george/clarine review: 2012

While in St. George, Clarine, Diane and I visited the old settlement of Grafton. Grafton is accross the Virgin River south of Rockville a current modern town near Zion's National Park. No one lives there now, but there are still some structures there. Some have been restored. At the cemetery , Diane used my camera and snapped a few pics. Rather than waste the pics, I have posted them here in a blog. Some of those buried are native Americans.. A few of the graves are quite well kept. The roads to Grafton and the cemetery are a bit primirive in some places. Some of the restored structures have been used in movies such as "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." This is just an interesting sidelight to our trip to St. George made last week. gwh

This little plot is well cared for.

un readable marker

Illegible

Some wone keeps the graves mounded and weeded.

repeat

different angle

gwh

Yesterday Clarine and I drove to Iosepa. Going there, we went to Grantsville, thence south along the Oquirrh Range via St. Johns and Clover (Rush Valley). We then went over the mountains to Dugway. (Just outside the military post, there is a beautiful LDS chapel. I suppose it is to accomodate the post, ranchers and sellters in the west desert vicinity.) My father used to own stock in Deseret Livestock Company. I remember he used to get a small dividend check from time to time. That firm has evolved into what is now Ensign Rranches and they have a large livestock presence in the area. At Dugway we followed the Old Lincoln Highway north for sixteen miles to Iosepa. (Hawaiian for Joseph, named after Joseph F. Smith, who was a beloved missionary there for several years before he turned twenty. Many Hawaiians came to the Salt Lake City area to be near a temple before the temple in Hawaii was built. They made a settlement at Iosepa. After the temple in Hawaii was completed, Iosepa sort of went away. In the last few years there are those who want to remember Iosepa and the cemetery are kept up, and picnic and camping areas have been set up there. Some of Clarine's family have been to youth Conferences out there. Any way we enjoyed visiting the place. There is sort of a melancholy, nostalgia there. We returned to Stansbury Park by continuing north to I-80 at Timpie. Then we completed the circle by traveling back home via I- 80.