I count on High Country News for compelling stories about my Western homeland but I don’t always get to the articles right away. I had this one marked to come back later but somehow it’s been over a year — Nick Bowlin, “How Mormon history helps explain today’s public-land fights” (Apr. 13, 2020). It’s got…
Author: Justin Durand
Joseph Bates Noble
I’m reading Joseph Bates Noble: Polygamy and the Temple Lot Case (2009). Goodreads says: “In 1892, a deposition was taken in a Salt Lake City courtroom to gather evidence in a land ownership battle between two offshoot branches of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) The dispute centered on ownership of land…
Gärdserum Church
A few days ago I wrote about the Baptist church in Champaign, Illinois where my great grandparents Wilford Luce and Essie Wilson were married in 1898. Almost immediately I ran across a bookmark where I saved a link to information about the (Lutheran) church in Gärdserum, Sweden where another set of great grandparents Adolf Svanström…
Champaign Baptist Church
My great grandmother Essie (Wilson) Luce was raised in the Baptist church. She married Wilford Luce in 1898 in Champaign, Illinois, then moved west to Wyoming to take up life on his ranch. I was curious about the church where they got married. I was fairly certain it would have been a Baptist church, but…
Tartan Scarf
I was thinking what I could do to treat myself right now. I’ve been a good and obedient citizen during the pandemic. I knew immediately–all winter, every morning when I put on a coat and scarf to go out, I think it’s odd that I don’t have a tartan scarf. At my age. Imagine. My…