Random Thoughts and Family History

 

Dear Family and Friends,

As I look around the streets of London I never cease to be amazed. I’ve always been a people watcher and London is people watching heaven. There is so much diversity- different languages, dress and all kinds of behavior- both good and not so good. Not too long ago we were on a bus and started to get off but changed our minds. A European lady across the aisle asked where we wanted to go. I said we had just changed our minds. She responded, “ Well. just sit still and quit being a nuisance”. I was really surprised. A man behind her smiled at me and made the crazy sign. I felt much better.

A couple of days ago we had a day off from the Archives. We made arrangements to meet up with the young missionaries from our ward. We took Elder Baker and Elder Lawrence to lunch and then went with them to visit one of our members in the hospital. The Elders enjoyed the meal and we enjoyed their company and enthusiasm.

 

Our trip home from church today turned out to be another ‘adventure’. There have been closures on the Northern tube line the past few weekends so we had to catch a different bus and get the tube at Camden Town. It was pouring rain after the meetings and we had a fairly long walk to the bus stop. When we got there we saw that the bus stop was closed. We walked to the next stop and caught the bus for the 45 minute ride to the tube station. When we got off the bus at Camden Town there was a sign that said they closed the tube station due to overcrowding. We had to walk to the next tube station- it was still pouring rain.  We were finally able to get on the Northern line. The train was packed with wet people- us included. We transferred to the Piccadilly line and eventually got bus C3 to take us back to our flat. I was not smiling.

Family History

In my last blog I mentioned the messages from home and how much they mean to us. I have a couple new ones that we recently opened.

“Generations pass like leaves fall from our family tree. Each season new life blooms and grows benefitting from the strength and experience of those who went before”.

Another message quoted Alex Haley,

“In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage, to know who we are and where we came from”.

How very true. As we search out our own ancestry and help others do the same, there is a such a feeling of enrichment and satisfaction that comes with knowing those who went before.

This was so apparent as we observed people at Who Do You Think You Are? Live, a family history event that was held at Olympia Exhibition Hall this past weekend.  It is billed as the largest  family history event in the world and is based on the television show, Who Do You Think You Are?  The three-day expo at Olympia usually attracts about 15,000 attendees every year. This is the second year we have attended and it is a wonderful experience. We helped out at the FamilySearch booth located right inside the front doors of the exhibition hall. FamilySearch exhibitors were easily identified by their blue FamilySearch shirts. We helped visitors to the event learn to use the FamilySearch website and find their ancestors on the various web sites that we use. It is very similar to the work we are doing as we help people out at The National Archives. It is interesting that in the year since we have been in London we have become acquainted with so many people who are involved in family history work- our patrons, professional genealogists, employees of The National Archives. We saw many of these people at Olympia.

 

Geoff Mawlam, Elders Ken Fugal and Larry Sprouse

Elders John Robertson and Larry Sprouse

Sister Barbara Robertson

Family Search employee and Sister Joyce Sprouse

Elder Ken and Sister Cheryl Fugal

The FamilySearch team from the UK and US, London Family History Centre staff and some of the family history missionaries. We and the Robertsons are not in this photo.

The expressions of gratitude for our help and the help our Church provides with the FamilySearch resources, was overwhelming. It’s been a wonderful to realize the respect that people not of our faith have for the work our Church has done in preserving so many of the records in the UK and making them available free of charge.

Ken had these observations:

The thing that struck me at WDYTYA was the magnitude of interest in the products for searching one’s ancestry and heritage. We are all interested to some degree in our ancestors.  We know, as a Church, we will continue to move this work forward. Having improved tools to do so, is of great importance.To me, watching new technological developments is  a further indication of the Lord's Spirit being manifest. Improving search capabilities provides incentive for more people to want to be involved. The talks by Elders  Bednar and Holland at the last General Conference, were very insightful in these regards.

 

We have 2 special birthdays coming up!

Happy 14th, Kayleigh!

Happy 11th Matthew!

 

 

Our best to all of you from London,

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

Missionaries, Messages from Home and Fun Things

 

Dear Family and Friends,

 

One of the very enjoyable things about working as a family history missionary is the associations we form and conversations we have with our patrons.

 

One gentleman was talking with me about the bombings of London during World War II. He was a child during that time and remembers the destruction caused by the bombs. He went on to say that his mother told him stories about the zeppelin bombings during World War I. I had never realized that the airships were used for that purpose. After our conversation he went and found a book, Zeppelins of World War I, held at The National Archives, to show me.  Apparently the Germans tried to demoralize the British by dropping bombs on the cities.

 

We certainly learn a lot from the wonderful people we work with at The National Archives.

 

 

Sunday we traveled without any interruptions or adventures out to the North London Ward. I was impressed by a talk given by one of the young missionaries. Elder Helske has been in our ward for 6 months which is unusually long for a young missionary to be in one place. I will never forget the first time he came up to the pulpit to introduce himself as a new missionary direct from the Preston MTC. It was very apparent from his words that he was thinking what on earth am I doing in a strange country as a missionary?? (He’s from Finland.) I remember thinking at the time- Oh my! In his talk Sunday he mentioned that first talk and how he was in a ‘woe is me” frame of mind and it was all about himself. He related the story of Nephi and how he described himself as “being exceedingly young, nevertheless being large in statue and also having great desires to know the mysteries of God” to becoming “a man large in stature and also having received much strength from the Lord”. Elder Helske likened that to the changes that are happening to him as he serves on his mission. It is so apparent this change is occurring in this fine young Elder as it is in all the young people who serve on missions.

Messages From Home:

Because the tube to the East Fichley was not running the  Sunday before last, we decided to attend the Hyde Park Ward. They are meeting in the Baden Powell Building while the Hyde Park Chapel is being refurbished. We enjoyed the meeting- there were 2 very good talks and a sweet family with 3 little girls sang A Child’s Prayer. Of course that made me cry.

We got back to our flat at 11:30 instead of our usual 2:30. I spent time during the afternoon going through our messages from home. These messages were written on small strips of paper, put in a wicker box and sent with us to London. There are messages to Ken and to me and we each read one every day. All of our family- even the small ones wrote messages. I’ve saved all the ones that we have read and compiled many of them on a document. It was a good experience to reread them and think about our family.

Some make us laugh:

Your good tomahawk scalped Drew pretty good.

Dad, the highest scoring word in scrabble is quartz at 164 points if you play against Mom.

I’m sorry I went to the U of U, Dad.

Mom, I only borrowed one shirt from your clothes closet.

Some bring back good memories:

I hiked to the “Y”. I remember doing it with you guys. It was fun.

Dad, thanks for being nice when I was your grumpy seminary student.

Dad, I enjoyed our talks when you’d drive me across town when I was your home teaching companion.

Mom, I remember a snowstorm we had in Indiana. We were outside sledding down our street and you were inside making fudge. I thought, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Some are uplifting:

Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you will land among the stars.

Elder Haight said, “Missionary couples are a great resource.”

Missionary work is not easy but according to Elder Ballard, it is definitely worth it.

“It is said that the sun never sets on the British Empire. That Empire is now diminished but it is true the sun never sets on this work of the Lord as it is touching the lives of people across the earth,” President Hinckley

Success is best manifest in doing, not dreaming.

The ones from the grandchildren are wonderful:

Never give up!

Can I see your missionary tag?

We have been memorizing semetary scriptures and it’s cool.

Have you developed a British accent yet?

Do you miss me?

You are so luky!

Thank you for serving a mission in London.

Have you ridden the Knight Bus yet?

I love you like old people love chicken.

You rock- good example.

Grandma, you are brave.

Chinese symbol for Grandpa 爷爷

Grandpa, it’s happening so fast! I am proud of you.

I’m thinking about you grandma.

I say my prayers day and night because it helps me to choose the right.

I wuv you, Grandpa.

Fun Things

P days are for cleaning, Ken has his chores and I have mine, shopping and fun things. The past few weeks we visited the London Aquarium, (along with about a million kids- I forgot it was half term), the National Army Museum, the Royal Mews and the Tate Britain. 

The aquarium was a kids paradise and we certainly liked it as well. We walked on a glass floor over tanks of sharks and through tunnels surrounded by fish.

 

 

 

 

 

The Nation Army Museum had an exhibition on World War I horses and that’s what attracted us there.

We liked the exhibition but found other parts of the museum equally interesting. One part, The Road to Waterloo, had a scale model of the battlefield…

and the skeleton of Napoleon’s horse, Marengo.

 

We loved the Royal Mews.It is a combination stable, carriage house and garage for the Royal family attached to Kensington Palace.

The Gold State Coach

   

The Rolls Royce Phantom VI that carried Kate Middleton to her marriage to Prince William

We saw the stable with the horses names over their stalls.

We were fortunate to be able to see what one of the guides called a “demonstration for some of Her Majesty’s guests”.

Coachmen, grooms, chauffeurs and their families live in flats above the carriage houses and stables. These are seen in the photo above. Some of these families have lived in the mews for several generations.

 

The Tate Britain contains British art from the 1500’s to the present. We have really enjoyed all of the art gallery's we have visited in London and keep going back. I loved these:  

The Lady of Shalott

John William Waterhouse

Ophelia                                                                                        John Everett Millais

We love London and our mission!

Our best to all of you,

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

 

 

 

Cold Weather, Another Adventure and Back to School

 

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been cold in London this week! We are used to cold weather in winter but because we are outdoors so much it seems colder here. We had our first snow since we’ve been in London on Saturday night. Here are some pictures.

The street out in the front of our flat:

 

 

Our front entrance:

Our garden:

 

Leaving for church Sunday morning:

 

Thank goodness for scarves, hats and warm coats.

 

Another Adventure

We didn’t  realize when we set off for church this morning that when there’s snow in London things don’t  function normally. Our first clue was when we had to wait a very long time for the bus. Our tubes were on time but the bus delay made it pretty certain that we would be late for church. When we got to East Finchley Station we took off running to see if we could get the bus. It had just gone past our stop and as we ran down the sidewalk to try to get the driver to stop, Ken slipped. When he  grabbed a metal sign to stop his fall he made a pretty deep cut into one of his fingers. We stood there for a minute, not knowing quite what to do. We looked up and saw one of our ward members. Her family had been driving by, saw us miss our bus and stopped to give us a ride the rest of the way to church. The attendance was small, less than 30, and since traveling home was going to be a challenge, the Bishop announced that we would just have Sacrament Meeting. That worked for us as we knew Ken was going to need stitches. The same family who picked us up gave us a ride back to the tube station and on the way home Ken stopped at a hospital near our flat to get 3 stitches- the first he has ever had. The nurse at the hospital commented that he was very calm throughout. I guess the British saying really is becoming our mission motto.

 

Back to School

We were able to visit a school on Monday. A friend of ours in the North London Ward teaches science at a local school and invited us to visit.

In England the school system is organized into years which we call grades. Primary school begins at age 5 and has years 1-6. Secondary School begins at age 11 and has years 7-11. Next is a final, optional, 2 years of preparation called the sixth form. It is during this time that students prepare for their A-level exams. We often see student groups and their teachers who visit The National Archives. They are most often sixth form and unlike the primary and secondary students they don’t wear school uniforms.

State schools, which we in the US call public schools, are mostly funded and overseen by the government. They are free to all children ages 5-16. Approximately 93% of students attend these state schools. Public schools, which we call private in the US, are not funded by the government and have tuition fees.

The school we visited is a state secondary girl’s school. It is very diverse in ethnicity and 78% of the students speak a different language at home. The enrollment is about 900 students with class sizes of about 25. Our class sizes in Utah are larger.

The girls looked very nice in their school uniforms with gray pants or skirts and sweaters. We sat in on an integrated science class that our friend teaches for year 11. They were doing a review activity in preparation for an exam and the girls themselves were presenting information in power points. It was fun to observe because I taught many of the same things. The girls were very focused and we could tell that our friend is a great teacher. He is also the head of that year. We then visited the classroom of a teacher who was teaching Bengali to second and third generation Bangladeshi students. The school teaches several languages including Bengali, Italian, French, German and Turkish. Forty eight languages are spoken in the school. This reflects the diversity of London itself.

It felt good to be back in a school. I will always miss being a teacher- the students, faculty and just the educational environment- those were wonderful years!

Yet another exciting week of our mission passes by and again we love our mission and are still smiling.

Our best to all of you!

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

A Series of Unfortunate Events and Working as Family History Missionaries

 

Dear Family and Friends,

 

It all started on Wednesday. We had finished work at The Archives and were unable to get the train from Kew Garden’s Station because of a breakdown on the track. We ended up taking bus 391 from the stop down the road. The bus was packed with people, kids and a couple of unhappy babies- there might even have been a dog. We stood in the aisle. Forty five minutes later we arrived at Hammersmith Station and took the train the rest of the way to Earl’s Court. We had the same difficulty Friday evening- this time it was a signal error. On Saturday, we knew ahead of time that the train was not running between Earl’s Court and Kew Garden’s Station so we left early as we needed to open our area at The National Archives by 9:00 am.

Saturday evening we stopped at the grocery and carried 2 bags with us onto bus 328 for the ride from Earl’s Court to our flat. I held Ken’s brief case because he was holding the groceries. We got off the bus and walked the couple of blocks to our flat. Just as we got to our gate Ken said. “Where’s my briefcase?”  I had left it on the bus. I felt awful but realized that we might be able to run and catch the bus at the stop before it turned up the King’s Road. Ken threw the groceries into our courtyard and we both took off running to see if we could catch the bus. There were some pretty important  things in the brief case, including all of the information for a presentation we were scheduled to give our ward on Sunday. We couldn’t catch the bus so we ran down to the King’s Road and tried to get another bus so we could catch up with the briefcase. Meanwhile we saw a 328 coming the other direction towards us so we ran across the street and got on. The driver was very sympathetic when we told him our story and he radioed the dispatcher. We rode the bus until the dispatcher called back. He said they has located the briefcase and were holding it for us at the end of the route. We got off the bus, ran back to the King’s Road and found a cab to take us to the end of the route. There stood 2 bus drivers with big smiles on their faces holding the briefcase. Everyone that helped us was wonderful. I love the 328 bus drivers!

That evening we planned to go over a power point presentation on family history we made to show our ward. We had carried a projector home from the Archives earlier that week. When we opened the case carrying what we thought was the projector, we realized that it wasn’t the projector but our presentation computer. We couldn’t believe it. The presentation was the next morning and we had no projector!

We were very fortunate that we were able to get ahold of the counselor in the bishopric with whom we have been working and he arranged for another member to bring his projector. We thought we were home free. We set up the projector and my computer in the chapel and were ready to begin. Bishop Lee got up to give an introduction and the projector suddenly went off. Someone had accidently pulled the power cord out of the socket. I thought this has to be a terrible nightmare that goes on and on.

Our story ends happily. We were able to get the projector back on before the Bishop finished and carry on with the presentation.

When we got back to the flat Sunday afternoon we just looked at each other and then collapsed. No lasting affects except Ken’s shins hurt from the run to The King’s Road.

 

Working as a Family History Missionary

The other day a gentleman asked for my help in finding information on an ancestor. He was actually at the Archives doing research on the Titanic for a book he was writing. He has written several other books which are presently for sale in the Archive’s store. We found the birth record for his ancestor and then I showed him how to search the census records to find more information about his family. It was extremely interesting because the family was quite wealthy and lived in a large manor house in Norfolk. In one of the censuses there were 3 pages on the census that included all the servants who worked at the manor house.

A couple from Australia has been coming into our area at the Archives for several weeks. They are in the UK for 9 months doing family history research and seeing the sights. They had  just planned on staying in London for a couple of days until they realized that they could do more by coming to us than traveling to the various parishes where their ancestors had lived.

A lady whose ancestors are from Grenada frequently comes to do research with us. The other day as I was doing a scan for her she said that from the records she has found using FamilySeach and our microfilms, she was able to trace an aunt who moved to the US. She was then able to locate this aunt in Florida and is now in contact with that branch of her family.

I mentioned above that we were able to present information to our Ward about family history work and indexing during our combined meeting on Sunday. We were so pleased to be invited to do this. We have been bringing our laptops to church for the past month to help people individually and we will continue to do this. We love to help the patrons who come to The National Archives but it is very satisfying to be able to help our own members do their family history. We love this work!

We went to a wonderful musical with the Inskeeps and the Robertsons on our last P day. It was George and Ira Gershwin's musical comedy, Crazy for You, at the Novello Theatre in the west end.

 

It was a crazy week but we love our mission and are still smiling.

Our best to all of you!

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)

 

 

 

History, World War I Diaries and British Money

 

Dear Family and Friends,

You can’t be in London and not be aware of the history around you at every turn. Sometimes I feel as if we are living in the past. We spend much of our time searching out those who lived in times past and are surrounded by buildings and other reminders of the past. One such reminder is our project at The National Archives working on the World War I war diaries. As we sort through the archive boxes, we gain an insight into what conditions were like for those in the British military fighting in the trenches in France and in other places.

I am always interested to go through a diary that includes November 11, 1918, the day the armistice was signed between Germany and the Allies. The signing took place in a railway carriage in the Compiègne Forest and took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918.

                    Railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne

Sometimes in a diary entry for November 11 it simply says “Armistice signed” or “cessation of hostilities at 11.00”. The other day I ran across a longer entry. “Hostilities will cease at 11.00 hours today. Troops will stand fast at the line reached at that hour…defense precautions will be maintained. There will be no intercourse with the enemy until receipt of instructions… These tidings were immediately communicated to all ranks, being received quietly and without expression. Duties were carried out as usual, discipline being relaxed in no way by reason of the cessation of hostilities.”

Ken found one entry for 11 November that said, “At 8.30 a telephone message was received from Brigade to say that hostilities would cease at 11.00 hours.” The following day the entry read “The Battalion was occupied in cleaning up and drill practices.” It seems as though they were carrying on as usual. Another diary had an interesting entry for the day after cessation of hostilities. “Reorganizing, preparing for the march to Germany as part of the Army of Occupation” and on the next day, “March to Germany began.”

 

When we celebrate Veteran’s Day in the US it is because of that armistice signed at the closing of World War I in the forest of Compiègne. John McCrae, a Canadian doctor serving in the Armed Forces, was so touched by what he saw in northern France that, in 1915 he wrote  the poem "In Flanders Field”.

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

 

 

In the UK on Remembrance Day, the 11th of November, most people wear poppies to remember those who gave their lives in war. I have a couple of those poppies that I will bring home with me.

 

The diaries are either handwritten or typed and contain a daily account of the operations of a particular military unit. The kinds of information vary with the type of military unit. For example, in the diary of a Field Ambulance unit you see numbers of causalities. Mostly, they have names of the officers who were killed or wounded but sometimes they mention the names of enlisted men.

John Robertson came across a description of the food rations given to soldiers. “No fresh vegetables, dried figs issued in lieu, occasional rice issues in lieu of bread. Other rations, Bacon M+V. Spanish Onions. Chestnuts, Jam Tinned beef. Tinned Pork+Beans. Milk. Rum. A small quantity of the Milk ration saved in the day, is heated up at night + served mixed with Rum. Ration to men at tattoo.”

Ken found some drawings of hand held bombs containing small bits of metal. One was called a “hair brush bomb” because of its shape. There are also detailed drawings of the trenches.

 

In the Veterinary Corps diaries, much is said about the horses. At the beginning of the war there was apparently a large cavalry but trench warfare made cavalry charge impossible and the horses were later used mostly for transport of materials and equipment. The road conditions made travel very difficult. John Robertson said that in one diary it said that motor transport had made the roads like glass and the horses were unable to stand.

It also appears that there was a lot of mud. In the veterinary reports, conditions as mange and glanders were commonly reported among the horses.

John Robertson found an entry from medical unit that read, “Owing to wet weather and the saturated condition of the new trenches which are being dug, 25 cases of ‘Trench foot’ have been admitted. Anti-frostbite grease was asked for by me through A.A. & Q.M.G…”

Trench foot was a condition caused by the damp, cold condition in the trenches. By late 1915, the soldiers were told to carry 3 pair of socks with them, change them at least twice a day and cover their feet with grease. It is estimated that about 20,000 in the British military suffered from trench foot which could result in gangrene and amputation of the limb.

What an interesting project is is but it includes a lot of sadness. 

We have quite enjoyed getting to know one of our regular patrons, an English gentleman, Mr. Hale.

The other day he brought in some old English money to show us.

At the top is a pound note; in the center is a copper pence; at the bottom are a farthing, ha'penny, penny, thrupenny bit, sixpence, shilling, florin and a half crown. The oldest coins have an image of Queen Victoria and the newer ones the monarchs who followed her. Mr. Hales pointed out that every time a monarch changes, the direction of their profile on the coin also changes.

After the Norman Conquest in 1166, a pound was divided into 20 shillings or 240 pennies. This remained the case until decimalization in 1971, when the pound was divided into 100 pence.

Today in the UK the currency is the pound sterling. The symbol is £ .There are coins and bank notes. The coins are 1 penny, 2 pence, 5 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence, 50 pence, 1 pound, and 2 pounds. The bank notes are the 5 pound note, the 10 pound note, the 20 pound note and the 50 pound note. We are getting really good with the money as we have to balance our cash box every day. I’ve stopped saying dollars when I mean pounds. The exchange rate today is 1 British pound = 1.5525 U.S. dollars.

 

Birthdays at Home

We have 2 grandsons having birthdays the first week of February.

Happy 14th, Joseph!

Happy 13th Nick!

These guys are both very active and adventuresome teenagers. We are proud of you Joseph and Nick!

 

Our best to all of you!

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)