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.