One year

It's hard to believe that on Tuesday the 18th it will have been one year since grandpa passed away. I just wanted to post some of the pictures we had of the day of his funeral. It was such a snowy day, but I thought it was beautiful. Although I miss grandpa so much I'm so glad that he is with grandma, our mom, Lucille, Veronica, and many other members of his family. I learned so much from my grandparents. Most importantly I learned the importance of living the gospel. Both grandma and grandpa were missionaries to our family. Without them I don't know if I would have attended my church meetings and stayed close to the gospel. I'm forever grateful for all that they have done for me. I miss them both so much.

Traditions!

The following is part of a talk about traditions that I gave in sacrament meeting in our ward in Virginia several months ago. I know this is two posts about the "long hard pull" in a row, but hey, maybe Grandpa should have thought about that before saying it so much. I'm actually really glad he did.

I'd like to take this chance to invite any and everyone else to write and share essays about grandma and grandpa.

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My Grandpa was a hardworking man all his life. I heard him describe himself more than once as a farmer but as far as I know he never owned a farm. I assume by that he meant that his father was a farmer and that he inherited the hard-working farmer ethic and lifestyle from him. My grandpa was actually a builder: a builder of houses, of buildings, of businesses, and a builder of engines.

While my grandfather didn’t pass his talent for building things on to me, he did enjoy passing on advice – in particular he had one talk that he would recount whenever there was a marriage or birth or other life-changing event in the life of one of his kids or grandkids. It was a short talk the gist of which was “life is a long hard pull…and it just got longer and harder.” This “long hard pull” talk was given as a means of sharing fatherly/grandfatherly advice and mostly the advice was that life is not always easy and you have to work hard for what you get.

Now that Grandpa is gone, whenever the family gets together someone invariably says the words “long hard pull” and when we hear them we think of Grandpa. The “long hard pull” talk is a family tradition that reminds us of our Grandpa and his life and love for us.

We will give the same talk to our own kids and grandkids and tell them about Grandpa’s love and example of a Christlike life and in a way they will get to know Grandpa the way we did. Not only will they get to know him through his unique words but we will also tell them about his love for his family and friends, his hard work ethic, about how he rarely missed a day of work in his life and how he never retired. The spirit of what Grandpa said will carry on if not the memory of Grandpa himself.

This small, seemingly insignificant family tradition serves the dual purposes of bringing us as family members closer to each other through the memory of our Grandpa but also bringing us closer to our Heavenly Father by reminding us of a man who led a Christlike life.

Origin of the Phrase "Long Hard Pull"

I always thought the phrase "the long hard pull" came from farming but this makes me think that Grandpa picked it up in the Navy. Did anyone ever ask Grandpa where he got it?



This is the first page of the book Victory in the Pacific 1945 (History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol.14).

William and Mary Taylor Hiatt

This is the headstone of our great-great-great grandfather and grandmother, William Hiatt and Mary Taylor Hiatt (by "our" I mean Moses Ray Hiatt's grandchildren). I'll write all about the adventures we had in finding this cemetery and gravestone later this week, but I wanted to at least post this picture so everyone could see it and hopefully motivate me to write the rest of the story. Click on the picture to see a larger image.

Who exactly are William Hiatt and Mary Taylor Hiatt? They lived and died in Mount Airy, North Carolina, and are buried there in the W.C. Hiatt Cemetery, a very small and obscure cemetery on the outskirts of Mount Airy. Other than where they lived and died, I don't know anything about what they did but it's a safe bet that they were farmers. They had five children, all boys -- James Madison, Isaac Samuel, Jesse Lafayette, John Henry, and Edmund Franklin.

Three of the sons moved to Utah sometime during their lives. I'm not sure when they went there but according to my parents these three brothers have some sort of pioneer imprint on their gravestones which indicates they made the trek before the connecting of the intercontinental railroad at Promontory Summit in 1869 (well before William and Mary died, in 1891 and 1899, respectively). The three who went to Utah were James Madison, Isaac Samuel, and Edmund Franklin. James Madison and Edmund Franklin are buried in Payson and Isaac Samuel is buried in Salem.

As far as I can tell from a cursory search of the Internet and familysearch.org, all five of the sons were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which leads me to believe that William and Mary Taylor Hiatt were also members of the church. I'm not sure about that but I would like to find out for sure when and if they joined the church.

Edmund Franklin Hiatt (one of the three sons who went to Utah) is the father of Alma Leon Hiatt who is grandpa's (Moses Ray Hiatt's) father.

So, to sum up:

William Hiatt -> Edmund Franklin Hiatt -> Alma Leon Hiatt -> Moses Ray Hiatt

If anybody knows any details that I left out or has any information or where to find it, please let me know by commenting on this post or emailing me. You can also talk to Aunt Sylvia or Uncle Paul.

UPDATE: I was looking again tonight at the records on familysearch.org and if that information is correct the three brothers couldn't have come to Utah before 1869 because they were all married in Mount Airy in or after 1869.

James Madison married Martha Ellen Taylor on 8 July 1869 in Mount Airy.

Edmund Franklin married Elizabeth Martisha Hutchins on 24 June 1877 in Mount Airy.

Isaac Samuel married Martha Francis Bryant on 17 February 1879 in Mount Airy.

Lake Powell

Here are some of the pictures from our camera at Lake Powell. Also, just a hats off to Noel and Sandy for planning such a great trip. All the hard work and effort they put into Lake Powell really made it such a great trip. We are already looking forward to next year!!!! WELL that's if Ryan ever recoporates from Noels boat ride!! He has been going to physical therapy and it looks like he is going to be ok ;) He learned his lesson to never ride on the tube with Landon while he is tanting Noel " Is that all you got cheapo". From Noels famous boat rides to the scrable games, the treasure hunt for the kids, and sitting around talking about old times.....what a great trip. When I tell people that I went to Lake Powell with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and even second cousins they just are amazed that we are all so close. I feel we have truely been blessed with a wonderful family thanks to grandma and grandpa for setting the way. I love everyone and am so excited for next years big adventure. Unfortunately our picture of the entire group didn't turn out so I'm hoping someone else will share that!!

The Matt and Candi McMullin Family

Hey here is our latest Family picture. I wonder if we will be laughing at it in 20+ years. The kids have started school and Candi is getting into blogs. I will try to get Charlyn to post all of the family blogs on the right side of the screen here so you can check them out up close and in person.

--Matt

More sharing of old photos!!

Go Go McMullin Girls......dance like nobody's watching!!

Looks like the popular section was hanging out on the couch!! How did Kristie get her bangs to stand so high? (Aqua Net)

I found this one interesting because it's my mom, but I could swear it's Katie in the picture? Vote if you think it looks like Katie also!!

Never Miss a Blog Post

For those who may not know, there's a really simple way to keep up with all the new posts on this blog and all the others you might want to visit (in case you haven't noticed, Katie, Bonnie, Charlyn, and Christina and I all have our own blogs -- have I missed any?)

The way to do it is to use what is called a "reader". I have a google email account so I use and am only familiar with the google reader, and it's really easy. Here's what you do:

Open this link to a new page (if you have a google account and you're logged in, you should automatically be logged in here too): http://www.google.com/reader/view/

Then copy the url (or the website address) of a blog that you read and would like to keep up to date on (ex: http://thehiattfam.blogspot.com/) and paste it into the reader page under "Add Subscription". From there you click the "subscribe" button.

Every time someone makes a new post it will show up in your reader without you having to visit the website. It will have a link you can click on so you can visit the actual post and see comments.

You can to this with any website that is set up for it, and many are. For example, if you're a fan of the New York Times' obituary page or George Will's Washington Post columns you can add those to your reader too.

Anyone know who this is?

Leave comments below with your guesses (this should be pretty easy).

Flash to the past

When I ended up with the record player much to my surprise I found some hidden treasures inside.

Check out the kids in 1986 it was a great year. There are some nice fashion statements within this picture. Is that Katie with her finger where? Check out the smile on me in the middle. How about Dan and Dave and their matching jackets (bobsey twins...)? Is Greg hot or what, and check out Nicole's hair. Kristen looks like she came from church.

Here is the entire family at the time.



Can anyone tell who this looks like? She is so sweet looking.



I can hardly wait to see your comments on this...

Happy 2007. What do you think we will say in another 20 years?

--Matt

PS be sure to click on the pictures to get the FULL effect.

Bear Lake? Fish Lake? Lake Wallenpaupack?

Does anyone know where this picture was taken or what year it was? That's me swinging the bat at the pinata -- I'm not sure who the meanie pulling the rope up is. I think that's Bonnie walking in front of Noel, and it's Greg and Kristen cut off on the left side. And of course that's the old Kennedy van in the background. I'm sure it's out of gas or not running for some reason.

Grandpa's House

Well, Grandpa and Grandma's house no longer belongs to the M. Ray Hiatt Trust. Noel and Vern were co-trustees and we signed the closing documents a few weeks ago. It was bought by Todd and Julia Wamboldt. They have four kids and moved from Santaquin. Our asking price was $258,900. They had a home inspection done. It turned up that the plumbing job grandpa did in the back bathroom when he put the sink in the bathtub and turned the bathtub into a shower caused a quite extensive leak in the plumbing. All the floorboards in that part of the house had rotted and are badly in need of replacement. We settled on $7,000 in concessions. All in all I feel like we made out pretty well.



The Wamboldts seem to be a really nice family. I met them as they were moving in. They like the area. They wanted to hear some stories about the house or see some pictures. They thought it was cool that they are now just the second owners of the house. I told them I have some old pictures, but a picture of the house from 1954 would probably look the exact same as it does today (except for the new carpet that was laid in the living room and bedroom.)

Cousins!

Thanks again to Charlyn for starting this blog. I hope we can use it to keep in touch and remember all the good times we've had together.

Here's something for starters: I'm not in this picture and I'm not even sure I was alive when it was taken but I thought it was great and just wanted to post it so everyone could see it and make some comments. If you know when or where this was, please share your thoughts. Is that Andrea cut off on the far left?

The Roberts Family

Since I started this blog I thought I'd start by posting something so everyone who is not familiar with a blog will see how it goes. We just moved into our second fixer upper home this last year. Ryan likes to buy old homes and then fix them up. It has been a challange, but yet rewarding. Ryan is staying busy in the plumbing business. Things have been really busy for them the last few years. I recently quit my job and am staying home with Warner. He is a full time job himself, but I love it. As for Warner what can I say!! He is the highlight of our lives. He makes us laugh all the time. He is always up to something. His first words have been mom and shoes. A boy after my own taste!! He is almost 18 months now. Crazy how time flies. Anyway enough about us! I hope all is well with everyone. Love, Charlyn