This weekend Mike and I joined Grandpa and Grandma Jack up in Colorado for the big Jack reunion – I’ve never been to this level of reunion before – it’s for the William Robert Jack family. Robert was my great-grandfather's father - I knew my great-grandpa Jack too. Robert's father, James Jack, was born and raised in Alabama prior to the Civil War (in 1831), where his father, Allen Jack, owned slaves that worked on the family plantation. (Allen Jack’s father, Jeremiah Jack, fought in the Revolutionary War.) James, the 8th son of the family, married the daughter of a puritan, and so didn’t have anything to do with slavery as a matter of principal. In fact, when the Civil War started and his seven older brothers joined up with the Confederacy (most of them as officers,) he joined the Union army with his brothers-in-law. Since he had brothers on the Confederate side, the Union decided not to put him on the shooting lines and they made him a spy. So he adopted the alias “Jack Mayberry” and spied out the Confederate positions and troop movements. Once, as he was swimming back across the river to the Union side with his oldest son Robert (whose reunion this was) on his back to keep the documents high and dry, he was shot in the back, which left him crippled for life. He and his wife and kids joined the Mormon Church after the Civil War, which made him less popular than he already was, and had to emigrate to Manassa, Colorado where the Saints were settling at that time (by then Utah was full.) So, that’s where the family reunion was – near Manassa, Colorado.
Mike was my only traveling companion – our families declined to accompany us (I don’t blame them given the long drive and short stay.) We left early-ish on Thursday morning (July 17) and drove 550 miles, through the Navajo Reservation, Farmington, New Mexico, then through the Apache Reservation at Dulce, up to Chama, Colorado, and then up the Conejos Canyon, along the Conejos River. You would never guess it, but the locals pronounce Conejos as “Kiness” – I didn’t understand them at first and they never did understand me when I’d pronounce the word as in Spanish. Mike and I found the site of the reunion, the Rocky Mountain Lodge, without problem – I’d found it on Google Earth and then programmed the latitude and longitude into my GPS. We arrived just before dark, and so had time to pitch our tent next to our parents’ camp trailer. That evening we had dinner with Grandpa and Grandma and then went and chatted with some new-found relatives around the campfire. I had a chance to meet great-great-aunt Sadie, who is 97-years-old and is the youngest daughter of William Robert Jack, the youngest sister of my great-grandfather. It’s amazing to me – her father saw the Civil War! He was a young man (18-years-old) when he was a Mormon pioneer, migrating from Alabama after the Civil War to settle there in Colorado at the orders of Brigham Young. Talk about spanning the generations! More amazing still, Aunt Sadie walked around camp like she was no more than 60 – what a go-er. I tried to chat with her a bit around the campfire, but she’s kind of hard of hearing (even more so than I am), couldn’t hear exactly what I was saying, and so gave me answers to her best guesses of what I’d asked. So it was a bit discouraging. Even so, it was great to hear some stories that she told.
On Friday morning (July 18) there were no group activities scheduled, so the four of us (Grandpa, Grandma, Mike, and me) loaded up in the car and went down into the San Luis valley itself to visit the old family homesites. We drove to Mannasa first – that’s the center of the Jack’s life in Colorado, founded in part by the Jacks themselves – it’s an old Mormon town, laid out in big square blocks. We started at the cemetery and visited the graves of James Jack (the Civil War veteran and first generation Mormon) and his wife Georgia Ann, the graves of William Robert (James’ son) and his wife Almira, who were the parents of my great-grandfather “Will” and Sadie (who was at this very reunion,) and Ellie, the oldest child of James Jack who died the first winter in Colorado (when she was only 20 years old) – her grave marker states that she was the first white woman to be buried in Colorado. From the cemetery we went up to Jack Street and took our picture with the street sign (see photo above.) From Manassa we drove over hill and dale looking for Los Cerritos – which was the site of an old fort where the Mormon pioneers spent their first winter in tents before founding the town of Manassa the next spring – we finally found it on my GPS (there was nothing left but a couple of houses and the little hills themselves.) Then we went up north a few miles to Safford, where great-great-grandma Almira Jack (Robert’s wife) had had her home. We found the home – it’s ancient and abandoned now, with broken windows and roof-high weeds – I guess time marches on and spares no one or nothing. Then we went out east of Safford across the Conejos (Kiness) River to the “Jack Bend,” another old town-site where the Jacks lived way back when – there’s just a couple of home there, not owned by the Jacks anymore. Then we went up to Alamosa – we wanted to see the Victoria Hotel (where Robert and Almira worked for a while) but it had been torn down not too long ago, we were told. Then we came back to camp via Bountiful, where my Grandpa Jack was born – it’s between Safford and Manassa out on the highway. That evening we had a group activity and played Bingo – there were an assortment of prizes from bags of Oreos for the kids, dishtowels for the in-laws, and copies of old family photos for those interested – your Grandpa Jack won two old photos and I got one.
On Saturday morning (July 19) we got up and took a drive up the Conejos Canyon to the old mining town of Platoro (I’m guessing that they mined gold and silver there.) This trek was significant because my great-great-grandfather Robert Jack both worked on building the road and later spent time working the “Little Annie” mine somewhere in the hills above Platoro. We found the road to be pretty rough, only marginally better than it would have been originally, and the town is all summer cabins now – there’s no real town to speak of. But it was a pretty drive and worth our time. That afternoon a small group gathered to exchange genealogy information, but it turned out that your Grandpa Jack knew more about the Jack history than anyone else present, so we didn’t get any new information. I did, however, get some more photos and family histories from Grandpa. That night we had a big potluck dinner and talent show – the food was good and the talent show was typical.
On Friday morning (July 18) there were no group activities scheduled, so the four of us (Grandpa, Grandma, Mike, and me) loaded up in the car and went down into the San Luis valley itself to visit the old family homesites. We drove to Mannasa first – that’s the center of the Jack’s life in Colorado, founded in part by the Jacks themselves – it’s an old Mormon town, laid out in big square blocks. We started at the cemetery and visited the graves of James Jack (the Civil War veteran and first generation Mormon) and his wife Georgia Ann, the graves of William Robert (James’ son) and his wife Almira, who were the parents of my great-grandfather “Will” and Sadie (who was at this very reunion,) and Ellie, the oldest child of James Jack who died the first winter in Colorado (when she was only 20 years old) – her grave marker states that she was the first white woman to be buried in Colorado. From the cemetery we went up to Jack Street and took our picture with the street sign (see photo above.) From Manassa we drove over hill and dale looking for Los Cerritos – which was the site of an old fort where the Mormon pioneers spent their first winter in tents before founding the town of Manassa the next spring – we finally found it on my GPS (there was nothing left but a couple of houses and the little hills themselves.) Then we went up north a few miles to Safford, where great-great-grandma Almira Jack (Robert’s wife) had had her home. We found the home – it’s ancient and abandoned now, with broken windows and roof-high weeds – I guess time marches on and spares no one or nothing. Then we went out east of Safford across the Conejos (Kiness) River to the “Jack Bend,” another old town-site where the Jacks lived way back when – there’s just a couple of home there, not owned by the Jacks anymore. Then we went up to Alamosa – we wanted to see the Victoria Hotel (where Robert and Almira worked for a while) but it had been torn down not too long ago, we were told. Then we came back to camp via Bountiful, where my Grandpa Jack was born – it’s between Safford and Manassa out on the highway. That evening we had a group activity and played Bingo – there were an assortment of prizes from bags of Oreos for the kids, dishtowels for the in-laws, and copies of old family photos for those interested – your Grandpa Jack won two old photos and I got one.
On Saturday morning (July 19) we got up and took a drive up the Conejos Canyon to the old mining town of Platoro (I’m guessing that they mined gold and silver there.) This trek was significant because my great-great-grandfather Robert Jack both worked on building the road and later spent time working the “Little Annie” mine somewhere in the hills above Platoro. We found the road to be pretty rough, only marginally better than it would have been originally, and the town is all summer cabins now – there’s no real town to speak of. But it was a pretty drive and worth our time. That afternoon a small group gathered to exchange genealogy information, but it turned out that your Grandpa Jack knew more about the Jack history than anyone else present, so we didn’t get any new information. I did, however, get some more photos and family histories from Grandpa. That night we had a big potluck dinner and talent show – the food was good and the talent show was typical.
Then on Sunday morning (July 20) Mike and I got up, struck camp, and spent ten and a half hours driving home. For the last 75 miles, from Kanab to Hurricane, we were in blinding driving rain and had to really slow down for fear of running off the road. Anyway, I’m home again, and it’s bedtime!
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