| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
|
 |
|
Of
course, one problem with trying to trace back, say, my maternal grandmother
is that her birth name was very common (Horowitz); her married (Berlin) is
also fairly common; her first name was Gussie, was listed on her graduation
certificate as Augusta, and was later 'Americanized' to Gladys; she didn't
know what year she was born (but it was the third candle of Hannukah that
year), or what ship she came over on, or when; and I don't know where that
ship came from. I *think* she was born in Bialystok, but I could be
misremembering that.
On my father's side, the name is unusual (Chimelis), but I had no
success there either. The birth records for his town were not on site, but
even so I think all I'd get is what shows on his birth certificate. Perhaps
with a few days I could get somewhere, but not in two hours.
It is not yet possible to log into the computer remotely, but they say
that's in the works.
I did learn about the Soundex system, which maps similar sounds into
the same code number. Ignoring vowels and aspirated consonants (such as H),
you assign each remaining letter in the name (except the first) a number as
follows:
1 B P F V
2 C S K G J Q X Z
3 D T
4 L
5 M N
6 R
So, for example, 'Chimelis' becomes C-542 and 'Berlin' becomes B-645.
This method is very useful when looking up names, especially those
mangled by immigration officials, because names that sound alike are
together (Rubin, Reuben, Reuven, etc.). (I told you I could write more
about how things work than about scenery.)
As I said, we spent two hours in the Library, and then decided to spend
the remainder of our free three hours in the Museum of Church History & Art
next door. So we turned in our parking stub at the desk in the Library and
got a token to be used instead of paying US$5 at the lot. At the Museum the
'greeter' was an older woman--there seems to be a hierarchy here, with the
young women doing the Temple Square tours, and the older women working in
the buildings, though maybe these are paid employees rather than volunteers.
We explained we had less than an hour before our three hours was up at the
parking lot and the woman explained that limit was really for people from
Salt Lake City so they didn't monopolize the lot, and that we were free to
stay as long as we liked. It's true that the token was just a token, not
some sort of time-stamped ticket, and that the exit was automatic (you put
in a token or US$5 to exit). Still, this seems not quite honest, and it's
somewhat surprising to hear the official guides suggesting you ignore the
posted rules.
The Museum of Church History and Art is probably the largest museum
we've been in this trip (admittedly a small set). In addition to the
permanent exhibits, it had a couple of special exhibitions. One was 'Sacred
Connections,' an attempt to link the LDS religion to the Navajo and Hopi
religions. There was also a children's exhibit titled 'Jesus Was Once a
Little Child' (after the poem by James R. Murray: 'Jesus was once a little
child,/A little child like me;/And he was pure and meek and mild,/As a
little child should be.').
The audio descriptions here seemed longer than most museums, maybe
because they are aimed at an adult audience. Part way through the history
section, I found myself reminded of the exchange in A STRANGER AMONG US in
which the policewoman says to the young Hassidic woman, 'You're another Joan
of Arc,' and the woman replies, 'Who is she?' There's a whole history here
that Mormons know that we don't. (And here I am talking about such history
as the persecutions in New York and Illinois, the establishment of Salt Lake
City, the great emigration with handcarts, and so on, complete with their
heroes and heroines whose names are familiar to the Mormons visiting the
Museum, but not to me. Of the Mormon 'mythology' I am equally ignorant,
barely understanding who the Nephites and the Lamites were. It's as if
someone was trying to understand Christian art without knowing anything
about Jesus.)
Although immigration to Salt Lake City was initially encouraged, at
some point around the turn of the century Church policy changed and they
started encouraging converts to remain where they were and spread the faith
there. (One might wonder if there is some parallel to Israel, which is not
yet to this stage.) In any case, in Salt Lake City, in Utah, and in the
world, there is a large enough base for what might be termed a separate
culture vis-a-vis books, music, movies, etc. (The same is true of
evangelical Protestants as well, I would say.)
There is a forty-minute audio tour (via cassette, I assume) that might
be worth-while if we have time to come back.
After this I was really hungry, so we had a snack at the Chiang Mai in
the food court in the shopping mall across from Temple Square. It was 3:00
PM, which pretty much messed up our dinner schedule, but that's the way it
goes.
We walked back to the car through Temple Square to take a few pictures
and eavesdrop on some tours. As I noted earlier, all the tour guides talk
about 'Our Heavenly Father' or even just 'Heavenly Father' rather than
'God.' This, combined with their incessant cheerfulness, is what I find
most off-putting. I suppose it's that I have known Mormons, and they don't
seem to be as immersed in their religion to the exclusion of everything
else. Then again, they're not guides at Temple Square, and all this proves
is that trying to judge a religion based on the guides at its holy places is
probably misleading.
We also went to the part of the Visitors Center we hadn't seen before,
which had touch screens that had questions such as 'Is there a God?' and
'Are Mormons Christians?' Unfortunately, the answers to the most debated
questions (such as 'Is there a God?') tended to be authoritarian rather than
evidential. (All the people on the tape say 'Our Heavenly Father' instead
of 'God' also.)
At 4:15 PM we returned to the room and caught up on writing. Around
8:00 PM we went to dinner at the Thai House and had a much better Thai
dinner than we had a Thai lunch.
Minimum elevation: 4390 ft (1338 m).
Maximum elevation: 4390 ft (1338 m).
Distance driven: 85 miles (137 kilometers).
|
I suppose this is as good a place as any to include this
quote from official Church documents polygamy and its understanding of the
legal position of the United States government towards it: 'The
Constitution leaves the several States and Territories to enact such laws as
they see proper in regard to marriage, provided they do not infringe upon
the rights of conscience and the liberties guaranteed in that sacred
document. Therefore, if any State or Territory feels disposed to enact laws
guaranteeing to each of its citizens the right to marry many wives, such
laws would be perfectly constitutional.... Indeed, we doubt very much
whether any State or Territory has the constitutional right to make laws
prohibiting the plurality doctrine in cases where it is practiced by
religious societies as a matter of conscience or as a doctrine of their
religious faith. ... If the people of this country have generally formed
different conclusions from us upon this subject, and if they have embraced
religions which are more congenial to their minds than the religion of the
Saints, we say to them that they are welcome to their own religious views;
the law should not interfere with the exercise of their religious rights.
If we cannot convince you by reason or by the Word of God that your religion
is wrong, we will not persecute you, but will sustain you in the great
Charter of American Liberty....' (As quoted by Sir Richard Francis Burton
on page 379 of THE CITY OF THE SAINTS)
In spite of the Church's somewhat optimistic viewpoint, the United
States did in fact refuse to allow Utah to become a state until it outlawed
polygamy. (This was during what Mark described as the United States's
clueless period.)
The weather had finally cleared up (and it was our last full day, so it
wouldn't have mattered anyway), so we used today to go to Golden Spike
National Historic Site.
On the way up we saw the sort of billboard that makes people hate
lawyers: 'Is your divorce driving you to drink?' followed by the names and
numbers of two lawyers, one who specializes in divorces and one who
specializes in drunk driving cases.
As we were heading towards Golden Spike, we passed a sign saying
'Rocket Display--6 miles.' I looked at Mark. Mark looked at me. We both
said, 'Rocket display?'
Yes. Out here in the middle of nowhere is a rocket display. Well, not
quite the middle of nowhere, but on the front lawn of Morton Thiokol, which
is based (not entirely coincidentally) in Thiokol, Utah.
Even on a Sunday morning, there were actually two other couples looking
at the rockets, although they left shortly after we arrived. The rockets
were supposedly real, but the Peacekeeper Stage I was made of plywood--we
could tell because it was not yet painted! This makes me think the rest are
probably fakes (or more charitably, replicas) too. There were about a dozen
or so, arranged on cinders--I found this an unintentional reminder of the
Challenger disaster, but that may be just me.
From Thiokol it was only a few miles to Golden Spike. In fact, from
the first stop at Golden Spike, overlooking the Big Fill, we could still see
the rocket display. In a sense, therefore, we stepped backwards in time
almost exactly a hundred years, from July 20, 1969, to May 10, 1869. Or
looked at in reverse, it's something like the 'Twilight Zone' episode, 'A
Hundred Yards Over the Rim.'
This site was considerably less crowded than I expected, partly because
there's very little there. There's a small exhibit, and a few hundred yards
of track (new) laid down specifically to give a place to run the two steam
locomotives (also new). Of the original track and engines, nothing remains
except a short length of rail in the exhibit hall.
How did this happen? Well, that's a long story. First of all, when
the tracks were being laid, the government was paying the Union Pacific
(coming from the east) and the Central Pacific (coming from the west) a
certain amount per mile, plus giving the land along the tracks. So when
they actually approached each other, they didn't hook up, but kept building
past each other until there was about two hundred fifty miles (four hundred
kilometers) of parallel track. At this point, the government called a halt
and ordered them to join up, so they split the difference and decided to
meet at Promontory Point, not because there was anything there but because
it was the halfway point. The real station was going to be in Ogden.
This is our last visit this trip to someplace managed by the National
Park Service, so I might as well include their mission here, although this
was really the first place we saw it posted: 'To conserve the scenery and
the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for
the enjoyment of the same in such a manner and by such means as to leave
them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.' [August 25, 1916]
Although the National Park Service is working hard to be what is often
termed 'politically correct,' I noticed they haven't changed one of the
displays, which makes reference to 'a Chinaman.'
There was a brief display of steam engines--mostly just driving the
reconstructions of the Jupiter and the 119 on the track to their original
meeting point. After that we listened to a brief talk by one of the rangers
on the history of the transcontinental railroad. He began with the
observation that, though the railroad was critical at the time, it has
fallen into disuse and that all of us arrived by car, and if from farther
away, by plane before that.
The whole idea of a transcontinental railroad began with Theodore
'Crazy' Judah, who was obsessed with idea of a Sacramento-Omaha railroad.
He convinced four rich men (Stanford, Huntington, Crocker, and [I think]
Collins) to invest in it, particularly when the Railroad Act of 1862
provided incentives. The companies would get money and land for each mile
of completed track. (As I noted earlier, this caused the railroads to get a
bit carried away.)
It took 22,000 men to build the railroad. First the surveyors came
along. Then the graders made a fourteen-foot-wide roadbed. These were
followed by bridge builders, trestle makers, section crew workers (also
called gandy dancers, who dropped a 556-pound rail every thirty seconds on
each side of the roadbed), gaugers, spikers, bolters, and spike-drivers
(each making three hits per spike).
The ranger also talked about the Plum Creek Massacre, where the Indians
cut the telegraph wires and used them to lash extra ties to the rails.
10,000 of 12,000 Central Pacific workers were Chinese. (The Central
Pacific was the company heading east.) This was apparently because all the
whites in California at the time were tied up in gold mining.
Tent cities followed the tracks, and were full of prostitutes,
gamblers, and other colorful characters. According to one contemporary
journalist, 'The men who worked on the railroad earned their many like
horses and spent it like asses.'
Not only was there duplication of the tracks for two hundred fifty
miles (four hundred kilometers), but there was also 'miraculous
multiplication' of the final iron spike. There were four special spikes
used for the ceremony: two gold, one gold/silver alloy, and one silver. One
of the gold spikes has disappeared, one is in the Stanford Museum, and the
other two spikes have known locations which I can't remember. But these
were just for show. Almost immediately after the ceremony, these were
removed and replaced by iron spikes. But people came and took the iron
spikes, which were then replaced, and re-stolen, and replaced, and re-
stolen, etc., for several days. So there are quite a few 'last iron
spikes.'
Of course, when the project was over, a lot of workers were laid off.
Even the original locomotives were treated rather cavalierly: they were sold
for scrap in 1903 and 1909. (The current locomotives were built by O'Connor
Laboratories from photographs, and cost US$750,000 each from tax money; the
company spent another US$250,000 each because the owner wanted to do it.)
The original track used iron rails because the railroad act required
them to use American parts and we couldn't produce steel then. So a few
years later all the tracks were replaced with steel, and none of the
original track was left. (And during the war, all the steel rails that were
no longer used were pulled up for scrap. I think the ranger meant World War
II, but I'm not sure.)
We watched the film 'The Golden Spike' and listened to someone present
'Tales of the Rails,' then took the West Auto Tour. Contrary to what was
said, there were no pamphlets at the trailhead, so we weren't always sure
what we were seeing as we drove along the old grade, except for the spot
where there was a sign noting that here was where they had laid ten miles
(sixteen kilometers) of track in a day. We also took the East Auto Tour and
walked along the Big Fill Trail, finishing up about 4:00 PM.
We returned to Salt Lake City, and had dinner at a great Mexican
restaurant called the Red Iguana. We started with Chiles Encurtidos (shrimp
wrapped in jalapenos and fried). Mark had Mole Amarillo and I had
Papadzules (a pre-Columbian dish). You can tell a good Mexican restaurant
by the fact it has mole on the menu besides tacos, enchiladas, and burritos.
(Actually, even tamales are hard to find most places.) You can tell a
*really* good one by the fact it has a variety of moles.
After dinner, we went to the Tower Theater, where we bought a copy of
TRAPPED BY THE MORMONS (a 1922 British camp classic), and saw A MAN OF NO
IMPORTANCE. Returning to the room, we watched the last part of THE GREAT
INDIAN RAILWAY on PBS, a singularly appropriate end to the day.
Minimum elevation: 4390 ft (1338 m).
Maximum elevation: 4905 ft (1495 m).
Distance driven: 238 miles (383 kilometers).
|
I hate writing about the last day of a trip. It's
usually boring airport stuff.
We checked out of the hotel and were going to go see an LDS film,
LEGACY, but we got side-tracked at the Family History Library for an hour
instead. I was able to check my theory that 'Chimelis' is really a variant
on a Greek name, 'Ximelis.' I looked in a book of Greek surnames from a
census in Greece. There was no 'Ximelis.' Oh, well, another theory shot to
hell, as they say.
We decided to drive west on I-80 just to see what there was to see.
This turned out to be not much: the Great Salt Lake on our right, and then
a whole lot of nothing. But on the shore of the lake was a large pavilion
which I pointed out to Mark. 'I wonder what that is.' 'That's where the
dead dance,' he replied--and then a couple of miles later did a double-take
when he realized that *was* where the dead danced, at least in the film
CARNIVAL OF SOULS.
So we drove down to the next exit, turned around, and returned to the
Saltair Pavilion. This is actually not the same pavilion--that one burned
down in the early 1970s (the film was made in 1962). And that one had
replaced a previous one. Each succeeding pavilion was less ornate than the
previous one. The current one was supposedly an airplane hangar before it
was moved here, and still looks it, though I imagine it could be fancied up
for events. As far as permanent concessions, there is a souvenir shop and
an ice cream place with some very good (hard, not soft) ice cream.
We finished looking around here, returned the rental car, and caught
our 2:15 PM flight to Houston. Our connecting 6:50 PM flight to Newark
ended up re-routed to Norfolk, Virginia, because all the New York area
airports were closed due to bad weather, though, and we didn't get in to
Newark until about 2 AM. This caused some problem with the limousine
because the phone number seemed to have been changed in the interim and the
new one didn't work from Norfolk. We were able to call when we got to
Newark and confirm that the driver was there (he eventually found us), but
it still cost us an extra US$50 in waiting charges.
Minimum elevation: 20 ft (6 m) (in New Jersey).
Maximum elevation: 4390 ft (1338 m) (not counting the time in the
airplane).
Distance driven: 90 miles (149 kilometers).
Summary: Our costs for this trip were:
Airfare - 584
Land Transportation - 630
Hotel - 685
Food - 462
Film & Developing - 201
Miscellaneous - 532
TOTAL - 3104
This is more expensive per day than either our trip to India or our
trip to Scandinavia and the Baltic countries (though not by much), which
means the savings in air fare was taken up in the higher costs for
everything else (and the fact that the airfare was spread over a shorter
time). We drove 3720 miles, fewer miles than our last trip to this area,
but more per day.
I can't really summarize this trip except to say that Utah has gorgeous
scenery, but lacks many of the cultural and social outlets available in
other, less scenic, places.
T H E E N D
|
|
| Copyright © - "Evelyn C. Leeper" |
|
 |
| Other travelogues by the same author: |
|
|
|
