History of Jerald Wesley Glenn (1904-1991), Part 4: Addendum

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
History of the Kimberly, Idaho Ward

My mission was in Australia, the land down under. It was all one mission at that time, mostly in the Eastern part, Melbourne, Sidney, Adelaide in Australia, and Hobart in Tasmania. I spent about six months in Hobart, Tasmania, and Melbourne, seven months in Adelaide and 6 months in Sidney. We went by ship, which took us 21 days. We stopped in Hawaii. The sea was awfully rough when we went out. We bucked an 80-mile gale for 4 days. We’d be steaming full speed ahead and make about 4 to 5 knots an hour. We were about 10 hours late getting into Honolulu. We stopped there at 6 o’clock in the evening and left at 10 PM. So, that’s all we saw of Honolulu on the way out. It wasn’t the resort area like it is now. We stopped in Samoa. The Samoans were all down there to meet us. Somehow they always knew when the missionaries were coming and they would be down there to meet the missionaries. Even though we were going to stop, they’d be there. We stopped in the Fijian Islands, the black people, but they are not Negroes. People wondered why some of those black people worked on the New Zealand temple. They are not Negroes, so they could work on the temple, and hold the priesthood. They are Melanesians. That’s about the same as your New Zealand people are, but somehow or other these people’s skin was black, just like a Negro, while in New Zealand they are a very dark brown. Then we landed in Australia 21 days after we left San Francisco. On our mission that is about all we did was tracting. There were no organized presentations. We just taught. I was in the mission field 2 years, plus the 21 days going and 21 days coming home. I came home on the same ship I went out on, the Sonoma, with one smoke stack. It was a big ship when it was built. It was mostly a passenger ship. It took some freight, but not much. When I went out it was on its 81st trip to San Francisco and back. They make a trip every three months. I landed in Sidney, Australia on the 10 January 1926 and started home 10 February 1928. I got home on the 10 of March.

I met my wife to be sometime during the summer. I met her at a dance hall in Twin Falls. The building is Blacker’s Furniture store now (corner of 2nd Ave. E and 2nd St.). George Miller is the one that got us together. We courted about 8 or 9 months. Our favorite things to do were take a ride in the car. That’s about all there was to do. We were married 30 August 1929, in the Salt Lake Temple. We went alone. For our honeymoon Dad let us have enough money and time to drive to Portland, Oregon, and back. We lived on the farm where Kevin Glenn lives now (l mile N, 1/2 E, and 1/4 N, of Kimberly, Idaho). The original farm that Andrew Glenn and Mary E. Tolman Glenn took out of sagebrush), in the house my Dad built. Dad was renting some ground so it seems to me we had about 240 acres to farm. Dad and my brothers, (Wendell, Calvin, and Kimber) and I tried to farm together, but it didn’t work. After my Dad died in 1933, Mother gave us each a share of the farm. Mine was the 40 acres l mile N and l mile W, NW corner, from Kimberly, Idaho, where we lived 33 years. We had a two-room house built there.

Dad and Wendell went to a sugar beet meeting in Twin Falls. Wendell was driving and they parked across from the courthouse by the City Park. Dad got out of the car, walked around and a car hit him right there. It broke three of his ribs and his lungs filled up with water. They didn’t have any way of getting it out then. Now, medically, they could pump it out and save him. This was in 1933. I was 29 years old.

It was hard to make a living. We raised, grain, beans for seed, some sugar beets, peas for seed, and alfalfa. We had milk cows, three or four, sometimes five. We had chickens. We lived on stuff we raised. The farm had a lot of Morning Glories on it that we used to salt them to kill them until we could find something better. Then we used to gas them to kill them. I got my first tractor in 1944. Until then I farmed with horses. We had a caterpillar to pull the plow and do the heavy work. It would pull a two-furrow plow. When I got the little Ford tractor, I had a plow built for it with only one plow, but it got the work done. The tractor would pull the small combines that we used then

A day’s work began by getting up about six in the morning. Before breakfast we took care of the animals and the irrigating... Then the rest of the day was spent in whatever had to be done. After supper it was taking care of the animals and irrigating again. In the winter time I spent four years of work in the bean (seed beans) house, spent a couple of years sorting potatoes which was done in a cold old ‘spud’ cellar. In 1940 I started working at the sugar factory.

J. Wesley Glenn working on machinery at the sugar factory.

I worked at the filters which filtered the impurities out of the beet juice. The last few years I worked on the generators keeping the pumps running. There were about 50 sets of pumps there. Each one had its job to do. So, you had to watch them, oil them when needed, making sure they weren’t getting too hot, etc. We didn’t have too much problem with them. I worked 20 campaigns (winters). I took a mechanic course by mail, which helped me repair the car and farm equipment.

We didn’t really want to leave the farm. Son, Derald, talked us into it. We moved into Kimberly, July 1968, but I still farmed with Derald (Derald Boyd Glenn). It was maybe ten years after we moved into Kimberly that I farmed with Derald. Derald came down from Seattle to work with us in 1957. I let him gradually take over and that was the way it was done. I still irrigate 80 acres. He won’t let me do any machine work anymore. In fact, the machines have gotten too sophisticated for me. Now days the tractors have cabs with heaters when it’s cold and air conditioners when it’s hot. Not like I used to do. I heard one farmer say, “It’s no different than you in your office. Don’t you think I ought to have the same?” Farming used to be hot and cold. In the Spring and sometimes Fall, you’d put on lots of clothes to keep warm while you plowed, in the Summer you wore a straw hat and the sweat would roll off your head and face. There was no protection from the weather. I always wore my overall jeans and blue shirt and still wear them. The thing I liked about farming was that you weren’t tied to anyone thing all the time. In the spring, it was preparing the soil and planting. In the fall it was harvesting the crops. In the summer, it was keeping it wet and weeded. You had to have crop rotation to keep your ground in condition. Derald has about the same rotation now that I did, except for sugar beets and potatoes. Potatoes and sugar beets take too much expensive equipment. When I started farming, the sagebrush had all been clear from the land. When this country started up in four or five years the sage brush was all gone. As we got heavier equipment more leveling of the ground was done. They build what they called a land plane. It was pulled by four horses. It would be about seven or eight feet long, just boards nailed together. If you wanted to dig a hole, you would hold it like this (demonstrating with his hands), it had a handle on it and a rope on it to pull it back and you would hold that so it would dig and when you wanted to dump it, you would just turn it over and the dirt would gradually spill out. The plane was not the same thing as the scoop we used pulled by the caterpillar tractor to dig the basement for the two rooms we added on to the house just before Derald was born in 1936. We had to dynamite the big rocks loose in digging the basement. We dug two or three basements for other people, as that caterpillar was the only thing we had to get in and out of basements with. The old Kimberly Ward building was built when we came here, but it wasn’t a ward yet.

Moena and Donald were born in the hospital. Patricia and Derald were born at home. I stayed at home and farmed when the babies were born. The cows had to be taken care of and the irrigation water had to be taken care of regardless. (Dad (Wesley) couldn't be around sickness of any kind. If he cut his finger and it had a drop of blood, he would faint. Patricia).

Velma and I traveled some after the children were grown. When the children were in school, (college) we traveled to Moscow, Idaho (University of Idaho) taking them up to school in the fall and home in the summer. Had to rescue Moena one Christmas when she was riding back with other students and had a car wreck. She telephoned and we drove up to the middle of the North-South Highway of Idaho to get them and take them on up to Moscow. Then drove back home to Kimberly. When Derald and Lois were in Seattle and Moena and Van lived in Tacoma, Washington, we traveled a different route each time we went so we’d see more country. We took a temple (the ones that were built then) tour, one back east to New York, etc for three weeks.

My second mission was different. Velma was my companion. We did no tracting. We spent our time in the Independence, Missouri Visitor’s Center. People would come in and talk to us. When they came in the Visitor’s Center they were on our ground instead of us being on their ground. It was much easier to talk with them. When they came in they were interested in knowing about the Center so they would talk to us. On my mission to Australia it was hard for me because I wasn’t a talker and we had no set outline to give. In a survey we did we found that about five percent of the people we talked to showed some interest in the Gospel.

J. Wesley and Velma Glenn

Independence Missouri Mission

1972-1974

The last six years I have been in the Church’s extraction program. That’s quite interesting. We read the films of birth, marriage, or death records of different countries and take the information that we need to identify a person and put it on cards We need his birth date, and place, his name, his sex, parents, etc. We have to be able to read (some in foreign language) enough of what we need. Then we put it on cards and these cards are checked for accuracy, then the cards go to Pocatello and are put on computer printouts and sent to the temple from there. The temples wouldn’t have anything to do if we didn’t do our work in extraction. Name extraction furnishes about 85% of names the temples use. I go about 5 days a week. I try to put 15 to 20 hours a week on it. Ordinarily, I try to leave home about noon, go to the Kimberly Stake House 1 1/4 miles north of Kimberly, and come back about 4 PM.

None of our children are number one. We love each one of them. We’re probably closer to Derald and Patricia because they have lived close. Moena has been back east for years (Wisconsin) so we only see her once a year or something like that; Don now lives over in Jerome. He is so busy that we don’t see too much of him. Of course, Derald, I’ve been working with him on the farm since 1957. Moena and Patricia could sing. They went into choral music in school. All four children were in band. Moena and Patricia were in percussion. Donald played the clarinet and Derald the oboe.

The one thing I would like to leave to my posterity is…Live Your Religion. That has kept me going in my life. The older I get the more I see that we need to Live Your Religion (The Gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). My testimony is that I Know the Church is true and that comes by revelation. The more I study it and get into it the more I know about the truthfulness of the Church.

History of Jerald Wesley Glenn (1904-1991), Part 3: Addendum

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
History of the Kimberly, Idaho Ward

JERALD WESLEY GLENN - ADDENDUM

From an interview of Jerald Wesley Glenn by Mary Annette Bates Grove, granddaughter, and

Patricia Ann Glenn Bates (Miller), daughter, summer of 1988. Wesley was 84 yrs. old and lived at

535 Adams St., Kimberly, Twin Falls, Idaho.

My grandfather, the first one to join the church was born in Ireland. We don’t know just where, we haven’t been able to find the town. He was born there in 1839. They lived there until sometime in the 1840s during the potato famine and then they immigrated back to Scotland. But, if you want to go back farther, I got a book from Georgia that traced the Glen family back through Scotland to 1600 and he found there the two Glen brothers immigrated to Ireland in 1602. Our ancestry lived there until they immigrated back to Scotland in 1840s. So, it is about 200 years there we don’t know anything about them. My grandmother was born in Scotland and they met there in Paisley, Renfrew, Scotland and were married in December 1861. And after they joined the church, they immigrated and landed in Salt Lake City in 1869. I think they came up through New Orleans, up the Mississippi to St. Louis, and took a train part way west. I don’t know how far the train went. Then the rest of the way by wagon train and landed in Salt Lake. My grandfather worked on the temple block for ten years, he kind of supervised building the wall around the block. It was 1869 when they immigrated. My grandfather was Andrew Glen and Ann Craig was his wife. He was kind of a stonemason. They then moved up to Snowville, which everybody called starvation country. It was a poor farming area. They lived there three or four years. My father has a sister buried there in the Snowville Cemetery. We went up there one time and couldn’t find it. Nobody took take care of it, so it is just lost. I don’t know what time they moved into Elba, Idaho. Somewhere about 1880 and that is where my grandfather lived until he died in 1914. My dad was born in Salt Lake City in 1873, course he moved with the family into Snowville and to Elba. Then he lived there until he married Mary Elizabeth Tolman in 1900. (At the time of this interview the information given by J. Wesley Glenn was to the best of his knowledge. With the advancement of technology and the exchange of information, we have corrected, documented information on the above. Patricia Ann Glenn Bates Miller.).

My mother’s side, the Tolmans, as near as I can remember landed in New England in the 1600s. They lived in this area most of the time. They were among the early settlers. The Tolmans were early converts to the Church. The Tolmans were in Rush Valley, about 40 miles out of Tooele, Utah. Then when Mom was two years old, 1882, they moved to Marion, Idaho, near Oakley. Marion doesn’t exist anymore, not even the church house.

Dad and Mom left there and moved to Rexburg (Rigby), Idaho. My dad and another man bought 160 acres somewhere around Rexburg. Of course, it was in sagebrush. They cleared it and farmed it for two years. My dad sold his 80 to the other fellow for the same as they had bought the 160. Then they moved to Sublet, way back in the hills, east of Malta. That was a cold country. I don’t think it ever got above freezing. They raised cattle and hay. That’s about all they could raise. I was born at Marion where Mother’s mother lived, but our home was in Sublett. I was born 3 May 1904, so I am now 84 years old. We lived in Sublett until the spring of 1906.

There were about two years between each of us children. Mom had a miscarriage between Wendell and me. There is a little over three years between us. My Dad was never a real pal to me. Mom was always too busy. By the time she cooked for all the hired help and all the rest, there wasn’t much time to play with the children. At harvest time when we had hired men to help with the thrashing, Dad would kill a lamb and hang it up overnight. Mom would have lamb chops for breakfast, cook the roasts for dinner and have lamb stew or soup for supper. There would be twenty men to feed, besides her own family, and also the washing, ironing and babies, etc. It was a lot of work.

Then they heard about Emmett country where they could grow fruit. They had never had fruit in their lives. So, they moved up there. About the first thing I can remember was eating peaches off the tree when we lived there. I remember that was the end of the railroad line. The steam engine couldn’t be backed up as they do now. They had a turntable. They would drive them on there where they had power, turn the engine around and drive the engine off. We didn’t like it up there in Emmett. The fruit and all that were nice, but the mosquitoes were big enough to carry you away. We didn’t like that, so in the spring of 1908 we moved to Kimberly.

The town of Kimberly was started in 1905. We moved here the 20 March 1908. The farm is one mile north, one-half mile east, and one-quarter north of Kimberly. Dad had eighty acres in the middle of the square mile. Dad got the 40 in 1908. He bought the other 40 acres in 1912. As I remember, Kruggers cut the sagebrush. When they came in here, they had a big overgrown alfalfa crowner that they pulled with their steam engine. The sagebrush was cut, then raked into windrows and burned. Krugers cleared almost all that whole section. Kruger’s father bought that whole section except for the 80 acres my dad had. He cleared it with that old sagebrush grubber, as we called it. He was a thrasher man in Nebraska, that’s the reason they had the steam engine. He bought his trashing machine and shipped it out here. He thrashed grain for us. The railroad came in 1905 and Kruger’s came in 1910. My dad cleared the first 40 in 1908. He bought the other 40

from a Jewish man in Boise, Idaho. He made the deal to buy it in 1912.

The land was not level after being cleared. There were little bumps all over the ground. We didn’t have the equipment to level it. We did the best we could. We had to dig the corrugates over these bumps. The corrugator was kind of a sled with a couple of 4 x 4’s nailed underneath of it with steel point. It would make two corrugates at a time. Then you would ride it to hold it down. You could only corrugate soft ground.

The first house that my Dad built when he took the first forty acres out of sagebrush was four rooms, two downstairs, two upstairs, and no basement. It was built on the west forty near the canal, because we had to get water. Our household water was from the canal. In 1912, we moved the house down across from Kevin Glenn’s place now, (on the east 40 acres, 50 Highway 50, Kimberly, Twin Falls, Idaho.) Mother had a well drilled after Dad died. When Mom built the house there then we had the well drilled. I was about 16 yrs old when I started helping Dad with the farm work. We milked cows and things like that. Farm boys always learned how to milk. There were always weeds to pull out of the crops on the farm.

When I started school, they had the old brick school building over there by the park. When I went there, there were only four rooms on the bottom, four rooms upstairs, and the auditorium on top (third floor). We used that building until 1917. That is when the old High School building was built. I was only about 17 when it was built. Sometimes we walked sometimes we caught the school wagon on the corner one mile north of Kimberly. If we didn’t see the school wagon coming, sometimes we’d walk on into school and beat the school wagon there. We went to school from 9 AM to 4 PM with an hour off for lunch and a 15-minute recess mid-morning and midafternoon. I did not have any favorite subject. School was kind of a bore to me. Reading wasn’t very interesting, so I didn’t like to read. When I got started reading the Book of Mormon, then I became an avid reader. Out in the mission field I opened up the Book of Mormon to Third Nephi where the Savior visited and I got interested and I thought, well I better find out how it starts, so I went to the beginning and read up to where I had read and read to the end. Then I started reading other little books we had there in the mission home. That is how I got started reading. I got average grades in school. We were taught reading, writing, and Arithmetic. I graduated from Kimberly High School in 1923, going all 12 grades. I graduated from the old High School building. Our class picture hung in the High School building’s main hall for over 50 years. Before the high school was build, high school students had to go to Twin Falls High School.

Kimberly Elementary School--1908

My love of music started in grade school. I had one teacher that knew quite a lot about music. She explained the staff and so forth, and I took that all in. She was good at singing and I like to sing. I had a natural ability to pitch my voice. I picked up the piano later on. I studied maybe three or four years off and on, it wasn’t steady, in Twin Falls. I can play the church hymns and other music. I worked at it on my own. I was chorister most of the time. I was organist for the Priesthood in my later years. I led the Ward choir for a while in my later years. When the children were little, Marjorie Anderson played the pump reed organ in our Ward and I was chorister. We went over to Kimberly 1st Ward when Kevin’s baby daughter, Marceline [sic (that's me!)], was blessed and Marjorie was at the meeting. She was talking with Kevin and learned his name was Glenn. She asked if he knew Wesley Glenn. “Yes, it’s my granddad. He is right over there.” She came over and talked to us for a while between meetings. Couldn’t talk very long as we had to get out of the way for the next meeting.

The organ at Oakley, Idaho, where we went to Stake Conference, was brought from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Oakley by team and wagon. I don’t know if it was all one piece or it they had to assemble it after it got there. It had two manuals and foot pedals. They had an organist come up from Salt Lake to play it the first time. When I was there, I was about fourteen the summer of 1918. First Quarterly Conference I ever attended. Of course, when we got up there, there wasn’t anyone to pump the organ. President Jack (Stake President) spotted my Dad and I guess I was willing. He came down and had me go up and pump the organ for them. It had a lever that you pumped up and down while the organ was being played. It had a little gage on the side and they told me to keep the gage about so-so. So, I’d watch that gage. If it started to go down, I’d pump a little harder. It wasn’t hard and I kind of liked it. There were two session of conference, so I got to do it both sessions. It took us two hours to drive to Oakley from Kimberly, 40 miles in the car. We went up the old mountain road about 20 miles an hour.

There were 10 of us in our family, five boys, and five girls. They were Wendell, Elzina, Burton John (who was killed), and myself. He was killed after I was married. I don’t remember the exact year. We lived on the Highway l mile north and 3/4 mile west of Kimberly. The school bus came from the East, stopped in front of our house, (you had to get off and cross the road) a car coming from behind hit him. They didn’t have all the laws, etc., like they do now. Buses were a vehicle with a body on them and that is about all.

All the brothers helped on the farm until we left the roost. I went to college for one year at the University of Utah. I found out that wasn’t for me. I was trying to study science and music. I couldn’t afford the music and figured science wasn’t my lot, so …

I sang in the Tabernacle Choir for about six months while I was there in Salt Lake City. I enjoyed that. I think Cecil Gates was our director. Thelma and Elzina both sang in the Tabernacle Choir when they were working in Salt Lake City. Organ music has always been my favorite. While you were singing in the Tabernacle Choir you didn’t realize the organ was so large. When Edward P. Kimball played the organ, you could feel the vibrations through the floor. They would caution him not to play so loud, but he still did. He would make the old building vibrate sometimes, but it stood. I went to college before I went on my mission.

History of Jerald Wesley Glenn (1904-1991), Part 2

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
History of the Kimberly, Idaho Ward

My formal education commenced in September 1910. There were four rooms with two grades in each room. Later it grew until two buildings were used. I was only an average student in school and didn’t mix with the other kids too well. My schooling was rather humdrum judging by the way things are run now.

The thing which I wanted in school was not offered. I wanted to play the organ and the violin—these were the things which were my life. English and history were for the birds, as far as I was concerned then. The stories which were given us to read were dry and boring. I didn’t absorb much of that either. I liked math and science quite well. However, I have always liked to work with my hands better than anything, which might explain why I did not like to read. As I have grown older I like to read very much, but it must be something that is worthwhile or I do not care for it.

J. Wesley Glenn

Graduation picture

Kimberly High School

I was called to the Australian Mission leaving home the 9 December 1925, at the age of 21. I spent two weeks in the Mission Home in Salt Lake City and left there 18 December for San Francisco, California. I sailed from there the 22 December on the S. S. Sonoma bound for Sidney, Australia. The sea was very rough being driven by an eighty-mile gale. The waves were very high and the propellers were raised out of the water at times and that would make the ship shake and tremble.

S.S. Sonoma

The Lord was with us so we were safe. The Captain of the ship remarked that he was glad to have Mormon Elders aboard the ship as he knew he would reach his destination safely. He had carried a number of Elders before. Seasickness came over me until I did not care if I stayed on top of the water or underneath the water. After four days, the wind ceased. We had clear sailing the next sixteen days. The ship stopped at the Hawaiian Islands, Samoan Islands and the Fiji Islands. We arrived in the Sidney Harbor 12 January 1926 after twenty-one days on the waters. Sidney is a very pretty place indeed. My labors were in Sidney, Hobart, Melbourne, and Adelaide. The people were, as a rule, very indifferent, so little was accomplished except gain a strong testimony of the Gospel myself which is worth the experience and expense. I was released from the mission 18 February 1928. There was a lady who was sailing with us whom I talked to several times. She bought the Book of Mormon, which I had carried all through the Mission Field, and seemed to be quite interested. I do not know if she ever joined the Church or not.

J. Wesley Glenn

Sidney Australia Mission

When one gets about so old or a certain age he begins to think about the more serious things of life such as getting married. I was no exception to this rule, although my father thought I had ‘wheels in my head’. However, when the time came they all accepted the fact that their family was at last growing up and were thinking about the serious facts of life. Things had undergone a great change while I was away the two and one-quarter years. The young people I had known before had married, which put me in a rather embarrassing position at times until I finally learned that people would get married. That situation did not last for long though as I was at a dance in Twin Falls one Saturday night and one of my friends asked me if I would like to meet a girl who had come into the country that summer. I told him I would. So I met Miss Velma Tyler. For some reason she seemed to be different than other girls I had dated before. This fateful night was 17 November 1928. After many discouraging tries trying to date and she being new and not knowing many boys, everything seemed to be set for us to go together. We became acquainted with each other very rapidly and soon after the first of the year, 1929, we were engaged to be married. She worked and bought a few things that summer and I worked on the farm with my father and the rest of the family and

didn’t get much more than my living, which made it rather hard for us to start housekeeping.

J. Wesley and Velma Tyler Glenn

1929

We were married 30 August 1929 in the Salt Lake Temple by Elder George F. Richards, President of the Temple. Velma is the daughter of Rufus Black Tyler and Mary Ann Hogan. She was born in Foster, Randolph, Arkansas, 25 January 1906. She lived in Arkansas until 1923 when the family moved to Arizona and then to Idaho in 1928. Sometimes people must travel a long way to meet the one they decide to live with, however, that is a good thing for people are mixed up which builds a stronger race. Velma was promised in her patriarchal blessing she would have strong children, which was the fact. The Lord scatters the Children of Israel so they would be strong to carry on His work. After a short honeymoon we settled on the farm with my father in Kimberly where we lived until the present (1961). Times were hard at first and things were not as we expected. There was quite a little disagreement between the family and myself. They did not realize that I had a home to keep and that would cost money, so there were differences. My father died in November 1933, and then mother divided the property among the boys. We had a forty-acre farm all to ourselves. The farm was not too productive at first as it had been farmed quite hard and not kept up as it should have been. We worked hard and I would find work in the winter and that way we made a good living and reared our family. We are at present living on the same farm my mother gave us when my father died. I have never been blessed with much money, but that has been good for us. Had we had a lot of money, perhaps we would have forgotten the Lord and be like so many people getting to worshipping the

money and thinking of nothing else. The most prized possession I have in life is the testimony I have of the

truthfulness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Glenn home in Kimberly, Idaho

I have tried to fill the Church assignments as they were given to me. Two stake missions were assigned to me during the 1930s and 1940s. The assignment I have most appreciated is the call to officiate in the Idaho Falls Temple. I was set apart for this office 19 August 1953 by Brother Albert Choules of the Temple Presidency. I was blessed that I would have the finances to travel to and from the temple, that I would be protected from accident as I traveled on the highways, and that all would be well while I was away from home, all of which have been fulfilled. We traveled the 330 miles to the temple and back usually in one day which required that we leave home at four in the morning and we were late in the evening getting back home. It was a very long day. I have had a few which could have been accidents in my travels to the temple, but each time something kept us from getting hit. One time in particular there was a large steer in the middle of the road and as it was night I could not see him until it was too late to do anything, but he just stood in the middle of the road and we passed him by about four feet. I immediately thought of the blessing I was given. The trip to the temple is a hard trip, but it is different from the everyday routine of making a living. To me, although it is tiring, it is restful and relaxing and then the joy of doing something for someone else who could not do for themselves is reward enough for me. I do not care if I spend some of my income for that. If I did not spend it that way I would spend it some other way. It would be gone.

With the beginning of the year of 1956, I was given the assignment to teach the youth of the ward. A more important or stimulating assignment I have never had to date. The youth are always full of vitality and my class was no exception. I had to really study to meet their challenge which did me no harm. I taught this class for three and one-half years and then was assigned the investigators class in Sunday School. This was also a stimulating class as they were all interested in the Gospel and eager to know more about it. I must keep on my toes and read up on all the doctrine to be able to answer all the questions they can ask.

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With this history I wish to leave my testimony to the truthfulness of the Gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. There is no doubt in my mind as to the divine calling of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the work he did. As I go forth with my callings in the Church and the study of the doctrine, everything points to the fact that it is all true. The more I learn about the temple ceremony, the more it is impressed on my mind that it is true. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that Joseph Smith lived and organized the Church. I only hope that I can live worthy of the blessings in store for me if I finish my life faithfully to the end. This testimony I bear to all of my descendants and to all the world in the

name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

MY POSTERITY;

Moena Glenn, daughter, born 15 January 1931

Patricia Ann Glenn, daughter, born 17 March 1932

Donald Wesley Glenn, son, born 24 August 1933

Derald Boyd Glenn, son, born 21 October 1936

MY LINE OF AUTHORITY

I was ordained a Seventy by Elder Melvin J. Ballard. He was ordained an apostle by Heber J. Grant. He was ordained by George Q. Cannon. He was ordained by Brigham Young. He was ordained by Joseph Smith and the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith was ordained by Peter, James and John who were called and sent forth by Jesus Christ.

History of Jerald Wesley Glenn (1904-1991), Part 1

I am so excited to share this history. It is an autobiography written by my great-grandfather. It was enjoyable to read because I vaguely remember him (he died when I was about three years old) and because there were so many details about Kimberly, Idaho. Grandpa Wesley's parents were some of the first people to settle in Kimberly, and I am in the fifth generation in our family to grow up there. It will always be a special place to me.

Many thanks to Patricia Glenn Bates Miller and Lisa Bates Kent, who compiled the document that is transcribed here.

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Part 2
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Part 6
History of the Kimberly, Idaho Ward


Jerald Wesley and Velma Tyler Glenn, 1980

HISTORY OF JERALD WESLEY GLENN

By Jerald Wesley Glenn - 1961

After a lot of persuasion by my children and mostly to please them, I am going to write a history of my life. I hope that with the inspiration of the Lord and my own intuition I will attempt to please them.

I was born in the land of freedom of goodly parents on the third day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred four---3 May 1904—at Marion, Cassia County, Idaho, the second child of Andrew Glenn and Mary Elizabeth Tolman.

Jerald Wesley Glenn (left, Abt. 18 months) and his brother Wendell (right)

Andrew Glenn Family

Fern, Wendell, J. Wesley, Ada, Calvin, Kimber

Mary Elizabeth, Elzina, Thelma, Andrew

Burton John

abt. 1926

There are in the family five boys---Wendell Ammon, myself, Calvin Rolly, Arvil Kimber, and Burton John in that order. There are five girls---Thelma Louise, Ora Fern, Ada Bernice, Ina June, and Elzina. In the order of their birth they are---Wendell, myself, Thelma, Calvin, Kimber, Fern, Ada, June, ElZina and Burton.

My father was born in Salt Lake City, Utah 23 June 1874, the son of Andrew and Anne Craig. My father and his brothers added the extra ‘N’ to their surname to give it the English spelling instead of the Scottish spelling. During his boyhood his father moved from Salt Lake City to Snowville, Box Elder, Utah and then to Elba, Cassia, Idaho, where my Father lived most of his boyhood days. My father was very independent as a boy, left home at an early age, and earned his own way. It will be interesting to note that grand-father worked in the coalmines in Scotland before immigrating to America in 1869. He then worked as a stonemason on the Salt Lake Temple for a period of eleven years and made his way into northern Utah and southern Idaho where he made his living by farming. Grandmother Glen was a weaver before her marriage, 31 December 1861, in Scotland.

My mother was born 7 January 1880 at Knowles, Tooele, Utah, (they lived on Settlement Creek in Tooele County, Utah) the daughter of Cyrus Ammon and Maria Louisa Pickett Tolman. Mother moved to Oakley, Cassia, Idaho, about 1882, and lived there until she was married, 2 March 1900. I know very little of the history of my grandmother except she taught school. I know nothing about my Grandfather Tolman.

My parents lived at Sublett in rough central Idaho where I started life. It was rather bleak and cold there, although it did not make much of an impression on my young mind. Dad heard of a nice place, so he thought, at Emmett, Idaho, near Boise. In 1906, we moved there. I was beginning to remember a few things then. Emmett being a fruit country, I can remember going into the little orchard and getting peaches and peeling them and like most small boys I would get the juice on my clothes, much to the dismay of my mother who had the task of keeping small boys clean. Dad did not like that country because of the poor soil and all the pesky mosquitoes which were large enough to carry away a small boy. During the fall of 1907, he came to southern Idaho and looked at the tract of land on which we now live and decided to move back to good old southern Idaho. While he was here, he got a potato that was large enough to last the family four days. In the spring of 1908 my father, mother, my older bother, and myself ‘pulled stakes’ and landed on the farm one mile north , one-half mile east, and one-quarter mile north of Kimberly, Twin Falls, Idaho, where I lived until I was twenty-five years of age.

In the early days of the tract, the country looked anything but promising. There was sagebrush everywhere one looked. The brush was very large, some of it standing three to four feet in height. The sagebrush had to be grubbed by using a large pair of blades which cut a few inches under the ground. The brush was then raked into rows, piled, and burned. There was lots of work to be done, but I was too small to enter therein, although I can remember the burning and clearing of the land. The land being new and rough caused an immense amount of work to get the water upon the land, but it was worth the effort once the deed was accomplished and the land forced to yield of its treasure. The first two years we were in Kimberly the jackrabbits ate nearly everything that looked green. They took nearly all the crop and there was not much left to pay bills and live on. By 1910, more people came to live nearby, so the rabbits were forced to retreat and by a lot of hard work, we were able to survive. I have seen the country grow and today (1961) it does not look anything like it did fifty years ago. One looking at the place now could not imagine what it was

like then. The old home place is still in my mother’s possession and will always be home to me. The old house where I grew up has been replaced by a newer one, but the old one still has memories of it in my mind. It means one never forgets his childhood days; they are the best time of his life.

For religious training, we attended a branch of the Marion Ward of the Cassia Stake, later organized into the Kimberly Ward, May 1908. We shared a building with other churches until our building was completed in 1909. This building was used until it was out grown and a new building was erected in 1950 and 1951. Mud in the spring of the year and the hard work in the summer limited our attendance at church meetings. However, as I grew older we would rather walk the two miles to church than get the horses in and ride to church. I have walked the two miles many times. I think that was good for us as it made us use our legs which made them strong. Children nowadays do too much riding in the car to keep themselves strong and healthy like we used to be.

Jerald Wesley and Wendell Ammon Glenn Abt. 1916

I was baptized during my eighth year, 31 August 1912, in a canal which ran through Brother Moroni Morgan’s place—the place where nearly all baptisms took place—by Elder Joseph H.

Sudweeks and was confirmed the next day, September 1, 1912, by Elder Samuel F. Strong. I was active in the priesthood quorums as I became of age. I was secretary of the Deacons and Teachers Quorum. There was not the emphasis placed on the activity of the youth then as there is now. We did not get to do the work that the young boys do now. The Church always progresses so the youth are now kept active. During the year of 1929, I was sustained as president of the Elders quorum.

In the year of 1916, the sugar company wanted to plant sugar beets. My father contracted for 65 acres of them. We had a crew of Japanese people to thin and take care of them. They did a good job of it. However, as the fall progresses the weather became colder and colder. Late in the season, the ground began to freeze. The leader of the crew told my father to keep pulling them—we pulled the beets with horses then and topped them by hand—and they would keep topping them to get them on top of the ground. The idea sounded very good to my father. He did that and after they were on top of the ground and the ground was frozen, they hauled them to the ‘beet dump’. If they had not done this, they would have had some frozen in the ground as other farmers did. My father said that he would get us an automobile if he got all the beets out. To keep his word he got one the next spring. It is quite amusing to me now to look back and watch father try to drive the car. He had never tried to operate a machine like that before. He had a hard time of it. The salesman would drive and show Dad how it should be done, but Dad just couldn't do what he was supposed to do. However, in a few days, it all came to him and he was an old hand at driving.

The auto helped us to get to church more regularly. I was enabled to attend M.I.A. meetings, heretofore denied. I was secretary of M.I.A. at the age of 16. The car permitted us to attend Stake Conference in

Oakley, Idaho, the headquarters of the Cassia Stake during the summer of 1912. The main thing I remember about the conference was that I was asked to pump the pipe organ for the services. This organ had to be pumped by hand, as there was no other power there. There was a long handle on the side of the organ which I had to pull up and down to build the necessary air pressure to make the pipes play. It was thrilling to be so close and watch the organist play. To play the organ has always been one of my desires of life.

One night just before Christmas, the fall of 1917, Wendell and I were at a dance and as he was at the right age to be taking girls home, he and a friend took their girls home and left me with the car thinking it would be safe. But, to their surprise when they returned the car was gone and so was I. I waited for an hour for them to come. I thought an hour was long enough for anyone to travel a couple of miles and get back. At one o’clock, I took the car and went home. The roads were slick with mud, as it had been raining for several days and there were no paved roads as there is now. But, that made no difference to me. I was not afraid of the mud for it was there first. I drove slow and easy and kept to the middle of the road so as not to slip off into the ditch along the side of the road. There were not many cars on the road then, as I did not meet a single one on the way home. I arrived home safely and went to bed. Was Wendell mad at me when he had to walk the two miles home! Father took my side and told Wendell he did not blame me as he would have done the same thing had he been in my place. I was not left with the car alone anymore because I could not be trusted to stay put.

Hans Peter Jensen (1844-1931) and Karen Marie Nielsen (1845-1926) histories, Part 12: Patriarchal Blessings and Cemetery Map

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Part 7

Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11

Note from Marcelaine: I decided not to share the patriarchal blessings here due to the sacred and personal nature of patriarchal blessings. If you would like to read them, leave me an email address where I can send those pages to you, or you may be able to order a copy on lds.org under Sign In/Tools (people who are not members can still request ancestors' blessings). Here I will share just the first sentences that have useful information for genealogy.

Patriarchal Blessings

We have copies of Patriarchal Blessings for both Hans Peter and Karen Marie. In the case of Karen Marie, we have what is assumed to be on original paper, written on both sides in faint ink and a beautiful script, but with several errors of fact. These apparent errors have been retained in the transcription. Punctuation and other matters of style and grammar have been preserved as in the original. It is left to the reader to discern where these differences are and to understand the true meaning. Later transcriptions of both blessings, in the same handwriting, are also available. The later transcriptions also contain apparent discrepancies. For example, the date in the somewhat hard-to-read original, appears to be 1899, not 1879, as in the later copy. The 1899 date is probably more consistent with other dates in his life. The name of Karen Marie in the original is spelled Carn Mary. In the second transcription, someone has corrected the name to Karen Marie. The spelling of her birthplace is also different from other records that we have. We assume that the blessing, still in the hands of her descendants, was simply misspelled by the clerk.

Hans Peter

A Patriarchal Blessing of Hans Peter Jensen, son of Jens Petersen and Karen Hansen, given on Jan. 10, 1898. Born at Hjorring, Denmark, on 20 June, 1844. Blessing by Patriarch Chas D. Evans.

Spanish Fork City Dec 15, 1899

Karen Marie

A Patriarchal Blessing given Dec 15, 1879, by Zebedee Coltrin upon the head of Carn Mary Neilsen Jensen, daughter of Neils Peterson and Maren Anderson. Born Jan. 6, 1845, Faslu Denmark.

Pictures of their headstone can be seen on Find a Grave here.

And this is the end of this history!

Hans Peter Jensen (1844-1931) and Karen Marie Nielsen (1845-1926) histories, Part 11: Thoughts By a Grandson, Morris/Maurice J. Bissell

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Hans Peter Jensen and Karen Marie Nielsen
By a grandson, Morris J. Bissell
Feb. 9, 1966

When I was a youngster, I lived with Grandpa and Grandma a lot during the summer and some times during the winter; even after I started school, I spent a lot of my vacations with them.

They were an honest, law abiding, and very religious couple. As you all know by now, Grandpa went back to Denmark on two missions for the Church after he had come to this country. Grandpa wanted to take me with him on one of his missions, but Mother was afraid that I would have gotten homesick and caused Grandpa a lot of trouble--which I may have done (missionary calls were quite different in that day). I do not know why Mother objected so much; she always claimed that I was the ugliest baby that was ever born. She could have had Grandpa drop me over the side of the ship.

I look back on it today and wish I could have gone with Grandpa so that I could have gotten acquainted with some of our relatives and learned the Danish language as that was all that was ever spoken when the Jensen family were together. I got so I could understand the Danish language quite well but never could speak it.

Looking back, I wonder if Grandpa and Grandma ate to live or lived to eat. We had morning prayer and an early breakfast (and I mean early), then about ten o'clock, Grandma brought another big lunch out to the field, then at the end of the day, we had supper, another big meal. Before bed and after all the evening chores were done, we had another bowl of bread and milk. There was always a large coffee pot setting on the stove and a large bowl of lump sugar on the table so that any time of the day or night someone dropped in, they had to have coffee. (Us young ones got barley coffee that Grandma made out of roasted barley).

Then, at bed time, we all knelt down and had evening prayer, and Grandpa read to us out of one of the church books, mostly the Bible. Then Grandpa or one of the boys always went out to the corrals and barn to see that the livestock were all right and had plenty of food for the night. The Danish people took great pride in their livestock, and took great care with them. During the summer months when the weather was good, Grandma did all the milking--Grandma claimed the boys were too careless about it—and took care of the poultry. They raised an awful lot of chickens, ducks, and turkeys as well.

Grandpa did all the business for the family when he was home, but when gone, Grandma and the oldest boys stepped in. Grandpa was a very honest and upright man; his word was as good as his bond. He did not accumulate a whole lot of money, but he did acquire an awful lot of friends. I do not think he had an enemy in the world.

I think back and wonder how Grandma accomplished as much as she did. I do not know how she got through all her work and had time to take care of her church duties and do all the shopping. She always had a large amount of washing, ironing, and mending to do. She did not have an electric washer and iron in those days; it was all done by hand. And Grandma made all the bedding too. There were heavy quilts and bed ticks to make and stuff with feathers (which Grandma had saved when cleaning poultry).

On certain days of the week, Grandma traded her butter (which was always in great demand) and eggs to the store for groceries and staples. Everyone liked Grandma’s butter as she was very clean. I think Grandma was one of the cleanest persons that ever lived on this earth. I know that if you did not clean your shoes when you came in from outside, winter or summer, you were sure told about it. And Grandma liked to cook and have people eat at her table. Twice a year on Grandpa's and Grandma's birthdays, all the relations and friends would gather at the family farm and celebrate and visit and eat. If I had not seen it, I don't think I would have believed it, to see so much food on a table at one time. And Grandma was always running here and there to see that everyone got all they could eat.

I do not believe that I ever saw or heard of Grandma loosing [sic] her temper or getting out of patience with anyone. She had a good disposition and when Grandpa was away on his missions she was always cheerful and never showed her loneliness; she always believed that everything would turn out well in the end. One year the grasshoppers took most of the crops so the boys caught and sold grasshoppers (for bounty) at fifty cents a bushel. But Grandma still set a good table.

While I was living with Grandpa and Grandma, they used to get a lot of mail and papers from Denmark, but as I could not read or understand the language very well, I do not know much about their relatives in the old country. There used to be an elderly lady who came to visit with Grandma and Grandma [sic]. They called her Auntie but I never did find out what relation (if any) she was to the family. But I wish we had some of those letters and papers from Denmark now; it would make genealogy so much easier.

Grandpa was a very stern man and when he spoke everyone paid attention. He did not abuse anyone, but if you made a mistake, he did not lose his temper but would give you a talking to that you remembered. He was very religious and I know that he would be proud of a lot of his grandchildren if he were alive today, because of the interest they have taken in the church. And he has same grandchildren that he not be too proud of, although Grandpa never did condemn any one if they got in trouble or need but would do all he could to help.

Grandma was a very kind person; she thought a lot of all children. If any child suffered injury, no matter how slight, she always figured that a hug and a kiss and a piece of candy (which she always had) would always heal it.

Grandpa and Grandma raised a wonderful family and I can truthfully say that I am proud to be one of their offspring; any one else related should be proud as well. I am only sorry that all the relation could not have known them like I did. Words cannot express my feelings toward them.

I hope the younger generation will keep the name of Jensen alive by having a get together every year. And I want to wish them all the luck in the world and hope they keep after the laggards in the family so that they will take an interest so the remembrance of two most wonderful people, Grandma and Grandma [sic] Jensen, will be kept alive.

One of the Family

Maurice (Mully) Bissell

>>Part 12