Willis Family Reunion

This morning Kate and I went to Toquerville to the Joshua Thomas Willis Family reunion. Joshua Thomas Willis was my 3rd-great-grandfather – grandfather to Clara Rogers Jack, my great-grandmother. We met for the reunion at the town park there in Toquerville from 9AM to noon. There were about 30-40 people there, representing four different children of Joshua’s 16 children by his first wife – there were no representatives from his children by his other two wives. Our family line came through his #10 child, Lovina Lucinda Willis, who married Joseph Rogers, who was living in Fillmore but was down in Dixie to work on the St. George temple. Our family’s report was given by my dad's cousin, Colleen – she gave a very touching life story of Lovina Lucinda and there weren’t a lot of dry eyes when she finished. It was a lot of fun to hear all of the family stories that were shared. I bought one of the few copies of a book that the reunion organizer had available to sell, titled: When You Know Your Past, You Understand Yourself: The Joshua Thomas Willis Story.

Some interesting things that we learned about Joshua T. Willis was that he was the Founder and 1st Bishop and sheriff of Toquerville, and that he’s the one who started cotton and silk production in Dixie and that he’s the one who dubbed the area “Dixie.” After the family meeting, Kat and I drove down to the cemetery to see the new headstone for the family burial plot - the photo I've placed up top is of the headstone – up until recently there were no grave markers for the Willis Family. Then we went to the old family homestead site – it’s now occupied by a fancy bed & breakfast that hosts wedding receptions – in fact, our friends hosted their son’s wedding reception there, so I’ve been inside. All in all, it was really great to get acquainted with a few more ancestors that we hadn’t known before.

Kannaraville Canyon

On Monday, June 16, we took our guests, Paul and Jane and kids, and hiked Kannaraville Canyon. It was lots of fun. The town and adjacent canyon are just a half hour drive up the freeway from here, the last few miles over a dirt road up to the mouth of the canyon. This gorgeous little slot canyon is an easy hike, just a couple of miles each way, and is a great intro to slot canyons. You mostly walk along a path that crosses the creek several times. Once in the canyon itself you have to scale a slippery log to continue on the upper half of the hike. At the end of the hike you have to climb a rope ladder in the falling water to get up to the highest level before leaving the slot. Between the two little climbs there is a natural pool that you can slide into on the wet slippery sandstone. Little cousin Sarah said that it was “the funnest thing ever – like a water park, but better!” Aunt Jane admitted that she was a "little freaked out" by having to climb the first waterfall via the old slippery, squeaky log – but she (and all the rest of us) went up and down without a hitch and declared the trip a success. I’m attaching a photo of our most intrepid hikers who even braved the wet rope ladder and scaled the last waterfall. The only problem with the day was that baby Becky Lou came out with Les’s cough and cold (which Les got from me), just in time for them to head off to Disneyland on Tuesday morning.

Observation Point

Saturday morning, June 7, Les, Kat, and I got up at our regular 5AM so we could go hiking with Robert in Zion Canyon. We did the Observation Point hike. It’s 8 miles round trip, with a rise of 2150 feet from the floor of the canyon to the overlook, where we could overlook Angel’s Landing (which is 1500 feet above the floor of the canyon.) I was feeling about 90% well, with just a bit of my cough left, so I wanted to test my mettle and see if I could actually do a good long hike (we’re trying to get in shape to hike to Havasupai at the end of this month.) I did OK, just huffing and puffing, chugging along at the back of our little group (Kat took the lead spot.) But my arthritic knees had me going slow enough on the downhill half of the hike that Mom, Kat, and Robert did another side hike to Hidden Canyon without me (probably another mile or so each way.) We were early enough in our departure time that it was nice and shady as we hiked up the hill and we didn’t pass any other hikers until we were on our way down – then we passed hikers going up all the way down. I got to the bottom first, having bypassed the Hidden Canyon side trip, and waited about an hour for them before they arrived. I’m attaching a photo from our hike, taken up at Observation Point – Angel’s Landing is down just over Kat’s right shoulder.