Give Thanks...The First Member Of Our Family To Work At Lagoon

 Between shows last month my friend and Matt and I were talking as we were known to do did between shows. I'm not exactly sure how the subject came up (I think we were talking about Pioneer Village and how things used to be...). I told him I had a relative that used to work at Lagoon and I even had a picture of him. 

I went home, took a picture of the picture ,and showed it to Matt the next time I worked.

It's a pretty amazing thing, actually.

In the picture George Richard Knight sits beside the famous 999 steam engine, an engine that is still at Lagoon and at one point was in use when Pioneer Village first opened in the 1970s. Apparently, the little engine is on display in the village at their train museum. I didn't get a chance to check it out this season...maybe next time. 

My mother's grandfather was born in Salt Lake City in 1868, only a few years after the end of the US Civil War. He passed away in 1917. I was told the picture of him and the train was taken when he and his family lived in Ogden and worked as a railroad engineer. They moved to the Teton Valley in Idaho in 1906 so the picture is over one-hundred years old. I'm not exactly sure when it was taken.

I began working at Lagoon in 1982. I've worked there, off-and-on, since then. I worked in many departments on the park, but I never worked rides and therefore, have not had the opportunity to pilot the steam engines.

Then again, I'm pretty sure my great-grandfather never dressed up as a cowboy and fell off towers as part of a stuntman troupe (among other jobs I've had there...). I'm grateful to share this legacy with a man who died almost fifty years before I was born.

Give Thanks...We've Got Family History Hanging On Our Wall

 One things we have avoided after being in the new house for just over five months is hanging things on the walls. In our old house--since we were going to live there forever--I didn't care about putting holes in the walls, which was evident by the way the walls looked after we cleared out.

We're a little gun-shy about recreating that look here.

But, yesterday, I felt I needed to hang a picture that was passed down from my mother to me, a painting of Mt. Moran, one of the picturesque beautiful mountains in the Grand Teton National Park, a painting created by a family member.

Today, I'm thankful for several things. I'm thankful that my Uncle Claude (actually, he was my mother's uncle, so my great-uncle...) made the decision to take up painting and put the time and effort into the craft so that we--along with others, I'm sure---can have beautiful art to enrich their lives.

I don't know the date of the painting I put up yesterday. I imagine it was done in the 1950s or 1960s. I also believe it was done while Charles Claudius Dalley sat next to the lake and painted what he saw. I could be wrong--he could have taken a picture and painted it from that, or from memory, but when I consider how the painting came to be, I can see a man, born in the nineteenth century and having survived two world wars, the Spanish Flu, and the Great Depression, sitting humbly with paint and brushes creating art.

I think I only met Uncle Claude once. I was young so I don't remember much. There was an art studio, or a place with art supplies. Maybe that's when we got the picture. I don't know for sure. I do know I can't remember my childhood home without the painting of Mt. Moran. We took it from that house when my mother died, and we took it with us when we moved last year. Yesterday, I hammered a nail into the pristine, hole-less wall and hung the picture.

I wish I could have known him better--I read some of his history online this afternoon. Because I hung up his painting, the house is a better place because of my decision, and we are better for having a relative work so hard to create something so lovely.

K.R....Who Are You?

A few months ago my wife got me a present. They purchased a D.N.A. testing kit from Ancestry.Com. Last week I got the results.

Turns out, as far as my ancestry goes, I'm pretty much what I would be if I had been born to my adoptive father and mother, which is kind of amazing.

In my culture, we research our ancestors. There's religious reasons for this, but it's so ingrained that it becomes who we are. We know where we came from and we work hard to learn even more. My parents, aunts and uncles have done a lot of the family research work for me. I know that my adoptive family comes form Europe, Great Britain, and Scandinavia.

Last week I opened up my D.N.A. results and guess what--according to my D.N.A. I come from Scandinavia, Western Europe, and Great Britain. In all honesty, where I come from doesn't really surprise me. I look like I come from that area of the planet. What did surprise me is how close that comes to the heritage of my adoptive family. It's like I'm one of them physically, and not just spiritually.

The Ancestry.Com also includes some other information. It identifies relatives. Turns out my D.N.A. connected me to at least one second cousin, a few third cousins, and many fourth cousins. The second cousin is my closest relative, according to the results, and the only information I have on her is that she's identified by the initials K.R. I've never met my birth parents--don't even know who they are. I've not devoted a lot of time to fine out, either. It's something that I figure I'll know one day. But now I have a nugget of information. I have something to research.

So, who are you, K.R.?

We share great-grandparents, all of whom are listed on my Ancestry.Com account.

Looks like I've got a real-life mystery on my hands.