Washington Square

 
 
This is Washington Park in Old Town Quincy. The group are from left: Burt Wasson, Sandy & Wynn Farnsworth, Brother Gentry, Justine & Blaine Seamons, Chris Wasson, Wayne, Lynn & Susan Cottrell, Bill and Margo Schultz. We enjoyed our visit. One thing I did not get a picture of was of the old prison walls. They were stone and massive. When the prison was no longer used, the walls remained and they built a football field inside. It was plenty big enough to house the field and bleachers. We went back through the beautiful streets where the old houses have been restored. See earlier entries on this blog. We found out that it was the first planned community in the United States. Houses had to be set back from the street. The street had to be divided with a median strip, and colors were regulated.

Thanks to Quincy

 
This is the marker that was installed in a beautiful park dedicated to the Coast Guard. It says thanks to the City of Quincy for their kindness and compassion in taking in the Mormons who had been driven from Missouri and were destitute. Many families took in entire families and kept them for the winter, feeding and clothing them. The Latter-day Saints moved to Missouri to build homes and farm. Because they began to outnumber the old settlers, the old settlers wanted to drive them out. The Saints applied to the governor for aid in not being molested, but the old settlers burned homes, assaulted people and at Haun's Mill, murdered 17 men and boys. The Governor wasn't any help. He thought the Mormons ought to be exterminated. He issued an order stating that the Mormons were to leave the state or be exterminated. The Saints lost their homes, their farms, everything they had and fled across the state to Illinois. When the restored Nauvoo Temple was dedicated, President Gordon B. Hinckley, brought the Mormon Tablernacle Choir to give a concert in this park. The entire city turned out. At that time, he handed the Mayor of Quincy a check to help with whatever Quincy had need of.

George Rogers Clark

 
We didn't realize that George Rogers Clark was from Quincy until we were taken to this park. The statue and park were created during the depression. It was a WPA project. I knew George Rogers Clark was the Clark of Lewis and Clark and I knew George Rogers Clark was the hero of the War of 1812 by capturing Fort Vincennes. What I didn't know was that he did it all before he was 25 years old.

Stained glass?

 
The Quincy Ward has a stained glass window. You can't tell it from the outside (they put electric lights behind it). When they were a branch, they rented an old church building to meet in. The church building has this beautiful stained glass window. As the branch grew, they became a ward and the church began to talk about building them a building. The nieghborhood where the rented church was, became poorer and more dangerous. The ward members wanted to preserve the stained glass window by moving it into their new chapel. Salt Lake said "no - Wards don't have stained glass windows". quincy Ward said, "If we don't get our window, we won't move." It took a year of negotiations but the building was built and the window installed. It does not show on the outside for several reasons, one of which is that they don't want anyone to throw rocks and break it. It is really a beautiful piece of art and we enjoyed seeing it. The Quincy members are really proud of it.

Quincy, Illinois October 13

 
 
Our P-day group went on a tour of Quincy. We were led by a district temple worker, Brother Gentry. Brother Gentry was born and raised in Quincy and showed us places we would not have known about. We started at the John Wood Mansion and Museum. John Wood was an early governor of Illinois. The house has been beautifully restored and there are several interesting pieces of furniture. There is a desk that was used by John Quincy Adams before he went into politics. We can't help comparing the stuff we see with what is in Nauvoo. This house is well done - as well as Nauvoo. The group beginning in the back: Wayne and me, Susan and Lynn Cottrell, down one step, Bill and Margo Schultz, down one step, Burt and Chris Wasson, bottom: Blaine and Justine Seamons and Sandy and Wynn Farnsworth.

Lauren and Eric

 
 
 
Here are pictures of Lauren's kitchen and the living room and the great Mexican restaurant where we had lunch. We had a wonderful time in Des Moines and have proved that we can do it in one day!

Des Moines, Iowa

 
Lauren and Eric's house - look at the trees. It has a new paint job. They hired a painter to turn their obnoxious blue house into this beautiful home.

Dickson Mounds

 
This is how the indians layed out their villages. The temple was in the center.

 
 
We are enjoying the birds. These are Canada geese which are migrating south. They stop here to feed and then go on. Some of them stay year round, but most just stop over. The heron is always on the river fishing. We have named him Herman.

Dickson Mounds continued

 
Here is evidence of human sacrifice.

One of the displays at Dickson Mounds Museum

 

Dickson Mounds

 
 
Many years ago, a dentist bought a farm in central Illinois. He noticed that there were high mounds and wondered what was in them. The mounds are bigger than you can see when you are there. The second picture is of me on the observation deck of the museum. The view of the countryside is quite unobstructed. The first picture is of our P-day group, Elder and Sister Cottrell, Wayne and Me, Elder and Sister Farnsworth, and Elder and Sister Seamons. When Mr. Dickson began digging around the top of this mound, he found human remains. He didn't touch them. He carefully removed the dirt and exposed the bones. He found several and did the same thing. Archeologists were delighted that he didn't move anything. The graves were exactly as they were when the person was buried. These graves were on public display for many years until laws were passed against such practices as displaying human remains. This was a world-wide movement. The Cairo Museum moved all of its mummies out of public display. There is a wonderful museum on top of this great mound where a resident archeologist teaches about the indian culture that lived in this area. He also teaches at the local university and we enjoyed his tour very much. We asked if he was familiar with the Book of Mormon and he said he had one on the shelf in his office. We saw evidence of Lamanite culture.

 
This is a typical barge on the Mississippi. Each of the individual barges hold enough stuff to fill 18 big-rig trucks. There are three barges across and five down. River transportation is still very efficient.

Montrose

We were given a tour of Montrose, Iowa. Montrose is directly across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo. There was a Mormon settlement called Zarahemla right next to Montrose. When the Saints left Nauvoo, many of the people living in Zarahemla went with them. Montrose is important because a year after the exodus from Nauvoo, the only people left were poor immigrants from Europe who had spent every penny they had getting to Nauvoo. Once there, they found the Saints had left. They were very poor and since they were Mormons, living in Nauvoo, the mobs came to clean the city out. They wreaked havoc. They burned homes, went into the temple and broke up the furniture, broke windows, destroyed the baptismal font with its 12 carved oxen. Then they turned on the poor people and demanded that they leave. They couldn't go anywhere, so the mobbers picked women and children up and literally threw them into the river and told them to swim. There were a few barges left and so the people escaped with only the shirts on their backs. When they got to Montrose, there was no food. Then the Miracle of the Quail. Just as the children of Israel were fed quail in the desert, quail appeared and were easily caught and the people did not starve to death. It took a while for news to travel to Winter Quarters (near Omaha, Nebraska) but when Brigham Young heard about it, he sent wagons to rescue the people and bring them to Winter Quarters.

Our tour guide taught us about dowsing. He said he has found wagon tracks by dowsing and cemetaries full of the dead by dowsing. No one knows how it works, but it does. He had dowsing wires for each of us and we tried it.