Generation Three: Fruitful Branches

George Peter Garff, 17 Jun 1870 to 21 Feb 1928, was born in South Jordan (now Riverton), Salt Lake County, Utah. Both parents being Danish emigrants we must imagine the home he grew up in as one like others of that time  in Denmark, except... except that this was a pioneer home in Utah.

The first family home, described by Wayne B. Garff, a son of George, was a one-room home using logs to complete the room dug back into a low hill. It was furnished with a bed, some chairs and a table.  This home had a stove and improvements to the homestead brought fresh cold water from a spring that had been had been found on the 137 acres Peter had acquired. George and his next two siblings were born here.

Peter, George's father had completed Bible studies before leaving Denmark. Antomina, his mother, had spent her early childhood, as Peter had, in a successful farm. Piety and industry can be presumed. Both parents had a positive sense of their abilities and place in their community. Tidy homes being the reflection of early upbringing we might wonder how a home dug from a hill effected this young family, but the reports of their children and grandchildren let us know that this and every successive home was maintained in a manner that established pride and confidence in the children. The family account notes that in spite of the hardships of pioneering life, Peter and Antomina Garff were refined, well-mannered folk, always neat and clean.

When George was about seven years old his father was called to go on a mission in South Dakota and Minnesota. Being the eldest George stepped up to the expectations placed on him. We will see over and over in this family how expectations were always up, and it seems were always met. His father had planted one of the first orchards in the Riverton area, and later had successful farms in Draper.  The entire family contributed to this successful stewardship and industry, and George learned the skills that would be the seed of his own success later.

George had outstanding athletic abilities as he grew up and was active in ball and track sports. He attended the University of Utah and Utah State Agricultural College.  After his studies he became a teacher.

George Peter Garff married Tryphena Mayer Brimhall on December 19, 1895 in the LDS Salt Lake Temple. They served a teaching mission in the Hawaii islands where their first child, Rachel Minnie was born. He wrote later that a very important event while in the islands was attending a conference in the leper colony on Molokai where he found the ability to speak in the language in tongues "through fasting and prayer." He would have other significant spiritual experiences during his life, as during an emergency while lumbering above Wallsburg when he was shot by a falling revolver. These stories are learned from How Beautiful Upon the  Mountains, A Centennial History of Wasatch County  compiled by William James Mortimer and published by Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

When they had returned to Utah they heard of a teaching position in Wallsburg. A year later George accepted the principal position and a family home was built in that community. George and Tryphena, now with two girls after Grace Thelma's birth in Draper, were active in church and municipal activities. George served as postmaster and was ordained Bishop for the Wallsburg Ward. Five children would be born there: Mary, George Lynn, Mark Brimhall, Major Peter and Ina Tryphena.

George left the educational field and entered the business and farming fields. His church activity continued. Always musically gifted, he encouraged neighbors and youth in music, drama and also in sports. He organized celebrations for Pioneer and Independence day.

In 1911 the family moved to Lehi, Utah County where George continued in mercantile businesses. The last of his children were born here: Wayne Brimhall and Joseph Elmo. In 1928 George succumbed to a tumor- possibly sarcoma- in Salt Lake City. Tryphena followed in 1961 and they are buried at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park.

A Note on My Research

When we are introduced to the pedigree sheet, many of us refer to it as the family tree, perhaps because of its form: one becomes two, two become four, etc. You see that I have used those lines, the antecedents as the roots of the tree, and the common ancestors as the trunk of the tree from which we branch out.

My writing comes more from my family group sheets in which I tried to keep records of where I found the information I use. My research has been piece work and has time between searches. The benefit for me is that I stumble upon a new source and learn new information, however out of sequence it might be. And I return to sources- books, entries, films- that have been rich in  information before.

I have just for a week or so been reading The Mormon Trail, Yesterday and Today, by William E Hill. Published in 1996 by the Utah State University Press [ISBN 0-87421-202-2] it has provided me with some background on the immigration routes used into the west by many groups, with maps, guidebooks and diaries as well as photographic depictions of pioneering and modern points along the way. The author also points me toward other writing I had not considered or had not known existed before.

Researching in another project recently led me to the  BYU, Religious Education site online [www.rsc.byu.edu] which includes such titles as "Icelandic Conversion and Emigration: A Sesquicentennial Sketch" which gave me some insight to Gudmund Gudmundsen's journey to Utah.

My point in these few paragraphs is that I have not done scholarly study and research in my family's history; rather it has been personal, for love of the family and the story and is not yet complete. And that delights me no end! I invite you to to make such a journey for yourself.

Perhaps we will cross paths, as we have seen happen here:
Evan Stephens, who appears frequently in the LDS Hymnal, was in one of the down-and-back wagon trains that Peter Garff manned. Chapter 5 in the book Peter Niels Garff begins, "Peter did not realize that the twelve-year-old boy in the Stephens family would become the eminent Evan Stephens..." Letters From Home commented in this blog about a song that is included in the Garff book on pages 28 and 29 called Teamsters Chorus and is dedicated "to the teamster Peter Garff who drove the Welsh Ox Team". Letters From Home is a descendant of Peter, with whose family I will begin the next generation.

Our Roots: The Remaining Son

Isaac Gudmundsen has his birth place variously reported as Lehi, Salt Lake, Camp Floyd or Fairfield. It occurred on March 3, 1861. He was one of the sons whose leisure time led to the discovery of a cache of money which enabled the family to return to Utah. He grew to manhood in Lehi, Utah County, where he followed his father in metalwork and jewelry. With his brother and father he may well have had a long successful livelihood but his interests led him to branch out into other business options. He took up with the business communities in the early settling of the Snake River area of Idaho, first at Iona and then Burley. He managed the Iona Mercantile Institution, associated with the Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution in Utah, which in Idaho grew to include multiple branches. He was also active in LDS assignments in these communities, and served as postmaster in Iona. He relocated with his family to Burley in 1908.

There in Burley his family became well established and contributed to the economic growth as well as the social and municipal activities there. Several of his family are mentioned in the book History of Idaho, The Gem of the Mountains by James Hawley, published 1920. Isaac is also noted in the LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, vol 2, p 50.

Married in Iona on August 16, 1883 to the Fanny Ann Mulliner, a daughter of Samuel Mulliner and Mary Ann Richardson, they raised a large family, making them aware from childhood the place their grandfathers held in the building up of Zion, Gudmund as missionary to Iceland and Samuel as one of the first missionaries to Scotland.

Among their nine children, Isaac and Fanny counted businessmen, dentists, a state congressman and several poets. Their grandchildren reached out from Idaho to continue the development of the west. Isaac and Fanny ended their lives in Burley and are buried in the Pleasant View Cemetery there. Their children were Ray, Jacob, Irel, Fanny G. Brunt, Scott, Reed, Abraham, 'Gene' G. Kirkham and Hazel G. Lowe.

I must admit I needed to study this man as much as his brothers, having lived so far away from his family and have not known them closely. Isaac's daughter Sylvia, always known as "Gene" in my lifetime, tried to instill in me a sense of my heritage. Gratefully by the time of her passing I had shown some evidence of understanding and appreciation. In this I am now sure that good roots do much to form and nurture a sturdy family tree.

I have given a short biography of the sons of Marie Jacobsen, our pioneer grandmother. These have certainly been brief, hopefully to illustrate that there is much to be found out and admired about these men who in tun were our grandfathers. Search. Study. Learn. These roots have brought forth a family tree unique in the world of many trees: Our family tree. I will continue on to the next generations, showing something of who we are, and what we have done with the world around us.