Sunday, January 25, 2009
We had a fun party last night. A birthday party for James Ririe, my great grandfather. Complete with a birthday cake, I might add. It was fun to learn a little bit more about him. Such as: He joined the church and was ready to come to Utah. He was engaged to a woman named Helen Mitchell. He asked his sister to loan him money to bring her with him but the sister said she wouldn't help until James was settled and had some security. He came to Utah, worked for two years and then sent money to his sister for Helen to come to Utah. Helen came as far as St. Louis, then married someone else! OOH, harsh, huh? But the kicker came when my cousin told me that she had heard that eventually James had Helen Mitchell sealed to him. Now that's forgiveness. Incidentally, James did marry. He and Ann Boyack met and were married within a week. They had a large family (9 living children, among them my grandfather, David Ririe) and lived most of their lives in Eden. He is listed among Utah's Pioneers and Prominent Men.
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I finally asked my friend Pat Boyack if we are related through Ann. Here's the email I received back from him:
ReplyDelete-----------------------------------------------
Yes we are related, too fuuny. Go to this link;
http://www.lib.byu.edu/dlib/anderson/about.html
As you go down the page you will see 5 children. The person who had the photo taken was Priscilla Boyack (One of my Aunts was named after her). The boy in the chair is my grandfather. That photo was taken around 1903-or 04.
Now on the second page are the 6 boys of James Boyack and Elizabeth Mealmaker. Two of them are in portraits. Joseph Gibson is my great-great-grandfather.
My grandfather didn't like any of the other Boyacks because when his father died they all abandoned his family. He said it was because they were a bunch of cheap Scotsmen who didn't want to add another family. LOL. Whatever.