Week 47 - Hegsted Mission
11-June-2023-Sunday
After church, since we had the second shift, we took a longer way home on highways we have not traveled before. We saw two waterfalls and revisited a coverage bridge, I will put up pictures below. The covered bridge has the best example of no mortar rock work in the state connected to a bridge. The waterfalls were not spectacular, but we were glad we went.
We were on our way home on highway 106 when we saw a covered bridge so we stopped for pictures. It was not a bridge we have seen before nor was it in our book on bridges. After some review, it appears this may be a modern covered bridge, But we took a pictures. I then walked over to a monument in the grass and read it was a tribute to Maisey the Moose. I thought it an odd name until it dawned on me it was really a moose. I returned to the car and Dede who was looking up past the bridge to the farm across the small river announced there was a zebra in the field by the barn. We used the Monocular to get a picture as it was some distance away. It also appeared that there was a bull above it, like one sees in Africa. It made for an interesting trip.
Hard to see, but it is a zebra.We had a great time on our shift. There was a group already there and Dede took them through. I then had a family of 8 and two young men that I took through and Dede ended the day with a couple who wanted to see and hear everything and question every detail. Thus we were busy the full three hours. When we arrived there was a lady sitting on the hill side with a shade chair and she painted a water color of the monument. I thought it was well done.
12-June-2023-Monday
We left for our Monday devotional shortly after 8:15. The Bergers were packing their car as they will leave on Wednesday. This was a downer. Happy for them, but sad for us. We had good meetings. The month of June is packed with tour buses. I think we have two in July and none in August and so it will be closer to leaf season before tours buses come again. We have 4 this week and had 3 last week. I guess it is hard to fill a tour bus when it gets hot.
I spent the morning gluing down rocks, while Dede stayed home and made desserts. The Bergers will eat with us tomorrow night and Dede will invite all the missionaries to come for dessert after dinner. Should be nice. Wednesday we will stay to see if they need help packing, but I think they will be done quickly and leave.
Our time at the site was just fun. Dede had two special woman from the south. Real Southern Bells. They had driven here mainly to visit the Joseph Smith Birthplace and they wanted a very full tour and Dede obliged. I was with them for a bit but had a wonderful family come in whom I took for a tour. Three daughters and a son. I do not know why. I felt like I was not reaching them. They were polite, they listened, but.... Probably should have cut out parts and let them go. It is sometimes hard when you know the family is golden, but nothing seems to be working and the spirit does not seem to be there. I next had the most delightful family of 11 come in. The leaders were Dow and Lynne Wilson with kids and others. They had come to Dartmouth for graduation of a son-in-law. Dow sits on the board of Dartmouth and he is an Area Authority. His credentials are impressive. Lynee has a PhD in theology and is a regular at BYU education week and has a podcast. What a delight. She let me talk way too much, but what she added was wonderful. She knows the world of historians and was fun to have on tour. They arrived at 4 pm and announced they planned to be at the site for 2 hours. That is unusual especially when Lynne and Dow have been here often. But she had fun learning and teaching and was so kind. It was easy to relate with this family and feel the Spirit. I feel bad I could not do the same for the first family. It was so fun going below. The grandkids wanted to ride in the golf cart. When we got close to the walking family, the one riding next to me was saying beep, beep. So I told him to touch his nose and I honked the horn on the cart (has a foot pedal) and he thought that was magical as he did not know were the horn button was located. At the Solomon Mack farm, I told the boys to look for orange salamanders. They found several frogs before finding an orange salamander.
When we got home, Lyndee Face-Timed us. She is such a delight and so fun to talk to. If grandchildren are so wonderful, what must great grandchildren be like? Anyway a shout out to our children and grandchildren all of whom I love for who and what they are and are becoming.
It was also a day to see moths. Yesterday I saw swallow-tail butterflies and a tiny humming bird, but today it was moths, on the ground so I could get pictures.
13-June-2023-Tuesday
Every day has its new joy that makes one wonder about the goodness of God. There was a tour group scheduled with 40 youth in three vans. They put down that they wanted to tour the visitors' center at 9 am. So we left the house at 8:30 to be sure we were ready for them. President Ewer called them about 9:05 and they said they were just leaving the hotel, but planned to stop at the Rauner Library to see the 1830 BoM and would not be at the site until 11 (actually came in about 11:30). We sat around talking for a few minutes when a couple showed up at the site at 9:20. This would have been too early for us to greet them, but we were there and ready since we came early for the tour. The couple were not members and he said as he walked in the door, that they were here for the history and not to be converted. Not to be outdone, President Ewer said, oh that is too bad, with the rain our outdoor pond (font) is full and all ready for you both to be baptized. We had an interesting, but delightful time with them. They both like to read history and soaked in everything about Joseph Smith at the restoration board. They asked questions to clarify, but did not seem to find it strange that God and Jesus along with numerous angels would appear to Joseph Smith. Then when Dede told them about the miracle of the bog freezing, the man said, "that is just beyond belief, I have never seen a bog freeze." So interesting. I would guess he could not comprehend the majesty of seeing God and Angels, but knew it would be a miracle to see a bog freeze.
We then had a delightful family of 9, from Yuma AZ. The father and son (Joseph and Hyrum by name) were both 6'10". The son was about 14. I am curious how tall he might grow. They had a daughter with physical/mental difficulties, but she participated at the restoration board with everyone else. Dede was so good. They also had a 2 (almost 3) year old with the prettiest blond curly hair, but he wanted Dede to know that he was a boy when she showed him her curly hair. I thought the tour would interfere with this family, but the tour group wanted to eat first and we were done as they were going to the monument. I took the family down to the foundations and so it all worked out.
I did not help with the tour (except one brief moment when President was coughing), but finished my family and took through 3 other couples for shorter tours. It all worked so well. The tour group spent a long time at the site. Their leaders had them come to the monument and then scattered to write in their journals. I would send my grandchildren on this tour. We left the Ewers at 3, when someone came in for a tour. I hope they will be okay, it was a long day for them when we left and they just looked so tired.
We will feed the Bergers their final meal tonight. So bitter sweet. I hope they find joy and happiness in their return home visiting family as they cross the nation again, heading south to cross the southern states where family lives. Then they go home, but where is home? They sold their home and have children who want them to live near them, but they have yet to make this decision. They are so brave, to sell everything at their age and go and serve the Lord. I can only wish them God-Speed. Naturally Dede will make dinner and two types of dessert, since both likes a different dessert which she makes. With all that dessert, she has invited the missionaries to come and share that wonderful dessert as part of this last meal. What a wonderful experience that turned out to be. We sat around and just talked for an hour, laughing and sharing experiences. I think this is good for us as a group.
14-June-2023-PDAY
We bade the Bergers farewell around 9:15 this morning and then jumped in the car and headed to Shelburne Museum in Shelburne Vt. I must admit, I was a little skeptical, but I am so glad we went. The only problem is that we did not have enough time there. Arriving at 10:45, we went hard, except for a short lunch break until 4 pm, when the heavens opened and it began pouring rain and due to the lightening we were encouraged by a security person to get on a golf cart and ride back to our car. Since our ticket was good for 2 days, we resolved to return tomorrow morning and spend two more hours there before our afternoon shift. However, luckily I checked the bus schedule and we realized we have a tour bus tomorrow morning and we need to help with that as it is the Ewer's PDAY. Thank the Lord, for His tender mercies to those of us who do not pay attention, but whom He reminds to be sure we follow through. I would not be surprised if we do not return again to Shelburne Museum to finish up.
The Shelburne Museum is unique. It is situated on 40 acres with 39 different buildings and 20+ gardens. It has been called a collection of collections. The founder was a lady born into wealth and so she began collecting things. Many of the items are considered folk art and history. However, the museum also includes a house with impressionist paintings. A number of Monet's and Manet's along with others and a couple from the old Dutch Masters. These came from her mom's collections. She would send her employees around the North East and buy buildings which she would take apart and bring to the site and reassemble. Thus there is a blacksmith's shop (which we did not get to), a saw mill from S. Royalton from the Mill Street area where I spent too much time, a collection of wooden decoys, several old homes restored with time period furniture that represent different classes of people. A railroad depot with a train, a carousel, a circus train, a light house from Lake Champlain and the Ticonderoga which was a side paddle wheel boat with a steam engine, which was brought up from Lake Champlain two miles across dry ground to the Museum. As I mentioned we did not get to all the sites and we were far from feeling we had seen too much of one thing, because every venue was different. Again, I am amazed at how some remarkable rich people have given so much to preserve history. I guess this lady had 3 mansions in New York, but fell in love with VT and thus built her museum in VT and focused for the most part on VT buildings to bring to her museum. She apparently enjoyed both high society in New York and hunting in VT and elsewhere. She even brought a 165 foot covered bridge to the museum. According to the sign a local man saw it being built and approached her and said. Do you know the lady doing this? To which she replied yes. He then said, well tell her it would be cheaper to fill in the pond rather than build a bridge across it. Good point, but it is a great representative of a covered bridge and one of the few that was a double lane covered bridge. At 165 feet it is also a pretty long bridge.
Obviously pictures are in order and Dede and I will need to figure out how to get back there again.
Picture of Dede in front of the light house. Dede loves light houses. Followed by the saw mill, the blade is marked with the arrow. This was like a giant jig saw with a large blade going up and down. They brought the water wheel also, but it was not going.
The picture with an advertisement for the mummy is random, but reminded me of Joseph's mummies that were advertised in a similar manner. The black and white floor is a home with a wooden floor painted to look like marble. The walls are from a house called the stencil house. This was decorated by a person who would come with stencils and basically make your walls look like your had wall paper. Quite the art.
Two more pictures of the stencil house. I am taking a picture of the wall. Note that it is merely a thick plank that did not support structure weight. In the second picture, one sees the post (covered by board for stenciling). This is called a post and board home. Similar to what the birthplace home might have looked like if it had internal walls. The Smith home probably lacked stencils, unless Lucy who did similar work for flooring did it herself. Next a post office. In the next row tools for amputating legs or arms along with a dentist's chair.
The following are medical tools including hand drills for drilling into bone, followed by the covered bridge burr arch. I am always looking for a good example of a block and tackle as these were used to wench the Joseph Smith Monument up Dairy Hill road.
Finally three pictures from the Ticonderoga. I did not take enough pictures of everything we saw aboard.
15-June-2023-Thursday
We started the day with two bus loads of young people (about 65 total). They came in at 9:30 and so we arrived about 9 am and then left after the tour about 11 am as we have the afternoon shift on Thursdays. We had the same tour leaders, but are catching the kids on day 3 instead of day 10 and they were much more lively and the leaders seemed to be doing better, In truth the first tour had a 110 kids and so this tour of only 65 was probably much easier for the two leaders. Such youth give one hope for the future.
We came home and I worked on the review for 90 minutes before we ate and returned to the site. That was good.
Most of the people came in before 2 pm when our shift began, but we still had about 12 people for tours and thus a fun day. We enjoyed two couples who as nonmembers came in telling us they wanted history and not religion. That is always fun. I actually enjoy these as much as members.
Tonight we ran into Lebanon for groceries. Dede is in charge of dessert tomorrow as Gary (director of all historical sites) is in town and we will all meet together. We especially needed ice cream but picked up other things. We have another tour bus first thing tomorrow, so hopefully the morning will pass quickly.
16-June-2023-Friday
The site is very unpredictable. We had our tour group today at 9:30 and they were great. This was a group of senior citizens and they were focused and ready to learn. Their tour guides had prepared them well and I was grateful for the opportunity we had to serve them. We stayed moderately busy the remainder of the day, but I might have expected more on a Friday. Dede had a pair of bikers come in. They looked rather hard, but one was a young men's leader and asked about bringing his youth here and was not aware of camp Joseph, so that was good. I had a great family. They were somewhat nervous because mom had sprained an ankle and was at the rental home. Mom's have such a calming influence on families. We also had a tour of students. Interesting because of the 8 students, four were from out of state and one was LDS. They wanted a pure historical tour and President and Gary took care of them.
Gary (director of operations for historical sites) was able to watch each of us as we taught the first tour and so he did not want to follow other tours. Because we had tours and he led a tour, we have not had time to talk with Gary.
We had a dinner with the missionaries at 6 pm tonight and Gary spoke to us. Gary bore a strong testimony of how sites can change people's lives and explained the large bureaucracy involved in the historical department. This is true of most of the church and I think the church uses this to its advantage in that changes are always well thought out. It is interesting with our site however that the displays were put together in 2005 by the missionary department and do not fit what the message the historical site wants to provide, but in this case it makes it difficult for the church to make a change. The changes to match the site message are probably 5 years or more away. But they will be well planned out and thus be able to stay for another 20 years.
17-June-2023-Saturday
Today was another day of almost continuous rain and at times very hard rain. Dede had said she wanted to go out for lunch, so that sounded good, but then the rain stopped for a few minutes so we decided to find a waterfall and a diner close together. Five minutes into the 35 minute drive to the falls, it was pouring, but when we arrived at the waterfall, it stopped and so we started to hike. Within five minutes the deluge started again and we were soaked. Dede should never allow me to plan anything unless disaster is on the menu. On the positive side, heavy rain means the falls have more water and thus are better to view. Note, when we arrived we knew we had visited this waterfall in the past, before we bought our book on waterfalls, but we still wanted to see it. Obviously pictures are needed of the falls and a nearby bridge across the Connecticut River into New Hampshire. Plus one of the many Swallow Tail Butterflies loving our lilacs
Despite it raining all afternoon, we were fairly steady with guests all afternoon. With people coming to Vermont for vacation from further away, they are forced to travel on wet and rainy days and the site is actually a more sheltered place. The weatherman says it will be dry for 5 days. He said this before and it has rained almost every day. However, they were short bursts of rain and sometimes I think in VT, this is not considered rain and so it is not shown on the forecast. Nor do they acknowledge it with the past 24 hour history. Still, things seems nice and green and the meadow hay is greening up well again. I have been wondering about curling hay. There was a lot of activity three weeks ago but many fields were left uncut. Do some farmers try to get three cuttings so they start early. Are some farmers busy working other jobs and just do not have time? In Idaho, it seems like everyone cuts alfalfa about the same time.
Comments
Post a Comment