Take an ancestral journey of the cemetery
Friday, May 11, 2001
By AMY SCHOON
Standard-Examiner staff
On a Monday afternoon in mid-April, Gilbert Belnap, sporting pioneer-era
dress clothes and a bushy white beard, took a stroll through the Ogden
City Cemetery for the first time since his death in 1899.
He stopped at his own grave marker, turned toward the road and opened
his mouth to speak.
Those who thought they saw the former cemetery caretaker and Weber County
sheriff wandering amongst the tombstones were not hallucinating or experiencing
an encounter with a ghostly world.
They were watching one of his descendants during a dress rehearsal for
an upcoming cemetery tour.
"This is living proof of the settlers. What a connection. The descendants
of these settlers continue their stories," Fran McFarland said. "They're
bringing the cemetery to life."
McFarland is coordinator of the "Living History Cemetery Tour," part
of an ongoing series of events celebrating Ogden's sesquicentennial. Tours
are scheduled for Monday and for a week from today.
"Residents" of Ogden's cemetery at 20th Street and Monroe Boulevard
now rest in peace, the tour guides' script reads, "after giving their lives
to the building up of a place we are proud to call home."
The sesquicentennial committee thought a cemetery tour would be the
perfect opportunity to share the stories of Ogden's early settlers with
today's residents, McFarland said.
The members of the committee also hope to raise enough money to restore
one particular monument that marks a sad moment in the area's history.
A train called the Pacific Limited crashed while traveling west from
Ogden over the Great Salt Lake on New Year's Eve, 1944. A flat, rectangular
marble marker was placed in a serene, tree-shaded spot in the Ogden City
Cemetery as a memorial to the 25 passengers who died.
The marker is barely recognizable as anything more than a slab of rock
these days. The ground beneath it sank, causing large cracks that spew
stray blades of grass and bunches of weeds.
When groundskeepers clip the grass short, the faint outline of a train
becomes visible. Almost no trace of an inscription remains.
McFarland and her committee are not charging admission for the tour,
but they are asking for donations to use for the restoration of the monument.
She expects it will cost at least several hundred dollars.
The tour should be well worth a donation, said McFarland. She has received
40 detailed, descriptive narratives from people whose relatives rest in
the cemetery.
Of those, eight will be highlighted during the tour. In addition to
the descendants' narratives, tour guides also will point out other notable
grave sites and tell a tidbit or two about each.
The Belnap story
LaGrande Belnap volunteered to talk about his great-grandfather, a man
who trekked across the plains and was sent by Brigham Young to settle in
Ogden -- then Brownsville -- in 1850.
Belnap used an extensive family history research to prepare. He praises
his great-grandfather's dedication to his faith, the land and the law.
"I felt like somebody needed to represent the family. This means a great
deal to me. He was such a great leader, and his heritage is outstanding.
He stood for such good things," Belnap said.
LaGrande Belnap's wife, Beverly, came to watch the dress rehearsals
and said she thought visitors would be amazed by the amount of history
they could learn by taking the tour.
After hearing several stories of strife and tragedy, she said she "didn't
realize the impact of what our ancestors had to go through to settle the
area."
Although he follows the history accurately throughout his presentation,
LaGrande Belnap admitted he did fudge a bit with the costume.
He plans to wear a dapper black hat during the tour, even though he
has never been able to document that his relative ever donned one.
He's wearing it to cover another discrepancy.
"He was baldheaded and I," LaGrande Belnap said with a smirk, raising
the hat by its brim, "have quite a lot of hair ... that I didn't want to
shave off for this."
A brave, fighting woman
Other historical figures portrayed by descendants during the tour include
John Marriott, founder of Marriottville; Ann Etherington Newey, a young
mother cared for by the Church of the Latter-day Saints; Esther Jones Raper
Brown, who traveled here from the plantations of North Carolina; Marianne
Combe Beus, who went from a dugout in Ogden Canyon to a silkworm success
story; Madeline Malan Farley, who came to Ogden from the silk farms of
Piedmont Valley in Italy; Ruth Elizabeth Bell Rackham, a woman who traveled
to Deseret in search of eternal life; and Ruthinda Baker Stewart, whose
family was the first in Harrisville.
Stewart's great-great-great-granddaughter, Colleen B. Tippets, plans
to tell the story of how Stewart, a widow, traveled with her 10 children
across the plains to Utah in 1847.
When they settled in Harrisville, Tippets said, Stewart bravely fought
the invaders that attacked. The invaders? A plague of Mormon crickets that
devoured her garden.
She struggled with pests and a host of other challenges along the way,
all on her own, Tippets said. She never remarried. Tippets believes her
ancestor "must have been a remarkable woman."
As she recounts the history, Tippets predicts that she may do so through
tears.
"I'll probably be emotional," she said. "These pioneers did so much
for us to help make what we have today."
You can reach reporter Amy Schoon at 625-4277 or aschoon@standard.net.
PREVIEW
WHAT: "Living History Cemetery Tour'
WHEN: 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. Monday and Friday, May 18
WHERE: Ogden City Cemetery, 20th Street and Monroe Boulevard,
Ogden
TICKETS: Donation requested, $5/adults, $2/children, with proceeds
going to restoration of a monument to victims of a 1944 train crash. 392-0688. |