Memorial Day

Yesterday Carol, Michael, Karalee, Derrick and I went to visit graves of ancestors.

When I was younger, raising you kids, I remember going to genealogy classes where they would talk excitedly about going to graves of ancestors. I said to myself, "What's up with that? What good is it to visit the graves of those who have died?"

Now I find it gives me great satisfaction to visit graves of our ancestors. We have several ancestors that died in our vicinity. Carol's great grandfather, John Theopolis Gerber, is buried in the Taylorsville Cemetery. That is near the Walmart that we go to at least once a week.

Yesterday we visited the graves of ancestors that were in the Springville Cemetery and the Spanish Fork cemetery and put floweres on their graves.

In the Springville Cemetery we visited the graves of Elizabeth Garlick, her daughter, Sarah Garlick and her daughter, Susanna Garlick Wakefield Davis. We also visited the grave of Rees William Davis, his first wife, Margaret Davis, and two of their children, Rees William Jr. Davis and John Davis.

Who were these ancestors?

Elizabeth Garlick - The mother of Susanna and Sarah Garlick. While in Pennsylvania, she had a dream that two young men came up her walkway and a voice said, "These are messengers of God. Listent to them." A week later, two young men came up her walkway. They were the ones she saw in her dream.

Susanna Garlick - One of those two young missionaries was John Fleming Wakefield. After his mission, he went back to Pennsylvania and married Susannah Garlick. They moved to Nauvoo. In Nauvoo, they had 7 children. John died before he could move his family to Utah. So, Susanna took her 7 children across the plains in 1855 to Utah. They wound up in Springville, Utah. Her mother, Elizabeth, and sister Sarah, also went to Springville.

While all this was happening, Rees William Davis, and his wife Margaret, were living in Glamorgan, Wales. He had 7 children. They were converted to the Church. In 1855 they emigrated from Wales to the United States in Springville, Utah, with 4 children on the ship Chimbarazo. In 1858, Margaret died.

Since Rees William Davis was there in Springville, Utah without a wife and Susanna Garlick Wakefield was there without a husband, they figured a marriage union would be a good thing so they got married in April, 1860. Four months later, August 1860, Rees William Davis died. He never knew that a son, James David Davis, (son of Rees and Susanna) would be born to Susanna 24 Apr 1861.

Then in Spanish Fork we visited the grave of Moses Trader Shepherd and his wife, Eliza Jane Adamson.

Moses Trader Shepherd was a polygamist and Eliza was one of his wives. She is the one we come through. Moses and Eliza had a daughter named Eliza Jane Shepherd. She married William Howard Avery. William and Eliza had a daughter named Eliza Jane Avery and she married James David Davis.

Next year we will visit the grave of John Theopolis Gerber and and his son George Gerber in Taylorsville and the graves of many of our ancestors in the Clinton, Utah Cemetery.

Love, DAD