American West Heritage Museum-Corn Maize

McKenna Agenda: On Saturday October 27, 2007, Mike's Birthday, we went on our McKenna Agenda adventure to the Corn Maize at the American West Heritage Museum. Here are some pictures from that excursion. If you don't see Dave it is because I could never catch him. Also, the camera we used for the family photo would not allow the photographer to zoom in, so the picture is a little blurry. Dad's hoping to get a better camera for Christmas.

Mike the "Birthday Guy" and his Aumanie.
Walker enjoying the adventure, always a smile and what curly hair.
Jorgen sitting on his some wheels holding Jaxon. Braxton and Eliza checking out this old auto.
Wade shooting a gord from the stationary launch.

Eliza hitching a ride on Poppie's shoulders.
A glove pointing the way through the maize.
Eliza, Oh Eliza she'll find the way out of this maize by herself if she has too.
Cooper taking a break on Poppie's shoulders.
Poppie and Kayla heading for the Maize.

Family Group. The only shot of Dave I got all day.
Super Cole letting Grandma take his picture on top of the hay bales.
Aumanie and Kayla resting after the Maize.
Cooper trying to find the trail through the maize.

Here's Eliza again, just walking and walking. Which way is out!

Jorgen hanging on the sign in this family pic.

Matthew helping Eliza on top of the Hay bale maize. The kids had more fun playing on top of it than finding their way through the Hay bales.

Another shot of Cole on the Big Hay Bales.

Wade in the Tunnel under the hay bales.

Braxton in the tunnel.

Cooper in the Tunnel.



Kayla picking corn.


Wade shooting gords with Cooper and Tyler looking on.

Tyler, Corina and Jaxon with a dried cob of corn.

Kim enjoying a rest after the Maze. This was a fun day. We were all a little tired from walking.

"Memorial Day" Weekend

Mom and I spent friday traveling to several cemetaries, decorating graves. This picture is of Mom by the graves in the Lapoint Utah cemetary.

What follows is a report of our activites and photos of the headstones with slight instructions on how to locate them. I hope it will be helpful.

On our way to the first cemetary we stopped to see the William Russel and Fannie Gagon Todd farm just outside of Roosevelt Utah. Thier grandson Craig and his wife Freeda live there now and raise cattle on the land. Craig was gone getting a mountain pasture ready for cows to arrive that afternoon. I failed to take a picture of the homestead but will try to add one later.

Lapoint Utah Cemetery is found on the north east side of town. If you are driving east on mainstreet, you see a sign for the cemetery just as you are leaving town. The cemeter is small and has only one pine tree among the graves and a few other small pine trees on the west edge. We came here to decorate the graves of Gilbert FrancisMcKenna and Almeda Allred. We also found Almeda's parents David William Allred and Sarah Elizabeth Burns burried just next to them. Because of a problem Almeda has two head stones. She was burried under the one with just her name one. There was no room to burry her next to her husband. Gilbert and Almeda are my fathers parents. We called them Papa & Nana. My older children remember them visiting us in Arizona, but the yonger children have no memories of them. This picture was taken for their 50th wedding aniversary.

We drove past the Tridel Utah Cemetary road because we were looking at the beautiful yard of a home on the east side of the road. The sign for the cemetary road was on the same side of the street but we didn't see it. Tridel is just a few miles west and north of Lapoint. We knew it was before you got into town, so we asked the first person we saw. He was a young boy on a four-wheeler. He pointed back out of town and so we turned around. The cemetery is on the top of a hill and we first saw the flagpole, and sure enough, the sign was on that beautifl lawn mom had pointed out on our way into town. We found several graves here from the Bartlett family. My wife LaNae is a Bartlett and Tridell is were several Bartlett families settled. This first headstone is of her grand parents. Their children are listed on the reverse side and Clyde is my wife's father. It looks like I forgot to photograph the front of the head stone.

We found this unique headstone for Gwena. LaNae told me when we got home that her father remembered the day she died and how he heard his father chiseling this marker late into the night. When he came to find the marker just a few years ago it was burried in the dirt so he cemented it into the ground.

On our way to the Roosevelt Utah cemetary we passed the elementry school named after William Russel Todd ...

and the home where Gilbert and Almeda McKenna lived.

The Roosevelt Utah cemetary is easy to find. Gilbert McKenna was asked in the 1970's to do the rock work on the pillars at it's entrance.

The Todds and the Eldredges are burried next to each other. This is great for me because my wife LaNae is a descendant from the Eldredges. The Todds are my mothers family.

Fannie Gagon and William Russel Todd are my maternal grandparents.

Fannie and Russel only had 6 children to live into their adult years. Glen Owen Todd was my mother's 16 year old, older brother who died from Polleo.

The following are children of Fannie and Russel who died either at birth or shortly thereafter.

Max Russel Todd is my mothers brother who passed away in 1997. His family are the ones who took over the family farm that I spoke of in the begining of this entry.

Fannie and William also have a son-in-law who is burried to the south east. His name is Peter Wendel Johnson and is the husband of their eldest daughter Norma.

Thomas Todd Jr. and his wife Harriet Richardson are burried next to their son William Russel and his wife. They homesteaded in the Uinta Basin, coming from the Heber valley.

Mary Agusta Goodrich and William Highland Gagon are also burried in the Roosevelt cemetary.

William and Mary had a daughter who was also burried here.

The Eldredge famile has several headstones here.

Before finding the Heber Utah cemetary, we passed the home built by Thomas Todd Sr.

The Heber cemetary had no directory so Mom and I had to search for the headstones that we wanted to find. We were looking for the graves of Thomas Todd Sr, his wife Margaret Shankland who imigrated from Scottland and William Richardson, his wife Joann Fortheringham, who also immigrated from Scottland. We parked in the upper, middle section of the cemetary and began to search down towards the gates. We found the Todd markers, within a few moments we found the Richardsons just to the north across the road.

The Logan cemetary is one of the most beautiful because of the trees that line its roads. We have come here for a long time because Gilbert McKennas mother is burried here with her twin daughters, who died. Margaret Amelia Jorgensen, wife of Albert Franklin McKenna; is also burried next to her parents Jacob Jorgensen and Melvina Margaret Munk. You can see the headstone of her grandfather Hans Jorgensen behind her marker and to the right. His wife Dorthea is burried to the left of him. They immigrated from Denmark. We had not noticed the connection until this year.

Her mothers parents are to the east, just across the next road. They are Hans Jorgen Munk and Pettro Nelle. They immigrated from Denmark. We had not found their markers until this year. It appears tha Nelle died early and Hans remaried. Nelle is burried between Hans and his second wife.

Margarets mother in law is also burried in this cemetery. Her name is Sarah Singleton McKenna. She is burried just north of the first short road that heads north from the cemetary office. Her grave was not marked until recently. Elaine McKenna Allred organized a fund raising effort to place a marker for her. Sarah and her husband Thomas McKenna immigrated from Ireland. After her death Thomas married again and moved to Idaho.

It was quite a day. Over 30 graves decorataed in just over 12 hours. We started the day, leaving Logan Utah about 5:00 am and returned just after 5:00 pm.