in the fall of 1883 to help settle this community before sending for their families.
St. David was not far from Tombstone, a wild and wooly mining town, and besides the business people and those working the silver mines, Tombstone was inhabited by gamblers, cattle rustlers, cut throats, and ruffians. Things were always getting out of hand. Quite often renegade indians would invade the town and surrounding
countryside,…stealing, plundering, and killing anyone who tried to stop them. One such renegade was the “Apache Kid.” He was a bad one.
One day word was received in St. David that the Apache Kid had been seen in the hills between St. David and Tombstone and that parents should keep their children close to the house and guard their livestock well. It was Edward’s job to take the family milk cow out in the mornings before school and stake her out where there was grass to eat, then bring her back in for milking again in the evening.
On this particular day, Edward’s father, who was the school teacher, dismissed his students early and told Edward to go for the milk cow before it became too late. When he arrived at the spot where he had staked the cow that morning, she was no where to be seen. His first thought was that the “Kid” had all ready found her and that she might be his supper that night because he had been known to butcher
cattle and eat what he wanted, leaving the rest behind. Tearfully, Edward began a search for her. It seemed he had been looking for hours when he finally spotted her quite a long distance away, and being barefooted, it took Edward a long time, picking his way through brush, goat heads, cactus, and thorns to get her back to the trail.
By this time it was past sundown and the shadows were getting long and ominous. Needless to say the boy was frightened, nervous, and anxious to get home.
Once back on the trail, the cow hurried on ahead leaving Edward to follow the trail alone. With thoughts of the Apache Kid on his mind, he was startled to see, on the trail ahead, what appeared to be an indian squatting on his haunches. “Good”, he thought, “his back is towards me so he hasn’t seen me.”
Edward moved out of the trail into the brush and waited for the Kid to get up and go. It seemed that he waited and waited, but the indian remained squatted in the trail.. What was he going to do? Edward had always been a pretty good runner so he decided that he would run as fast as he could and kick the Kid over, then keep going and by the time the Kid recovered from his surprise attack, he would be almost home or at least have a good start on him.
Mustering all the courage he could, he ran at break-neck speed, then pulling back his foot…”WHAM!”…he kicked with all his might, but he was unable to keep going. He fell to the ground, grabbing his foot and crying out in pain. To his dismay the Apache Kid turned out to be an old tree stump.
As Edward sat and nursed his aching foot he shed tears of pain, and yes…of relief also. Then he heard the sound of his father’s voice calling his name. He had seen the cow come in alone and becoming worried had come to look for the boy.
Luckily, Edward’s father was not only his teacher, but also the community doctor and he knew that his broken toe would get the best of care.
There’s still so much I need to learn about my family history. I’m very interested in contributing to the cataloging and sharing of all the archives we have. Even though much of the temple work may have been done already, there is still a lot of family history work remaining.
Some of the pictures from the trip are 