The History Nut

Maybe I should have studied history in college.  My Dad did, and received his Master's from USU, writing his thesis about the forced move of the Uncompahgre Ute Indians from Colorado to the reservation in Eastern Utah.  He took several trips doing research, and maybe from this began a desire to know more about history.

However first love of history go father back than my Dad's travels.  While growing up, we lived in Illinois for a couple of years in Carbondale. A member of the branch had a property with enough open land to have a branch garden.  This property had something else.  It had bomb craters from the Civil War.  You could still see them.  I was fascinated with the Civil War.  But when a teacher offered me a how-to baseball book or a Civil War book I took the baseball book.  I was still a boy, and playing baseball was something I did a lot back then.

I did study some history in college.  I took the history of Cache Valley course, and did a research paper on the History of the Reorganized Church in Cache Valley.  Not many people know that the son of Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith III, visited Cache Valley as president of the Reorganized Church, and there was a great debate between the two philosophies in the basement of the Logan Tabernacle.  (The main floor was not completed and the basement was the largest room available in the Valley at the time.)  At one point someone yelled from the gallery, "Don't talk to the son of the prophet that way."  Joseph Smith had a great respect from the people which carried over to his son.  Even so there were not a lot of converts to the church headed by Joseph Smith III.

I also recently delved into WWII history, as I wrote my father's history.  It was good to understand that war a bit better.

I have also studied pioneer history as part of learning of my own ancestors.  More recently I have been learning California pioneer history.  Did you know there was a battle in Santa Clara as part of the Mexican American War?  There are many things with regards to history I enjoy.  I am often reading a historical work, so this will give me a place to write about those things, and share what I learn.

PS  My Dad's thesis is in the special collections section of the USU library.  The paper I wrote is there as well.