Missionaries in the Family

In Saturday's post I mentioned my Uncle Ernie and Aunt Alma, who were missionaries on the nearby White Mountain Apache reservation at the time Mark and I moved here, back in 1990.

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It brought a flood of pleasant memories.

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When we came to the White Mountains, we had no other family here. My parents and my brother Jeff lived in Utah. The rest of my siblings and Mark's family lived 3 hours away, in Mesa.
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So it was wonderful to have Ernie and Alma living less than an hour away, in the town of Whiteriver.
We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with them. We visited their home and saw the Apache mementos they would take to California with them when they returned home in a few months, including a cradleboard blessed for fertility by the medicine man. Mark handled it, as instructed. Two weeks later Jacob was conceived!

We also enjoyed having Ernie and Alma show us around the reservation. These photos were all taken on 13 Oct 1990. At that time I was 36, Mark was 22, and Sarah was 11 months old.

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We first went to Geronimo's Cave, which required some steep climbing, so Mark went alone and brought me some quartz crystals from inside the cave. Then we had a picnic lunch at Lower Log Camp, next to a stream. All but the final 2 photos were taken at Lower Log Camp.

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At right are Uncle Ernie and me (and little Sarah in the playpen). Ernie is my dad's older brother, and they look very much alike. Being with Ernie made me miss my dad a little bit less.
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Here we have Alma making her way across the creek to take pictures of wildflowers. One of her pics is featured below. Nicely done!

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The top photo shows Uncle Ernie and me (holding Sarah) while we started a fire and set up our picnic area. In the second shot, Alma and Ernie continue to get us all set up, and in the third, Aunt Alma stands by our yummy picnic lunch.

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Most reservations are located on the most inhospitable land the US government could find, but this reservation is in beautiful country. Plenty of forests for logging, camping, hiking, and hunting; lakes and streams for fishing; mountains for skiing; grazing lands.

We continued to live without family in the White Mountains for a year and a half after Ernie and Alma returned home, but by then we were established and had begun making connections at home, work, and church.

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They got us through the first several months of homesickness.
Eventually Jeff and Dana moved their family back to this area, where Dana spent a good part of her childhood and where she has many relatives still. A year later my parents joined us, moving their mobile home here.

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At left is our sweet Sarah. She spent a lot of time fishing with her dad and loved being outdoors.

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Here is the stream that flowed past our picnic site. Mark always had his fishing gear handy and had to try out any new bodies of water. I don't recall that he had any success here.
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This is one of my favorite pictures of Sarah with her dad. She could sit for hours in his lap and quietly watch him fishing.






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After our lunch, we headed up to Hawley Lake. On our way we passed this deer at the side of the road.

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When we arrived at beautiful Hawley Lake, Mark immediately had to try it out, and his luck improved. It became one of his favorite fishing spots, but this trip was our first introduction to the place.

That's me looking out on the lake one last time before our lovely day ended.
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Yes, those are glad memories of happy times. We love you and miss you, Uncle Ernie and Aunt Alma!