1283 Logan Avenue
Salt Lake City, UT 84105
board@livingstonfamily.org
Soldier Hollow, at the Chalet, in the beautiful Heber Valley was the site for the reunion this year. The campers Friday night had a large fire and they needed it as it was a chilly night. The fire was also used by some to cook supper. It was a beautiful camp site for all to enjoy. David Cook brought horses for everyone to ride.
Saturday was greeted with another fire and sunrise over the Heber Valley. Deer Creek Reservoir and the Wasatch mountains made for a beautiful setting.
Campers began getting up with the smell of breakfast coming from the Chalet. Lynne put together a fantastic breakfast and it was served by the Board.
The Chalet was the location for the program with a theme of Livingston Links to the Past. Lining the great room was a table to register, name tags and dues. Enid and Charlene also had a family crest and dvd for sale. Ann provided a table with military and missionaries from the past and where they served. Blaine had the family lines on spread sheets on another table. Doug had a table displayed with memorabilia from the sheep industry.
The program was provided by Susan Easton Black, Ph.D., on the history of the Mormon Church, the early missionaries to England and Scotland and how the Livingstons were given priority at the Liverpool docks because of their mining background. Highlights of her talk are included in this newsletter. For a complete transcription visit our website at [website goes here].
Charlene made sure most of the family got an award for showing up. David kept the horses going all day. Crafts for the kids included face painting, Indian jewelry and head bands. For a look at the reunion pictures, go to [web site] and click on "Livingston Family Reunions" and then click on "2006".
If you missed the reunion, mark your calendar for next year. It will always be the third weekend in June - which will be June 15 & 16, 2007! The reunion will be held at Donley & Gloria Despain's property in Birch Creek, Utah. You belong to a great family with a great heritage.
Livingston Family Board
Term Expires in 2007:
Charlene Clark, Newsletter & Mailing List
Enid Cox, Secretary/Treasurer
Nadine Curtis, Ancestry Co-Chair
Term Expires in 2008:
Ted Livingston, Ancestry Co-Chair
Ross Livingston, Website
Lynne Herring, Chairperson
Term Expires in 2009:
Stott Cook, Reunion Co-Chair
Blaine Livingston, Descendancy Chair
Ann MacDonald, Reunion Co-Chair
Contact us at 801-484-2678 (Enid's) or email us all at board@livingstonfamily.org. Please use this family resource for family-related business only.
Thank you so much for your continued support. If you haven't had an opportunity to mail in your dues, please send them to:
Livingston Family Association
1283 Logan Avenue
Salt Lake City, Utah 84105
At the reunion this year, we were asked to bring any artifacts we had that could be photographed for posterity. I took a dress that means a lot to me. When I was a little girl, 4 or 5 years old, my Grandma Livingston (Hannah Amanda Adler Livingston, wife of Archibald George Livingston) crocheted a beautiful yellow dress for me. I have a picture of me wearing it in kindergarten about 1940. Over the years my daughters wore it, some of my granddaughters, and at the reunion a great-granddaughter, Andie Funk, modeled it. It is a treasure to me.
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| Enid Cox about 1940 |
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| Barbara Cox Venema about 1961 |
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| Enid Jeffs Cox, Tara Lynne Venema Funk (granddaughter), Andie Lynne Funk (great-granddaughter) |
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| Tara Lynne Venema Funk about 1982 |
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| Andie Lynne Funk 2006 |
The Livingston Family Association is once again getting organized for serious ancestral research as part of our family history emphasis. We are in the process of organizing into family branches, currently with members of the family representing the Charles, William, and James lines. We are hoping that the other lines will soon be represented.
If you are a descendant of Isabella, or any other branch that you feel needs emphasis, please contact Ted Livingston at tedl@sfcn.org or (801)794-0241, so we can include you in our group.
Each branch of the family will conduct research within its own branch. There will be consultation back and forth between members, hints on where to search, and some writing to document our progress. In addition, it is hoped that we will have a group of members working on general research, searching history books, old documents, letters, vital records, to gain as much information as possible that might lead to identifying more of our ancestors.
More to follow...
We are really trying to cut down on our costs. Newsletters are a big percentage of our yearly expenses. In order to cut our costs and still provide you with 3-4 newsletters each year, we are asking anyone who has access to the internet and an email address to allow us to send you the newsletter electronically. According to a national study, 68% of Americans have access to the internet and use it. We currently only have 36% of our mailing list signed up for ENews (Electronic Newsletter) - 208 out of 573.
ENews is really easy:
The mailing list is kept completely private. We never use the information for anything other than Livingston Family business. We do not send or forward spam to anyone on the list.
As an added bonus to the newsletters, with ENews we are able to provide color pictures, more pictures and longer articles because we are not constrained by printing and postage limitations.
Please sign up for ENews today - simply email us at board@livingstonfamily.org. We'll take care of the rest! Thanks for your support in this effort to reduce our costs.
Many, many thanks to all of you who have sent your descendancy information. We have entered all the information into the database. We have entered well over 2,400 names. That is more than half again as many as we had on those long charts at the reunion. We are particularly grateful for the new family information of births and marriages that have occurred since 1979. You young families, please send in your family information. I have also sent out Livingston crest patches to those who sent a chart in to me. If I have missed anyone, please let me know.
Let's not quit now. If you haven't yet sent your descendancy info in, please use the attached chart (MS Word or PDF) and send it in now. Remember, each submittal will receive a free Livingston Family crest patch. They are beautifully made and will be a treasure to keep. Additional ones can be ordered from me at $3.00 each.
I have a new address. Send your descendancy information to, and order your Livingston crest patches from me at:
I have a new address. Send your descendancy information to, and order your Livingston crest patches from me at:
Blaine T Livingston
655 E Greystone Way
Tooele, UT 84074
(435) 882-6814
The Reverie of a Shepherd
Heaven won't be so lonely
If what I hope is true,
If a little lamb of God is there
Or some old friendly ewe.
In those celestial pastures
Beside still waters deep,
May the eternal future find me
With a little bunch of sheep.
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| Joe Livingston | Abe Livingston |
Two brothers from a family of 12 children, Abe and Joe Livingston were sheep ranchers. Hopefully, they have found clearer insight on whether there are sheep in Heaven. They will feel at home if this turns out to be true.
Born in Birch Creek, Utah to Lillias and William Livingston, Abe and Joe were part of a large pioneer family of 7 boys and 5 girls. The children became orphans in 1900 when their parents died within six months of each other. The married, older siblings took the younger children and helped to raise them.
Joe was the first child born at Birch Creek after the family moved from Salt Lake City. At first the family lived in a two-room house with a shanty. Later, their light red brick house consisted of four rooms and a large kitchen in the back. The parents and children worked hard at a variety of tasks. William ran a sawmill located westward from the home. He has been described as having mechanical ability and Abe was impressed with his father's skill with an axe. Upon occasion, Abe would turn the logs while his father hewed with the axe.
Joe married Ella Ivory on July 5, 1905 in the Manti Temple. In the first years of their marriage he worked in the coal mines, but when given a chance, he established himself as a sheepman at first in Sanpete County and then in Weber Canyon. After divorcing in the early 30's, Joe went to Craig, Colorado where he proved himself to be a very successful sheep rancher and businessman. He also did much to establish a branch of the LDS church in this small but growing community. He remarried, but Winifred died of breast cancer three years later. He was briefly married to Georgia Roberts. He is remembered for his generosity and hard work. Many that knew him remember his love for children and his efforts to teach them to work. He endured much heartache concerning his family. Three of his six children died in early age. Joe eventually remarried the mother of his children and died not long after that in 1948.
Three years younger than Joe, Abe was 13 when his parents died. He went to live with his oldest brother, William. At a young age, Abe decided to follow the trend of many other young men at that time. He began herding sheep in the Fountain Green area, buying a few sheep of his own until he had enough to start a small herd. He then took his sheep, and by caring for them himself winter and summer, he watched them increase in number. Range was free for those who chose to use it and soon Abe was a sheepman, running his sheep on the west desert in the winter and in the Spanish Fork Canyon-Scofield area in the summer.
Abe married Mary Etta Gardner in 1912. She passed away shortly after in childbirth. He met and married lovely Sadie Lewis one summer while herding sheep near Schofield. They had four children, all born in Fountain Green.
The depression hit hard in 1929-30 with wool and lamb prices falling almost to nothing and to make matters worse, a catastrophe happened. Just after shearing in the spring of 1932, Abe's sheep contracted a disease called "big head." One thousand sheep died in one night. Of the three thousand sheared in April, eleven hundred survived to get to the lambing ground and only four hundred lambs were raised to sell that fall at the terribly low price. Abe worked hard to salvage what was left of the disaster. Eventually he moved his family to Craig, Colorado where his brother Joe helped him once again get established in the sheep business.
Abe had a special love for the youth of the Church. He spent his early mornings chauffeuring the students to early morning seminary to make sure they made it. He was known as "Pa" to his family and all the kids in the neighborhood. He was a big man with a big heart. He had beautiful, wavy white hair; the epitome of a Grandpa and everyone sought his friendship. Having lived a full and faithful life, he was taken by a sudden heart attack on the morning of January 11, 1957 in his seventieth year, leaving loneliness in the lives of all who knew and loved him.
Abe and Joe Livingston, two brothers who loved their families, the sheep that provided their livelihood, and the Shepherd who they served, helping to feed His sheep.
As a reader of the online newsletter, you are entitled to read the entire address given by Dr. Black. If you have not already sent us your email address, please do so now by sending email to board@livingstonfamily.org.
Click here to read Dr. Black's talk.