Family Connection to New Movie Hero

    Wendy and I were thrilled and inspired by the new movie “Escape from Germany,” and were especially touched by the fact that we are relatively close relatives of the missionary hero of the film, Norman Seibold (FS ID: KWCB-J56).  We learned in the movie that his wife was Ruby Davenport (FS ID: KWZM-7XP).  She and I are 2nd cousins once removed, both descended from Edward Wilcox Davenport and his wife Clarissa Crapo.  They were married in the Salt Lake Temple,  9 February 1940, the parents of 6 children, and lived in Southern Idaho.
    Death announcement “Mormon Hero”
    “Norman Seibold, who helped his fellow Mormon missionaries leave Germany in 1939 as the Nazi threat grew, died Friday. He was 88.
    “As the Nazis were setting their sights on Poland, Seibold decided to find the stranded missionaries in Germany and get them out.
    “Seibold went to train stations and employed a common signal, whistling the first five notes of the Mormon hymn, "Do What Is Right."
    “Any missionaries on hand would gather around him. In five days he rounded up all 85 in the country and evacuated them.
    “In 1956, Seibold moved to Rupert, ID, where he managed Imperial Produce Co. From 1962 to 1982, he managed the Minidoka Stake Welfare Farm, and from 1983 to 1995, he was a Minidoka County commissioner.” (Grand Rapids Press, The (MI)/4 December 2003)
    Here is an excerpt about their life from my Aunt Dorothy’s Davenports Ancestry in America, written by Ruby herself (pp. 154-155).
    “Late in the year 1939 I met Norman Seibold, a recently returned missionary who had come to Parker to operate a grocery store.
    “Norman and his parents moved to Newdale soon after his birth and his father established a grocery business. After attending Ricks College, he graduated from the University of Utah in business and accounting. He was all-conference guard for two years while playing football for the U. of U. After graduation he filled a mission in West Germany.
    “A few months after our marriage we moved to Idaho Falls where Norman operated a meat market in one of the grocery stores. Then, during the war years we lived in Newdale where my husband was engaged in farming. Later we lived in the Idaho Falls area where he managed different meat markets.
    “In the spring of 1950 we bought a grocery store in St. Anthony which we operated for six years. During that time one of our newborn babies died of virus pneumonia when she was just two days old.
    “In 1956 we moved to Rupert where Norman went to work for Imperial Produce Co., managing their potato shipping plant and farming operations. This is where he is employed at the present time (1962)”.