By Adrienne Williams, TTFO Secretary
Attending (36): Cathy Turley Gibb, Mary Ann Clements, Eileen Judd, Bart Bushman, Adrienne Williams, Pete (Carwin) Peterson, Janet Packham, Karlan Judd, Reuben T. Judd, Brent Turley, Luana Rogers, Kay Lovell, Peggy Simpson, Amanda Christensen, Linda Fillmore, Gayle Juhl, Arnold Wagner, Kay Turley Clark, Marie Waldvogel, Carl Pyper, Thomas Judd, Kathy’s iPhone, Ted Pyper, Tiffany Turley Bowcut, Marilyn Smartt, Steven Turley, Christy Turley Smith, Marci Johnson, Verla Abbott, Helen Skinner, Fred Judd, Julie Hatch, Alona Williams, Karalyn Wood, Priscilla Judd Banbury, Pat Turley
Welcome by Janet Packham
Introductions by some of our new participants
Opening Prayer: Luana Rogers
Adrienne Williams read the minutes from the March 26, 2022 meeting
Kay Lovell presented the financial report. There has been 1 donation in the last 6 months and no expenses. The bank balance is $6447.00. Donations can be made through the “Donate” button on the TTFO website. A large portion of the bank balance is from the sale of “The History of the Mormon Colonies in Mexico” books that were donated by a family member a few years ago. Most of our expenses come from the website which is a valuable source of information and news.
Officer changes: Adrienne Williams (Secretary) and Kay Lovell (Treasurer) will remain in their positions for the next year. (Mary Ann will also remain as the Webmaster) Ted Pyper will become the new President. Brent Turley nominated Reuben T. Judd as Vice President/President-Elect. His nomination was seconded by Luana Rogers. There was general consent of the nomination.
Reuben Judd shared a project that is part of what his family has been doing in Family History – creating simplified histories of ancestors. This project is a 200-year timeline chart (1820 – 2020) that combines world, USA, Church, and family history along with photos of ancestors/descendants that tie into the histories that they have been compiling. The chart is an 11×17 word document. Another part of the family project was taking some of the simplified histories and, during a family reunion, using them as the basis for “Skit in a bag”. This is an attempt to connect current generations with past generations and future generations also. He mentioned that he could share a link to the work they have been doing. They are working to provide simple tools that take the information in the Red Book and put it into digestible pieces for the rising generation, so they understand where they come from. Janet agreed these ideas would help in turning our hearts to our family and meeting the purpose of the organization.
Introductions were made by some more participants that had joined later in the call.
Janet Packham introduced Reuben T. Judd prior to the presentation on Isaac Turley. Reuben turned the presentation over to Amanda Christensen. She introduced those who were asked to present the different sections of the history of Isaac Turley and talked about how they put this presentation together for a family reunion. There are parts that include video/artwork by the younger children that help them be involved. All was done through a google doc slideshow. Reuben made a disclaimer that as some history is better than no history, much of the information presented is from the Theodore Turley Red Book and a history written by Brian Scott Smith. There were times during the presentation that Mary Ann and others shared information that has been discovered since these histories were written. The topics covered were (if presenter isn’t noted the presentation was done by Amanda Christensen):
- Sarah Greenwood & her parents (Eileen Judd)
- Isaac’s Childhood, Family Life, & Values
- First “Mormon” house in Nauvoo
- Nauvoo, Friendship with Joseph F. Smith
- Love & Marriage
- Minersville
- Where to this time?
- Beaver, UT
- How did Isaac make a living for 2 families?
- A Prophet’s Blessing of Protection
- Lehi, AZ March 1877
- Mexican Desert, Chihuahua 1885
- How Successful were the Mexican Colonies (Thomas Judd)
- Isaac was the Johnny Appleseed of the Colonies by bringing fruit trees from California
- Called to live the United Order in St. Joseph, AZ
- Snowflake, AZ 1881
- Friends Reunited – Isaac and Joseph F. Smith in Colonia Juarez (Reuben Judd)
Due to time constraints, there wasn’t time to finish the presentation. There was discussion of posting the presentation to FamilySearch and/or the TTFO website.
Mary Ann presented an update on the website and emails. This is more detailed than there was time to present during the meeting.
- Email report: we are using the Mailchimp service (no cost). We have 938 current subscribers, down fifteen from last meeting (four unsubscribed, eight found invalid, six died, three added). Two TTFO emails sent since last meeting, one in the last 24 hours
- August 29, 2022 (advertising Fall meeting, posting recording of March meeting & minutes, link to Theodore Turley’s handwritten autobiography): 44.7% opened (415)
- September 23, 2022 (Fall meeting reminder): 34.1% opened so far (314)
- Website report: Year-to-date overall views and visitors are down slightly compared to last year, likely due to fewer emails being sent out and less content being added. Still had a slight bump in views in July due to pioneer day.
- YTD views: 2,744
- 2020 Jan-Aug (2,085) vs. 2021 Jan-Aug (2,734) vs. 2022 Jan-Aug (2,585): Although we are down a bit from last year, our viewership is still on a good positive trend.
- Best performing month is still from last year (October 2021 at 1,225).
- YTD visitors: 1,123
- Top referrers: Search engines (Google Search, Duck Duck Go, Bing, Yahoo) and Facebook
- YTD top five pages (interesting to note that each month had a different top page, some of which are not on this top list):
Following up on FHL donation: Newsletters (1995-2018), currently still working on the donation to the Family History Library. Update 11/8/2022 from Mary Ann: The Family History Library opted not to take the newsletters. They said, “Since the majority of the newsletters relate to family news, we are not able to accept them into our collection at this time.” I will plan to just keep the physical copies in my files for now. Anyone can access PDFs of these and older TTFO newsletters in our online Newsletter Archive.
Research update: There wasn’t time for Mary Ann to present this information but said she would get it added to the website. Update 11/8/2022 from Mary Ann: See blog post “Research Update (October 2022).”
Date for the next TTFO meeting: Saturday, April 8, 2023 at 10:00 am MT
Discussions regarding future meetings:
- Proposed that the Fall 2023 meeting be held in person in Arizona in conjunction with a field trip to Snowflake/St. Joseph and a possible drive on the Honeymoon Trail. There would also be Zoom participation available for the meeting.
- Proposed change in the meeting outline. For the 1st hour have a general meeting with presentations or items of interest to the general group and the 2nd hour cover the business items. All would be welcome to participate in whichever met their interest.
- Suggestion to hold a separate meeting to plan the Field Trip.
Closing Prayer: Mary Ann Clements