HMC Family Association

LOOKING FOR A VOLUNTEER TO BE OUR REGISTRAR

Sylvia Fiscus, who has been our registrar for more than a decade, is going to retire from her position after she updates the mailing list with the returns from this year’s postcard mailing. I will be serving as an interim registrar until the new person takes over.  We thank Sylvia for many years of dedicated service.

The duties of the Registrar involve maintaining the postal and email address lists for family members. The information is gathered from an email account specific to the registrar, from a signup list at the Reunion in the park, and from the chat room of the Reunion ZOOM. Out-of-date mailing addresses are gathered from any postcards that are returned undeliverable.

The Registrar works with a mailing service to mail out the Reunion notice postcards each year. The HMC president composes the message.  The Registrar also forwards email messages from the President to the list of members.

The Registrar position can be accomplished from anywhere in the world.  Sylvia is in Colorado and worked with a mailing service in her town. 

This position is straightforward but it holds our family organization together. You just need to be familiar with emailing and spread sheets.  Contact me if you have any questions or would like to volunteer. 

OUR WEBSITE – HMCFAMILY.ORG

The HMCFamily.org website has a new feature.  The “Family History: the Basics” includes articles on things in our history that are often assumed everyone knows. With being online, we are welcoming many new family who have not grown up with the local lore. For them, for our young members, and for those of us who have always wondered about some things that were not explained, there are articles on such basics as “What was  the Oregon Trail?”, “Were We the First Wagon Train?”, and “What is a Donation Land Claim?”.  Barbara, who produces our website, wants to know what else you want to know. Send her your questions or questions you think may be helpful to others.  If you know the answers, please send them also.

Also, don’t forget to send Barbara pictures and stories of any items you may have for the VIRTUAL MUSEUM; and your ideas and suggestions for anything to do with our family in “THE PARKING LOT.”

OUR NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE

Stephanie Craig is a Cooper descendant, lives near her parents on a Cooper Donation Land Claim, is an enrolled member and the Archivist of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and is our HMC Archivist, who with Brian Hewitt is documenting our history.  Her presentation at the Reunion is only a bit of what we will be able to learn about the cultures of the land we settled on. We are so happy that she has joined the HMC Council.

THE NEW MARKER

Finally, I want to express our gratitude to Elaine Warmington Wagner for her research and networking that brought about the new marker at the Wheatland Ferry, that will be dedicated at the Reunion. The marker will bring more awareness to the general public of the contributions our family made to the community and the state.

See you at the Reunion!

Merrilee 

Just a few notes to bring us up-to date.

Dear Family,

I’m in Ohio attending a Montessori training for teachers of adolescents this summer. While researching for a project on the U.S. Western Migration, I opened up the book Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lilian Schlissel.  The purpose of the research was to find information we could use to act out roles of people who migrated to the West.  We were practicing how if our students imagine themselves as people in the history they are studying, they will not only learn the history better but will gain a sense of themselves in the progression of mankind.

Here is a passage I came across:

Marriages on the frontier were often made before a girl was half through her adolescent years, and some diaries record a casualness in the manner in which such decisions were reached.  Mrs. John Kirkwood recounts that her brother Jasper decided to get married Christmas Day but was unable to find a minister or justice of the peace to marry him:

“The night before Xmas, John Kirkwood … the path finder stayed at our house overnight.  I had met him before and when he heard the discussion about my brother’s Jasper’s wedding, he suggested that he and I also get married. I was nearly fifteen years old and I thought it was high time that I got married so I consented.  Jack Kirkwood volunteered to go to Bethel and get Rev. Glenn Burnett … He came back with Elder Burnett early in the afternoon.  Shortly after he arrived, my brother Jasper and his girl, Mary Ring, who had just come from Missouri, stood up and were married.  Immediately after the ceremony had been performed, Jack and I stepped out and Elder Burnett married us.  No one knew that we were going to be married and they all were very much surprised.  I remember that we had a mighty fine wedding dinner and a big celebration.  One of the things I remembered best about the wedding dinner was a pie my mother had made from dried tomatoes.  You need not turn your nose up at it either for it was mighty good.”

Marriages arose out of a sense of mutual congeniality and the conviction that a man and woman together were necessary to do the work of living on the frontier.  Both young men and young women were free to follow their inclinations, and weddings were made expeditiously.  The young couple was expected to set off on their own, sometimes with a ‘chivaree’ or communal celebration, and sometimes with only a tomato pie.

Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey, Lillian Schlissel, Schocken Books NY c.1982 pg. 45

My first thought was, “I know these people!”  Of course, these were the memories of Charlotte Matheny Kirkwood.  That certainly made it easier for me to role play and relate to the history we were studying and my connection to Charlotte’s family also brought my colleagues a little closer to it.  Even without a personal connection, though, this passage offers a chance for adolescents to more clearly examine their own present day identities and responsibilities by reflecting on the past.  Connecting with our past improves our future.

Does anybody have the recipe for dried tomato pie?!

I’m looking forward to seeing you all at the Reunion when I get back to Oregon.

Thank you to all who helped out at last year’s anniversary celebration.  This year the council has made one change and we have a treat for the kids:

THE COUNTRY STORE

This year instead of the raffle, the Family Council has decided to have a good, old-fashioned, country store.  Preserves or fresh bounty from your garden, hand crafts, plants and seeds, books, and items that would have been raffled off will be sold in the Country Store all during the Reunion in the interest of allowing more time for visiting.  So bring your “egg money” to spend on treats and treasures.  And bring your items to donate to the store.  If you were the lucky winner of one of the many books in the raffle last year and want a new volume to grace your coffee table, consider donating back last years’ copy and buying a new one at the store. Or do you have books, cd’s, or dvd’s that might be of interest to family members that you’d like to find a good home for while helping out the Family Association?

OUR SOUTH OF THE BORDER ROOTS

Arnie Young’s family, William S. Cooper descendants, will be bringing a piñata for the kids in recognition of Jasper Matheny’s life on the plantation in Mexico.

See you there,

Barbara