Mission Journal Entry

November 28, 1887 – Sunday
Brother Renals, Greenalch and myself went to Farnworth Sunday School where we talked a little to them. We had dinner at Brother Robinsons and the Brother R. and myself went to a place called Darcy Leaver where there were a family that had once belonged to the church that desired us to visit them. They invited us to go and see them next Sunday and hold meeting. After talking to them and showing them the gospel and their duties of God, we went back to Farnworth and I preached 40 minutes.

November 29, 1887
We went to Bolton. We went to a sister Kay’s. This is a widow woman who came into the church at Whaley Bridge, my native town. She was well acquainted with my mother and brother, George, and my sisters. She was exceedingly pleased to see me on account of my mother that she thought so much of. We went to Sister Harrocks’ to stay all night. This is a good old sister that is a regular blunt Lancashire woman. Her husband is a paralect and can hardly talk or move about. She made us very welcome. We stayed all night.

November 30, 1887
It rained all fore noon. We went to Sister Davis’ and had dinner here. We had tea at Sister Robinson’s and we went to the meeting house at night. This meeting house up some stairs in a room over a stable that stinks very bad. I preached 20 minutes after the saints had bore their testimonies. I spoke on the power of evil spirits and exhorted the saints resist them. Brother R. and myself had felt very depressed all day but felt better after meeting. We went the next day and had dinner at Brother J. Williams’ and had tea with President Cook of the Moreside Branch. We went to meeting at night and only 4 men and a boy present. We administered to Brother J. Williams who had been sick and then went to Brother Flitcroft’s to administer to two of his children. I stayed all night at his house on the sofa.

December 1, 1887
The Elders keep the first Thursday of the month as a fast day and meet in council at the conference house in Manchester. I walked to Manchester and went and I had a warm bath and think it did me more good than if I had food. It cost me 2 d. We assembled at meet at 11 a.m. There were present five elders besides myself. The elders were called on to give an account of their labors. The meeting was over by 2:30 p.m. President Phillip provided a good dinner for us all at the conference house. After dinner, I went in search of my cousin, John Carlin, but I did not succeed in it. I then went to Swinton, 6 miles from Manchester, and stayed with Brother J. Williams who is a coal miner and has two sons who work in the mine. He has a brother living with him who is a farm laborer and is not in the church. These people are Welsh and I read out of the bible to him, he using the Welsh bible. I explained the principles of the gospel which he acknowledges were in accordance with the bible. I slept with him and the boy about 18 years old. He was very rough so I did not sleep much. I had plenty of fleas to keep me company.

Mission Journal Entry

November 20, 1887 - Sunday
I had my dinner with Brother G. Clark at the conference house and went to meeting in the afternoon and spoke 6 minutes. After meeting there was a little old man come up to me and he proved to be William Constantine who used to be in the church and often came to Whaley Bridge when I was a boy. He was well acquainted with my wife; they used to be particular friends. He invited me to go and see him some time. At night I preached about 40 minutes – about 20 present.

November 21, 1887
I did some copying of the letter I had wrote on baptism. At night President Phillips took me to Brother Scoffield’s to sleep. They received me kindly.

November 22, 1887
In the afternoon Joseph D. Renalds came. He was the travelling Elder that travelled in the Mineside District of the Manchester Conference. This district includes Pendleton, Pendlebury, Eccles, Patricroft, Moreside, Swinton, Mosley, Bolton and Farnworth. I was appointed to labor with him in this district. We started to Farnworth and we went to meeting at night. There were very few there and the meeting room was cold and very disagreeable. I stayed at Brother Rboinsons.

November 23, 1887
I went to Moreside and visited several of the saints and went at night to hear a rehearsal which they were having to get ready for a tea party. I spoke a short time and slept at Sister Kay’s with her son John. She is grass widow.

Note not from the journal: I had never heard the term “grass widow” before. Here are the meanings: 1. A woman who is divorced or separated from her husband. 2. A woman whose husband is temporarily absent. 3. An abandoned mistress. 4. The mother of a child born out of wedlock.

November 24, 1887
We went to visit Sister Nightingale at Eccles. She is a widow with five children. She received us kindly and we stayed all night at her house.

November 25, 1887
We went to brother and sister Eden who were glad to see us. We stayed all night.

November 26, 1887
We went to Moreside and stayed at Brother Thomas Fletcroft’s. He is very poverty stricken. He has been out of work a great deal and has a wife and three children. I slept on his sofa. They are very kind people to the elders.

November 27, 1887
I went with Brother J.D. Renals and Elder Jiles, who is from Heber City, to Pendlebury to Mr. Horn’s to get our likeness took. We bought our dinner. We visited the saints and then went to the tea party at Moreside Meeting house. Besides the elders named above; I met Elders Phillips, Quigley, Greenalch, Booth and Green. I stayed at night Sister Kay’s.

Opal's Parents, Samuel George Jackson and Elizabeth Ellen Sanderson

It looks from the ages of Joe and Johanna that this photo was taken around 1898.
Back Row, L-R: John William, Mary Ann, James Thomas, Jr.
Front Row, L-R: Mary Davis Goodworth Beard, Johanna Leona, Richard Stephen, James Thomas Beard, Sr. and Joseph Samuel
The children that are not shown, as it was before they were born, are: Sara Emma, Elva Rose, Elmer Aaron, David Llewellen, Ilene Lovinia, Violet Evelyn and Henry Evans.

Great Grandma & Grandpa Beard's History Part III

We didn't have much of the worldly things, but we were happy. We had our family home evenings, although we didn’t plan them. It just came natural playing our banjo, violin and mouth organs. Also, singing and games together. We popped popcorn and pulled taffy candy. We made our own fun and entertainment. Through this we had much love and closeness. We later built a three room house in the fall of 1928 and spring of 1929. We had a large living room and two bedrooms, one on each end. We then moved the cabin we had been living in down back of the log house for our kitchen. Bill Simister stayed with us for a long time and helped to build the house.

I was on this old ranch where Dick and Will found the John Coulter stone. He and Will was plowing one spring east of the house by a little water spring. Will plowed out a big rock. Dick, who was twelve years old, went over and picked up the rock, took it to the little spring and washed it off. He was surprised to see on one side it had John Coulter and the other side the year 1808 and it was a perfect shape of a man’s head. The stone lay around for a long time when finally a friend, Obrey Lions, wanted to take it. Well he put it in the museum in Jenny’s Lake with a cap and ball pistol. Will was a great explorer, had a outstanding personality, everyone loved him. We had so many friends come to see us. When Will was game warden in Wyoming, some doctors came from California, of course they ate supper with us, of course I am wondered what I could fix for supper, so I proceeded to fry elk steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, and homemade cottage cheese and baking powder biscuits. Our desert was huckleberries and cream. How the doctors raved about the delicious meal. During the meal, Will told them of how he could call the deer down, so after supper he took them out in the moon light and called the pet deer, Julie, by name and she came bouncing down off the hill with her bell ringing. The doctors were really surprised and the kids really had a good laugh. We had many experiences like this with our many friends.

Also, Will was in the movies with his brothers; Elmer, Joe and Dick Beard. This is where Will made a lot of good friends who wrote to us for years. At this time Will purchased a small sawmill and moved it to our old ranch on the Wyoming line. Dick, our son, and his wife, Vera, helped us in the sawmill.

Thomas Beard's Mission Journal

November 14 to November 19, 1887
I stayed around Marple and went to visit Ann Brockleherst at Heyfield. She used to be my old spark but went and left me to get married to Brockleherst. She received me very kindly and showed me what trouble she had had with her husband before he died and with one of her sons. I slept all night with one of her sons. Her daughter, Hannah, was very kind to me. She give me two shillings when I left. I spoke to her and her daughter about the gospel. She said it was like a dream to her. She was once in the church she give me to understand. She regretted very much the course she had pursued. I preached and read the scriptures to my friends at Marple who seemed to be very much interested in what I told them till November 19, when I went to Manchester to report myself rightly for duties but he was away. I wrote at the Conference house a lengthy letter on Baptism to a Wesleyan minister who I had got acquainted with when I was at Whaley Bridge. He had brought many things against baptism and he not time to listen to any thing I had to say. So I spent my time in writing to him while I was waiting for President Phillips. The saints had a meeting at a private house in Manchester where I went this night and they called on me to preach to them which I did on the manifestation of Satan’s power in the latter days.

Thomas Beard's Mission Journal

November 5, 1887
We met at 42 Islington where we received a great deal of valuable instructions from President Jeasdale. We were appointed to our fields of labor. I was appointed along with James Booth who had come with the same company to labor in the Manchester Conference under the Presidency of Wm. G. Phillips. We started this day from Liverpool to Manchester and reported ourselves to the president. He received us kindly and told me that I could go and visit friends for two or three weeks as long as I was doing good. We started from Manchester at 4 p.m. after we had had a good wash and changed our clothes. We arrived at Stockport at Brother Booth’s brother who received us very kindly. He had no bed to lodge us but there was an old lady next door who invited us in to lodge with her for nothing. She kept regular lodgers that worked at mills and it being Saturday night there were two of them drinking and making noise till 2 a.m.

November 6, 1887
And then they waked up early next morning and talked so that nobody could sleep. After breakfast I went to Marple and I went to James Openshaw’s, my brother in-law. At first he took me to be another man and told me he knew me and asked to come in. I asked him about John and Hannah. He told me they were middling. His wife asked him who I was. He said it is Wilmot. No, I said, you are mistaken; I am Thomas Beard, your brother in-law. He was quite surprised and could not speak for some minutes. His wife then came forward and shaked hands with me and sent one of her girls to tell her uncle and aunt, who very soon came up to see me. After dinner John took me to his house. I had not seen them for 25 years before. They all received me very kindly. At night I went with them to their chapel which is the congregation religion. It was a lot of formal rites that was made by the cunning craftiness of man and had never been commanded of God and there was no scripture to advise it to be done.

November 7, 1887
I went to George Wilmott’s. He and his wife were glad to see me but did not know me again for it was 25 years since they saw me.

November 8, 1887
I went to Whaley Bridge and went and visited many old friends who received me kindly and introduced me to new ones.

November 9, 1887
I stayed here and visited and preached to many old neighbors. I stayed around doing the same work bearing my testimony till November 12 when I left Bugsworth for Marple. In the afternoon I went with John to see Samuel at Stockport. He and his family received me very kindly. He took me through the gas works where he is a foreman. We went back to Marple.

Great Grandma & Grandpa Beard's History Part II

I cooked for the mill hands that winter, I only had one complaint on my cooking, that was Eserrel Clark. Will and Tom cut and skidded logs with the oxen that winter, 1913. They did all their work with ox team, very interesting the way they handled them.

That spring we moved down on Grandpa Beard's (James T. Beard) hay ranch to help put up hay. We lived at the ranch in the summer. The house still stands where we lived. Henry Beard lives there now. We lived at sawmill in winter, to keep logs cut ahead to saw in summer, we loved the work.
Will worked in sawmill through his childhood days. He worked while the other kids went to school and none got much schooling.

We had a family of eight. One died at birth (May), we had five girls and three boys.

Our first child, Deloris Jerrine, born 29 Dec. 1914. Dr. Keith was her doctor.

Second child, born 10 Jun 1916, William Richard, by Dr. Roseman down on old fish hatchery ranch. Uncle David Beard bought this ranch later.

Third child, Ella Maxine, born 23 Sep 1918. We went to my brother's, Rhode Jackson, to help hay and harvest their crops, there this child was born, in Pratt Ward, Wyoming. Dr. Smith was her doctor and Grandma Jackson was midwife.

Fourth child born, Mary Opal, 1 July 1920 at North Leigh on the old Beard ranch by Dr. Coulbertson.

Fifth child born was May on 1 May, 1922. She died at birth.

Sixth Child born, Margie Rose, 19 April 1923 by Dr. Martin, on old Flam place where Aunt Pansy and Jim Beard now live.

Seventh child born, Mirt Wallace, 6 March 1930 by Dr. Andrews on old Beard ranch.

Eighth child born, Gail Merrill on 16 September, 1937 at Driggs.

Grandma Beard was a midwife for all the children except Maxine and Gail.

From 1913 to 1927 we worked for Grandpa Beard. In 1927 rented the old Jackson ranch. In the latter part of 1928 we bought Charley Williams homestead. Three hundred and sixty acres, north of Jackson ranch on Wyoming line, four miles, we were so happy to have something of our own. We lived in a one room cabin with an upstairs, so we did have room to sleep and eat.

We enjoyed our family very much, and was real close. We did most everything together. We picked huckleberries, wild strawberries, choke cherries, gooseberries, wild game. We went fishing a lot, when we were at the mill I would go and catch enough fish to feed the mill-hands.

Eserrell Clark built a two room cabin near Grandpa Beard's cabin, he lived there for a while, then they assigned the cabin to Will and I, we lived there every summer to help in saw mill.

Great-Great-Great Grandpa Thomas Beard's Mission Journal Part I

I was called on a mission to Great Britain September 15,1887. I started from home October 14, 1887. I was set apart at the Historians office, Salt Lake City, for my missionary labors by Apostles J. H. Smith and H. J. Grant and Presidents S. B. Young and A. H. Cannon, the last named being mouth. On October 15 I stayed at Sister Hopwoods till Monday 17. She was very kind to me and give me two dollars. We went on the R. D. Railway. The scenery was very grand but I was very sick the two first days. The swinging of the train made me very sick, like sea sickness. After two days I was a great deal better. I wrote letter in pencil and sent them to my folks at Coalville. There were many wonderful sights to be seen. One great thing at Kansas City was that the carriages we rode in were run on a large boat in the river then went across the Mississippi River on to the other side. We stayed one Sunday at Norfolk in Virginia. We went 36 miles by sea and then the rest by railroad to New York and got there 8 a.m. October 24. We loaded on the Nevada October 25 and sat sail half past 11 a.m. We had a very pleasant voyage the fore part of the trip. It was a little rough a few days. We landed at Liverpool at 6 p.m. November 4. There were nineteen missionaries besides myself. There was only one that I knew and it had been so long since I had seen him that I had forgot him. He was from Morgan County and used to haul coal out of Grass Creek to Elko and the mouth of Grass reek. He was a Swede. We were met by Brother Jeasdale and recommended to hotels where we paid for our lodgings and food.

Great Grandma & Grandpa Beard's History Part I

In Opal's words:

John William Beard was born 10 Aug. 1891 at Coalville, Utah To James T. Beard and Mary Goodworth.

Opal Nathalia Jackson was born 20 Dec., 1896 at Castle Dale, Utah to Samuel George Jackson and Elizabeth Ellen Sanderson.

In 1912 John William Beard (Will) met Opal Nathalia Jackson and they started a beautiful courtship. They were married Dec. 9, 1913 in St. Anthony, ID. My brother, Mirt Jackson, took us to Driggs, ID with horse and buggy to catch the train. We went to St. Anthony and were married. We stayed for two days. No snow, real nice. When we got back to Driggs there was plenty of snow. We got in Driggs and got in our old sleigh and team, went up old South Leigh to the sawmill. We lived in Grandpa and Grandma Beard's old house. It was a two-story log home, small kitchen in one end, a large living room in center. About 36x16 with one large table in center of room with long benches on each side. Then a bedroom to end, more bedrooms upstairs.