Category: Podcast Episode

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:20 — 25.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Hello, and welcome! You’re listening to Song Stories, Quiet Stories episode 19, Mary Lee Bland. I’m your host, Carolyn Murset.

Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers arrived into the Salt Lake Valley of the American West, on July 24, 1847, where the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints settled after being forced from Nauvoo, Illinois, and other locations in the eastern United States.

Before I continue with Mary Lee’s story, I will first explain: Following the Mexican War which ended in 1848, Utah became an official territory of the United States in 1850, and in 1896 became the 45th state to join the union.

Pioneer Day is an official holiday in Utah commemorating the arrival Brigham Young and that first group of Mormon Pioneers. Celebrations include parades, rodeos, fireworks, dressing in pioneer clothing, and re-enacting a trek.  If you’re a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and live outside of Utah, your local congregation probably observes the holiday, too.

My dad was raised in northern Utah, and his ancestors crossed the plains shortly after Brigham Young did with that first group of saints.

There is a monument at the mouth of Emigration Canyon named in honor of Brigham Young’s famous statement, “This is the Place”, honoring the Mormon Pioneers as well as the explorers and settlers of the American West. 

One of these explorers, Don Bernardo Miera y Pacheco is my fifth great grandfather from my mom’s Hispanic family, and was the map maker for the Dominguez Escalante Expedition in 1776. This multi talented renaissance man drew the first map of Utah. My next podcast episode will be about him. 

Now, today you’ll learn about Mary Lee Bland my well loved Great, great, great grandma. She told her remarkable story  to an unnamed grand daughter who later transcribed and typed it, thus making it easier to read, copy and share. I first enjoyed reading it when I perused the stacks of family records and histories that I inherited a few decades ago. Listen to this story!

1817- I, Mary Lee Bland was born to Sarah Caldwell Lee and John Bland Jr.  in Kentucky

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:08 — 23.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Memorial Day Chrysanthemums are  now on sale at my local grocery store. It seems like the day after Mother’s Day, retailers stock their shelves with potted plants or, silk and plastic flowers and wreaths suitable for placing on the graves of loved ones. But the original meaning of the holiday, to honor those American men and women who died during combat.has become somewhat lost over the years.

The holiday, was established in 1866 following the Civil War, when General John A. Logan, commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic,  called for a holiday commemorating fallen soldiers to be observed every May 30. It was first known as Decoration Day and was set aside to remember both Union and Confederate soldiers alike. Soldiers would decorate the graves of their fallen comrades with flowers, flags and wreaths. Memorial Day became the official title in the 1880’s, but didn’t legally become Memorial Day until 1967, when Lyndon B. Johnson was President of the United States.

In 1971,  Memorial Day was moved to the last Monday of May, so that we could have a long weekend. The Uniform Monday Holiday Act since then has also applied to our national observances of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President’s Day, Labor Day and Columbus Day, but not Veteran’s Day, which will always be observed on November 11th. As a side note, it was originally called Armistice Day and honored the official end of World War 1 in 1918.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:13 — 31.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Meet my guest and friend, Lauretta Swansborough. We met almost 20 years ago, when she and I were cast in A Man Who Came to Dinner. In this 2001 community theatrical production, I played the nerdy resident nurse, and she played the neighbor with the jar of pickled pigs feet. She had one line, and I had two lines, “Yes, sir!” and “No Sir!”, repeated at least twenty one times. I  got to wear comfortable nurse shoes and stuff a Whitman’s chocolate bon bon in my mouth before my character’s final exit. She got to wear a fur coat.

As Lauretta and I  spent more time off stage than on, we became good friends and learned about  the musical interests we had in common: songwriting, and singing….we continued acting, and her husband and their young son joined her on occasion. She started directing plays. I’d stopped doing that a decade earlier.