Friday Flashback: Fear of Crocodile

This flashback was prompted by Nancy's post, in which Rachel wakes up with nightmares in which she is chased by crocodiles and other beasts.

When I was very young, our family went to the movies in town. Now, this was a rare event back then. We had a radio, but this was before the time of television (even black and white television). While we listened to radio dramas nearly every day, a trip into the movies was a once-a-year event, at most.

For days (nights?) after the movie, I would awake, terrified, with a crocodile chasing me. It wasn't just any crocodile, and it wasn't crocodiles, plural, either. It was The Crocodile. You know, the one that swallowed the alarm clock. The movie we had seen was Peter Pan.

Looking back, I imagine it must have been my subconscious mind hearing the kitchen clock that triggered the episodes.

The movie was released February 5, 1953, and I imagine that it would have taken a few months to make it to our small town. Too bad the archives of the Taber Times aren't available on-line. If they were I could narrow the time of this flashback down to an interval of a few weeks (the typical run of a movie at the Tower Theatre). In any case, I was at least a year older than Rachel at the time.

I don't remember my parents coming up with any creative ideas for dealing with this, so I suppose the nightmares must have just faded away, as I traveled through time at the usual rate of one second per second.

Question from Elizabeth

My daughter, Elizabeth, asked me a few weeks ago to tell me when her ancestors joined the Church*. I didn't take the time then to put together a complete answer, but just told her a couple of stories. Today, I spent several hours working on this, resulting in the post that you are reading now.

M (1978, 33)
FMMMMM (1839, 49) Lois Knapp
FMMMM (1839, 27) Louisa Walker
FMMMF (1831, 24) Edson Barney
FMMFM (1840,33) Joanna Case Worden
FMMFF (1852, 47) Elisha Barrus Keyes
FMFMMM (1848,59) Delia Deliverance Byam
FMFMMF (before 1836, before 49) Tillison Reed
FMFMM (unknown) Sally Ann Reed
FMFMFM (before 1838, before 54) Millicent Waite
FMFMFF (before 1846, before 62) Naham Curtis
FMFMF (1833,15) Joseph Curtis
FMFFMM (1833, 41) Experience Wheeler
FMFFMFM (before 1847, before 78) Amy Ward
FMFFMF (before 1833, before 33) Joseph Hancock
FMFFM (1847,12) Amy Experience Hancock
FMFFFM (1831,36) Alta Adams
FMFFFFM (before 1847, before 78) Amy Ward
FMFFFF (1830,37) Solomon Hancock
FMFFF (1834,8) George Washington Hancock
FFMMM (before 1862, before 55) Anna Wylimann
FFMMF (1861,58) Casper Wintsch
FFMM (1861,10) Anna Caroline Wintsch
FFMFM (1862,70) Elisabeth Luethi
FFMF (1861,30) Nicholas Muhlestein
FFFMMM (1843,37) Hannah Whitcomb
FFFMMF (1843,37) Gilberth Haws
FFFMM (1843,15) Lucinda Haws
FFFMF (1843,21) Shadrach Holdaway
FFFM (1864,8) Mary Elizabeth Holdaway
FFFFM (1841,39) Sarah Adams Bitely
FFFF (1866,35) Charles Conrad

There it is, to the best of my ability, using the New Family Search website, and taking into account not a few peculiarities.

Each line shows the relationship to Elizabeth, the year of the ancestor's baptism and their age at baptism, and finally the ancestor name (maiden names are used for all women).

Some dates (and therefore ages) are best guesses. The notation "before" gives the date/age of the ancestor's death, when it is strongly believed that they were baptized during their lifetime. Often, this is believed because their death occurred at a place and time where/when the Mormons were gathered, such as Winter Quarters or Clay County, Missouri.

In the case of Anna Wylimann, we know from her daughter's account that she was baptized about a year before her daughter. We also know that she died while crossing the plains on 4 September 1862, and was buried on the prairie.

In the case of Experience Wheeler and her second husband**, Joseph Hancock, I am relying on the accuracy of the linked account. Interestingly, these two appear to have been first cousins. Joseph and Solomon Hancock were brothers, making their children Amy Experience and George Washington first cousins.

The short answer to her question is that Elizabeth has both a parent who is a recent convert, and the first in a family, as well as a parent who is a product of a complete ancestry of people who joined the Church within the first few decades of its organization. I have attempted to identify the first in each family line to convert, but have also included a couple of cases of an ancestor baptized at age 8. To my knowledge, all of the ancestors missing from this list, but closer to Elizabeth, of course, were baptized at 8.

It was difficult to put all this together, partly because the work has been done for the dead sometimes many times over, and people who we are sure were baptized during their lifetimes often show a baptism date/temple well after their death. In some cases, the website showed a confirmation date during the lifetime, and in those cases, I used the same year for the baptism date. In the case of Sally Ann Reed, all of the LDS ordinance dates are hidden because someone has decided to do all of her work yet again. However, I am very sure that she was baptized, at least, during her lifetime.

*By "the Church" is meant "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." (see style guide)

**Edited the next morning. Here is a screen scraping of a pedigree section that led me to look deeper into the situation:

The question raised in my mind (and resolved by reading the story of her mother's life) was how Amy could have the family name Hancock if her father was a Rudd. He wasn't. The pedigree section on the website was based on an incorrect resolution of conflicting data.

Regula Sauermann

Regula Sauermann is my great-great-great-grandmother (more precisely, my FMMFM*).

In what follows, I am going to put events** in order, but add very few, if any, invented details. I will also add a couple of location links. But, it is a very interesting story, even if one only considers the events themselves.

She was born on 21 November 1779 in Volketschweil, Zuerich, Switzerland to parents Hans Jakob Sauermann (age 25) and Elisabeth Frei (age 26), and was apparently their only child***. Nothing is known about her childhood and growing up years.

At some point (perhaps at age 22 or 23), she married Martin Wintch, who had been born in the same village on 22 December 1776. Tragically, about 4 weeks before the birth of their first child, Regula's father, Hans Jakob, passed away at the age of 48 without seeing any of his grandchildren. Regula and Martin's children were Casper Heinrich Wintch (born 30 January 1803 (my FMMF)), Verena Wintsh (born 26 February 1804), and Hans Ulrich Wintsch (born 3 February 1805, but who lived to be only 15 months).

Sadly, her husband passed away on 7 May 1806, just three weeks before his youngest son. Regula was only 27 and a half years old. She had only been married 4 or 5 years.

We know nothing of her mourning the twin loss of husband and son in the space of a single month, but can assume that she was busy with her 2 and 3 year-old children (who ended up living to ripe old ages (and dying in Utah as it happens, but that is another story)).

In any case, she remarried within a year, moving to the nearby village of Bisikon in Illnau, to Hans Jakob Vollenweider who was about 33 years old. Within the space of just a few years, they had 5 children. Hans Heinrich Vollenweider (born 18 May 1808), Barbara Vollenweider (born 9 December 1809), Magdalena Vollenweider (born 23 February 1811), Adelheid Vollenweider (born 9 July 1813), and Heinrich Vollenweider (born 2 July 1817 who only lived 3 months).

Sadly, again, her second husband passed away, less than two months before his youngest son. Regula was 37 and a half years old. Again, there is nothing recorded (that I have found) of her mourning another twin loss. At this time, she had 6 children, ages 14, 13, 9, 7, 6, and 4.

Almost two years after her latest losses, on 28 July 1819, she (aged 40) married widower Kaspar Willemann (aged 50), whose first wife, Regula Maeder had died nine months earlier, leaving him with 5 living children (not counting the 4 they had lost as babies), aged 25, 24, 23, 19, and 12. One can assume that not all of these children were living at home. But still, the blended family, at the time of the wedding, included children aged 25, 24, 23, 19, 16, 15, 12, 11, 9, 8, and 6. Wow.

With Kaspar, Regula had two more children, Barbara Wylimann (born 26 May 1820) and Kaspar Wylimann (born 16 December 1822).

Her third husband lived long enough to see his children grow to adulthood--another 15 years, until 10 March 1837, when he died at the age of 68 years. Regula's mother, Elisabeth, had died just 4 months before, at the age of 83 years. Regula lived on in Bisikon another 9 and a half years, and died there 30 October 1846 at the age of 66 years.

One can only wonder what she felt about the wedding, at age 21, of her oldest son, Casper, to her oldest stepdaughter, Dorothea, then 30 years old, on 2 February 1824, back in Volketscheweil (Regula being 44 years old at that time). She would have known their three children, Rudolph Wintsch (born and died 1826), Henry Wintsch (born 15 April 1828), and Barbara Wintsch (born in 1830 (and lived to be 86 years old)).

Regula would also have experienced her oldest son's wife's death on 22 February 1835, at the age of 41 (and Regula being 55), when her two children were only 5 and 6. This must have brought back such memories of loss for her, not to mention sad for the children and Casper.

Her son Casper remarried within the year, at age 32, to the youngest sister of Dorothea, Anna (my FMMM), then almost 28, on 25 May 1835. Regula lived to see 6 of their 8 children born. These were Jakob Wintsch (born 29 August 1837), Magdalena Wintsch (born 3 March 1839), Anna Wintsch (born 12 September 1841 and died just over a year later), Hans Heinrich Wintsch (born and died in 1842), John Ulrich Wintsch (born 1 March 1843), and Elizabeth Wintsch (born 27 February 1846 and lived 5 and a half years).

Eight months after the birth of her granddaughter Elizabeth, and about ten years after the death of her mother, Elisabeth, Regula left this planet.

After her death, Caspar and Anna welcomed two additional daughters, Louise Wintsch (born 13 February 1849) and Anna Caroline Wintsch (born 12 January 1851).

Up to this point, the story of Regula Sauermann, my great-great-great-grandmother, has been told merely by putting together the dates of recorded events, and calculating peoples' ages when those events occurred, with just a little supposition.

But, fortunately, Anna Caroline Wintsch, my great-grandmother (my FMM), took the time to write some of her life's story. It has been posted on the Internet as part of Dianne Elizabeth's Family History.

If you, too, are descended from Regula Sauermann, as are countless Utahns--and many Swiss--I invite you to read her story. Among other details, you will encounter the story of the conversion to Mormonism, and the adventures of the journey of her son Casper and his wife Anna, and several of her grandchildren, out of Switzerland, across the Atlantic Ocean, and finally to Utah.

*My father's mother's mother's father's mother.

**Source: USGenealogy.net, and linked pages.

***Oddly, her parents also appear each to be only children. This is probably an artifact of the way the records have come down to us, being brought by Henry Wintch (Senior) to Utah. It is reasonable to assume that he wouldn't have brought information about his great aunts and uncles (if any). This also explains why there is so much more information about the family members who came to Utah than there is about those who stayed "behind" in Switzerland.

QR Code

Funny how long it can take to hear about something big!

The QR Code has been around since 1994. Fifteen years. Wow. And I've only learned about it, by accident, this year. It is very popular in other parts of the world.

Here is an example, the QR ("Quick Response") Code for this post*:


This could be crocheted or knit into a scarf, or published in some other way.

A cell phone, equipped with a reader for the code, could take a picture of it and then immediately go to the web page.

*The image above is actually a URL which computes the code on-the-fly from the permalink of this post (which is, http://sanbachs.blogspot.com/2009/11/qr-code.html). Below is a static image, captured today (by screen scraping), just in case the image generator goes off-line.

Unknown Chess Champ

As I was preparing to graduate from W. R. Myers High School, a teacher/mentor (Frank Semaka) tried very hard to convince me to enroll in the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He was quite disappointed that I chose Brigham Young University instead. Why? Probably because earlier, I had had some experiences on campus, which led me to want to spend more time there. In particular, during the summer of 1967, I attended a Boy Scout conference held at Brigham Young University.

There were many enjoyable activities. I would like to be able to say memorable, but all I can actually remember is a chess tournament, which I won, after some grueling hours. As it was, I think one of the leaders talked my last opponent into resigning, to save time.

At the closing ceremonies, a plaque was awarded to the winner of each kind of competition. The printed program had all of the names and events. Except mine! But, orally, I was called up and recognized as the chess champion, and awarded the plaque. Really, I do remember this.

I have kept the plaque all these years, but have no documentary evidence to substantiate this claim. My mother believed me though, and it is her handwriting on the reverse of the plaque.

Below are pictures taken in 2009 of the obverse and reverse sides of the plaque, along with transcriptions of the text on each side. The plaque itself is a nice piece of walnut, with an embedded plastic emblem showing the logo of the conference.

Obverse (detail photo available on posterous):

L.D.S. Explorer - Ensign 1967 Leadership Conference

Reverse:

Bruce Conrad Chess Champ

I really need to get a better camera than the one in my cell phone!

The pictures are taken with the plaque pillowed on a quillow which my mother made for me many years later.

During my first semester at BYU, I had a lot of trouble keeping up with my classes. I finally decided that I would have to give up not only chess playing, but also science fiction reading, and concentrate on getting the grades to graduate.

Death and facebook revisited yet again

So far, two of my facebook friends have passed out of this world, and are beyond the reach of the Internet. Don Fisher and Harold Conrad.

No, this post is not about the passing of friend number three, thankfully. Instead, it is just a bit amusing, in a morbid sort of way.

When I discovered lists in facebook, I created several of them. One I labeled "deceased". My two dear departed friends are alone so far in this list.

With the recent change in the way facebook displays news on my home page, I took advantage of moving the "Status Update" item to the head of the list, and also sometimes use my friend lists to see the additional features missing from the status-updates-only news feed.

When I clicked absently on each list today, I was galvanized by this display for my "deceased" list:

Ouch!

"No recent posts from this list." Not too surprising. They would have to find an ISP in whatever realm* they are located, get an account, a computer, etc. etc.

But what about the suggestion, "Add friends to this list"? No, sorry, I don't want to add any more friends to this list! And, I seriously doubt--if I were led to the dread necessity of doing so--that I would actually "see more posts."

But wait. Facebook can now change such accounts into memorial accounts. I suppose that once this has happened, one could expect new news, due to people writing on the wall of this memorial account.

Apparently, it is also possible for family members to have the account of a deceased relative removed entirely. But, it would seem that this is an arduous process.

*My friend, John Quinley, suggested in conversation that, in Hell, if there were Internet access, it would probably be at dial-up speeds, with frequent outages.

The laws of form and performance

The Laws of Form is a book, written (in 1969) by George Spencer-Brown, which influenced me as a graduate student in the late 1980s. I wrote in (chapter 4 of) my dissertation that it showed "that all of Boolean logic is inherent in the single concept of distinction." In retrospect, I may have claimed this because of a criticism of the book in an article cleverly named "Flaws of Form," in which the authors claim "that Brown's system is [merely] Boolean algebra in an obscure notation." My claim is really equivalent to the detractors' but with a positive spin to it.

Distinction is a powerful intellectual tool. Another is abstraction, but I digress.


This post is about a book that I have just read, entitled "The Three Laws of Performance" (by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan) published this year (2009, forty years after the other book).

What reminded me of the other book is the odd observation that the newer book's title contains the older book's title within it, thus: The Three Laws of Performance [emphasis added]. It is a quirk of my personality that I enjoy such coincidences and word play.

However, there is a deeper reminding, having to do with the power of distinction as an intellectual tool.

The first of the three laws of performance is, "How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them." At first glance, there is no distinction drawn here. However, in the explanatory material following the first expression of this law, the authors speak of what they call the "reality illusion" [emphasis in original].

This is precisely the first great distinction of Popper's three worlds (which played an important part in chapter two of my dissertation).

The "reality illusion" is the distinction between Popper's world one and his world two. This is the distinction between reality itself (world one) and the mental constructs which we create in our minds (world two) about reality, or how we explain reality to ourselves.

The powerful thrust of the first law is that it explains people's behavior: how people behave ("perform") is consistent with ("correlates to") their mental constructs ("how situations occur to them").

Compare my sentence (from the perspective of Popper's three worlds)

How people behave is consistent with their mental constructs.

with that from the (newer) book (and the perspective of laws of performance)

How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them.

So that this post is not a plot spoiler (my readers are encouraged to read this new book), I will only say of the other two laws that they recognize that the material, or substance, of our mental constructs is language, and that language phrased in the future tense (declarative language) has greater power to change our mental constructs (than descriptive language, in present or past tense).

If you have a mathematical bent, I encourage you to read Laws of Form.

If you are interested in improving/changing your own performance, I encourage you to read The Three Laws of Performance.