Beach Haven

Some continued remembrances of Michael Beach of our family’s early membership in the church as requested by my sister Crystal Dunn.

I earlier mentioned our little branch moved from renting some rooms at the local justice-of-the-peace courthouse building to a purchased old schoolhouse outside of town. At this point I was probably nine or ten years old. The building needed a lot of work to change it from its original purpose to that which we had in mind. I remember standing outside in a long line of members (our numbers were growing slowly) with a paint scraper. We had the task of chipping away paint that was cracked or coming loose from the old wood siding. I still remember the pain I felt when a scrapper caused that screeching sound of fingernails on a chalk board. You know the feeling. Maybe you are feeling it right now as you read this (hee hee). Adults with power sanders followed. I wasn’t all that tall so I really only helped with the bottom portion. No kids were allowed on the ladders… darn it! We had more fun a few weeks later when the outside was ready for painting. It was the first time I can remember doing that sort of work, though I know we had done similar work to our own house previously. I just don’t remember doing that.

After the outside was protected there was a lot of inside work. We ripped down wall coverings and hauled the rubbish to big dumpsters. I have a particular remembrance of seeing the entire inside main floor as nothing but 2x4 framing where the walls used to be. I could see all the way from one end to the other. One weekend before the new wall framing went up we had a branch party in the open rough space. At the time my dad, Fred Beach, played in a country western band. He played the base guitar. My grandfather, Lester Miller, played the mandolin, and several other instruments. My uncle, Carl Miller, played the drums. There were I think three others in the band, a woman singer, a guitar player and a guy who played the steel guitar. I seem to remember this last guy’s name as Lou Albano (though that could be wrong, and no I’m not mixing him up with the professional wrestler… or maybe I am). He had hunched shoulders and his neck seemed fused. He couldn’t turn his head, so to look around he had to move his whole body. The only reason I bring all this up is because for this branch party the band played and we had a dance. We also had lots of food. In particular, at one point in the night as the band played my dad started laughing. His belt had gotten very tight from eating all the party food and all of a sudden his belt buckle broke and flew across the room mid-laugh.  

One other memory I have from that building reconstruction period of the branch was when a few of us boys were in the basement making noise. This was a basement that was all concrete floors and walls with the wood structure above. The adults had taken the stuff from the main floor and stored it down in the basement. This included all the old school desks. You know the kind. Metal framed with a wood desk top that opened on a hinge. The seat was hard wood as were the slats in the back rest. I wouldn’t call anything about these desks restful. I remember living with this sort of school furniture pretty much right up until attending high school. We boys (maybe three or four of us) somehow started chanting some refrain and simultaneously banging on the tops of the desks with sticks of wood. We got louder and louder. It was not a Sunday by the way. We must have been making quite a racket, because at one point the branch president, Richard Long, came down and chewed us out. Who knows how these sort of mischievous ideas get into the heads of boys?

​I’m sure I helped with more inside building construction projects after that, but I really don’t seem to remember any.

Note- One year after Nels Peter Jeppsen Jr and Luella Nelson’s children were grown Ardell Jeppsen asked his sister Wanda Jeppsen Adams to furnish something she remembered from her life for a family reunion. The following is from a letter she sent him.
 
Dear Ardell,
I was having a difficult time thinking of what I could write from my life that would be of interest to others.  Then it came to me that most of your life you were too young to remember your oldest brother, Lloyd. You  were only eight days old when he died of pneumonia.  We had moved down from Mantua and were living in Brigham City that year, because Lloyd and I were both in High School and Mother and Daddy wanted to be with us.  Lloyd was a freshman (9th grade) and I was a junior.
 
Lloyd had just recovered from the measles, but said he felt well enough to go to a football game at the high school.  The afternoon of the game it turned cold and stormy and he felt chilled when he got home.  He developed a high fever and Dr. Fister diagnosed his illness as pneumonia.
 
Ardell you were  born on November 29, 1926, and Lloyd died on December 7th.  Mother was in bed throughout Lloyd’s illness and death. Grandma Nelson came to attend to Lloyd and I stayed out of school to care for Mom.
 
Your birth had been difficult and I can’t imagine the stamina it took for her to stay in bed.  She was not even able to attend his funeral. I am sure she could not have endured it if it hadn’t been for her great faith and belief in God and of the salvation of the dead. 
 
I remember Grandma put a mustard plaster on Lloyd’s chest which was standard procedure for chest congestion in those days.  When Dr. Fister came to see him he snatched that plaster off and threw it across the room and swore.  But Dr. Fister’s remedies didn’t help either.
 
While he was so very ill and gasping for each breath and the congestion was  rattling in his chest, he ask me to get his patriarchal blessing and read it him. I could not for it was left in Mantua in Mother’s treasure trunk. I have always been sorry that I couldn’t  have done that for him. 
 
Even at that time I was sure he would get well and the shock and sorrow was great when Daddy woke me from my sleep and told me that Lloyd had left us.  There was no more sleep that night as I listened to the constant howling of Lloyd’s big black dog as he sat on the cellar roof and gazed through the window straight into the room where Lloyd lay in bed.
 
The next morning I rode with my father (in the Model T Ford) to Mantua to make arrangements for the funeral. After they were made we went out to Grandma Jeppesen’s for awhile.  Daddy had let Lloyd’s dog come with us.  When we started for home, we forgot about the dog, but he came running after us, accompanied by a dog of Grandma’s.  They were tussling and fighting a little and Lloyd’s dog bounded in front of the car and died on impact.
 
I remember the good times Lloyd and I had playing together in Mantua.  We, with our cousins, Joysa and Helen Jensen, we played ball, hide and seek, kick the can,  climbed trees, roamed the hills, and sailed boats in the creek. 
 
Best of all was when Lloyd and I rode our horses. I remember once we rode over to Paradise Creek.  As we were coming home I was riding our horse, Polly.  She always had to be the lead horse.  As we galloped down the hill, through a shallow creek and around a sharp curve, there in the middle of the road was a huge rattler, all coiled and ready to strike. Polly planted her feet and stopped so suddenly that I was thrown over the saddle horn. I kept myself from landing on the snake, by clinging onto the mane and ear of the horse. 
 
The rattler uncoiled and slithered into the bushes and maple trees.  Lloyd jumped off his horse and went after the rattler with a big stick.  All I could do was jump up and down and scream at him to come back.  I was sure the snake would be waiting for him, but it was not to be found.
 
I remember another time when Lloyd got on old Polly, with a long leather belt with a heavy buckle on one end. He said he was going hunting rattlers.  I know of several other times he went and came back with a trophies.
 
To me Lloyd seemed more sober and responsible that the rest of us.  Bishop Hansen said at his funeral, “I am sure that if the young man’s faith could have saved him, this boy would have been alive today.  I told the people of our ward last Sunday, that it had been a long time since I had seen the amount of faith exhibited by a young boy when we administered to him. He was very thankful for things that that were done for him.  I recall that he thanked us two or three times before we left, for coming to administer to him.”
 
Lloyd loved the outdoors and together we followed the trails and climbed Maple Hill just south of the fish hatchery.  We picked hands full  of wild flowers to take home to Mother.  Flowers and birds abounded on the mountain. We were always watching for new ones and trying to identify them.
 
Lloyd was allowed to use the 22 rifle to shoot ground squirrels and king fishers.  Ground squirrels abounded all around the farm and did great damage to the crops.  On one occasion he asked me to go with him.  After many squirrels had bit the dust at his accurate shots he allowed me to take a turn.  I was as good at missing, as he was at hitting, and he was somewhat disgusted with me, but not so much as the time I missed the king fisher.  King fishers fed on the fingerlings in the shallow channels. Lloyd was the protector of the small fish and it was woe unto the king fishers that were sighted by him.
 
Lloyd suffered pain without a whimper.  I have forgotten just how he broke his arm but it was a bad break, just above the wrist.  The doctor tried to set it several times and finally had to operate.  They found when trying to set it, they had been trying to turn the bone the wrong way.  This was before the day of the X-ray. Another time he was bitten by a muskrat he had trapped and had to have a tetanus shot.
 
His leaving was a great loss to us.  I am sure though that he is in a better place now and is doing the things that were promised in his Patriarchal Blessing.

Here’s another remembrance from our early days in the church.

We had continued to attend church in Sunbury, PA for maybe a year. At some point there was talk about creating a branch of the church in our little home town of Berwick, PA. Obviously, as an eight-year-old I was not really aware of what was going on, but I do remember our parents discussing this idea. After we made the switch I later remember the stories of what had happened.

Apparently, church leaders went to many different buildings where there was space for rent. Place after place turned them down. Eventually they were accepted by an unlikely person. I understood his name to be Nicholas Piazza. He was the local justice of the peace and had a small building used for court hearings. I remember him also being depicted as somehow involved with the local Italian mafia. That may be overstated, but the connection may be somewhat true. My uncle was a town cop in those days and I remember one or two stories at family events that would seem to support the idea. I remember our little branch was no more than maybe five or six families and a few single adults. Two of the families were related; Schmidts and Smethers. We were all locals. I don't remember any Utah members coming into the congregation at that point, though that changed when we made the move to a later building the church actually owned.

Recounting those days in later years, Mom and Dad told stories of needing to go into the building early on Sunday morning to clean out cigarette ashtrays and the like. I have only vague recollections of that, and it may be memories resulting more from the stories than actual events. I do remember sacrament in the courtroom, and classes in a corner of one of the hallways near a coat rack. I also remember vividly the neighborhood. Some years later I attended Berwick Jr. High that was just a few blocks away from it, up a hill on West 3rd St. I seem to remember a laundry mat across a parking lot and a hoagie shop around the corner that was tempting on a Sunday since I really liked the hoagies there. Eating out was a rarity in those days. This was long before any chain sub shops existed, at least in that area. At any rate, it always smelled good whenever we passed the sub shop. The Susquehanna River was only a few walkable blocks away, but we never made the stroll on a Sunday.

Mike here again. Continuing with Cris' request of stories from our early church experience.

When we first began investigating the church, and later after Mom and Lisa were baptized, we attended the branch in Sunbury, PA. It was something like a 45 minute drive. Getting up early on Sunday, putting on nice clothes, and driving to a town I hadn't been to before seemed like a real novelty. Thankfully it was to become more than a novelty. Back then we did not have the modern block meeting schedule. Sacrament and Sunday School were both on Sunday with time in between for lunch. We had food we brought with us, and when the weather was nice we sat outside to eat it. Primary, like other youth programs, were held separately on a week night. We could not go that distance twice a week so the idea was foreign to me, something at first I hadn't even heard of.

Not long after we started attending, during one of the Sacrament meetings the person conducting the meeting announced that all the primary children would come forward and sing a song they had practiced. I remember looking at my mother and asking, "Mom, what's primary?" Her reply was a simple shoulder shrug. She didn't know either. When the time came, Lisa and I were encouraged to go forward with the others. I had no idea what the song was or what to do so I just stood there. As it turns out, this is not uncommon even for kids who did know the song and had practiced. To anyone who has ever witnessed a primary musical number at church the phenomenon will seem familiar. 

I have referred back to this experience many times over the years as an example for members of the church to recognize the unique culture and vocabulary we use in the church. We can often use words with others who are visiting for the first time that leaves them puzzled about what they have heard or witnessed. The same can be true in conversations with friends, though in those cases it can lead to questions that open the door for a gospel conversation. My encouragement to long-time members of the church is not to assume that everyone around us has the same understanding as we do as we use jargon that seems so familiar to us.
 

​This is Mike. As I mentioned in an earlier family history posting, my sister Crystal asked if I would put down some recollections of the early days of our family’s introduction and growth in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thinking back, much of the early interactions with the missionaries who taught my mother, sister Lisa, and my dad are second hand. This is true because I was only seven years old, and had the attention span to go with that age. I think it fair to say that at that age I would have been more distraction than participant. Now that I mention it, that’s probably as much true today as then.

The story as I recall hearing from our mother was that she was visiting her friend, Dorothy (Dot) Mowery (spelling?) on a Saturday back in the early ‘70s as was her norm back then. The missionaries knocked on Dot’s door during the visit. Their names were Elder Drew Smith of Montpelier, Idaho, and Elder Jackson (don’t remember his first name) of Draper, Utah. For someone like me who could not remember being anywhere except in the immediate area of where we lived, these sounded like far away exotic places.

Out of pity maybe, the ladies allowed the young men in for some water. Out of politeness they listened to the message. For Dot, this was as far as the commitment went. For Mom, the discussion peaked an interest she had on the topic of religion for some time. Both sides of the family were not overly devout, and there were a variety of sects represented within the extended family. Our parents were not at the time partial to any in particular, so our church attendance was held to maybe once or twice a year, and rarely to the same church from one occasion to the next.

Since Dot offered little sympathy for the missionary message and Mom seemed interested, they young men asked if they could visit our home the next Saturday. She was uneasy about the idea as Dad had physically tossed, I mean that in the literal sense, two members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses church off our porch just a few weeks earlier, grasping one in each hand as he marched them from the front door to the bottom of the porch steps.

Due to Mom’s apprehension, the four agreed to meet the follow week at Dot’s house again. The next week came. Mom and the missionaries showed up. Dot was not home, or at least did not answer the door. Reluctantly, Mom agreed to meet the missionaries back at our house. She supposed Dad to be on a Navy Reserve drill that weekend and expected him to be gone. She was wrong. When they arrived he was there. Thankfully, he was more tolerant of these two young men. Maybe it was because they were less hell-fire-and-brimstone than their Jehovah’s Witnesses counterparts. Maybe it was because Mom had invited them. Maybe it was because they were not interrupting whatever he was doing between cigarettes and a weekend can of beer. Whatever the reason, he not only failed to object, but he stayed and listened.

That’s the gist of the story. A few weeks later, Mom and Lisa were baptized in the Berwick YMCA swimming pool. I came later the next year after tuning eight (another write up for another day). Dad took longer as he struggled with giving up smoking.

I don’t know that I have any pictures to share. Perhaps somewhere in the family history items Mom left behind we can find one. If I do I’ll update this post with what I find.

This is Mike. Michelle generally posts to the M&M Gang blog. In the past it was our traditional quarterly what’s-happening-in-our-family report-style write up. Like most of the other similar traditional BHP, postings were scarce. A while ago Michelle and I discussed making this particular blog be more family history oriented. If you’ve looked at it recently, you’ve noticed the obvious change.

Recently, my little sister, Cris, asked some of us older family members to capture for her and others our recollections of our family's early membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She wants to compile what she sees as our family gospel pioneer stories. Much of it happened at a time when she was too young to remember, and the following generation is completely unaware. I asked her if posting it here in snippets, story-by-story as I remember them would be appropriate for what she was looking for, rather than some sort of larger work. For me at least, writing in smaller parts means it’s more likely to progress as opposed to trying to capture it all at once.

If the reader has an interest, unlikely as that may be, there are already a few of these stories captured in the more than two decades of BHP documents published on this website. There’s a link to the archive at the bottom of the BHP page. Feel free to browse. In any case, along with the more traditional family history submissions Michelle posts on the M&M Gang blog, I’ll post the occasional ‘pioneer’ story of the sort I hope Cris has in mind.
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