Family is More Than Brothers and Sisters

 I love my brothers and sisters, but when I think of family, it is much more.  It was indeed a blessing to grow up in a small community  filled with extended family.  Aunts and uncles and cousins are an important part of my family.  Cousins were playmates and the adults in the family were important role models for me.

 

 I especially loved the times that we would gather as extended family at special times.  There were Thanksgiving dinners and trips to the mountains when we divided up and went with our peers to play and to catch up with those who had moved away.  I tired of the parade down main street each ear, but I never tired of renewing relationships with those who gathered.

It saddens me that our families have scattered and that our relationships have suffered.  Seeing the photographs of those dear to me help me remember how much extended family means to me.

My Early Years

This is the time that our family still lived in Manassa. We lived in a house that was across the street from the McKenzie family. I was about 5 years old when we moved from the house where the Johnsons live. Helen and I were the same age. We enjoyed each other, but our mothers didn't let us have much time together. That is were we lived when I started school.

My first grade teacher was Edna Potts. She was my dad's cousin. I don't remember a lot about that year, but some of my classmates were: Helen McKenzie; Betty Jean Johnson (DeGolyer), my cousin; Coral Bagwell (Sowards); Dorothy Weston; Coleen Sowards; ViDella McKinney (Jack); and Shirley Jackson (Lippincott).

My second grade teacher was Lois Jackson and my third grade teacher was Maxine Jensen. Our school building was the same as my children went to school in. It hadn't changed from the time I was there until it was destroyed.

We moved to the house between Romeo and Antonito when I was in the fourth grade. That is the home that I look at as my old home. That is the time that I remember the best.

New Beginnings

I was born on the 24th of October 1928 in Antonito, Conejos County, Colorado, to James Edward Bingham and Cora Emily Dunn.

My parents were married in Manassa, at the home of my grandparents, Simeon Harmon Dunn and Anna Buletta Jensen. My dads parents had died when he was young, so grandma and grandpa Dunn were our only living grandparents.

I was born in Antonito, because my dad was working in a grocery store there. He was a meat cutter. We only lived there a short time and next we moved to Manassa, Colorado.

My brothers and sisters are: Keith Edward, he was born in Manassa, at the home of my grandparents, Sim and Annie Dunn. He was older than me. Leon, is my brother just younger than me. Leon and I were the only ones who were born in a home other than my grandparents. Leon was born in a house on the northwest side of Manassa. Keith, (Barbara, LaRue and Doris Faye, my sisters), were born at the home of our grandparents.

My memories of my youngest years are vague. The first that I remember was when we lived in Saguache, Colorado. My dad worked on a farm there. Keith and I were playing in a two wheeled trailer . We would go to the back and it would go to the ground , and then we'd go to the front and it would go to the ground. That seemed to be a lot of fun, until we fell our. I cut my head and Keith broke his arm. I still have a bald spot on my head from that sore.

We moved from Saguache to a home in the northeast side of Manassa. Eda and Rex Johnson own that home now. Keith and I were playing under the front porch of that home and Keith started a fire. It started the porch on fire. Mom was working behind the house and she came and saw the fire and put it our.

We moved from that house in the southwest corner of Manassa. We were across the street from Arch and Lillie McKenzie. Their daughter Helen was my age and we were good friends. We wanted to play together a lot, but our mothers wouldn't let us play very often. We lived there until I was eight years old. Helen is Gloria's, (my daughter-in-law), mother.

While we lived there, my dad's aunt Mattie, died. (She had helped to raise my dad, after his parents died). Mom and Dad went to California to the funeral and later we drove to California when they settled her estate. That time all of us went. Aunt Doris went with us, too. Doris Faye wasn't born yet. LaRue was less than a year old. That was a fun trip. Aunt Ethel and Aunt Hazel lived there and we spent time with each of them. While we were there we went to the beach and on the way back to Ethel's home there was a sign, "airplane rides $2", so Keith and Leon and Aunt Doris and Aunt Hazel and Mom and Dad and I went for a plane ride in a small plane. That was at a time that I had never seen an airplane on the ground and few times in the air.

On the way home we went to Mesa Arizona, to the temple and were sealed as a family for time and eternity. That was a great blessing in my life.

Georgia Ann Jack

(Taken from the writings of Garth N. Jones Dean/Professor Emeritus, College of Business and Public Policy, University of Alaska, Anchorage)

Doris Faye Bingham—Father, James Edward Bingham—Grandmother, Ada Zoa Jack—Great Grandmother, Georgia Ann Horton

Born on the 30th of May 1841, Georgia Ann Horton, one of six sisters of part Cherokee blood, remembers that just before the Civil War, several denominations “came into the county: Methodists, Campbellites, Hard Shells…. They were very strenuous in their preaching”.

The war had taken its toll on the South, not to exclude the small hollow community of Groveoak, Alabama. Georgia Ann, now 35 years of age, and her husband James Hazlette Jack were living near extended family, in the tight knit community. In the fall of 1876, a Mormon Elder by the name of James T. Lisonbee came to their little settlement preaching the restoration of the gospel.

On November 5th, 1876, Georgia Ann attended a meeting held by Elder Lisonbee at the Pine Grove School House, about three miles from Groveoak. She opened her home for a second preaching service the very next day at “early candle lighting”. The house was filled to capacity with people sitting and standing on the front porch. She responded promptly and enthusiastically to his message. She readily accepted the gospel, made every effort to share the truth she had found and later wrote: “I don’t know how anyone with my sense could fail to see the light”

When aggressive preachers and individuals sought to drive Elder Lisonbee from the area, Georgia Ann was not intimidated. Throughout November and December, she opened door after door for Elder Lisonbee to deliver his gospel message. As opposition increased, she became bolder and bolder, finally becoming alienated from her husband’s family as well as several of her own family. Georgia Ann was a person of conviction. She had seen the light and her soul burned with the Truth.

Georgia Ann was instrumental in introducing the gospel to many of her family, friends and neighbors. Scores were baptized and would soon gather to “Zion”. Only their Zion would be Manassa Colorado: A unique settlement of southern saints.

Compiled by E.J. Dobbins