Friday, September 10, 2010

A Kelsey History

Word has gotten around in my ward about my interest in LDS history. Last week I received an email saying "Brother Bruce, I have some information on Kelsey Texas you might be interested in. Talk to me on Sunday". I have not yet found my way to memorize everyone's name at Church. Many people know who I am, but I'm new and there is only one of me. I have a couple hundred names to learn, so I have some catching up to do. So after delivering the article on Georgia Roberts and Ulner Morrow, I asked to be pointed in the right direction.

Turns out my emailer had an entire history on Kelsey, some 216 pages long. It included hundreds of photographs, dozens of biographies and a very long list of who lived there. She herself had lived there until about 55 years ago.  The book is title Kelsey: Zion of the South. The editor was Jennings D. Means of Gilmer, Texas. It was published in 1997 and reprinted in 2001. In the beginning is a street map of the Kelsey, reminding me of the "Zion" city layout. It also included reprinted histories and newspaper articles and histories of Gilmer and Enoch, which were nearby LDS communities. Today the meeting house is in Gilmer.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Bruce, this is a good history of Kelsey. One of the descendants of Robert E. Church, his daughter Audrey, was married to Virgil Means. I have this and some other histories of a few of the Kelsey folks. May I ask who is in your current ward from Kelsey? I wonder if they knew my mother Cheryl Hooper Taylor? Or my great grandmother Nomie Church?

Anonymous said...

Julie Kingsbury is anonymous, I can't remember my password.

Bruce said...

Julie, I'll email you directly with her name.