LFA Newsletter Volume 37, Issue 2 (October 2010)
From LFAwiki
1283 Logan Avenue
Salt Lake City, UT 84105
board@livingstonfamily.org
| Volume: 37 Issue: 2 | Date: October 2010 |
Contents |
Message from the Chairman of the Board
- By Steven B Livingston
Once upon a time, for that’s the way all good stories begin; there was a group of children, for that’s how Father viewed them. They got together in the year of our Lord 1972, with a desire to keep their family together. Their names were Ted, Pat, Dale, Margaret, Enid, Glenn, Lois, John, Lowry, Maretta, Donley, Ron, Wanda and Joe.
One had just lost her mother and felt a nudge from above, one felt left out because he hadn’t lived close by and couldn’t come to play very often, all felt a need to be close and make sure none ever got lost, or didn’t return home someday. Inside each was a need, the spirit driving them, to build a club that could be used as a tool to keep track and make sure all the children returned home. Some children were lost, and no one knew where to find them. The club was formed with those who had a desire to serve and to bring the family together. For all knew, someday, they would stand before the Father and have to report on what they had done to find and keep all the family together. Each heart wanted to present the Father our family - “whole and complete”. One should not be lost, definitely not!
And so the club was founded. They named it The Living Stone. They selected leaders who were willing to sacrifice and serve for the good of the family. Each child had a responsibility and had a vision of the good the club could do. It grew and grew as children were found. Each child found was encouraged to bind themselves to our Father by covenant. For such was the goal of the club: to gather from time to time to play and grow close together, to research and find more children, write the histories of what they had been doing while traveling the world, and to connect the eternal family line to make sure the binding to the Father was done.
As the club grew, blessings came as Father watched over its growth. As the time grew near for the oldest beloved Son to return, the need to gather the family grew, and an intense desire to be ready burned in the hearts of the children. So they moved forward with greater speed and commitment. But as with all children; Ted, Dale, Enid, and the other leaders of the club all grew up and had to pass it on to the other children in the family. With a hope that they would feel the same way about the club and it’s potential to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children. And so it was, the grown children taught the youngest and the work of the club moved forward. All looking forward to the day when Father would say, “The work is done, the children have all returned.”
We have a great work to do. The Livingston Family Association is amazing and has accomplished a great work and will continue to do so. It is truly my prayer and hope that one day we can present to Heavenly Father the Livingston Family -“Whole and Complete”.
Reunion Report
Livingston Family Reunion held June 18-19, 2010, in Fountain Green, Utah
The reunion turned into a two day affair and was enjoyed by many good “Livingstons”.
WILLIAM’S LINE WON!
You know there was a competition this year to see who could get the most descendents from the lines of JAMES, CHARLES, ARCHIBALD, WILLIAM AND ISABELLE. William’s line won hands down. They won the beautiful traveling trophy for this year. But just you wait - the rest of us are after it next year!
8:00 am on Saturday morning found us at the Fountain Green City Park for a great breakfast, cooked by the Doug Livingston family. If you can just imagine in your mind’s eye, bacon cooking, eggs scrambling and plenty of pancakes on a cool crisp early morning, there is nothing better. We were able to renew friendships and had the opportunity to become acquainted with Livingstons who came from all over the United States, Alaska and Hawaii. Our board member, Dennis Davis who comes every year from California said, "What I enjoy most about the reunions is being together with the extended family and getting to know my cousins."
Charlene Clark conducted the meeting and introductions were made. Awards were given for different achievements. The program was delightful with Mary Ann Swalberg telling stories of descendants from each of the five families. She involved the young children with questions and candy. Enid brought her collection of histories and this has inspired the board to put more histories on the website, we hope you will enjoy reading them and printing out copies of what you would like for your personal collection.
Elections were held and Charlene opted to relinquish her place on the board. Dana and Enid will stay on. Douglas Livingston (Ron’s son) was nominated and voted in as a new board member. We now have two Doug Livingston’s on the board. One is a descendant of William and the other is a descendant of James. We will identify them as Doug (William) and Doug (James).
Stephen Livingston had the descendancy chart on his computer and many checked their families. After lunch there was a tour by Don Lee Despain of the Fountain Green/Birch Creek area. We enjoyed a hike to a beautiful waterfall. David Cook and family had a display set up at the cemetery and rubbings were taken and stories told of the grave sites chosen.
The big LIVINGSTON CREST WAS GREAT! Thanks Doug and family for making our time together so enjoyable.
Thank you everyone! You always come through with something spectacular.
Notice
- by Enid Cox, Treasurer
In previous newsletters we have encouraged you to pay your dues to help us cover expenses. Today I am not going to talk about paying dues!
We want you to know that WE APPRECIATE your help and support over the years. We know you are out there, and we want to say a great big “THANK YOU” for all the times you have attended and participated and shown your support and paid your dues. You are loved. You are super-duper – just the greatest!
But, just in case you haven’t paid your dues this year, and want to, just mail a check to:
Livingston Family Association
1283 Logan Avenue
Salt Lake City, Utah 84105
Your tax-deductible donations are gladly accepted and much appreciated.
Research and Family History
A New Initiative
In addition to strengthening ties between the descendants of Archibald Livingston, one of the Livingston Family Associations most important roles is the preservation and distribution of the personal histories of our family members. To that end, we are kicking off a campaign to significantly expand the content found on the LFA wiki (http://www.livingstonfamily.org/wiki/Main_Page). A number of histories have been added over the last summer. We would like to see many, many more added. Unlike a volume of printed material that is limited in size and scope, the internet faces no such restrictions.
Family members continue to show an interest in obtaining copies of the green "Livingston Book". Reprints of that voluminous work are still available, but the information in it is becoming dated. Within the next year's time, it is our intention to create a resource that will exceed that of the green "Livingston Book", today's gold standard. It is our intention to create a collection of similar material in electronic form; information that can be continuously corrected, updated, and added to. While a wonderful resource, due to limitations in printing technology, the family history and pictures included in the book were limited to only a few generations succeeding Archibald Livingston and what we know of his ancestry. We now wish to expand well beyond that limit. That vision cannot be achieved without your help.
To that end, we are calling for all family members to send in copies of stories, biographies, pictures, etc. that are relevant to our family.
Writing, uploading, and correcting all of the information that this campaign will produce is too large a project for one person to do alone. The LFA website is a wiki. In other words, anyone who registers can contribute information directly to it or make corrections to the existing information. A middle man is not required. We encourage you to take advantage of this and upload the information that you have. Simple instructions for doing so are found on the website.
If you are less than comfortable using a computer, there are alternatives. Please don't let that technology deter you from contributing. Here are some suggestions:
1. Make it a topic of Family Home Evening (or several Family Home Evenings) and solicit the help of the younger members of the family to upload the information. Chances are they will know how to do it or will quickly figure it out.
2. Make copies of the information you have and mail it to one of the Board Members. This will take a little longer, but we'll see to it that the information is added.
3. Look over the information that is already there and improve it.
4. Pictures are worth a thousand words. Have scans made of any pictures you have. Caption them and send them in. Any story is improved when illustrated with a picture.
5. If you have information that no one has written down or otherwise preserved, don't delay. Our time on this Earth is limited. Even if you don't end up sending it in, if you don't record it, who will? Everything we know of our ancestors is the result of someone writing it down.
It is hoped that family members will eventually be able to pick and choose from the material posted to the website, allowing them to print their own custom volume of family history. We hope to include more than family histories. Look for genealogical files and reports, geographical information and maps, historical information about Scotland and its people, and more. The technology of our day has provided us with an awesome ability to store and share our family story, but it will not happen without your support. Please consider what you can do to add to our archive by sharing information about your ancestors with the rest of the family.
Our goal is to firmly establish the archive as a significant reference before our next reunion. Please make plans to contribute what information you have soon.
Livingston Research Update
In 2009 we were happy to announce that Brenda Kucharzewski, a Scottish genealogist did research to find out what happened to Granny’s other children that didn’t come with her to Zion. She found that one daughter (Bethia, Elizabeth, Betty) married Alexander Findlater and moved to Australia in 1851 and temple work was done for some members of this family in 2009 by LFA members. As a board we wondered if there was a possibility to find more descendents of some of Granny’s children. An effort was begun to use the data Brenda had provided which has been updated on New.FamilySearch.org by Mary Ann Swalberg and the information on FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com. We found some of the names that Brenda had provided were found on Ancestry and we found new information on some of their spouses and children there. We have been able to collect a few more names and plan to verify the information and hope to gather more. We are very excited that we will be able to complete the temple work for more of Granny and James’ descendents at our next reunion.
• We want to invite anyone who has access to Ancestry.com and is interested in helping with this research to contact us at board@livingstonfamily.org.
• If you want to download the information that Brenda provided to the association, you may download it here http://livingstonfamily.org/char/
The Livingston Legacy Lives on Through Us
What a privilege to be a descendant of the children of Cristina (Granny) and James Livingston. These were valiant, hardworking, intelligent, creative, compassionate, honest, charitable, full of integrity, loyal, faithful, etc, and oh yes, stubborn people. We are fortunate to have histories which tell us of their accomplishments, their hardships and their faith. This is a legacy we have that has been kept alive through our families and the LFA Association. It is a legacy that we will want to pass on to our children so they will love their heritage and want to emulate the wonderful qualities and virtues of their ancestors. It is something that has to be taught and instilled into their hearts. We want to offer you some ideas and resources to help you share these histories and identify the traits.
Creating a family history binder with stories of all family lines to use in your family is a great tool. It can be used at bedtime, family night, to take on trips to read in the car or take when you visit grandchildren, etc. You can ask questions: What do you like best about this person? How are you like this person? What do you want people to write about you? One family told some of these stories at a family reunion and the children listened intently. A newly returned missionary stood up after and said these stories meant so much to him now. Much more than before his mission. We must be persistent.
At the 2010 Livingston Family reunion at Fountain Green, Mary Ann Swalberg (daughter of Florence Smith Prows, granddaughter of Enoch and Ellen Livingston Smith and great granddaughter of Charles and Ellen Harrocks Livingston) presented a snippet of an incident in the lives of the following people who descended from one of Archibald's children. The snippets were taken from the histories in the “Green Book” and other places and represent each of the families of Archibald Livingston and his two wives, Helen Muir Connor and Jean Bain.
We encourage you to use these histories so your families will become familiar with them and make them their family “heroes”. There are many more on the 'Articles about People' link on the LFA website http://livingstonfamily.org/wiki/Category:People
We will be adding more histories and more photos with your help.
These people exemplified many wonderful traits, we are suggesting just one from each history, you may find many others as you think about their life. We are including links to the histories which are presently on the website.
From the James' line:
Agnes Amanda Despain Gee (charity) granddaughter of James and Agnes Widdison Livingston, daughter of Orson Augustus Despain and Janet Russell Livingston, was born a little south of Fountain Green, on the 17th of March 1879. The next year she moved with her parents to the west side of the valley to a place called Birch Creek (later called Cedar Cliff). My mother, Janet, and her sister, Agnes Livingston, took turns carrying me and a new born calf the distance of about 7 miles.
“Rattlesnake in the Wheat”
When I was small, I was helping my older brothers shock grain. I was too small to lift the bundles by the string and had to put my arms around it. I carried a bundle across the field to Orson and when I dropped it for him to put in the shock, a big rattlesnake crawled out of it. The boys got rid of it and I went home for the rest of the day!
Thomas Widdison Livingston (industrious) first son of James and Hannah Widdison Livingston born 15 January 1863 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hannah was James' second wife. His first wife, Agnes and Hannah were sisters.
“Drove a mule-drawn street car in SLC”
Thomas drove one of the mule-drawn street cars in Salt Lake City. When the public transportation problem first arose in Salt Lake City, Brigham Young organized the Salt Lake City Railroad Company. This was a mule car which was drawn along the streets of Salt Lake City. The cars were pulled by two rat mules from Missouri through the streets. The mules were all for sitting a spell now and then, which made traveling not too speedy. But, it was the latest thing in 1872 and people could hardly wait to pay their nickel and travel the scenic route along Main Street. Old timers do agree that it was quicker to walk if you were in a hurry. In 1889 the first electric car appeared, making the mule-drawn cars obsolete.
John Muir Livingston (kindness) was the first child of James Campbell Livingston, Sr. and his third wife, Annie Elizabeth Muir. He was born in Salt Lake City and lived there on First Avenue between “F” and “G” Streets.
“The Terror of meeting a PANTHER"
John tells that one time he had gone to Fountain Green one evening to see his pals, and on the way home about a mile out of Fountain Green, he saw a panther on a large rock. Since it was a moonlit night, it stood out very plainly. He said as he got about even with it, the panther let out a scream. He said it sounded like a woman screaming. Once, after relating the incident to his son, his son asked what he did and he said, “My feet never touched the ground until I got home.”
From the Charles' line:
Thomas B Child, Jr (valiant in sharing his testimony through art) grandson of Charles and Jane Harrocks Livingston, son of Elizabeth Livingston & Thomas Battersby Child Thomas B. Child Jr. – married Bertha Derrick Rumel.
“Laying to rest the first child of Charles and Jane Livingston”
“I’ve heard my Grandmother Livingston (Jane Harrocks Livingston) say that when her first little boy died, she could see from her door her husband (Charles Livingston) digging the grave and John Dobbie, my grandfather’s uncle (he married Charles’s sister Ellen), seeing what he was doing, came up and took over the job.” There is a fine headstone of Red Butte sandstone erected over this little boy’s grave in the Peter Harrocks lot engraved, “Charles Daniel Livingston – born July 24, 1862 – died October 22, 1862.” Grandma has often told how grandpa carried the little stone from their door on Seventh East to the cemetery on his back and she could see him walk all the way from her back door. (At that time the trees were smaller and not so may homes to block the view.)
In his later years, Thomas B. Child created a wonderful garden he called “Gilgal”. This garden is located between 4th and 5th South and between 7th and 8th East. It is now a part of the Salt Lake City Parks and the entrance is from 5th South. It is quite a sight to see. He shared his testimony of the gospel and his knowledge of the gospel and the restoration of all things in this garden as well as his family tree. It is a wonderful place to see if you understand what his purpose was in building it and why he did it.
Hazel Livingston (loyalty to family) daughter of Charles and Ellen Harrocks Livingston
"Sacrificing for Family"
Hazel followed the example of her mother who was frugal and industrious. Hazel was taught well and followed her mother’s example and her home was always spotless too. Education was important to the Livingstons. Hazel went to school until 1908 when her sister Isadora Livingston Peterson died, leaving 2 little boys. Hazel quit school and helped her mother raise the boys, Pete and Douglas. Throughout her life she and her husband treated Pete and Douglas as their own children and they would spend the summers on their ranch in Nevada until they were grown. http://livingstonfamily.org/wiki/LIVINGSTON%2C_Hazel
From Isabella's line:
Isabella Livingston (faith & sacrifice) married Samuel Ruggles Aiken. Isabella was born 10 July 1843 at Chapell Street in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, Scotland to Archibald and Jean Bain Livingston. Both her parents died in 1849 of cholera and her father’s widowed mother, Christina Campbell Livingston, took care of Archibald’s six orphaned children. (Her father’s first wife, Helen Muir Connors, had died previous to his marriage to Jean, leaving three children.) http://livingstonfamily.org/wiki/LIVINGSTON%2C_Isabella
“Handcart Missionaries bid farewell”
Isabella arrived in Salt Lake with her family 25 September 1855 and sometime between then and 1857 she met and fell in love with Samuel Aiken who was teaching school in the city. He was called from the pulpit to serve a mission to Canada to preach the gospel. In his journal he wrote, “On 22 April 1857 I went to the House of the Lord and received my blessing and was set apart for my mission. My wife, Isabella Livingston Aiken received her endowments and was sealed to me over the altar. April 23 – This day commenced my journey by handcart. Our company consisted of 70 men and 25 carts. Hannah, Isabella, Benjamin and Samuel accompanied me about five miles from the city; also the Nauvoo Band marched behind us two miles from Salt Lake.”
From Archibald's line:
Jean Livingston (standard of excellence) was born 12 January 1870 in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Archibald Livingston and Elizabeth McLean. She married George Peter Winsness, who was a purchasing agent for the Denver and Rio Grand Railroad in Salt Lake City. He died 21 December 1916 of tuberculosis at the age of 59. http://livingstonfamily.org/wiki/LIVINGSTON%2C_Jean
“Mama Jean and her needlework”
Mama Jean did beautiful needlework of all kinds. Her quilting stitches were so small and even, almost like machine stitching. When she was embroidering or crocheting, she would put on a clean white apron. When she was through, the work would be folded in her lap, the apron untied, folded over the work and all would be placed in her sewing basket. When she picked it up again, she just sat down, tied the apron around her waist and she was ready to go.
From William's line:
William Livingston & Lillias Dick (commitment to the gospel) William Livingston was born 28 April 1848 in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, Scotland, to Archibald and Jean Bain Livingston. Both his parents died in 1849 of cholera. William was orphaned by the time he was a year old. His paternal grandmother, “Granny” Livingston and her son, James, known as “Uncle Jimmie”, reared William and his five older brothers and sisters. Granny’s youngest daughter, Ellen and her husband, John Dobbie, also helped with the family. http://livingstonfamily.org/wiki/LIVINGSTON%2C_William
“Courting on the bridge with the toll of a kiss”
After her arrival in Salt Lake City, Lillias worked as a domestic. In the summer, she helped cook for one of the crews at the temple quarry. William was a member of that crew. It was told by their granddaughter that, “William, a large, brawny Scot had met Lilly on a bridge, not allowing her to cross without the toll of a kiss.” Lilly also worked at the home of William’s brother, Archibald on the south side of South Temple Street between 2nd and 3rd West. While there, they teased Lilly about William Livingston when he was courting her and on one occasion she burst into tears in her embarrassment.
As we post articles on the wiki, we will email you a few times a year to let you know which new histories are on the web site.
We know that there are many, many living Livingston descendants that exemplify great traits as well. We would like to acquaint you with some of these people through our newsletter and at the reunion because it is great to have “living heroes” too. Please think of someone in your line (children, spouse, siblings, parents or grandparents) that you would like to write a paragraph about who they are and what quality they have developed and examples showing this trait. We will include some of these "heroes" in our next newsletter and the 2011 reunion.
History of Isabella Livingston
http://livingstonfamily.org/wiki/LIVINGSTON%2C_Isabella
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Livingston Family Board
The current board of directors of the Livingston Family Association is as follows:
| Name | Assignment | Term Expires |
|---|---|---|
| Dennis Davis | Photographer | 2011 |
| Ross Livingston | Webmaster | 2011 |
| David S. Cook | Vice Chairman | 2011 |
| Mary Ann Swalberg | Research Director | 2012 |
| Stephen B. Livingston | Chairman | 2012 |
| Douglas Ray Livingston | Social Director | 2012 |
| Enid Cox | Treasurer | 2013 |
| Dana Rogers | Recruiting Director | 2013 |
| Douglas Ron Livingston | Secretary | 2013 |