As most of you know, I was born in Pocatello while my Father was going to school at ISU. He transferred to the University of Utah (SLC) to finish his Electrical Engineering degree and then we moved to Southern California where he took a job with Hughes Aircraft. Most of my growing up years were spent in Manhattan Beach, CA. where I finished HS and 2 years at a Jr. College (It was very inexpensive.) Afterwards I met and married Dan L Thomas and after serving in the Army for two years, we moved back to Idaho - Thomas, Idaho to be exact. There we built a home and farmed the Thomas family farm for 13 years. In 1990 we moved to Oregon for 10 years where Dan was a School Superintendent and I began my SLP career. In 2001 I moved back to Idaho Falls, ID. with several of the younger children and took a job with the Rigby, ID. School District, just a few miles north of our home in Idaho Falls. Dan joined us within a year and we have been here ever since.
As I was job searching for our return to Idaho, I was offered several jobs but choose to work for the Rigby SD mostly because of the good people I had met there and because Rigby was closer to Idaho Falls where Dan could continue to enjoy doing Temple work.
I enjoy working in Rigby and as I've traveled around the district I have discovered some wonderful finds. Soon after beginning with the district I realized that I was driving right past the house that my Father had spent most of his youth in right there in Lewisville. In fact, I often recalled the time he took our family there for a family reunion. We even took a family picture in the front yard of the house.
Dan and I were living in Thomas at the time but I can still remember driving down the roads of Rigby as Dad told us about different places he remembered from his childhood. It is so fun to be driving right by some of those places again.
We only had a couple of years back in Idaho before Dad passed away but during that time I would ask him questions about his youth and he would tell me stories of things that happened in Lewisville/Rigby. He went to school at the Rigby HS which is on the same location as the Rigby JH is now. It is not the same building but the old HS was bulldozed and the new JH was built on site. (I work in that building one day a week.) He told me other stories but I won't share them all here. However, I will say that driving around Rigby with stories of my dad in my head was/is a very fun experience. Grandma Veva Daw Harmon even worked as a Pharmacist at the Rigby Drug Store. She had been trained as a Pharmacist as a young woman before she met and married Sam Harmon. They lived in Lewisville after getting married and raised their family on the farm. So, now as I go to work at my second job, a Pharmacutical Technecian, I think of her.
After serving in the Navy, Dad returned to Idaho and began school in Pocatello where he met and married Mom. Dad build a cinder block home for them on South 5th Street and when they left for Salt Lake City, Grandpa and Grandma moved into that home. (Oh, the fun memories I have of spending time with them in the summers there.) Grandpa had sold the farm and was working for the Railroad by then. Later, Grandma moved to Overton, Nevada to help her daughter Marilyn and family. Grandpa stayed in Idaho but after he passed away he was buried close to Grandma in Overton. Grandma was later buried next to him.
Anyway, on to the fabulous find.
A couple years ago a friend from Rigby gave me a book to look through. It was on the history of Rigby and he thought I might enjoy reading some of it since I'd told him a little about my Father's history. I guess it should have been a "no-brainer" but I was surprised and pleased to find out that my Dad's Grandparents were also residences of Rigby. (I think I can sort of remember Dad talking about them, but at the time I didn't really let it register up stairs.) Anyway, the book mentioned Allen Ithmar Harmon and Emma Henderson having lived and died there. Although the Rigby Cemetery is not on my "everyday" drive, it is not far from town and occassionally I would drive out to see it. I had hopes of finding their grave sites someday. Although it isn't a huge cemetery it was too big to look through on one lunch break, so I took it a little at a time. In fact, one Saturday Dan and I were out on a little road trip and we stopped by the cemetery to take another look. I even called Aunt Lorraine for help in locating their tomestones. She gave me the best directions she could but I didn't find them. I was a little depressed because winter was coming on and I was afraid I wouldn't find them before the snow fell. Each day the weather report predicted cold and snow but so far each day has been gloriously warm and beautiful. I went out to the cemetery again last week and walked the same section as I had walked before but still couldn't find any Harmons. Just before leaving I decided to walk just a tiny section of another area and there you have it. I found Allen and Emma's site, their son Walter and his wife, Mary and a smaller stone for Fred. I was so excited to finally find where my Great-Grandparents lay. I feel especially blessed! Obviously, the next day I brought my camera to school and took pictures.
Because we have been blessed with an extremely beautiful, warm (50*-60* degree weather)fall, I was able to continue my search. That was on Friday. On Monday we had a blizzard and it has been white and cold ever since.
And there you go - A Fabulous Find and A Fun Story to Tell.
