Personal History IX--In My Working Career

In My Working Career
   In my working career, I was blessed to become an expert (perhaps, in fact, one of the country’s/world’s experts) in three specific areas of work in the helping families and children.  These three areas represented three phases of my career and occupied a major part of my working life, each phase covering a 10-15 year period in my career. 

The Design of Social Welfare Work and Jobs
    The first was in the design of social welfare work and jobs.  Immediately after completing my Master of Social Work degree in 1969, I was invited to join the staff of a Federally-funded demonstration project called the Manpower Project, which had the purpose of developing jobs and careers in the field of social welfare for indigenous or paraprofessional workers, that is, persons who might have been drawn largely from service populations.  We were to analyze the work of administering social welfare programs, to identify entry level jobs and then chart out career development paths which would lead to opportunities for these workers to perform higher level and more responsible jobs– career ladders, so called.  These were the days of Lindon Johnson’s War on Poverty and state public welfare organizations were desperately short of professional social workers to staff the work that was thought to be needed.  So, we were killing two birds with one stone, providing necessary workers to carry out the work in this field and providing jobs and careers for people who were currently in poverty.  The project not only included analyzing and defining jobs and career development paths, but also was concerned with identifying required training and success criteria for workers to utilize these paths.  And finally we were to actually demonstrate these processes with a cohort of paraprofessional workers.
    My original position on the Manpower Project was that of a Job Analyst.  I was taught these analytical skills by a consultant from Washington, DC, Dr. Sidney Fine, a prominent industrial psychologist.  He had formerly been head of Research and Development for the U. S. Department of Labor.  I developed a nice relationship with him and we had him in our home a time of two for dinner and to meet our family.  He had developed a procedure for this analysis called Functional Task Analysis.  I became pretty adept at defining and using this tool. 
    In this method we distinguished and defined each individual task required in the performing an area of the work of an organization.  The task statements themselves were written in a precise form making up a long sentence.  First, we listed and described the actions a worker performed as a part of this piece of work; then we composed an “in order to” statement that encompassed the purpose for performing this task.  We then analyzed each task statement on three scales, the relative involvement of the worker with People, Data, and Things, that is, the interpersonal, the mental, and physical components of the task.  We expressed this emphasis as a percentage but also made a rating of the relative difficulty or complexity on scales for these three items.  We next defined the training content required for performance of these activities, and finally wrote statements defining criteria for evaluating effective performance of this task.
    With this data, we were able to sort the tasks by levels into statements of job descriptions, and design different levels of training.
    In the midst of this project, our Project Director became Director over our whole Division and I was promoted to his position in the project.  We used the Ogden office of our division as the place for demonstrating this project.  Under our sponsorship, this office hired a team of paraprofessionals performing the jobs we designed and our staff provided the initial training and some support for these workers.  I do not know fully the long-term results of our work.  When the three year project concluded, I returned to the Division state office and worked with other planning assignments.  Shortly after this the State Legislature separated out the financial assistance function from our Department and placed it in the Job Service, and so I lost track of what was happening with the Ogden unit we established. 

    As for my own career, I wrote and published reports from the Manpower Project and had the opportunity to present our findings and experiences at some national conferences.  I also was “loaned” by our Department Director for a brief time to the State of Alaska where I travel to the capital in Juneau and trained a team in that state’s social services department in Functional Job Analysis and got them started in the process of analyzing the work and training requirements for part-time department  representatives in far away out-posts across that state.  Finally, I was heavily recruited by the School of Social Work at Arizona State University, to join their faculty and lead a project where they were trying to define work and training requirements for some social service agencies.  However much I would have liked to accept this opportunity to further my career in this direction, I felt bound to remain in Salt Lake.  This was the time when we first had Michael and his serious heart problems, we had our medical providers at Primary Children’s Hospital and the city, and I did not believe that I could upset the stability of our family situation.  I was always attracted to academic life but I felt at this time that there was no question but that I had to turn down this opportunity for the sake of Michael, JoAnn and our family.

Integrated Human Services Development

    After the Manpower Project I was asked to serve and worked for a couple of years on an initiative of Governor Mattheson’s and a new Department Director.   The legislature had formed a larger consolidated department of human service agencies, including divisions of Mental Health, Alcohol and Drugs, Aging, Child Welfare (Family Services) and more.  Some of these agencies provided direct services, other administered pass-through monies to local entities.  The Governor had a vision of bringing these agencies closer to the people by establishing comprehensive local “one-stop service shopping centers” at local levels throughout the state.  In the project, we tried to get agencies to co-locate physically and to cooperate with centralized intake and assessment functions we attempted to create.  In this assignments I spent quite a lot of time traveling the State, and especially in a couple of locations in the southwest part of the state where we were making some progress.  My assignment also gravitated toward identifying data support for the centralized intake function. 
    This assignment gave  me the opportunity to learn more about the wide range of human services.  It required lots of meetings with high level people and the ability to deal with them with patience and tact.  For example, in our dealings with the Salt Lake County Social Services leadership (Ted Wilson was then the Director), we found they were mostly interested in how much extra money we could give them and not the governor’s initiative.  Other persons in other parts of the state reacted in many other ways.
    Interestingly, in  this process, I also became acquainted with Charlie Patterson, who was the Assistant Director of the Division of Mental Health.  Later, I found that he was the father of Wendy’s ex-husband, and I knew some things about his personality and family values.

Preventative (Family Strengthening) Services in Child Welfare 
    The integrated services initiative wound down and I was assigned to work on service evaluation studies in a Department bureau of audit and evaluation.  I was experiencing some frustration with my work at that time, as I had been turned down for a Regional Director position I had wanted, so I determined to work on a doctorate in Social Work.  I got lots of support for this from the bureau chief who was also a good friend, Richard Crouch, so applied and got accepted to the program at the U of U.  I finished the classwork in two years.  I became friends with the director, Mark Fraser, of the Social Welfare Research Institute at the school and for my dissertation project joined with him in a study a new type of child welfare service called family preservation.  Mark and another professor, Peter Pecora, had grant money to study this program, which was called “Homebuilders” and was being tried in child welfare services by the State of Washington and had also been introduced in our own Utah child welfare services.  My doctoral dissertation was entitled “Service-related Correlates of Treatment Success in Intensive Family Preservation Services for Child Welfare”   Family preservation services or Homebuilders used an intensive home-based model to help neglected children remain safely in their own homes.  Family preservation workers worked with families in which there was serious neglect and deprivation of children.  These families, often single mothers, seemed to lack many of the homemaking and parenting skills needed to keep children safe and developing satisfactorily.  These workers would generally serve only two or three families at a time, and might spend as much as 15 to 20 hours a week in the home of a family being served.  While there they would model and teach basic homemaking and child rearing skills and life skills to parents and continue to monitor the safety of the children.  Generally, the term of this service was two or three months and the results were generally positive in that the safety of the children was improved to the point that no further intervention was deemed necessary and neglect cases dismissed.
    In the field of child welfare, there was and is controversy over how States can best serve children who with live with neglectful parents.  Much of the resources developed in public child welfare agencies for such situations have gone to providing alternative care, originally  institutions, but then in recent decades care in foster families.  Studies of the lives of children raised in foster care give a mixed result, many successes, but also many children who move from foster care into troubled adulthood.  Some negative evaluations have suggested that substitute care means substituting state neglect in place of parental neglect.  Seemingly, deficiencies in such things as child to adult bonding experiences for many children raised in substitute care systems leading to personality deficits in these persons when grown and point to a far greater need to focus attention on repairing problems in their families of origin. 
    In 1996, I was serving in the Division of Family Services as Director of Planning and had been involved to some degree in promoting an emphasis in our child welfare programming upon preventative, family strengthening interventions.  I had also established a relationship with Eric Bjorkland, the head of the private, non-profit agency Youth Village and became a part-time consultant in helping this agency in the evaluating the effectiveness of their programs.  This relationship continued for about 11 years until after my retirement from the State of Utah (1905), until December of 2008 when Wendy and I had accepted a call from the Church to serve as Senior Missionaries.
    Youth Village had come into existence a number of years before as residential treatment programs for disturbed teenage girls, then had expanded to residential programs for problem boys and recently had added a small home-based treatment component.  When I began to acquaint myself with Youth Village I discovered a unique opportunity.  I saw in the situation of their family-based short-term intensive services the possibility of doing a controlled service effectiveness study.  Drug-related studies of this sort compare results for persons who receive the medication vs. those who were given a placebo.  But these kinds of studies a rare in regard to human services.  They require a set of subjects who can be assigned randomly to receive or not receive an intervention with a comparison of the two groups on key measures of desired success after the service period is over.  With human service subjects, it generally is viewed as irresponsible to withhold services from persons after they have been identified with needs.  Human service providers tend also to be under-funded and stretched to perform even the basics of their service mandates, and generally lack resources to focus on the extra requirements of designing, collecting and evaluating data for effectiveness studies.  Also the know-how to conduct such studies is not widespread.
    As I began to assess the situation at Youth Village with its home-based service, I found the pieces in place to conduct a true controlled experimental study.  First, the Village had contracts with the Salt Lake City Schools and with the Utah Juvenile Court to provide the services along with some additional grant money to pay for extra research costs.  Second, they were inundated comparatively with referrals and did not have the trained treatment staff to serve every family nor the ability to  supplement this staff in the short-term.  Third, they had already established an evaluation team of four paraprofessionals who were capable of doing follow-up study interviews.
    So with the support the director of the Village, I designed a controlled, experimental study.  I established procedures for random assignment of referrals to services or non-service.  I designed a 63 item questionnaire, and procedures for the follow-up interviews with both groups.  Data were collected over the period for families referred for services in 1996 through 1999 and for a follow-up period.  I analyzed the data and developed a report.  This report was eventually published in the journal Children and Youth Services Review, in 2005, pp. 499-509, “The effectiveness of Families First services, an experimental study.”  Here is the abstract (that is, brief summary) for this article:
     An intensive, short-term, family-based intervention was employed to help families overcome serious problems, in child behavior and child management.  This service was an adaptation of the Teaching-Family Model of therapeutic group home programming with some elements of child welfare intensive family preservation services.  In a controlled 3-year study, families receiving this service were found to report significant improvements in child behavior, physical care and resources, parental effectiveness, and parent-child relationships, when compared with similar difficulties in families who were referred for service but not served.  Not only were the improvements in treatment families apparent shortly after the conclusion of the service, but these changes were also maintained over a number of months’ period, suggesting that the improved skills, behaviors, and relationship changes developed during the intervention may have become solidly implanted in parental and family functioning.
    After our mission, I did not go back to Youth Village, and confess that I hardly had a thought about my professional career and focus, concentrating on family, family history, temple, and in Church callings that related to young men.  I was surprised in the summer of 2019, to have phone call from Eric Bjorkland, saying that there a was continuing interest in my study of twenty years before.  There was an opportunity for the State of Utah to obtain some special federal funding for preventative work with family of neglected children, diverting monies that historically had only been available to pay the costs of substitute care.  Approval for this opportunity was conditioned on a State having some research data attesting to already having a proven capability in place.  That is where my earlier study would come in as perhaps one of two possible studies that would help provide evidence of such a proven capability.  At this time I also received a letter from the director of the Department of Human Services requesting my help, as they tried to use my study.
    Out in our garage, under boxes and old bedframes and such, I located a paper box containing about 10 binders with the study statistical printouts and other information about the study.  I spent a day or so refamiliarizing myself with these things.  Then I took several of the binders to the Department of Human Services state office in Salt Lake and spent a couple of hours interpreting the print-outs with a research team and left them with the binders, which were returned after a few weeks.
    Shortly after, I saw an article in the newspaper with this headline, “Utah first state to receive approval for plan to keep kids out of foster care.  State will receive federal fund match under Family First Act.”   SALT LAKE CITY — Utah this week became the first state to receive approval for a plan that will provide parents dealing with substance use disorder or mental health issues resources to keep their kids out of foster care.  State officials believe the Beehive State will set a standard for others as it adjusts to a dramatically new system...”  (Deseret News, Dec 13, 2019)
    I hope my humble efforts of two decades ago will contribute to the future well-being of children in this state.

Child Welfare Information Systems

    While I was still serving in the Division of Family Services as Director of Planning, the U. S. Department of HEW announced a new initiative, called SACWIS, to improve computerized information system support for state child welfare programs.  I personally wrote a proposal for federal funding of a SACWIS project planning grant.  This project was one of the early state proposals that was granted funding.  Once initial funding was approved, it seemed logical and essential for me to stay with the project and direct it.  I dropped the planning and evaluation roles.  For the remainder of my career I worked with the system we termed SAFE.  When the development phase was completed, I continued to manage the front end maintenance team, preparing recommendations for needed system changes, continuing training, maintenance of a user manual, and supervising the system help desk.
    It seems to me that on several occasions over the years I was drawn to work on information systems.  When I returned to the Public Welfare Department state office planning position after the Manpower Project concluded, I was assigned to supervise a small team of workers who were supporting the development of a public welfare information system termed USSDS.  They were Meredith Simmons, Jean Nielsen, and Susan Wheatley (Hatch).  All of them had worked in the field as welfare caseworkers, had good analytical capabilities, and were giving input to programmers and technical staff about the USSDS system requirements. These three all eventually ended up working in Family Services and I maintained respectful and supportive relationships with each throughout my career.  Meredith managed child welfare policy writeups for many years.  Jean served in various leadership roles and finally had a term as Division of Family Services Director.  I was fortunate to reacquire Susan, and her skills at detailed, exacting analysis, as a member of the staff of the our SAFE project along with several other persons who had worked as caseworkers in the field with the various program specialties that we were covering in the system.
    After accepting the assignment to direct the project and oversee the front-end project group, and having acquired development funding, I put together this staff of five or six persons.  We were fortunate to acquire consulting help with the system specification, Dr. Steve Clyde, from the USU information technology department.  He provided training on state of the art, for that day, system specification techniques.  At the same time our Department systems office hired a contractor team to do the programming, and we worked hand-in-hand with them through the entire development process.  My team had the specific responsibility to develop:
– logical models of the system
– data flow diagrams included required data base descriptions
– detailed data elements definitions
– designs for entry and display screens and underlying logic and controls
– designs for forms and printed report formats and rules
    In my position, I represented Utah in contacts with the federal funding agency, and national meetings and conferences regarding child welfare systems, sometimes making presentations the system we were building about the process we were following.
    As the project processed toward implementation, which started in 1999, our project staff
– Established advisory groups
– Constantly worked with and obtained input and byoff from staff and administrators
– Defined system testing criteria, and when programming was begun, conducted testing and worked with technical staff on fixes and design improvements
– Wrote instruction manuals for system users
– Designed user training plans and programs, and carried out training
– Developed help desk plans, then staffed and trained help desk personnel
    SAFE was viewed nationally as a model state child welfare system and also that we created and utilized a model development process, especially with the high level of input and oversight by professional child welfare workers.
    After the initial system implementation, our front-end staff were allowed to stay in place to provide training, to oversee the Help Desk, and help maintain and add improvements to the system.  I continued to supervise this staff until I retired in the fall of 2005.
    The Division of Family Services was still using our system, SAFE, as late as 2017, according to an acquaintance, Chad McDonald.

Personal HIstory VIII -- My Scouting Experience

My Scouting Experience

    On January 1, 2020, I was no longer registered with the Boy Scouts of America as a scout leader.  This was the first time in nearly 40 years that I did not have such scouting registration.  During those years, I invested a lot in helping make scouting work and trying to help boys.
    Here is my Scouting leader resume, updated from my background statement for our scouting website, ldsscouting.org:

Robert E. Lewis:  Scouting background

Family: father of eight children including four sons, all of whom are Eagle Scouts.  Other family members achieving Eagle as of January 2020 are 18 grandsons, 2 sons-in-law, and 7 grandsons-in-law.

Professional: doctorate in the field of social work with specialties in child welfare;  human services staff utilization and training; planning and evaluation of family-based programs to prevent child maltreatment; and child welfare management information systems.

Employment history: manager in state child welfare agency, social work adjunct professor appointment at university, consultant in  human services staff utilization and family and youth-related services evaluation.

Youth and Scout assignments: LDS Bishop, Ward Young Mens President and Counselor/Quorum Advisor, Venturer Advisor; Varsity Coach; Scoutmaster; Troop, Team, Crew, and Post Committee chair and member; 11-year-old Scout Leader; Unit Commissioner; Stake Young Mens President and Counselor; Regional Exploring Training Coordinator, member of YM General Board Task Force on the Activity Programs for 14-18 year old Aaronic Priesthood Holders; Scouting District Venturing Teen Leaders Council (TLC)/Venturing Officers Association Advisor; member of Utah National Parks Council Venturing Activities Committee; District Exploring and Venturing Round Table Commissioner; District Exploring and Venturing Training Chairman; District Vice-Chairman for Exploring; District Varsity Committee; Course Director for advanced junior Explorer/Venturer leader courses (E2/PLC), Wood Badge course staff member. 

Training: Basic training for Scouts, Varsity Scouts, Exploring, Venturing, and Commissioner; Wood Badge (Varsity); Explorer Leadership Institute (Equivalent to Exploring Wood Badge).
Website Co-sponsor: ldsscouting.org 

Recognitions: Scouter's Training Award; Scouter's Key (Varsity); Scoutmaster's Award of Merit; Adult Varsity Letter; Adult On My Honor; District Explorer Leader of the Year; District Award of Merit; Silver Beaver; Venturing Leadership Award.


Boyhood Scouting
    As a youth, growing up in the small community of Glenwood, I had a limited experience with being a scout.  In the period when I was between 9 to 12 years of age, Mary Crowe has a Cub Scout den.  We had all ages in the one den.  I recall the den meetings and working on cub requirements at home.  I remember getting awards and believe that I qualified for Arrow of Light or whatever the highest level of recognition was in those days.
    My den mother was interesting.  Sometimes she made lots of preparation for a well-organized meeting and sometimes not.  Occasionally, when the entire group of boys was gathered in her front yard for the den meeting, she would throw us a sack of candy and yell “Dog Pile.”   We would run at each other and wrestle and chase each other until we got tired, then eat our candy, and go home.  Mary was a regular customer at Eaton’s tavern and I wonder if perhaps that habit had some affect on her overall den mother performance.
    When I hit the age of 12, we briefly had a regular troop.  One of the Glenwood young women had married a man named Jack Beveridge and they were living with her parents.  He had recently been released from the military and of course had some scouting experience.  He volunteered to run a scout troop.  I joined.  I remember a hike or two and perhaps a camp and completing requirements for the Tenderfoot rank.  I liked him.  He was fun and had some bravado.  After a few months he got employment in some other location, and our scout troop died.

Starting in Scouting Leadership
    After JoAnn and I returned to Utah from Detroit, I had callings to work with young men while in the Spanish Fork 1st ward (Teachers Quorum), and in the ward we were in north Orem ward (Priests quorum) and was registered as a scouting leader in both places.  I recall attending scout Round Table meetings in connection with both callings, but at this point I do not recall too many specifics about the programs we were trying to operate.  Both of these assignments were short-lived because we moved.
    In the Spring or Summer of 1981 Matthew had just turned 11 and JoAnn was now serving as the ward Primary President.  Shortly after we moved to Taylorsville, JoAnn had received a calling as Blazer Leader.  This calling included teaching 11 boys in Primary and also being their 11 year old Scout leader.  In this process, she developed a great love for these young men, but also a strong conviction and commitment regarding the scouting program as an instrument for developing the best in our young men.  Now as the Primary President, she was a member of the Troop Committee which had the responsibility to promote and support good Scouting in the ward.  When she began to attend these meetings, she concluded that the committee was not functioning well in its support of these programs.  Amplifying this was the fact that her oldest son had just become of scouting age.  Her solution: volunteer her husband to serve on the Troop committee.
    I am not sure how much help I was at the beginning.  I started by attending many of the scout camps with Matthew, and observing how they were done.  Denton Hauter was the scoutmaster and he had years and years of experience.  His specialty seemed to be backpacking, so I got a nice education in backpacking techniques and requirements.  I myself learned to love backpacking and the early trips were a revelation.  I myself learned a lot of self-confidence, even at the approximate age of 45, in how to plan and take responsibility for all my own needs.  I assumed the young men had the same experience and growth in their own independence and self-reliance. 
    The first 50 miler in 1982 was one of my favorites.  Our troop started at on the north slope of the Uintas.  On Monday, we hiked in and camped first in Henry’s Fork, then crossed over Gunsite pass, climbed to the top of Kings Peak and back down, sliding part of the way down on a snowfield, then crossed over the ridge to the west, hiked up to the beautiful Red Castle area and then back out to the Stillwater trailhead on Saturday, where we met our transportation for the trip home. 
    This was also Matthew’s first long-term camp and it was nice to experience this with him.  I have a memory of it being a long pull to get to the top of King’s Peak and some were feeling the effects of the high elevation.  I was at the peak and looked around to see what Matthew was doing at 13,527 feet above sea level, and saw him lying on his back on a big flat rock sound asleep.
    Denton had us preparing for our 50 miler and practicing our backpacking skills for several months with one-night camps in nearby places such as at Lake Blanche in Big Cottonwood canyon and Silver Lake Flat Reservoir above Tibble Fork in American Fork canyon.  This was very thoughtful preparation but also let us experience some wonderful local scenes.
    I also went on long backpacking trips with the troop the next summer to the Wind Rivers in Wyoming and in 1984 back into the Uintas.
    During this period I was serving on the Stake High Council but also continued to maintain support of scouting in the ward as a member of the ward troop committee and to attend activities with Matthew.  One of my major High Council assignments was to be the advisor to a Vietnamese Branch.  They had several Aaronic Priesthood age young men and I felt that they could benefit by a scouting program.  I took the initiative to push for that and got myself appointed as their troop committee chair, and oversaw the process to get this program organized.
In addition to my support of home ward scouting, I served in a similar capacity in the Vietnamese Branch for the next two years, until I was released from the High Council in May 1986.
    In the midst of these involvements, in the Spring of 1985, I had a heart attack.  I was 48 years old and was playing basket ball at noon with some of my friends at work in a nearby school gym that was open to us.  At the end of the workout I started to feel heavy in my chest and sat down on a bench in the dressing room.  Others called the paramedics who were stationed fortunately only a half block away.  I got to ride in an ambulance out to St. Marks Hospital with an EMT, then there was quite a lot of study of my heart.  The doctors finally concluded that this was a “young man’s heart attack” caused by unknown sources, maybe a blood clot, and that there was no permanent damage or limitations. 
    Yet there were psychological limitations that I imposed on myself.  I wondered and was fearful that this might happen again.  I think I recall avoiding strenuous outdoor things for a period of time, being afraid to test myself physically. 
    In May of 1966, I was released from the Stake High Council and immediately called as Second Counselor in the Stake Young Mens Presidency.   In our Stake and Scouting District this also meant that I had the assignment of Scouting Assistant District Commissioner, that is that I had the chief responsibility of promoting and leading the Boy Scout program (for 12 and 13 year olds) in our stake.  Some of my duties included, as I recall, organizing bimonthly stake Courts of Honor for this age group, encouraging training and Roundtable attendance by leaders who had callings with this age group, and leading a Roundtable breakout session for Scout leaders from our stake as part of the monthly meeting.
    At that same time, I was also serving at this time with the ward Varsity Committee, probably because Matthew had been in the Teacher’s Quorum until just recently.  As I noted before, during this time when I had stake callings, I was still trying to support scouting in the ward, especially where my sons were concerned.   But, I was insecure about what my body could tolerate, and steered away from strenuous outdoor stuff.  There was a plan for the Varsity Scouts to have a backpacking trip into the Uintas.  Matthew also was participating.  I decided, along with Boyd Warnick who was then the First Counselor in the Bishopric, that the group needed some support, and committed to go.  I think this was a Varsity scout camp because Larry Knowlden was the leader, and because there was an objective for Saturday morning to Climb Cleveland Peak to do the Varsity On-Target mirror signaling, to try to make contact with other Varsity Scout groups on other mountain tops.   I thought that I would be safe to participate because Boyd was older than I and maybe also less fit and we could lay off anything strenuous together. 
    The trek was to be on the south slopes of the Uintas above the town of Duschesne.  We parked near Moon Lake and hiked and camped past Brown Duck, Island, Kidney, and Tworoose lakes, and then through Tworoose Pass into Squaw Basin.  After camping at Squaw Lake which had wonderful fishing, we headed upward for Cleveland Pass and camped Friday night at a little lake just at the base of Cleveland Peak, one of the many 12,000 foot peaks in the Uintas.  The boys were going to climb this peak in the morning.  Where we were camped was  probably a thousand or so feet below the summit.  I noticed that the first part of the climb was a steep scramble.  After breakfast the boys and Larry started their climb.  It was not technical, just taking strong legs and strong lungs.  Boyd Warnick was there as a member of the Bishopric, about 10 years older that I, and we resolved to stay together in camp.  Boyd and I looked at each other and said, “Let’s follow them up for a ways, until we get tired.”  The climb didn’t seem too hard.  We got half way up the steep part of the climb and were still feeling good and kept going.  In not too many minutes we reached a point where we broke over a ridge.  We saw the climbers ahead of us hiking toward the peak. The rest of the climb to the high point of the mountain was a long but nice gradual slope.  Boyd turned around and started back down, but I thought, “The hard part is over.” My body and heart and lungs were doing just fine, so I kept going clear to the top with the strongest of the group.  It was now obvious that there were no limits physically on what I could do, so at that hour I lost any fears and insecurities about pushing my body.  It was a wonderful revelation that allowed me to have a number of other outdoor experiences, without anxiety, over the next number of years.

The Training Course, E2
    Later that summer, Matthew was chosen to represent his quorum at a special training course on the effective use of the Exploring program in Priests quorums.  This was the beginning exposure for me in a long adventure in leading and promoting the older boy scouting programs, Varsity Scouting and Exploring (later called Venturing).
    Our stake was invited to send a team of young men to Philmont Ranch for training on the use of the Exploring program.  The course, National LDS Explorer Instructor Training, had been developed with the support of the Young Mens leadership of the Church to help young men and their leaders improve their usage and implementation of Exploring as the activity arm of our Priests Quorums.  Each ward was asked to select one Priest to attend this program.  Matthew was selected to go from our ward.  He was an Eagle Scout and had been active in all his priesthood functions.  Someone arranged transportation and he was picked up in the middle of the week and he was gone for seven days.  JoAnn and I were a little anxious about how this experience would turn out.  In the late evening a week later he came bounding in from his ride and we asked him how the training was.  He said, “ I have learned for myself why we have Scouting in the Church.”  He then explained that Bishop Featherstone had attended and addressed the young men.  He said Bishop Featherstone had told them why have scouting in the Church.  We asked, “What did he say?”  Matthew then answered, “He said, to prepare young men to be missionaries.”
    This course presented a model of Exploring in what might have been a stake and a set of wards.  Conducting and leading was four young men, the presidency of the Explorer Presidents Association (EPA), with a President, two Vice Presidents, and a Secretary, perhaps the equivalent of the male component of a Stake Youth Council. 
    All of the course participants are divided into Posts of about 6-8 young men.  They meet and organize themselves with a President, Vice Presidents, and Secretary.  They also assigned Post members to represent their Post on six activity committees that would each plan and organize an activity for the entire camp.  The activities were for each of the six Exploring Experience Areas namely, Social, Service, Citizenship, Fitness, Outdoor, and Career.   The members of the Post also created for themselves a constitution and purpose statement with the definition of the Post uniform (Post Code and Bylaws ).  During the course, each Post discovered that there were Post uniform t-shirts of differing colors that they could acquire, once their Code and Bylaws were completed and approved.  Finally, the six activity committees met, planned and led their event as the week progressed.  There were eleven leadership skills that were taught to course members, these by adult staff, sometimes in the Posts and sometimes all participants together in one large group.  However, the EPA was central to the progression of the course, holding meetings, communicating, giving instructions, approving plans. The EPA Presidency conducted all meetings of the course as a whole, except for a welcome and a closure time by the course director who was as an adult.
    This was the second time that this course was presented at Philmont.  It was well  received and leaders of the Utah BSA councils determined to begin to present the course nearer to home.  It began to be presented in two versions by the three Utah BSA councils, one for edult leaders and one for youths.  The adult version was called Exploring Leadership Institute (ELI) and was in reality an Exploring focused Woodbadge.  The youth versions were called E2 in our Great Salt Lake Council (Exploring to a higher power) and elsewhere Leadership Institute For Explorers (LIFE).  The major difference was that the adult version added a Woodbadge like ticket, a set of personal Venturing related objectives to accomplish in the coming months.
    When Matthew from the Philmont training he seemed committed to implement some of the ideas that had been presented for en enhanced Exploring program, and in addition to promoting ward Exploring activities, he became involved in the District Explorer Presidents Association.  In 1986-87 he served as Olde English Fort District EPA secretary and in 1987-88 as the EPA President.

More Training and Older Boy Scouting Leader Opportunities.
    In the meantime, after serving in the Stake Young Mens Presidency for a year, there was a change and in May 1987 I was advanced to the calling of First Counselor.  This also meant I had the Varsity Assistant District Commissioner, with similar duties in regard to Varsity Scouting that I had previously for Scouting.  And I continued to being on the ward Varsity Team Committee Chairman 5/87-2/89
    In August of 1988, I had further exposure to Explorer leadership training.  I helped provide transportation and support for the Priests from our Taylorsville ward to attend an E2 program presented by our Great Salt Lake BSA Council and held at the Teton Canoe Base in Wyoming.
    In December 1988 I was called as the Stake Young Mens President, which included the assignment to be Exploring Assistant District Commissioner.
    In the summer of 1989 I took two important steps in my scouting training.  These were two week long leadership courses that I attended almost back to back in the late summer.  The first was the standard BSA adult leader advanced training course, Woodbadge, except that at that time the BSA Great Salt Lake Council had created a version that focused upon Varsity Scouts and this was the course that I attended.  The course was held at Camp Tracy in Salt Lake’s Mill Creek canyon.  Most of the features of the course were the standard Woodbadge, but all of the examples were regarding Varsity Scouting.
    I might mention also that Varsity Scouts was developed around 1975 by Latter-day Saint scouters in the north end of Utah county, being designed specifically as an activity program specifically for Teacher Quorum age 14 and 15 year old boys, and then accepted by BSA as a sort of adjunct program to regular scouting.  I do not think it really caught on with anyone else, and unfortunately was not supported as well as it might have been by national BSA.  There was a perhaps 20-30 year period in which the Utah BSA Councils put a lot of emphasis on making Varsity Scouts work.  But finally national BSA forced these Councils to sort of homogenize its support into that of regular scouting and it lost its momentum.  It was a spectacular program in its time, fitting the needs of middle teen boys so perfectly, and very natural (and fun) to implement.
    A couple of weeks after returning home from Woodbadge, I attended another week of training, also an advanced course, about Exploring called ELI (Explorer Leadership Institute), sponsored by Utah National Parks Council and held at the campus of the College of Eastern Utah in Price.  Similar to the Varsity Woodbadge training just described, this program was focused upon the LDS usage of Exploring as the activity program for in Priest Quorums.
     Meanwhile, the leaders of the Scouting District in our own Taylorsville area were making plans to offer the E2 course just for young men in our own local area.  My good friend, Earl Mullennax had just been appointed chairman of our Taylorsville area BSA Olde English Fort district and was determined to make the E2 and Exploring experience widely available to our young men in Taylorsville.  He himself had experienced the course at Philmont in 1987 and participated again in the adult versions being offered by the Great Salt Lake and Trapper Trails Council (Ogden).  He personally reached out to sell this idea to the Presidents of all five Taylorsville Stakes and two Bennion stakes and also their Stake Young Mens Presidents.  He had almost unanimous support from these leaders.  When I was the Young Mens President in our stake, I remember and appreciated the solid unity of the other Stake Young Mens Presidents in promoting good Exploring programs and specifically the district E2 course.  I recall that we seemed to have ownership for this project as a group.  There was also much positive support by James Jardine our regional  leader for the Church and from the professional scouter who was our District Executive.
    The initial E2 course was held in June 1990, with Earl functioning in the role of Course Director.  I attended as a staff person for all 18 years that this course was held, though 2007.  In 1992 and 1993 I served as course director.  Other years I was the EPA advisor, or a Post advisor, or taught leadership skills or helped out in other ways that were needed. 
    In its 18 years, over 900 young men of Priests age participated in the is course.  And many came back multiple times to serve as staff for the course, often as Post advisors or members of the course EPA or VOA Presidency.
    Most significantly, we saw growth in many, many of these young men, as they progressed to decide that their lives had purpose and that purpose involved service to others.
    Matthew remembers attending this course as a staff member in June 1991, immediately upon his return from his mission in South Africa.  David and Nathan also attended the course when it was called PLC.
    With a major change in stake leaders, the camp lost its support and was discontinued after 2007.  Wendy and I attended together three weeks after our marriage in 2006 and also in 2007.  Wendy was part of the food preparation staff.

A Surprise Change in E2 Sponsorship
    As we were starting to prepare for our 1993 E2 course, a surprise announcement was made by the Church.  In a letter signed by Howard Hunter who was then the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, it was announced that the Church would no longer participate in the ELI and E2 courses.  This was a shock and surprise.  The Church leaders we knew were very positive about the course in both its impact on young men and the progress being made in training leaders to get the most out of our use of the Exploring program.  Informal explanations seemed to point toward there being some overzealousness on the part of some leaders, especially some high level leaders in  BSA to overpressure or to try to require church leaders like Bishops to attend ELI; also to make the cost of attendance excessive (course fee plus 2 uniforms, blue blazer and gray slacks plus a full Explorer leader’s uniform), or another thought that there was to much Church content being taught in a course sponsored by BSA.  The underlying motive was not fully explained. 
    Among our local Church leaders there was dismay also.  Jack Green who was President of the Bennion East Stake and others suggested that if we couldn’t have this course as a BSA offering, since the content was developed by members of the Church for members of the Church, that perhaps the Church could sponsor the program.  That idea caught on and Elder Jardine, the Regional Representative, gave his approval.  Earl and the other district leaders picked up on this, and preparations for June contiued.  The course was renamed Priests Leadership conference (PLC) but kept the E2 content intact. 
    This process was being followed in other areas that were using this program also, including the South Weber area where the Soderquists were living.  Their solution was the same, but for their Aaron’s Camp they removed most or all of the Exploring content and gave the experience a missionary preparation vocabulary and emphasis. 
    In our area, to provide a priesthood authority line for the operation of PLC, an agent stake president was identified, and in July of 1993, I was called as Taylorsville Region Aaronic Priesthood Training Coordinator, with the assignment to oversee the this program.  I served in this position for two years.
    In the midst of this work, in 1998, BSA changed all the terminology.  Exploring became Venturing, Posts became Crews, and the EPA became the VOA (Venturing Officers Association).

Scouting Continued
    All the while that I was part of the team that was putting on E2/PLC,  plus often having BSA District leadership assignments, including Exploring/Venturing Roundtable Commissioner and Training Chairman, I also had heavy-duty scouting assignments in the stake and then in our ward.  Immediately after my release as Stake Young Mens President, in November 1991, I was called by our ward leaders to be ward Young Mens First Counselor/Varsity Coach/Teachers Quorum Advisor and served in this assignment for four years.  I had two wonderful assistants to work with, Larry Knowlden and Dave Ricketts.  Varsity Scouting that was our activity program was intended to be full of outdoor high adventure.  My assistants each had an adventure preference for which they were advocates--Larry loved backpacking in the Uintas and Dave adored exploring Southern Utah, so our compromise was to do both– Unitas in the summer and Southern Utah in the Spring and Fall, usually for 2-3 day adventures during the school vacations.
    One of the goals that our quorum set, was to have a high adventure in each of our National Parks.  We included all of the Utah parks, plus Great Basin in Nevada.  These were:
    Zions– after being dropped off at a reservoir high above the canyon about 20 miles to the north, hiking on a high plateau through a Ponderosa Pine forest down along the West Rim, finally descending to the canyon at Angels Landing.
    Bryce–hiking down into and through the canyon through the beautiful red rock
    Canyonlands– hiked to several arches and a Colorado River overlook.
    Arches– hiked Park Avenue and to several arches including Landscape Arch.
    Capital Reef– fed the deer at the campground/old apple orchard, hiked slot canyon and to an arch.
    Great Basin– toured Lehman Cave, visit the Bristlecone forest.
    This latter visit was one of my very favorite camps, as we were able to see the full range of vegetation zones as we entered the park and then drove to a camping place high on the mountain, starting with alkaline desert, then scrub oak and pinion pine, aspen and Ponderosa, firs and spruces, and ended up at timberline.  It was almost like traveling 5000 miles northward to the arctic tundra in less than an hour. 
    Here are other places we visited: Natural bridges and Grand Gulch, San Rafael river gorge, Goblin Valley and Little Wild Horse canyon, also nearby Horseshoe Canyon with its exraordinary pictographs.
    One of my favorite memories was a 60 mile Uintas backpacking trip, starting at Henry’s Fork on the north slope, packing up and over Gunsite Pass, climbing King’s Peak, then heading south over Trail Rider pass,  past Lake Atwood and being picked up on the south side of the mountains at the Uinta River trailhead.  We had great fun on this trip with a llama called Nebraska that Dave and one of the boys rented to carry their packs.
    We built our own folding Kayaks for use on nearby lakes.
    Our winter high adventure was camping out and sleeping on the ice of a frozen lake: Causey Reservoir, East Canyon, Strawberry Reservoir, our Manhhod Camp.  We also built our own cold weather sleeping systems to use.
    During this time, I felt blessed to have David and then Nathan in our quorum and program.  JoAnn said  that she was quite relieved when each of them had his 16th birthday, so that now they would be safe again.
    After four wonderful years with the Teachers quorum/Varsity program, in August 1995, I was released and then immediately recalled into scouting as the Scoutmaster.  For a while, I only worked with the Troop, while someone else was Deacon’s advisor.  One oddity that this arrangement promoted was on a weekend in which we had a camp scheduled, the Deacon’s adviser planned a bowling night for the boys.  I was glad when the Deacon’s Advisor moved away, and I had both sides of the programs for the ward deacons. 
    For summer camps, our troop mainly used regular BSA camps such as Camp Steiner in the Uintas.  We tried to alternate mountain-based camps one year, then went to Bear Lake Acquatics Camp for a water-based camp the next.
    In June of 1998, I was released as as Scoutmaster and made Bishop of our ward.  I still tried to go on outings and camps as much as possible.  I also appointed myself Venturing Committee Chair, so as to have direct oversite for Priests quorum activities, and stayed in that position through the entirety of my term as Bishop and another two years until I moved to Spanish Fork in September 2006.

Our Website ldsscouting,org

2000 to 2010        YET TO BE ADDED


Scouting in Spanish Fork
    Within a month of my move to Spanish fork, I was asked by my new ward Bishopric to chair and improve the effectiveness of the ward Scouting Committee.  With the support of the Bishopric and especially the second Counselor, Lynn Hunter, I then divided the one committee into three, one for Scouts, one for Varsity, and one for Exploring, and staffed each with parents and others with a particular interest in that age group.  I also made myself the chair of each of these committees, and encouraged that each program be run fully.  This arrangement continued until January 2007,when I was called as the ward Young Mens President.
    As committee chair, I began to attend District Roundtable, and was soon asked to serve as Assistant Roundtable Commissioner, working with Dr. Tracy Frandsen.  Promoting the full Venturing program, I volunteered to start and be advisor to a District Teen Leader Council (a District VOA).  At this time I made friends with Gordon Lowe and also with Brad Harris.  Gordon was running a very effective Venturing program in one of the Spanish Fork wards and also was serving in a Venturing leader role in entire Utah National Parks Council.  The latter had just joined the BYU faculty for Recreation Management and Youth Leadership, formerly had worked in the BSA central office in Irving, Texas, and had had a major role in writing the most recent Venturing handbook.  Brad was also a member of the Church’s YMMIA General Board. Working with these two, I co-authored a document called the Venturing Guide, published first in 2006 and then revised and expanded in 2008.  This document was intended to introduce Venturing to LDS leaders of youth and give them tips on how to get the program started with their young men.
    Starting the Teen Leaders Council was quite enjoyable, and I worked with it until Wendy and I went on our senior mission in December 2008.  One of our successes involved Gordon’s daughter, Jennifer.  Gordon was released from his Priests Quorum Venturing calling and wanting to continue to make Venturing happen and help youths, found a sponsor in Spanish fork City government and developed a community Venturing Crew.  This Crew was coed.  They developed a strong program with quite a few girls who were enthusiastic about a high adventure outdoor program.  One of these girls was Jennifer Lowe, his daughter.  During the second year of Teen Leaders Council, she became the president of this Crew, and started attending our TLC, in which she became a faithful and capable contributor.  As we formed a search committee, made up partially of the current TLC presidency and advisors, to recommend names to be the next year’s TLC leaders, Jennifer became the top candidate for President.  She was smart, attractive, and had a lot of drive.  I got support from district scouting leadership for a girl to be in this position (we hadn’t seen this before), and made the recommendation and Jennifer was installed as TLC President.  She went the extra mile and began to attend meetings of a newly organized Council TLC.  While we were on our mission, we got reports, that she had become not just a member of the Council TLC, but was now the President, then a little later, the President of the TLC for the Scouting Area here in the mountain west, and the next year the National Venturing TLC President.  What an amazing thing to result from our little effort to use Venturing more effectively in Spanish Fork, Utah.
    My acquaintance with Brad Harris also resulted in my appointment to a General Board committee chaired by Brad, YM General Board Task Force on the Activity Programs for 14-18 year old Aaronic Priesthood Holders.  This committee met for a few months during 2007 and submitted a set of recommendations to the Church on making the older boy programs more effective.
    While we were on our mission, Gordon Lowe insisted that I remain registered as a member of the coed Venturing Crew committee, so that I would continue to have scouting registration during that period.

Post Mission Scouting
    When we returned from North Carolina, our stake immediately added me back to scouting support as a Unit Commissioner and member of Stake Young Mens Board.  When Mary Allen, who had served our ward for many years as 11 year old scout leader, was diagnosed with cancer and not feeling well,  I asked if I could help, and was called to that assignment in January 2012. 
    A couple of months later I got an unusual request.  I was attending a stake choir rehearsal in preparation for stake conference and seated behind me was Curtis Blair, Counselor in our Stake Presidency.  As we got up to leave the rehearsal, President Blair said to me, “I feel impressed that I need to talk something over with you.  He said something to the effect that the Presidency was needing to replace one of the Counselors in the Stake Young Mens Presidency, that they wanted to put a lot more emphasis on strengthening the Venturing program, that they had asked our Bishop to let me serve in that position, and that he objected because I had just been called as ward 11 year old scout leader.  Do you think that you could serve in both positions? 
    I quickly realized that I was retired and had lots of time and would very much like to try to do both.  He suggested that I pass this along to my Bishopric.  I spoke to Lynn Hunter, who was again Bishopric Second Counselor and the IR (ward scouting representative) and a friend, telling what President Blair had said and that I would very much like to fill both assignments.  He spoke with Bishop West, and then Bishop West with the Stake Presidency, and shortly I was called to be Second Counselor in the Stake Young Mens Presidency, but with the special assignment to work with Venturing in the Stake.
    President Blair told me later, with a smile, that he had to apologize to Bishop West for speaking with me about this assignment ahead of my getting the call, but it got the job done.
    I served in the Stake Young Mens Presidency for nearly three years and worked with Venturing.  We started a stake VOA, and I got acquainted with a number of fine young men.  One of efforts was to introduce a leadership training program for young men, called the Venturing Leadership Skills Course (VLSC).  We went through this training program with the VOA Presidency, and then they taught the course to Priests age young men in the Stake.  There were many other things we did with the VOA help them learn leadership skills and promote the use of Venturing by the Priests quorums of the Stake.
    Here is a description of some of the activities we sponsored:
    I connected with Elder Chandler’s letter of 4/16/13 which included a personal “mission” statement, because of my work with the Priests/Venturers in our stake where we have been considering mission/purpose/vision statements.  Just yesterday, our Stake Venturing Officers Association (which I am adviser, etc.,  to) presented the Venturing Leadership Skill Course (VLSC) to a number of Priests from our stake and their leaders.  The VLSC is a course on basic leadership skills created for Venturing age young people, a part of Venturing’s “Nature of Leadership” training program.  We have been preparing for this event for some time.  In February we took VOA leaders up to the family cabin and presented this course to them, and since have been preparing them to be able to present the same lessons to a broader group in the stake.  We have helped them get support for this from stake and ward leaders, to plan and carry out a publicity campaign to get attendance, to plan other details of this specific event, and to prepare to present the actual lesson materials.
    Yesterday we held the event, with 19 young men and 9 of their leaders present.  We started with a breakfast at 7:30 am and finished about 2 pm.  Wendy, bless her heart, created the meals (breakfast burritos and hoagies) with a little help from a couple of VOA mothers.
    Regarding mission statements, the very first session in the VLSC is on “Vision,” a topic which we understand is of very much current interest with managers and leaders in business, government, and elsewhere.  This is the creation of mission/purpose/vision statements which describe in a succinct way an organization’s reason for existence and energize and unify persons serving in organization around its purpose.  I have obtained some insights on this subject from Greg, whom I consider something of an expert on this subject since he was a part of the team that created Wal-Mart’s “Spend less, live better” statement and shared with me a book by a management consultant, Roy Spence, who had worked with them on this project.
    Our VOA has agreed upon this statement which defines for them the purpose of Aaronic Priesthood Venturing:
“Preparing the next generation of incredible leaders, in the Church, and in the world.”
    I like this statement very much and  find myself energized by it.  It makes me want to use all my mind and strength to improve the use of the Venturing program in our stake and scouting district.  It seems to me that it well describes the unique contribution that Venturing can make to the preparations of our Priest-age young men for missionary service and for life.  When fully used, Venturing provides young men with both formal training and opportunities to practice and experience leadership, in ways not duplicated by the other tools that the Church gives us for developing our young men-- Duty to God, Come Follow Me curriculum, Seminary, etc.
    In the VLSC session on vision the young men are also challenged to define their personal vision or mission statement.  I think of my personal vision statement, developed and refined over a number of years, which I share (with a little hesitation, because it is personal) :
“Make good happen.”
    It tells me that it is not sufficient for me to know and understand what is right and true and good.  I am obligated to see that these things are implemented.  It helps me to wake up from the nap, set down the book, get up from the computer, and undertake actions to accomplish things that will bless the lives of others.
Robert Lewis blog, Sunday, April 21, 2013
    During this time I also was on staff of a 2-stake Wood Badge course (Spanish Fork South and Spanish Fork East), that included Emilie’s husband Scott as a participant.
    In the ward 11 year old scout leader calling, with a series of assistants, we conscientiously ran this introduction to scouting, and tried to help each young man catch the spirit of scouting and take the first steps toward Eagle.  We usually met on an afternoon after school, either at our house or in the primary nursery at the church.  We taught basic camping skills and camped as much as we were allowed by the Primary.  Each summer we did a longer camp, usually at a Council camp on the north fork of Hobble Creek which specialized in the 11 year old program.
    Here is a blog about some of our 11 year old scout activities:
    In the last couple of week, I had two big events with my 11 year old scouts.  Ont Friday and Saturday June 14-15, we were at Adventure Park, which is a scout camp just for 11 year olds.  It is at the end of the road on the North Fork of Hobble Creek, east of Provo Peak and takes most of an hour to get there, mostly because the last 2 miles are a terrible road.  (They say 2 miles but it seemed like 10, all twists, turns, rocks, bumps, and dust.  The camp is in a pretty setting however, rather primitive and wooded.  There is just a dribble of water in the Creek at that point.
    I went with some trepidation, concerned that it had been a few years since I had camped with scouts, and that maybe my old body couldn’t put up with sleeping in the wilds and chasing 11 year olds for 2 days.  But I could, and it was still fun to be in camp with boys.  The comaraderie, the joking, watching the guys learn and explore still had some magic.
    It was sort of a “de je vous” experience.  I remembered how similar I felt after my first heart attack, and that was 29 years ago.  I write abour that previously.  I thought about my Cleveland Peak epiphany as I was finding last week that my 76 year old body could still enjoy a good camp with the scouts.
    Also, on this very morning, Randy R (my new assistant) and I did a 5 mile hike with our little patrol.  We did the Spanish Fork River Trail and River Bottoms Road loop.  We had Josh with us and also Sterling M and Ethan C.  We stopped every half mile or so and shot a direction with a compass.  We made it a contest, where each boy would shoot the direction and tell us their reading, then Randy would shoot the same object and the kid the closest to Randy’s reading would win.  At first the variation was quite wide like 20-30 degrees, but by the time we approached our car, they were coming within 2-3 degrees of each other and Randy.  For the last shot, which was the peak of Mt. Nebo, two of the kids had readings of 200 degrees and Joshua called it 199 degrees.  Randy, the politician that he is, announced that the official direction was 199.5, and everyone was happy.  This is the best that any group I have had of 11 year olds, in mastering use of a compass.
Robert Lewis blog, Tuesday, June 25, 2013
    I was released from this calling in December 2017, at age 80, but allowed to remain on the ward Troop committee as Advancement Committee Member and Chair.  I took a special interest in the boys I had worked with as 11 year olds and tried to assist them with their scouting advancement, kept advancement records, conducted Boards of Review, and helped the older boys and their parents set goals and work toward Eagle.  Five of my favorite kids, Ryan Cobb, Josh and Ethan Cook, A J Stone, and Braiden Collette, qualified for their Eagle rank in the last few months before the Church dropped the scouting program.
    We put a lot of emphasis on Scouts over the course of raising our family.  Most everyone outdid my Tenderfoot rank.  When our boys were home, with JoAnn’s encouragement, I usually blocked out time to sit down with each of my sons for a few minutes on Sunday afternoons to work with them on scouting advancement.  All four of our sons, two sons-in-laws, eighteen grandsons, and to this point seven grandsons-in-law, achieved the rank of Eagle.  Here is a listing of members of our family who achieved Eagle:
 Quin Soderquist    23 Jun 1977
 Gregory Chandler    Oct 1983
 Matthew Lewis    4 Mar 1984
 Michael Lewis    21 Mar 1988
 David Lewis        15 Jul 1990
 Nathan Lewis    14 Jul 1993
 Andrew Soderquist    Mar 2004
 Jon Pitts        2005
 Daniel Soderquist    24 Oct 2007
 Steven Perry        21 Nov 2007
 Troy Love        28 May 2008
 Paul Soderquist     25 Jun 2008
 Nathan Guymon    2008
 Ryan Chandler    29 Jan 2011
 Daniel Coenen    Jun 2011
 McKay Chandler    22 Oct 2011
 Jaron Chandler    3 Dec 2011
 Ben Jacobson   
 Jeremy Lewis    14 Nov 2012
 Justin Blake         6 Dec 2012
 Eric Soderquist    24 Mar 2015
 Ethan Blake         21 May 2015
 Austin Miller        22 May 1915
 Jonathan Soderquist    26 Aug 2015
 Jamison Chandler    8 Apr 2018
 Trenton Chandler    16 Aug 2018
 Aaron Soderquist     21 Aug 2019
 Chris Soderquist    21 Aug 2019
 Holden Chandler    19 Dec 2019
 Joshua Lewis        2 Jan 2020
 Adam    Blake        2 Jan 2020

The Loss of Scouting as a Young Mens Activity Program
    I have felt some pain in the discontinuance of Church participation with Scouting, as the main activity program for Aaronic Priesthood young men.  I put a lot of myself into learning and teaching and leading these programs.  I saw many advantages in Scouting, as a systematic and structured tool for teachings boys their responsibilities to God, to become men of service and high standards, to love and respect our country, and as a missionary tool.  I had my frustrations with others leaders who failed to catch the vision of what scouting could do for boys or who did not make the sacrifices necessary to really learn to implement scouting programs effectively.  I also saw trends in scouting, that suggested that BSA might have begun to lose its vision as to what boys need and how to run the program appropriately.  So, the Church moves on, but we remember fondly our experiences in scouting.

Personal History VII -- Family background-Davenport Side

Family Background – Davenport side
    On my mother’s side, there are more records, I suppose because the people were a little more literate and often belonged to churches that kept records of baptisms, marriages, burials, etc.  Ancestors on all of these lines were from New England, mostly Massachusetts and Maine, but also Vermont and New Hampshire.  Most all of the lines go back to the 1600s and to an immigrant ancestor and before.  As an non-English exception in one direct Davenport ancestral line, the Crapo family, the earliest ancestor Pierre Crapaud (Peter Crapo) was a teenage stowaway from Bordeaux, France, who was put off a ship in Massachusetts.  He married Penelope White, great-granddaughter of William White and wife Susanna of the Mayflower.  William White was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact.
    The Remington line also goes back to the Mayflower, to Edward and Samuel Fuller.  Samuel Fuller also married Jane Lathrop, the daughter of Rev John Lathrop, famous for his advocacy of the separation of Church and State and ancestor of many prominent Americans: 
     Rev. John Lothropp (1584–1653) — sometimes spelled Lothrop or Lathrop — was an English Anglican clergyman, who became a Congregationalist minister and emigrant to New England. He was among the first settlers of Barnstable, Massachusetts.  Perhaps Lothropp's principal claim to fame is that he was a strong proponent of the idea of the Separation of Church and State (also called 'Freedom of Religion'), keeping the government out of religion and religion out of the government.  This idea was considered heretical in England during his time, but eventually became the mainstream view of people in the United States of America, because of the efforts of John Lothropp and others.  Lothropp left an indelible mark on the culture of New England, and through that, upon the rest of the country.  He has had many notable descendants, including at least 6 US presidents, as well as many other prominent Governors, and government and business people.
     Lothropp married Hannah House in England, on 10 October 1610. They had eight children:
     Thomas Lothropp, baptised 21 February 1612 in Eastwell, Kent, England, by his grandfather Rev. John Howse, parson there. Record from Bishop's Transcript records at Canterbury.
     Jane Lothropp, born 29 September 1614 in Egerton, Kent, England; married Mayflower passenger Samuel Fuller (1608–1683), son of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller (1575-1621).
     Anne Lothropp, born May 1616 in Egerton, England
     John Lothropp, born February 1617/18 in Egerton, England
     Barbara Lothropp, born October 1619 in Egerton, England
     Samuel Lothropp, born 1622 in Egerton, England
     Captain Joseph Lothropp, born April 1624 in Eastwell, Kent, England
     Benjamin Lothropp, born December 1626 in Eastwell, Kent, England
     After Hannah's death, Lothropp married again, to Ann Hammond (?) in 1635. They had five children:
     Elizabeth Lothropp, born in Scituate, MA
     Barnabas Lothropp, born June 1636 in Barnstable, MA
     Abigail Lothropp, born 2 November 1639 in Barnstable, MA
     Bathsheba Lothropp, born February 1640/41 in Scituate, MA
     Captain John Lothropp, born 9 February 1643/44 in Barnstable, MA

     While Lothropp's fame may not have lasted much beyond his life, famous descendants continue to influence the world through this day. His direct descendants in America and elsewhere number more than 80,000, including:
     Rev. John Lathrop (1740-1816), great-great-grandson; congregationalist Boston minister
     Presidents of the United States:
         George H. W. Bush
         George W. Bush
         Millard Fillmore
         James A. Garfield
         Ulysses S. Grant
         Franklin D. Roosevelt
     Revolutionary War figure Benedict Arnold
     Early leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
         Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith
         Wilford Woodruff
         Oliver Cowdery
         Parley P. Pratt
         Orson Pratt
         Also: Marion G.Romney, Harold B. Lee, Joseph F. Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith  
     State governors:
         Jeb Bush
         Thomas E. Dewey
         Jon Huntsman, Jr.
         William W. Kitchin
         Sarah Palin
         George W. Romney
         Mitt Romney
         Jim Guy Tucker
     US Senator Adlai Stevenson III
     Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
     CIA Director Allen Welsh Dulles
     Roman Catholic cardinal Avery Dulles
     Old West gunfighter and lawman Wild Bill Hickock
     Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
     Educator, president of Yale University, and American diplomat Kingman Brewster, Jr..
     Historian, College Administrator, and president of Harvard University, Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust
     United States Representative Galusha A. Grow, father of the Homestead Act
     Historical, Asahel Lathrop Mormon Pioneer
     Artists Lewis Comfort Tiffany and Georgia O'Keeffe
     Physician, author Benjamin Spock
     Wife of the founder of Stanford University Jane Stanford
     Author and doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and his son, US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
     Novelist Michael MacConnell
     Founder of Post Cereal Company C. W. Post
     Founder of General foods Marjorie Merriweather Post
     Founder of Fuller Brush Company Alfred Carl Fuller
     Founder of University of Chicago Law School, Founder of the Harvard Law Review, and Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School, Joseph Henry Beale
     Financier John Pierpont Morgan
     Writer Cynthia Rouse, Alexandra Rouse, Tony Rouse, and many other Mitchell relatives.
     Professor of Physics and Professor of Geology, Daniel Perry Lathrop, University of Maryland, College Park.
     The Allred family, including actor Corbin Allred and polygamist sect leaders and brothers Rulon C. Allred and Owen A. Allred
     Actresses Dina Merrill, Shirley Temple, Brooke Shields, and Maggie Gyllenhaal and her brother actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
     Actor Clint Eastwood and Kevin Bacon
(from Wikipedia article “John Lothropp” and notes by Dorothy D. Hall)
     Here is the lineage to our family:
Rev. John Lathrop (1578-1653) md. Hannah House
Daughter, Jane Lathrop (1614-1678) md. Samuel Fuller (of the Mayflower)
Son, John Fuller (1656-1726) md. Mehitabel Rowley
Son, Samuel Fuller (1682-1757) md. Naomi Rowley
Son, Aaron Fuller Sr. (1711-1762) md. Ruth Sawyer
Son, Aaron Fuller Jr. (1738-1819)  md. Rebecca Bloggett  
Son, Robert Fuller (1760-1825) md. Jerusha Brudage
Daughter, Sarah Fuller (1791-1847) md. Joseph Remington
Son, Jerome Napoleon Remington (1819-1877) md. Lydia Ripley Badger
Daughter, Helen Maria Remington (1857-1929) md. Jeremiah Franklin Davenport
Son, Franklin Remington Davenport (1878-1965) md. Kate Naomi Lufkin
Daughter, Hazel Lufkin Davenport (1906-1990) md. Clarence Monroe Lewis
Son, Robert Eugene Lewis (1937-     ) md. JoAnn Evans
Children, Alison, Angela, Valerie, Matthew, Emilie, Michael, David, Nathan
    We had at least seven ancestors who came to America on the Mayflower: William and Mary Brewster, Richard Warren, William and Susanna White, Resolved White, Francis Cooke, John Cooke
    While nearly all of my maternal ancestral lines were from Britain, there is one Scots-Irish line, which was among the ancestors in the Grandma Kate Lufkin.  Her grandfather Samuel Lufkin met and married Eleanor Johnson, who was from the Scots-Irish settlement of Londonderry, Nova Scotia and whose mother Eleanor O’Brien was born in County Antrim, in Ulster, Northern Ireland.  I have mentioned this lineage and some of their history and characteristics earlier.
    All of the immediate ancestors of my Davenport-Lufkin grandparents were converts or members of the Church and came to Utah as pioneers prior to the completion of the railroad.  The earliest to join, baptized only two years after the Church was organized were John Badger and his wife Lydia Chamberlain, who were in the paternal line of my grandfather, Frank Davenport.   Soon after came James Foss Townsend and his wife Susan Davis, ancestors of the mother of my grandmother Kate.  They were baptized in 8 Sep 1833 in Buxton, Maine by John Boynton.  James was ordained an Elder by Wilfred Woodruff and served as a missionary companion of Elder Woodruff in the Fox Islands, off the coast of Maine (Wilford Woodruff, .”Leaves from my Journal,” (1988) Salt Lake: Bookcraft).
    Here a chart showing when the original conversions occurred in all our ancestral lines, including the Lewis’.

Original Converts to the Church by Ancestral Line

Ancestral Line    Person Name     Baptism Date &
Place    Gathering Date & Place    Utah Arrival Date
Davenport    Edward Wilcox Davenport    1849, MA    1851?
Kanesville, IO    1851-2 SL
Crapo    Joseph George Crapo
Mary Hicks Collins
Clarissa Crapo    1845
Freetown, MA    1851?
Kanesville, IO    1853
1853
1852
Remington    Joseph Remington
Sarah Fuller
Jerome Napoleon Remington    1838,
Kirtland, OH    1942, Nauvoo    Died 1846 IO
Died 1847 NE
1848
Badger    John Badger
Lydia Chamberlain    1932, Waterford, VT    1837
Kirtland    Died 1840 IO
Died 1844 IL
Lufkin    Samuel Henry Lufkin
Eleanor Johnson
George W. Lufkin    1844, VT?
1844, VT?
1852, IO    1850
Council Bluffs, IO*    1852 S L
Died 1852 NE
1852 SL
Townsend    James Foss Townsend
Susan Davis    1833
Buxton, ME    1838
Kirtland    1852, Salt Lake
Lewis    Robert Lewis
Dorothy Lewis    1954
Hood River, OR    1955  Provo
1956  Provo    1955 Provo
1956 Provo

* They went first to Kirtland, but found no members there, so continued on

    There are some fascinating stories about our ancestors and their journeys across the plains to Utah.
    Clarissa Crapo Davenport was said to be short enough that she could walk under her husband’s out stretched arm with touching.  My mother knew of her as “Little Grandma.”  She was energetic, outgoing, and full of faith.  Along with her parents and younger siblings, she and her husband, Edward Wilcox Davenport with their small baby traveled to Iowa to join the saints for the trek west.  Her brother was scheduled to go with and assist a wagon train that was ready to leave for the west, but cut his foot badly.  Clarissa’s father proposed that Edward go instead.
    Clarissa stayed with the parents and worked for a year trying to earn enough money to have her trunk and bedding and food hauled across the plains.  Then she joined a wagon train with her little son.  She walked all the way across the plains carrying her little son most of the way.
    Before leaving her home she received her patriarchal blessing. In it she was promised that she and her baby would reach the valley of the mountains in safety.  One night after they had traveled about six weeks her baby took sick.  In the morning he was cold and stiff and to all appearance dead.  The captain came to her and asked her if they could bury the baby there or wait until noon, She answered and said, "Captain my baby isn't dead".  She then told him of the promises she had received in her patriarchal blessing that her baby would reach the valley in safety.  "O well," the captain said, "it doesn't always mean that literally."  She turned to him and replied, "If that isn't true nothing is true. You cannot bury my baby now."  "Alright", the Captain said, "we will wait until noon."
    Holding her baby and rubbing him with consecrated oil and then forcing a little down his throat, praying all the time, she worked for an hour when his little body began to get warm and limber. She continued her rubbing and praying until toward noon.  He roused and asked for a drink of water. After having received it, he fell into a peaceful slumber.
    At noon the captain again came to the wagon. "Sister Davenport shall we bury your baby?" he asked.
    "Would you bury a live baby?" she asked uncovering the baby she looked at him and smiled. "Would you bury a live baby?" she asked the captain.
    The captain looked at the baby and then called the company together. He knelt down and asked forgiveness for his lack of faith, and not believing that she would receive her promise that she and her baby would reach the valley.
    Little Joseph was a pretty baby with his big blue eyes and golden curls.  When the Indians saw him, they thought he was wonderful.  They would point to his eyes and to the skies and would make signs and motions, to say he was great white chief who would come to save their people.  The chief tried several time to buy him, offering Clarissa robes, horses, and anything in their possession for him.  The captain warned the company not to make the Indians angry or there would be trouble.
    One day while they were stopped for lunch the Indians came.  Two or three little Indian girls came to where Clarissa was sitting with her baby on her lap.  One of them begged so hard to hold the baby just a minute.  He did not seem afraid and wanted to play with their beads.  Remembering what the captain had said about not making the Indians angry she thought perhaps there would be no harm in complying with the Indian girl's wish.  Just as she was about to hand him over she saw the Indian girl glance up.  Turning she saw the chief on a horse making ready to grab the baby as soon as an opportunity came.  This frightened Clarissa so that as quick as a flash she closed her hand tight over the baby's arm, pinching him so that he began to scream and cry.  She said to the Indian girl, "O baby cry", and quickly turned to the wagon.  This angered the chief and he struck the Indian girl several blows for betraying him, for he knew she had done something to make Clarissa suspicious.  The Captain told Clarissa to get into the wagon and stay a week and keep the baby out of sight of the Indians or she would lose him.  (From a Memory in FamilySearch and also stories told by my mother)
    Another story about crossing the plains that impressed me was about the Lufkin family.  Their oldest son George was out of the home at the time that they were taught the gospel and baptized, and did not fully accept these teachings even though the family tried to teach him.  They sold their belongings a made the trip westward to join with the saints to travel to Utah.  George decided to follow them.  First he went to Kirtland, Ohio, but his family had gone ahead.  While he was there he became deathly ill.  George prayed that he could be healed and join his family and an elder passing through administered to him.  He recovered, committing to God that he would join the Church.  He found them in Iowa waiting to join a wagon train for the westward trip.  For some reason, he became frustrated with the behavior of some of he members there.  He decided that he would make the trek, and help out where he could, but then would continue on to the gold fields in California.  For what reason we do not know he and his mother and father were each assigned to different companies.  The night before his company was to leave, as he was preparing for bed, he heard a voice, “George, George.”  He responded, and voice said to him, “George, you have not kept your promise.”  Then coming strongly to his mind was the recollection that, when he was so sick in Kirtland, he had promised the Lord that if he were healed, he would be baptized into the Church.
    The next morning as people were busily preparing for the departure of his wagon train, he found the captain of his train, and asked him how he could be baptized.  Apparently there was some water nearby and the captain immediately went with him and performed the baptism.  In an interesting coincidence the wagon train captain’s name was Isaac Bullock, who is an ancestor of Scott Blake.  A little later in the morning, George met his mother in passing in the camp, and he told her that he had just been baptized, to her great pleasure.  Then they parted and he left with his train.  His father’s train also left at about the same time and arrived in Utah ahead of George’s.  He sought out his father and learned that his mother had not survived the trip.  She had died of cholera at Loups Fork, Nebraska. 
    George did not continue to California, but met and married Martha Ann Townsend and became our ancestor.

    Franklin Remington Davenport, My Grandfather
    Franklin Remington Davenport, born 15 Jul 1878, in Paradise, Cache, Utah.  Died 30 Jul 1965, in Provo, Utah, Utah.  He was buried in Provo City Cemetery, Provo, Utah, Utah.
    Frank was born thirty-one years after that historic July, when the Mormon Pioneers first entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake.  By that time the little towns were becoming cities, crops were being raised, trees had grown, and the desert was fast beginning to "blossom as the rose" as was promised.  As the years passed by, more changes came and our fast-moving world of nuclear power, jets and astronauts, seems far removed from the world he knew as a child.
    He was born in a small two-room log cabin in a little community his grandparents had helped settle and build [in Paradise, in the south end of Cache Valley, Utah].  As a very small child, he remembers living in another little pioneer community on Egin Bench in Idaho and watching his Uncle Mark Davenport plow their garden with oxen and remembers the thrill of bring allowed to ride on one around the field.
    When the lumber company his father worked for, built a larger mill to make pine shingles at Beaver Canyon, Idaho, his father was sent there to manage it.  It was here that Frank had his first job in the lumber business.  He and another small boy his age, were paid twenty cents a day to keep a tank full of water, using a hand pump in a well.  They would spend at intervals about three hours a day.
    It was here also, that Frank first went to school, in a little one-room school house.  His mother had already taught him to read, write and do some arithmetic, so the first week he was advanced from the first reader (or grade) to the third.
    While they lived at Beaver Canyon, Frank often went to visit his Davenport grandparents and would stay for weeks at a time.  His grandfather had his shoe shop in a room of their home and spent all his time there, leaving the management of everything else to his wife.  Frank used to help her, herding the turkeys in the sage brush, helping with the cows and the garden and otherwise doing her bidding.
    One day, she gave him a broom and said, "Frankie, you take the broom and sweep the floors, and if you can get a teacup of dirt, I'll give you a nickel."  So, Frank would sweep and each time would get his nickel.  Most of the dirt came from his grandfather's work room.  Edward asked him one day, why he swept his shop so often, and they decided his grandmother wanted to keep him busy.
    Frank says that his grandfather, Edward Davenport, was a tall man, over six feet, who always wore a beard.  He was kind, gentle and quiet and an honest, good man.  His wife, Clarissa, was tiny, nearly a foot shorter than her husband and very energetic and active.  She had red hair and some of her grandchildren say that she had a temper to match.  She loved to dance, Especially a clog step that beat out a clattering rhythm, similar to tap dancing or jigging.  Frank and his cousin, Jesse Short, say they have seen her do this dance, and jump straight up on a table, dance a few more steps, and jump down without missing a beat and this when she was past seventy years old.
    Frank was thirteen before he had a pair of store shoes.  Until then he wore boots made for him by his grandfather.  They were beautifully made of soft black leather, with bands of red to trim the tops and caps of copper to protect the toes.  Frank was very proud of them, as he might well be.
    From Beaver Canyon, Frank's family moved to Monida, Montana.  The company had a mill north in Centennial Valley.  The lumber was hauled from there by horse teams, but the logging was all done with oxen.  Most of the lumber was sold to the mines in Dillon, Butte and Anaconda.  Sometimes Frank was allowed to accompany his father to the mines on selling trips.
    When he was eight years old, his father bought a home in Logan. Utah, so that winters the children could attend school and church.  For a few years after the family moved to Oregon, they continued to return to Logan for school.  Then his father sold the house and only the older children went back there for school.
    About 1890, in the spring, Frank with his mother and the rest of the children, went to Ashley (now Vernal), Utah, to visit his grandmother Remington.  Two of his mother's brothers were moving back to Ashley, and they all went together.  They had four covered wagons and two saddle horses and drove the some two hundred and fifty miles from Paradise, Utah, to Ashley in eastern Utah.  They spent the winter there, and in the spring his mother took them by train to Meacham, Oregon, where his father was managing a mill.
    By 1892, they were living in Hood River, Oregon, where Frank worked summers for his father, walking the flume, or in the mills or planer and later in the office. After finishing two years at the U.S.A.C. in Logan, Utah, studying to be a civil engineer, he served an L.D.S. mission to the Northwestern States.
    On his return, he and Kate Lufkin were married, and he went back to school for two more winters and took a business course.  Most of the rest of his life he worked as a bookkeeper, much of it in lumber businesses.  In Hood River, Oregon, where he lived most of his life, he was active in civic affairs, serving on the city council for eight years, one year of which he was acting mayor.  He had a beautiful tenor voice and sang in civic choruses in operettas and as a member of a quartette, he sang on many occasions.
    He lived in Hood River until 1924 and then in Oregon and Washington until he moved to Provo, Utah, after the death of his wife. He continued to work until 1943, when he retired, and since then has made his home with his children.

Memories of my Grandpa, Frank Davenport
    I remember my Grandpa Davenport from his visits as I was growing up.  After Grandma died he closed up his Bingen home, and went to Provo and built an additional on his son Franklin’s in Provo, to live in.  He worked at a lumber yard I believe, then retired.  After retirement, he rotated between his children.  When he came he usually stayed a month or so, and sometimes longer.  In 1947, he stayed with us for the summer and built a wing on our house which contained another bedroom and a bathroom, and I got my own bedroom.  So he had some good building skills.  He had served a mission as a young man and could still talk about Church things fluently.
    Eventually his health deteriorated and he stayed at Franklins, then entered a nursing facility in Provo.  By that time, I had been hired as a caseworker in the Provo office of the Welfare Department.  With another worker, we started playing music and singing old songs in rest homes including the one my Grandpa was in, so I remember him in his final debilitated state.

    Kate Naomi Lufkin, My Grandmother:
    Kate Naomi Lufkin, born 3 Jan 1880, in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah.  She died 26 Oct 1939, in Hood River, Hood River, Oregon, and was  buried in Provo City Cemetery, Provo, Utah, Utah.
    Kate's parents and grandparents were all pioneers, coming to Utah in covered wagons. They settled in Salt Lake City, where her grandfather Townsend owned the "Townsend House," the first large hotel in that city. Her own father was an excellent cabinet maker and at one time made furniture that was sold in Dinwoodey's store.  Later he owned a large wheat farm and was co-owner of a drug store in Logan, Utah, where they had moved when Kate was about eight years' old.  (From a FamilySearch Memory)
    Kate was born late on a Saturday, and the family often teased her, saying that she waited to arrive until the Saturday's work was all done.  [She was the youngest child, born when her mother was 47 years old.]  The work was all done in another sense, too.  The hard pioneering days were past, her parents were well established and able to give. her the  advantages the older children had missed, but her training as a school teacher and in art and music, ill prepared her for the life she was to lead as a mother of a large family.  In Oregon, she sadly missed her family and her activities in her church.
    She was quite and gentle and very kind.  If she had a motto, it was "'Live and let live." Her children have heard her repeat it many times.  She was loved by all who knew her and many came to her for comfort and help.  She was deeply religious and all her life had a firm conviction of the truthfulness of the beliefs that led her people to forsake their homes in the East and come to a desert land to worship in peace.
    She was a gifted pianist and when she was only nineteen, received a certificate from the B.Y.C. in Logan signed by President Lorenzo Snow and Karl G. Maeser, entitling her to teach music.  She didn't use it, but taught school the two years, while waiting for Frank to return front his mission.  All her life she had poor health, and after a long illness she died [of Cancer], a few months before her sixtieth birthday. (From Davenports in America)

My memories of Grandma Davenport
    I was two and a half years old when Grandma Davenport passed away.  I have only a vague memory of seeing her in her home in Bingen, just before she died.  All my other impressions of her were gathered from my mother.  My mother always seemed to speak in reverential tones when referring to “Mama,” her mother.  I perceive that she must have been consistently positive and caring, and seeking to teach correct principles and to bring out the best in members of her family.  I have concluded that my female ancestors, my mother, my grandmothers, and maybe those further back in my ancestry, were each the member of their family and marriage who was the spiritual superior.  I came from families with strong and good women.  I sometimes wondered if I might be a person in my generation who turned that around, where at least I could be equally influential as my wife in spiritual and moral leadership in my family.
    Grandma Davenport lived much of her life in a place and situation in whcih there was no organized branch of the Church and yet she gave direction to the creation of a Church experience for their family.  I would understand that for many years the Church in Hood River met in their home for Sunday services and gospel instruction.  They regularly had missionaries in their home. At first she was shy and somewhat fearful that persons in the community who were of other beliefs would treat the family negatively.  It was just after the time of the intense anti-polygamy persecutions.  But then she got bolder.  She made sure that the home had the latest in Church literature.  Sometime in the early 1900s when the Church began to advocate the practice of holding a weekly family night, she was aware of this direction and made sure that it happened in her family.  My mother recalled her mother reading stories from the little book for children, “Mother Stories from the Book of Mormon” by William A. Morton, soon after it was published.  (As an interesting aside, William A. Morton was Grandma Wendy’s grandfarther.)

    These were the Davenport children, in order of birth:
    1. Franklin Lufkin Davenport.  Born 31 Oct 1902, Logan, Cache, Utah.  Married 1) Lovenia Ellen Miller 23 May 1928, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah.  The had four children, Alice, Howard, Byron, and Edmund.  Married 2) Mildred “Millie” Elizabeth Stitley 24 Aug1975.  Franklin died 25 Sep 1990 in Provo, Utah, Utah.
    Before she married Franklin, Ellen was employed or served in the Northwestern States mission home (maid, childcare?) when Alexander Nibley was the Mission President.  He was the son of Charles Nibley, who was Presiding Bishop of the Church and also invested in Great-Grandpa Jeremiah Davenport’s lumbering business, and he was also the father of Reid Nibley the BYU religious scholar and Reid Nibley, well known pianist and instructor.  She tended these boys when they were small.
    Franklin and Ellen were very hospitable to me when came to Provo to attend BYU and when I returned to enter the Mission Home.  Franklin did extensive research and temple work on our Lufkin ancestors.  He raised his family in a home with an extensive garden on the west side of Provo, and worked as a postman.  He also served for many years as the Stake Clerk in the Provo Sunset Stake.
    After her death Franklin married Millie, who again was very friendly and hospitable.
    I enjoyed getting to know my cousin Byron as we were both BYU students.  He married and lived in Bountiful, then died fairly young. 
    We have recently met a son of Eddie’s, who is a worker with us in the Payson temple.  I have learned that all of the male cousins have passed away, but as of this time (2020), Alice is still alive and living in Springville.
    2. Dorothy Lufkin Davenport.  Born 14 Aug 1904, Hood River, Hood River, Oregon.  Married Theron Smith Hall, 22 Nov 1927, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah.  They had seven children, Barbara, Clifton, Phyllis, Hilton, Allen, Audrey, and Dorothy.  Died 22 November 1996 in Farview, Sanpete, Utah.
    Dorothy met her husband when she came to BYU for college. They settled in Springville, his home town.  He was in law enforcement, and served a couple of terms as Utah County sheriff, and also served a term as Bishop of their ward.  Dorothy was very inviting to me as I came to Provo to school and had me over for Sunday dinner several times.  She was an ardent genealogist and with Marva Rydach, a relative from Idaho, worked on Davenport research her entire lifetime, including the publication of an important book on our ancestors “Davenports of America,” in 1962.
    On my dinner visits, Aunt Dorothy worked hard to convince me that I should be doing family history research on my Lewis ancestry.  There was a point at which she excused my from being at all concerned about the research on the Davenports and Lufkins.  “There have been a lto of good researchers working on your mothers’s lines.  There is no need for you to even worry about them.  So I have obeyed her and not worried or allowed myself to feel any concern or guilt about Davenport or Lufkin genealogy.   It has been wonderful to only focus on the Lewises.
    I have become well acquainted with Allen, but have not had much to do with the other cousins.  He, like myself, graduated from BYU and completed an MSW degree at the U.  He had served a mision in the Eastern States.  He spent his career with Utah Mental Health Services system managing the work in Sanpete County.  Our family camped in his backyard after attending the Manti Temple pageant one year.  He retired to Salt Lake.  We have had regular contacts about family matters for a number of years.
    We have had connections with others in the family.  Barbara served a mission and graduated from BYU with a teaching degree.  Her husband, George Clark was a mining engineer with a Ph.D and finished his career as a the chairman of his department at Missouri School of Mines.  One of their sons and his family were living in our neighborhood when I moved to Spanish Fork but have since moved.
    Phyllis also served a mission, to Samoa, then after graduating from college when back to Samoa to teach school. He married a native Samoan, _____ Ioane, who was a school principle.  They had no children but adopted at last two who were also native Samoans.  Her husband died early and she moved back here, with the children. The lived with Aunt Dorothy and Little Dorothy in Fairview for some time.  Phyllis’s son had a career as an NFL lineman.
    Audrey married Ron Barwick.  A do not recall meeting him but he was a younger brother of Eileen Barwick Davis who was in our ward inTaylorsville.  The Barwicks were converts to the Church from England. 
    The youngest cousin we called Little Dorothy.  She had polio as a child and had health problems and limitations and died fairly young.  She was a college graduate in library science and was employed for sometime at Snow College.
    3. Hazel Lufkin Davenport. Born 8 Jul 1906, Hood River, Hood River, Oregon.  Married Clarence Monroe Lewis 16 Jan 1931, in Portland, Multnomah, Oregon.  They had three children, Donald, Robert and Dorothy.  Died 23 Jn 1998, in Ogden, Weber, Utah.
    4. Violet Lufkin Davenport. Born 31 Mar 1908, Hood River, Hood River, Oregon.  Married 1) Calvin Leitheiser 12 Mar 1928.  They had three children, Richard, Darlene, and Naomi Jean.  She married 2) Golden Dee Pattee 10 Jun 1950, in Seattle, King, Washington.  They had a daughter Cristella.  Violet died 5 Jan 1995.
    Violet ran away to marry Leitheiser, then found him to be a highly unsatisfactory and abusive husband.  After divorce, she went back to her maiden name and her children also used the surname Davenport.  Later she found and married Dee Pattee, a man who came from a Latter-day Saint background, and in their later years they rediscovered the Church and worked in the Mesa temple.
    I have vague memories of contacts with these cousins when we were small.  I have had some recent contact with Richard, who has acquired an interest in family history work.
    5. Kenneth Lufkin Davenport.  Born 21 Apr 1910.  Married  Eleanor Morley 30 Oct 1933 in White Salmon, Klickitat, Washington.   They had four children, the first two who died at birth, Kay, Louise, Kenneth Jr., and Geraldine.  He died 27 Jul 1981 in Eugene, Lane, Oregon.
    I have had no contact with this part of the family since childhood.  I have heard that Geraldine spent her adult life in a mental institution, and Kenny Jr. had family problems.  I recently heard from a Morley relative who was doing family history research.  Apparnently Eleanor came from a Latter-day Saint background, although I do no believe they were active Church members in their adulthood.
    6. Naomi Lufkin Davenport.  Born 14 Jun 1912, Hood River, Hood River, Oregon.  Married Lynne Hosmer Dudley 26 Sep 1939 in Bingen, Klickitat, Washington.  They had five children, the last two dying at birth, Ryan, Frank, Marie, Rose, and an unnamed boy baby.  She died 20 Dec 1967 in Jensen, Uintah, Utah.
    The family always used a non-standard pronunciation of her name Naomi and which also was her mother’s middle name.  It was Nāy´ ōma.  It would sound like the last three letters of the state name Oklahoma without the “h” of course.
    I did not know Naomi’s children, until recently.  Ryan and Marie have both lived out of state, but along with Frank as have come here for visits and sought out chances to get acquainted with their cousins.
    7. Rodney Lufkin Davenport. Born 13 Jun 1914, Hood River, Hood River, Oregon.  Married 1) Dorothy Mae Cox, 1 Apr 1943 in Seattle, King, Washington.  They had five children, Rodney Jr., Dennis Larry, James, Diane, and Randolph.  He married 2) LaRee Gray 2 Jun 1958, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah.  He died 29 Aug 2010.
    Uncle Rodney’s first wife was the daughter of an old Glenwood baseball adversary, from the town of Lyle, Washington, ______ Cox.  He was fiery competitive guy who played against my dad.  Rodney and Dorothy in The Dalles for a time, then moved to Utah.  While there, she became converted to the Church.  They back to Oregon where she died unexpectedly about the time I was serving my mission, leaving the five young children.  He then married LaRee who was a young widow with two daughters, that they added to Rodney’s family.  They lived in Lehi, and Rodney worked the rest of his working time at BYU with the physical plant maintenance department.
    Rodney was a musician also and there is more about him in my music section.
    8. Remington Lufkin Davenport.  Born 25 Sep 1918, Hood River, Hood River, Oregon.  Married Vivian Snow 21 Aug 1946, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah.  The had six children, Vernon, Clark, Marcus, Brent, Merryn, and Machell.  He died 27 Nov 2004 in St. George, Washington, Utah.
    Uncle Remington served in the Army in Europe during World War II.  He was in the Medical Corps.  One of his experiences was to be one the initial team to enter and decontaminate the notorious Dachau concentration Camp when it was liberated.  After the war he graduated from USU with a major in industrial education anad taught high school at first in Richfield and then in California.
    9. Constance Lufkin Davenport.  Born 8 Aug 1921, Hood River, Hood River, Oregon.  Married Richard Allen Courtier 31 Dec 1940, Seattle, King, Washington.  They had three children, Constance Lurinda “Connie Lou”, Patricia “Patty Ann”, and Charles “Chuck.”  She died 19 Jun 2001, in Poulsbo, Kitsap, Washington.
    Connie married the son of Lulu Tomlinson Courtier an who was  orphan teenage girl who had lived with the Davenports and helped with child care.  He operated a sign company in Seattle.  We had visits with them fairly often in my growing up years.  I also worked for Richard for a few weeks in his shop, the summer when I was 15.
    10. Myron Lufkin Davenport.  Born 14 Sep 1923, Hood River, Hood River, Oregon.  Married Peal Ina Ricks, 24 May 1943, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah.  The had six children, Pearl Luannie “LuAnn”, Myron Jr., Joan, Rebecca, Stanley Owen, and Bryan.  He died 11 Aug 2016, in Idaho Falls, Bonneville, Idaho.
    Myron was one of my favorites when he stayed with us as a teenager and worked in the haying for Glenwood farmers.
    The story of his meeting his wife Pearl was interesting.  Myron was very anxious to join the war effort, as his brothers had, and as volunteered for service in the Navy.  He was barely 18 years old and was in California for basic training.  In the meantime, a little 17 year old girl in Idaho Falls, also feeling an intense interest in supporting the war effort, heard that young women would be helpful by volunteering to be a part of USO entertainment for the young men in training settings.  So somehow she persuaded her parents to let her travel to California where she would participate in USO dances involving military recruits.  So there was this USO dance, where a lonely 18 year old boy from Washington, and little 17 year old girl from Idaho away from home for the first time, met.  They discovered that they both were members of the Church and had other things in common, and enjoyed each other.  They continued to stay in touch with each other and while Myron was on a brief leave in May 1943, were married in the Salt Lake Temple.
    I would like to mention some parallels that I have learned about my two ancestral families, the Lewises and the Davenports.  First, my mother and father were among the oldest of their respective families, and both had nice and enjoyable relationship with the last sibling in their family.  Lorene was born the day after my dad’s 18th birthday in 1924 and he was still living at home when she was 4 or 5.  She had a trick that she would play with him.  She would quietly climb upon some object in their house, and then when he wasn’t watching, yell “Clarence” and jump at him.  He was to catch her, which we suppose he always did.  I heard that she said that he was always her favorite sibling and he always liked her too, and was protective of her.
    The youngest Davenport, Myron was born in September 1923, when my mother was 17.  Because of her Grandma Davenport’s poor health at that time, his care often fell to my mother, in fact delayed her high school graduation a couple of years, so she felt a sort of mother’s concern for him through the years.  During a couple of summers as a teenager he stayed with us and worked for Glenwood area farmers.  I remember him playing with me and I thought a lot of him also.
    Both of the families had a daughter who joined the Catholic church, and raised their children to be Catholics.  This was Naomi, one of my mother’s younger sisters, and Virginia a younger sister of my Dad.  Naomi married a Latter-day Saint man that she met during her year at BYU, but not in not the temple, and they settled on a farm in the little community of Jensen just east of Vernal, Utah.  She then followed a disillusioned brother-in-law into the Catholic Church.  Virginia became engaged to a young man with a recent Irish background who wanted to married by his Catholic Priest, so converted.  Neither of their families, as you might suppose, was particularly approving of this, but they were still loved and accepted within the families.
    Another unusual but sad parallel was the loss of a cousin on each side to AIDS.  Each of these persons also had a strong religious orientation.  Terence, son of Virginia Lewis O’Grady, was a Catholic Priest.  He also had completed a Master’s in Social Work degree.  One of Remington Davenport’s sons, a returned Latter-day Saint missionary, also died of AIDS.