NOTALGIA AT IT'S FINEST

Every year for Memorial Day we make our annual trek to Mt. Pleasant, Spring City, Ephriam and sometimes Manti. If you don't know where these places are, you are certainly missing out on some old town charm . They are located in South Central Utah, in Sanpete County. They are the towns that real people are made in. By this, I mean my Ancestors all the way down to my mother. I think my uncle and she were the last of our family to be born there. They were born in a small two story white clapboard house that was destroyed by fire some 25-30 years ago by vandals. I still remember that house. Although I never stepped inside that boarded up old house, it was as though I was coming home. But the barn that my Great-Grandfather Hansen built is still standing--it is nice and sturdy and built with old fashioned hard work, grit, and sweat.

I get a little sentimental around this time, as most of us do, but not for the reasons you think. Mostly because I sometimes wish I had been born, not necessarily in that era, but in the AREA. I think my life would have turned out differently had I been raised in the country. I am a country girl at heart, but I do enjoy the convenience of the city.

It's is about seeing to the decorating of the graves where my great-grandparents are buried. I was going to turn 21 the December after my great grandmother died. Every year we would go and see her while we were down there at Decoration Day.To this day, I really don't care for apricot nectar or apricots for that matter, but this woman was the sweetest woman on the face of the earth. I drank that stuff as though I were savoring it for a lifetime. It's also about this same woman who was widowed for more than fifty years and lost both her husband, in his forties; and some children to a various and sundry deaths; before she passed away at the age of 98. Each year in the cemetery the locals post 10 more American Flags to be admired by all to see and honor the local military servicemen that fought and gave their lives in the name of freedom for our country. I cry every time I see those flags. I cry everytime I see an American Flag--anywhere.

We then trek about 6 miles to Spring City to look around the property and wonder how we can get our hands on it and make it available for us to build a cabin or something on it, but I think at this time it's only a pip dream. We look around, see how some of the area has stayed the same and how some of it is so overgrown with monster houses, I just get sick--because one day it just won't be the same. It's not the same as it was 30 years ago. Nothing ever stays the same--darn it.

We then took the backroad entrance into Ephriam for the Scandinavian Festival. You have never seen so many Scandihoovians in your life, unless you have been to Scandinavia. You can pick everyone of us out from 5 miles away. We're all blonde, blue or green eyed, with a smattering of dark here and there for added flavor.

This year is was very slow because it was cooler and raining. But we did it none the less. Without coat or umbrella. But upset of all upsets was when we got there a little too late for Swedish Meatballs and Cucumber Salad. They had run out. I guess this means we have two helpings next year, Yummy, Yummy.

After leaving and heading home, we stopped at the old homestead and dug up and STOLE--yes STOLE some wild flowers growing on my Great-Grandfather's property (now before you say anything, they were in the overgrowth of the public parking, so that makes it okay, doesn't it?). I get a little sentimental and nostalgic over flowers from my ancestors (I have some buttercups that are in my backyard that were brought over on the ship from Norway with my Great-Great Grandmother when her family joined the LDS Church). So we dug them up and brought some home. Hopefully with the intent of beautifying my horribly ridiculous, pathetic looking, backyard.

This is nostalgia kicking in for me, so please bear with me. This is my heritage!
(I don't know what I did wrong--but all of the pictures are backwards--I hate this program!)

Below you will see the pictures of where we went today and among them are the flags in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, Grandpa's Barn, The Hansen/Larsen girls at Grandpa Hansen's Barn, the flowers that I dug up, Great-Great-Grandma Larsen's home in Spring City, Utah My Great-Great Grandmother Larsen's home, The Bishops Storehouse est. 1905, Spring City Public School (where my uncle attended school while living with relatives), The Orson Hyde home (with the street markers in front), and the low lying clouds which show the drizzly/coolish day we had.