Alfred Lorenzo and Julia Elzina Hansen Hall

I was trying to find some material for a caller from Minnesota who thought I might have some details on Nils Hansen. He was right, I found a bunch of stuff HV had collected and written up.

Well, in the search I also ran across some good stuff on Julia Elzina Hansen (Nils Hansen's and Marilla Terry's youngest daughter) who happened to marry our great grandfather Alfred Lorenzo Hall. So here are some cool pictures and some random details about these fine folks.
First, some pictures of them as young people.














































Alf and Julia (according to some of HV's writings, she was nicknamed "dude" ...) had ten children, HV being ninth. Here are some pics of the growing family. That's HV on the ground at right (in the bottom picture) about 7 years old. The nice looking young man seated just to the left of Alf is Roy, the second oldest, who would die of typhoid fever on his mission in the Southern States about a year and a half after this picture was taken. The oldest, a boy named after his father, died in infancy/childhood (about age 3).





























I thought it was interesting that Alf and Julia deeded some of their property in Hurricane to Luetta after her marriage to Vern. I do not know the current disposition of that property, but I assume it was disposed of long ago. My understanding was that Vern turned over pretty much all of his holdings in Southern Utah to brothers and their families.


These two were fine looking people, and I may be wrong about this, but I think that what I have usually thought of as the "Hall" look, based on these photos, may be more the "Hansen/Terry" look. And not many of us can sport a cookie-duster like this one.



















I scanned two letters, one from Alf and one from Julia, to Vern and Luetta written in 1929, but I don't think they are going to work out in this blog (so you can read them). I will upload the JPGs to the My Family site.

It will be fun (I think, if they don't box my ears) to meet these ancestors one day. They would have some interesting tales to tell I'm sure.

McAllister Reunion 2009

Friday night we had a vast and varied banquet (well, Chuckarama has variety) and then several of us went to the Jordan River temple. It was pleasant and we got to meet some distant cousins. Would you believe we have a third cousin who is named Teuila Tana (and if I was a betting man, I'd have bet she was Tongan - but only her husband is).

Saturday morning about 100 McAllister cousins got together in a chapel in Sandy for the main event. There were presentations on JDT McAllister (not our direct ancestor) and Richard Wesley McAllister (he is ours) plus some interesting insights into some of the problems with extending the line backward (so far we are unsure of JDT and Richard Wesley's grandfather and there are three different camps/opinions. Interestingly enough, although this grandfather would have been born around 1700, he was born in the States. One theory actually goes back another two generations to get to an indentured servant who came from Scotland in the early 1600's. But where in Scotland, if that line is correct, is debatable. And one other theory has the name Collister rather than McAllister.

I gave the presentation on Richard Wesley (notice how our parents avoided naming any of their children for ancestors) and it was well received; likely because the JDT presenter had waaaay too much and simply had it all on the slides, which he read (zzzzz). JDT is Richard Wesley's younger brother and the family member who first joined the church in October 1844. He converted his brother and family and mother and sister in Philadelphia in 1860 (they were all baptized on January 1, 1861 -- nice New Year's change). JDT was then on his second mission with Orson Pratt as his companion, headed to England. Richard Wesley, who had been a lay preacher in the Methodist Church and a staunch Abe Lincoln supporter, had just been sanctioned and forbidden to preach any more for teaching that unbaptized children were not damned (and apparently some other "heresies" that sounded a lot like Mormon doctrine). They sold all their goods and hopped a train for St. Louis, steamboat up the river and wagon over to Florence, Nebraska where they took off in two separate wagon companies and arrived in SLC later that summer. The father and oldest brother of the family had died in 1858.

JDT is actually quite interesting church-wise, having served as Temple President of both the St. George and Manti temples at different times. Of course all know the story of Wilford Woodruff grabbing JDT and them doing the work for the founding fathers and other eminent men (and women, with help from some). Richard had two wives and JDT had 10 (I think) so there are far more JDT descendants. But we had about 25 % of the crowd at this reunion. I also heard something that was new to me, that JDT and Richard Wesley were pretty good size, in the 6 foot to 6 foot 3 range.

In the business meeting (poorly planned for after lunch so most of the crowd slipped out), I was elected President of the organization, which I had dreaded but figured on. We did get a good President-elect to take over from me though. He is about 30. We kept the Secretary-Treasurer. So now I am officially what I have been for the last year unofficially. We'll see if that changes anything. I am suspicious that a number of the older attendees will not make it to the next reunion.

I have pretty much glossed over the whole thing, but if you want to know more, call me or email me and I'll fill in any details you ask about. I also have files of family stories and pictures from the Richard Wesley side that I can get to you. I sent some successfully to Wes tonight, but the other (better) set of files I think is going to have to be burned onto a CD. Even compressed it is about half a Gig.