New Blog Post Series

Today, I'm starting a new series of blog posts based around a collection of old family photos I've had in my possession for a number of years. These photos and the stories told about them inspired my first novel, "Belle o' the Waters," the story of a young girl who came west with the first set of Mormon pioneers. I will post more about that novel soon (stay tuned!) but wanted to start this blog post series now, since it's Thursday. I'm thinking of calling it Throw WAY-back Thursday, since the photos in this series are a lot older than most people use when they post with the Throw Back Thursday, or #tbt, hashtag.

This photo, for example, of my great grandparents and their eldest child, daughter Alice, was taken around 1897, probably in Rexburg, Idaho, where they lived. My great grandfather, Albert Luthy, was born and raised in Switzerland and came to the US at the age of 19 with his parents, after the family was converted to the LDS Church by Mormon missionaries. They came west with a great mass of others and settled in 1881 in what was to become the state of Idaho.

Albert, known to his friends as Frenchie, met my great grandmother, Elizabeth Bean, better known as Nellie Bean, who was born in England and came to the US with her mother. Hers is a whole other story, to be recounted in a later post. Albert and Nellie were married in 1891. Alice, shown here, was their eldest child and my grandmother, Mabelle, was the second to youngest -- twelve children in all, who are now all gone.

More on this family story in the new year. Thanks for following along!