I Found My Cousin Connection to a Favorite Author

I prepared this chart that shows me (Mary R Margheim) as a descendant of Steven Flanders and Sarah Blaisdell. You can see that Rosel James Hyde was also a descendant of Steven and Sarah. Rosel was married to Jane Driggs. Their photo is shared directly below their names on the chart. You can also see by looking at the descendants of Austin Cowles and Phebe Wilbur, that Sterling W. Sill is also a cousin of Rosel James Hyde. So Sterling Sill and I share Rosel Hyde as our cousin. 

You'll notice that I have Jane Driggs's name in red, and it appears at the top left again. This time it shows that Jane is a cousin of my husband, William Thompson, as they are both descendants of Urial Driggs and Hannah Ford.  

The chart at the bottom of this post shows the direct connection how Sterling Sill is my 7th cousin twice removed!

I only recently learned of Sterling W. Sill as I discovered a book he authored named "The Majesty of Books". It's pictured below. I'm a book lover and as I've aged, I've selected books by LDS authors as my primary reading material. As I've begun to read Sterling's "book about books", I realize I found the written word that stimulates and agrees with my philosophy on many topics. I love what he has to say and how he says it. 

My greatest wish now is that I'd have known about this book while my dad was alive. He was a "semantics" person and loved the study of "words". He became a member of the LDS Church late in life and would have LOVED reading Sterling Sill's book. He certainly would've seen the MAJESTY in it! And he'd have been very proud to learn of this great author and fellow Church authority! I'm blessed to have found it at the nearby thrift store Deseret Industries. I will have it read by Thursday, August 8 in celebration of what would have been my father's 103 birthday! But it's a Keeper and I'm sure I'll refer to it time and again. Such value for the $2.00 I spent to purchase it!

The SWEET Family Experiences Weren't Always Sweet

In my previous post, I wrote about the discoveries I made when my husband and I visited the Montour-Sweet Cemetery in Sweet, Idaho. We enjoy visiting the graves and reading headstone engravings. Every single one tells a story. I photograph as many as I can on a single visit and upload the ones who are members of families who are listed at familysearch.org.

Our most recent visit to a nearby cemetery was to the Mann Creek, Washington, Idaho Cemetery.

I was amazed to find a headstone there that was for a member of the SWEET family!

The headstone on the left above is for Sarah Dreamy Mullenhour Sweet (1858-1906). (Isn't that a cool name?!) At right above is pictured the headstone for her son Bert Sweet (1888-1958). Many of the headstones in this cemetery are marked like Bert Sweet's, with an aluminum plate screwed into a concrete block, with the name and date hand tooled.

As I searched for a listing for each of these individuals on Family Search, I discovered an astounding story! Sarah was married in 1878 to Francis Marion Sweet (1857-1905) and together they became the parents of 10 children between 1878-1900. There were 2 newspaper clippings already entered in the Memories section for Francis Sweet. And they were heart-wrenching. You can read them here.

www.familysearch.org/tree/personal/memories/L85N-C6Q

I'm happy that I'm able to subscribe to Newspapers.com. I searched for Francis Marion Sweet and found an abundance of articles that I was able to add to his Memories at FamilySearch. In brief, this is the story they tell: 

This was published in the Topeka (Kansas) Daily Capital, Dec. 6, 1905. 

I prepared this chart that shows my Cousin Connection to both Ezekiel Sweet, the Founder of the town of Sweet, Idaho, and to Francis Marion Sweet, the subject of this blog post. 

I feel blessed that my interest in Genealogy leads me to discoveries like this. I realize that every person buried in a cemetery has a story besides just the name and dates engraved on their headstone. And one discovery leads to another. So when I found Francis Sweet on FamilySearch, I discovered the events that led up to his death. Further searching of newspaper articles provided very interesting details. The story aroused compassion, sorrow, and my interest in the entire Sweet family, as I gave thought to what Sarah "Dreamy" Mullenhour Sweet experienced toward the end of her life and what their children experienced in their lives. 

Our First Look at Sweet, Idaho and our Connections There

To relax and enjoy a quiet Father's Day this year, my husband and I took a ride to explore a town he'd seen only on the map: Sweet, Idaho. Of course, being a family historian, our first stop was at the Cemetery. 

It's my custom to photograph a few headstones as we walk around to see some of the names of local residents of the past. William and I each study the facts revealed by the birth and death dates and we get a picture of the trials the early residents endured.

The headstone of Ezekiel and Isabelle Sweet, along with their 2-year-old daughter Etta, drew our attention, as it was fenced and was the most notable in size and decoration. 

When we came home on the evening of Father's Day, which was June 16 this year, I browsed online for information on this Sweet town and family. Wikipedia tells us this:

"Founded in 1885 by Ezekiel Sweet, the community initially was a supply location and post office for framers and ranchers in the nearby Lower Squaw Creek Valley. I grew significantly as a result of the later Thunder Mountain Mines gold strike. By 1900 it supported 3 saloons, 3 hotels, several businesses, and a newspaper, which lasted until the gold mines had petered out. Several subsequent fires destroyed most of the historic downtown. Today a smaller Sweet is the location of a restaurant, butcher shop, repair shop, lumber mill and a post office." 

I found that this picture of the Sweet headstone was already included on FamilySearch in that family's "Memories". But I learned, and was amazed by, the fact that Ezekiel was my 7th cousin, twice removed! MY COUSIN! FamilySearch offers the chart that shows our connection.

Pictured above are the headstones from 1915 of Ephraim and Florence Yergenson. There are quite a few headstones belonging to members of this family. On Family Search I discovered this beautiful family portrait of them. 

The fact that amazed me the most was that Ephraim was born on June 15, 1865. We were standing at his grave on June 16, 2024! 

My eye caught this tiny headstone of Ada Ann Baird. It tells us that she died Sept. 20, 1871 at the age of 1 year, 5 months and 12 days.

Again, I found this Relationship Chart available on FamilySearch, showing that I am Ada's 7th cousin, twice removed. Here's my little cousin's headstone!

I'm happy that I'm a person who is easily amazed when I learn of "family connections". I lived the first 40 years of my life in small town Kansas. Then moved to Colorado where I resided for 33 years. I've just been an Idaho resident for 3-1/2 years. I had no idea I would find Cousins in Idaho, even though they lived here long before I was born! 

Of the 19 headstones I photographed on Father's Day, all but one are of people who were related to me or a member of my family! We loved the serene, fresh, peaceful feelings we experienced as we explored Sweet, Idaho and will certainly return sometime to explore it further! 

Surprised at a Church Connection to my Dad's Western Music Days

I have quite a collection of books on the topic of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as I want to continue to learn, to understand what's behind me and ahead of me and what that can mean in my life today. A few years ago I was able to weekly watch "Scripture Roundtable" on BYU-TV and became very fond of the comments and thoughts of Robert Millet. As I've delved into the many books he's written, I've felt like he's talking directly to ME and I easily understand his messages. So he's become one of my favorites.

If you've followed any of my blog posts, you know I'm easily impressed by "connections"! It amazes me when I learn of a family connection between people who may not have known it, or at least that I hadn't known about. 

I was looking up the ancestry of my favorite author Robert Millet recently and saw that his father, Lou Millet, was listed on the site Hillbilly-music.com. This site lists many of his recordings and hits from the 1950s. https://www.rocky-52.net/chanteursm/millet_lou.htm 

The reason I was so fascinated by this discovery is that my Dad, Ernest Margheim, is also listed on Hillbilly-Music.com. 

I feel like I have something more in common with Robert L. Millet now. Not only do we share the same religious beliefs, but our fathers were both involved in the western music of the "early" days of the 1930s-1950s. I just found this to be really cool! My dad would be fascinated to know this too!