Last year I made a blog about Samuel Kendall Gifford which linked to his Journal online.
Today I stumbled across another version of this journal which includes some new stuff not in the previous version including an explanation of how that version came to be typed up. (by Annie I. Matheson who is a second cousin to Dad):
In Explanation.
This Journal was rescued from a heap of rubbish that was to be burned so I feel that we are very fortunate to have it. I also feel it a great privilege to be the first to copy it from the original writing. It's like turning back the pages of the past and meeting my own great-grandfather. In the beginning of the Journal the writing is clear and legible but towards the last it was quite hard to read so the last part must have been written when his eye-sight was failing him. I have kept it in his own words but where the sentences run together I have broken them up a bit. Many words he spelled as they were pronounced such as spiret, discription, steemboat, prisner, staid for stayed, wheal for wheel and sence for sense but the rest are as written. He was a self-educated man so I think he did better than average. Where words are missing from the Journal is where the corners of the pages were worn off.
I was quite disappointed that such a fascinating Journal should break off so completely before it was finished so i wrote to different ones who remembered him to see if they could add more to the word picture of this wonderful man. I received a short biography of Samuel Kendall Gifford which was dictated by him to Hannah Jane Gifford Tuttle, a granddaughter. In order to avoid too much repetition I took excerps from it that I thought would add to the Journal. I also received information from an aunt, Fannie C. Gifford and my mother, Annie C. Isom. My mother also drew a picture of the Gifford Chair which I am enclosing herewith.
Annie I. Matheson
P.S. I was one of the tiny babies of the great grandchildren who was fortunate enough to receive a Patriarchal and Father's Blessing under the hands of this wonderful man.
1 comment:
It also includes excerpts from the biography dictated by Samuel K. Gifford to Hannah J. Gifford Tuttle on Mar 5th 1904 which includes details missing from the earlier Journal. I'll transcribe that and upload it later. One fragment:
I {SKG} have attended many conferences in St. George, attended conference in Salt Lake City at the time of the dedication of the temple on the 6th of April, 1893. I had previously attended the laying of the cornerstone of that great temple on the 6th of April 1853, just 40 years previous to the time of it's dedication.
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