Okay, okay, wait, say the name again. He wanted you to find out all the descendants of who?
Of him and Grandma Betsy.
Got it, okay.
She was a Quimby. Her mother was a Hannah Kennedy, who married her father, who was Moses Quimby.
- - - 00:00:20 - - -
Anyway, Shadrach married her in Vermont.
Anyway, it was...
- - - 00:00:40 - - -
I was told to do that, find all the descendants.
And I said, you've got to tell me a reason why, because I knew I'd have to quit my business.
And it took him about three days to decide whether he was going to tell me or not.
- - - 00:01:00 - - -
And I told him, I'm going to quit playing this game.
You either tell me one good reason why I do this, or I'm turning around and walking through
that door.
And that's the last time we talked to each other.
- - - 00:01:20 - - -
He decided I was serious.
And he did give me a reason.
And I thought, oh gosh, he gave me a reason.
Now I have to do it.
What was the reason?
- - - 00:01:40 - - -
The family needed to be brought back together again.
Through a lot of, I'd go to a telephone,
The only line I knew in his line was my own.
And I had to go to telephone books and start looking for roundies and calling them and doing all kinds of things like that.
- - - 00:02:00 - - -
And then, some people started saying there should be a book written about him.
about it and I said go ahead and do it I don't care well I refused to let some
- - - 00:02:20 - - -
people have the information because there were a lot of people who were not
members of the church and I promised them I would not give it to the church
- - - 00:02:40 - - -
This is Grandpa and Grandma Brownie's descendants. This is their program.
And I found out that there are a lot of members of the family who think they're God's gift to man.
- - - 00:03:00 - - -
And they felt like they should have been the ones to have Shabak tell them they should
do it, not me.
- - - 00:03:20 - - -
I said, write one, I don't care!
But what they wanted me to do was to write research and give it to them.
I said, no, I don't play that game.
I said, I'm doing what they ask, and if you don't want to go along with it, that's your problem.
- - - 00:03:40 - - -
Anyway, we had a meeting and there were some who said they would write it.
They were good writers.
Well, they weren't good writers and they never got to doing it.
- - - 00:04:00 - - -
And I had a cousin call me and say,
what are we going to do?
The reunion's in 16 months.
I said, oh, I'll do it.
So I did it.
I wrote a history on grandpa and grandma,
- - - 00:04:20 - - -
but it was with other people's help.
There was a former medical writer in the family who was doing research.
I tried to get him to do it and he said, no.
- - - 00:04:40 - - -
But he said, you can use all my work.
He was very, very free about giving us his work.
Anyway, some of the others got very snitty about it. I found out the ego meant more than anything else to most of the people.
- - - 00:05:00 - - -
Ah, got it.
And I had a sister who was an English teacher in Ohio.
And I, we started out with one other one being the editor, and he was a mess.
- - - 00:05:20 - - -
And so I called my sister and I said, you have one chance at each chapter, so make it good.
Anyway, we wrote a book on his history. And it was ready, it was printed, and it was ready
- - - 00:05:40 - - -
to give out to the people in 16 months. And then I ended up writing a COVID hit, and I
ended up writing a history of my grandfather Rich and his, my grandpa and grandma Rich.
- - - 00:06:00 - - -
He was Charles C. Rich's grandson, my grandfather was. And I wrote their history for my cousins.
- - - 00:06:20 - - -
Wait, your grandfather, what was his name?
Jesse Balmeroy Rich.
And he came from Charles C. Rich and?
- - - 00:06:40 - - -
Oh gosh, tonight.
Was it Mary Phelps?
So Mary Phelps was Charles C. Rich's wife from whom I descended.
Got it.
- - - 00:07:00 - - -
My great-grandfather, who was Charles C. Rich's son, married a Pomeroy twin.
And then she had a stroke when my grandfather was about ten, and she died shortly thereafter.
- - - 00:07:20 - - -
I see.
But, wait a minute.
So you descend from Charles C. Rich on two lines of your family?
No.
Oh, okay.
I descend on one line.
- - - 00:07:40 - - -
Mary Ann Phelps was wife number three to Charles C. Rich and my grandfather, my,
excuse me, my great-grandfather was Mary Ann Phelps's son. My grandfather was
- - - 00:08:00 - - -
Jesse Pomeroy Rich. My father was Charles Rogers Rich, and he used to go up to Bear Lake and work on his grandfather's ranch every summer. He'd do that.
- - - 00:08:20 - - -
Anyway, and my grandfather was a lawyer, he'd become a lawyer, and he was the judge in Logan
- - - 00:08:40 - - -
for about 25 years.
Got it.
But in the meantime, he also taught seminary during World War II when the younger men were
- - - 00:09:00 - - -
all off to war.
He'd teach seminary.
So Renee, this is all very interesting.
- - - 00:09:20 - - -
I think that what we'd like from you, and I don't know if you'd rather just talk over the phone, or if you'd like me to come to you, or you come to me, or we meet somewhere in the middle, to just get as much information as we can about Lara Clark Phelps.
- - - 00:09:40 - - -
And then maybe later we can talk about maybe just interviewing you generally,
just in your life. You talk a lot about other people, but what about your life?
Well, I'd start writing it and then another one would come along and they'd want me.
Then I wrote my thought parents history.
- - - 00:10:00 - - -
So I have a question. You keep saying another one would come along.
Another who, what would come along?
Well, first of all, my parents' history. My father was raised in a family with nine kids.
- - - 00:10:20 - - -
He was a twin, and he was a very active twin. And he used to run a lot. And he ended up going
to Germany on a mission and his father had gone to Germany on a mission and I
- - - 00:10:40 - - -
ended up going to Germany on a mission. Oh cool. During the Vietnam era. Wow. And were you there when
- - - 00:11:00 - - -
was, let's see, what, it was Vietnam era, let's see, I'm trying to think, did you
know anybody? During the Vietnam era, the church could only send out two missionaries from a ward in a year. They could send out all the girls they wanted. And they had to go out for the same length of time as the boys.
- - - 00:11:20 - - -
So I served a two and a half year mission.
- - - 00:11:40 - - -
When NCO Bush was the first stake president in North Germany.
But anyway, I got a call from a man who had done a lot of the research.
- - - 00:12:00 - - -
he had been a medical researcher in life and he said Renee would you please write
this history of Lillian Jane
- - - 00:12:20 - - -
uh, roundy. She was a twin. Her father was Shadrach's oldest son. And, uh, I had never
- - - 00:12:40 - - -
written the history about her or anything else and she ended up marrying into polygamy
at the time in the 1890s and before they quit the polygamy and I needed to find some books
- - - 00:13:00 - - -
on people who had lived in polygamy and it had been written about.
- - - 00:13:20 - - -
And that's where I got involved with Lara Clark Phelps.
Got it. Understood. Okay, that makes sense.
I read her book and I read two or three other books and I kept them as references.
- - - 00:13:40 - - -
When you say you read her book, whose book?
Laura Clark Tanner's book.
She was Ezra's daughter.
Annie Clark Tanner's book.
Annie Clark Tanner's book.
- - - 00:14:00 - - -
I still need to get you Annie Waldron Clark's book.
I told you earlier today that Annie Waldron was the wife of Charles Rich Clark who was
the son of Ezra, the second wife of Charles Rich Clark.
So she would have been the sister-in-law to Annie Clark Tanner, Ezra's daughter.
- - - 00:14:20 - - -
Does that make sense?
But she wrote about being the second wife of Charles Rich Clark.
It is an interesting, probably a different kind of view on polygamy than what you read
in A Mormon Mother by Annie Clark Tanner.
- - - 00:14:40 - - -
But I should not know, because I have not read A Mormon Mother yet.
Well, I have these books for you anytime you want to come down.
You are welcome to come and get them.
Well I think what we need to do, Renee, is an exchange.
I need to give you the book by Annie Waldron Clark that you can read.
- - - 00:15:00 - - -
It's just a simple read.
It's probably a hundred pages or less, whereas The Mormon Mother I know is much bigger, but
I could do an exchange.
Well, that would be nice.
What were you going to say?
- - - 00:15:20 - - -
I didn't even realize that Annie Clark-Tenner was related to the riches.
She was related to my second great-grandmother, and she had gone out to Bear Lake to listen to her
- - - 00:15:40 - - -
husband give a talk. And she stayed with my great-great-grandmother.
And it was at that point that I put the whole Ezra Clarke together with the rest of them
all.
- - - 00:16:00 - - -
Right, right.
But I'd be more than happy to accept a book.
Right.
There's another book called...
Let me get there.
- - - 00:16:20 - - -
- - - 00:16:40 - - -
$85.
I just recently purchased it.
Because it's out of print.
I just purchased it for probably slightly cheaper than
that recently for my brother.
And he's been reading it.
So Joseph M. Tanner is quite the interesting individual in
- - - 00:17:00 - - -
his own right.
And Joseph M. Tanner was the person who transcribed the
testimony of Ezra T. Clark and his parting wishes, because he
was educated to do so.
- - - 00:17:20 - - -
Ezra himself probably, according to some of our
relatives, didn't write much, but would probably rely on
someone like Joseph M. Tanner to do the
work of his testimony.
I don't know if that's entirely true, what I just
said about Ezra.
I don't know if I agree with some of my relatives about
- - - 00:17:40 - - -
that based off of what I am seeing and reading.
But at any rate, we are trying to find the original transcription of him, whether it
is from the Tanners or from the Clarks.
We do not know where it is.
Because all we know was that the document was given to the church to publish in the
- - - 00:18:00 - - -
New Improvement Era in 1901.
It was printed there.
That's the most original source we can find right now.
But anyway, Joseph M. Tanner is interesting to me in large part because of that exchange.
And I'm still trying to get to the bottom of that Ezra T. Clark testimony and parting
- - - 00:18:20 - - -
wishes.
Have you ever read Ezra T. Clark's parting wishes?
No.
I need to email that to you.
Do you have an email address?
I do, but right now my computer is kind of on the front.
OK, well what is it anyway?
- - - 00:18:40 - - -
I haven't had the outlook.com is where I get email.
Oh, is it rmountier at hotmail.com?
Yes.
OK, I have it right here in my email.
- - - 00:19:00 - - -
I will send you an email if you can ever get to it at some point.
His parting wishes.
And it's really profound.
It's just really important for you to read.
He talks at the end, basically, that he sets up a family organization with his
- - - 00:19:20 - - -
own funds to ensure that the family can, number one, take care of each other,
And number two, focus more on family history and temple work.
And so one of the reasons why our family organization has
been so terribly strong, or I shouldn't say terribly
strong, has been so strong over these years, since 1901,
- - - 00:19:40 - - -
is because of the funds that he put in to make this happen
and just that drive to continue with his wishes.
His parting instructions is what he called them.
And that's one of the reasons why I've even connected with
you in the first place is because I'm part of a family organization that is bent on making
- - - 00:20:00 - - -
sure that Ezra T. Clark has his wishes carried out and ultimately they help all of us come
closer to Christ.
That's the primary reason we do it.
It's been really helpful for me.
It's tied me into family history.
- - - 00:20:20 - - -
It's helped me build the software that I'm building.
It just has helped a lot of people.
So anyway, I'll email you the testimony.
And let me just tell you two points that he talks on that I
think are important doctrinally.
He was there when Joseph Smith testified that a key to know
- - - 00:20:40 - - -
whether or not the prophet is the correct prophet is that
the majority of the saints would not be led away by a
fallen prophet.
Does that make sense?
He basically said, follow the majority of the saints.
- - - 00:21:00 - - -
I think that was really, really important.
He also talked about seeing Brigham in the manor as if he
were Joseph, and experiencing that.
So he's one of the many who've testified of that.
- - - 00:21:20 - - -
And those were important.
And he also, of course, testified of Joseph being the prophet and knowing the
prophet, et cetera, et cetera, and doing things for God before all else, you know.
And, uh, anyway, exceptional testimony.
You should read it.
Um, I'll send it to you.
- - - 00:21:40 - - -
I appreciate that.
Yeah.
Um, so anyway, yeah.
Thank you, Renee.
Um, what do you think?
Do you, what do you think is best?
I mean, if we were to ask you questions about Laura Clark
Phelps, would you pretty much say the same things you've
already said?
If we were to come in person?
OK, so maybe we should just do it over the phone then.
- - - 00:22:00 - - -
Yeah, you're welcome to, but I would like to
have time after Chris.
Oh, sure, sure, sure.
I will tell you this up front.
My husband died 28 and a half years ago.
Uh-huh.
- - - 00:22:20 - - -
Starting about 2004, my daughter and I traveled back east every two and a half years from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, all the way down to get the beginning of a lot of the families.
- - - 00:22:40 - - -
In 2018, I quit doing it.
I told her that we weren't going to do it because they had, trucking had changed.
A lot of things had changed about traveling back east.
- - - 00:23:00 - - -
Two women alone, it wasn't two-phase.
And so I do most of my stuff from home now.
Uh huh.
I would, I would appreciate you sending that.
- - - 00:23:20 - - -
I'll get to you with it.
Sure.
Because we have young sons and family to do Christmas with.
Oh, for sure, for sure.
I wouldn't bother you during Christmas.
Well, thanks, Renee.
I appreciate your help.
Okay.
Thank you so much for your insights and your information.
- - - 00:23:40 - - -
And I think it's a fabulous story that you just shared with me.
Thank you for sharing with me that personal story
about your ancestor who visited you. I think that's really cool.
Well, I could have lived without it.
You what?
I said I could have lived without it.
- - - 00:24:00 - - -
I hear you.
But it kind of.
put things on the road.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Well.
OK.
OK.
Well, I thank you for your time and we'll be in touch.
I will call you sometime in January.
- - - 00:24:20 - - -
Oh, that'd be great.
All right.
Have a good Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
You too.
All right.
Bye bye.
Bye.
Thank you.