My Dad

I recently received this photo from Margie, my Oceanside cousin on my Burrill side. It shows my great great grandfather, George Washing- ton Burrill (1836 - 1924), with some of his great grand-children in 1918. I was especially thrilled to get this photo because I have no doubt that the cute little blonde boy on the right is my dad. It is the best photo I have of him near that age - the face is definitely my dad, Lowell Burrill Dempster (1917-1995).

Lawler Genealogy

I'm working on the husband's side of my Oceanside cousin's genealogy. We have been looking for Henry Ashton Lawler and his wife Caroline Josephine "Lena" Christianson Lawler. Lena died in 1966 in California. Her obit is less than informative! Henry died in 1914 in Minnesota and I can't find an obit for him at all.

However, the real person of interest is Henry's mother. Her name was Mary A. supposedly born in Ohio around 1843. She married Thomas Lawler probably about 1860 and may have died in Minnesota between 1886 and 1889. Thomas, a railroad worker, was buried in Kentucky after dying of consumption while there. Mary then married her second husband, a very colorful Civil War veteran by the name of Benjamin F. Whitehouse. Mr. Whitehouse remarried in 1899, so Mary's death seems to be in the three-year window between 1886 (when property was transferred to her) and 1889 when her second husband remarried. Sure hope someone reading this blog has info on this family.

Parks Genealogy

I've met a Parks "cousin" from Pennsylvania through our shared passion for genealogy - particularly Parks genealogy. Not only do she and I have a lot in common but she has also had her family's DNA entered in a search for her Parks ancestors. Her DNA comes the closest to ours, being one marker off from that donated by my cousin Richard. Interestingly, Carol's line includes a James Parks born in 1761 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. There is a possibility that he could be the father of my James Parks born about 1790-1791.

The immigrant in her family was Joseph Parks, born about 1727 in Antrim, Ireland, who came to America and settled in Virginia in 1760. Joseph married Rebecca Clark who was from England. They had six boys and two girls, some born in Virginia, some in Pennsylvania. The family migrated from Virginia to Pennsylvania and in later years, Joseph and Rebecca went back to Virginia and are buried in Fishersville, Augusta County, Virginia in the Tinkling Springs Cemetery.

Their first son, James 1761, was married and had two boys in the 1790 Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania census.

We are not yet able to locate the wife that James 1761 married, but she died between the birth of the boys (one of which might be my great great grandfather) and James' second marriage in about 1803 to Carol's ancestor, Barbara Steer. We had thought we'd found a first wife named Jean Buchanan married about the right time in Virginia, but it turns out to be another James Parks who then settled and remained in Kentucky - while her James remained in Pennsylvania and possibly Virginia. The hunt continues!

Winter in St. George

Now that the holidays are behind us, St. George decided it was time to add some icing to our red rock mountains, crags and canyons. We awoke on January 3rd to find a 2-3" layer of snow, complete with bunny tracks. This year it didn't melt as soon as it usually does and many of the mountains surrounding us still have powdered sugar on them. The north sides of some of our SunRiver resident homes also have telltale snow. It hasn't been that cold, but apparently cold enough to keep the white stuff around. It's a refreshing season when we remember our "Hot August Nights."

Marine Corps Ball and Thanksgiving Holiday

We have just returned from our annual whirlwind trip to the Bay Area for an early Thanksgiving holiday with our California kids and grands.

Our first stop (after a quick scrapbook stop at Archiver's in Orem) was in Salt Lake City where we attended their second annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball at the Marriott Downtown. There were approximately 525 people in attendance, including General John Kelly who was the guest speaker. (Two days later, General Kelly lost one of his two Marine sons who were in Afghanistan.) We saw many people we knew (Ray Bachiller had invited us) and met more new friends. We stayed at that hotel overnight. Here is a Shutterfly link to our photos from that evening. (Copy and Paste)
http://2010slcball.shutterfly.com/

Our overall auto trip consisted of close to 1700 miles. Needless to say, I still have white center lines running through my head. We stopped overnight in Winnemucca, NV the day after the ball which was half way to Auburn, California where my daughter lives. It was very chilly, raining and threatening snow. After leaving Winnemucca for our drive across Utah and Nevada, we did run into snow. The roads were scary slushy, but fortunately it didn't last too long before we were out of it. We made a quick stop in Wendover where Bill "toured" the Historic Wendover Airfield.

A stop in Auburn for three nights is always a pleasure with two precious grand girls. Grammy got a scrapbooking trip at Green Tangerines and a fun time at the Roseville Galleria (which had recently had an unfortunate arson incident). Lots of yummy food is always on the agenda in Auburn.

The sixth day was a trip to San Rafael, CA for a visit to my thyroid specialist who, much to my delight, is increasing my meds so one of these days I may actually be feeling good again!! We drove to Mill Valley for dinner with Bill's son Mark and his family (and my son Jay from Alameda joined us). It's always so much fun to hear our children talking about their children's antics - sounds somehow familiar.

That night we "moved" to my son's home in Alameda. They live in a restored Victoria (in my daughter-in-law's family for years) on which my son is the chief contractor. He's done such a marvelous job with the house, which is still a work in progress. This home was the home in which our Thanksgiving dinner was held this year (the kids rotate that duty). We had 10 adults and 8 children so it was a lively time, with tons of food and laughter. We are blessed with such a great family.

Sunday morning was a trip to Danville for church services at our former church and breakfast at the Rising Loafer, a favorite Sunday breakfast haunt for us "back then." Then we headed down to Los Altos to visit with referred clients of Bill's whom we had not yet met in person. What a lovely gracious couple. Interestingly, their name is Park - a name I am researching for my maternal line.

The 5th stop was our usual "half way home" stop in Bakersfield. After Bakersfield, we stopped in Las Vegas to check out an errant headlight glitch on the car - turned out to be nothing (supposedly), but we took the chance for a light supper at Claim Jumper at Town Square in Vegas and got home at 9:20 p.m. Utah time.

So now you know why we call it a whirlwind - 5 different beds in 10 days and 1600+ miles. We're still zombies and hope that our colds are short lived.

FindaGrave Contributor

As part of my genealogy research, I am a contributor to the website known as FindaGrave. Check out my contributions here:

Search Pinkscraps's cemetery records at by entering a surname and clicking search: This contributor's recordsAll of Find A Grave (56.1 million names) Restrict search to Surname

Grand Canyon

One of the things we've wanted to do since we moved to St. George five years ago was go to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for lunch. Today was the day. While we'd been told it was about a two hour drive, it was actually three from our door to the North Rim, with a stop for gas. The day was about 94 in St. George and 72 at the Rim. The skies over St. George have been a bit hazy with residue of a wild fire north of here and there seemed to be a little haze in the air over the Grand Canyon, too, but we still enjoyed the view. Utah has so many beautiful sights and we've only just begun to seek them out.