JOCELYN BLACKHURST

I am probably with my family, almost all of them, at least once a week. Not all of them at the same time, but I usually see all of them fairly often because all seven of my children live within five miles of where I live. Six of seven of them are doing business together.
It means that we have a lot of time together. We get together, and then one of the families is assigned to give a discussion taken from the scriptures, and that varies according to what we feel. They’re the most important things that are needed at the current time, but each one is assigned the role of preparing that in advance, as well as preparing and bringing a treat for the whole family for that get-together.

 

We also remember the birthdays of everybody in the family. We talk about any activities that are going on and remind family members where those will take place and who’s invited to be there and participate.

 

During those meetings, we also try to make contact with those members of the family who don’t live close by, which are primarily the grandchildren. We also try to follow up with all of the missionaries in the family.
My parents and my siblings started having this get-together in 1979. We’ve been doing that as a family ever since. Families grow up and split apart, but our families have continued this tradition. Many of my brothers and sisters still do that with their families every month.

 

We have a lot of twins in our family. We had twin boys, and then two of our children had twins. Four of them were all born the same night and so worked out to be the same doctor.
Cole and Kelsey (Brook and Val’s twins) were born Friday evening at 8pm. Berkley and Brighton (Angie and Ryan’s twins) were born 6 hours later at 2am Saturday morning.

Even as busy as I always was with working and my church callings, I always made it a point to make time for coaching the kids in little league baseball and softball, and taking them on hunting trips.  These included Cedar Fort, Nebraska, Wyoming, Book Cliffs, South Fork, Fairview and Provo Cirque. We also spent a lot of time participating in 4H and FFA where the kids would go to stock shows to show lambs and steers.

 

Every fall, we go on deer hunting trips and we take the horses to ride up into the mountains. I haven always taken the boys with me, and because of those experiences over the years, they have all become hunters. They became very interested in it because I always took them with me.

 

Every year in October, I would take the boys out to a place called Cedar Fort, Utah, which is where their grandmother was born and raised. There we would hike up into the mountains at 5 mile Canyon and Little 4 Canyon to go hunting for several days. We would hunt  deer and sometimes elk, but the most impressive animal for me is a buffalo.

 

Probably my most memorable hunt was the first hunt I ever went on. I shot my first deer out above Cedar Fort in little 4 Canyon when I was 26 years old.

 

30 something years ago my brother, Pharis, and I were friends with a fellow who was an accountant in American Fork, Utah. He arranged for us to go to one of his clients in Haigler, Nebraska who raised 25,000 acres of corn each year and we were allowed to go hunting on his property for pheasants. Pharis indicated that we should probably get a white tail deer permit the first year that we went. As the years went by we would hunt some pheasants and quail but primarily became a whitetail deer hunt.

 

We usually spend about five or six days every fall in that city in Nebraska and go out to various areas from there to hunt. They were usually split up in groups, so we went out maybe four of us in the group. We’ve also built excellent friendships back in that area with some of the local people. Every year when we go out, we end up going to dinner with some of them, renewing our acquaintances, and talking about old times. It’s just really been a great experience for my whole family.

 

Most of my grandchildren, if they’re not invited, get upset that they weren’t considered to go each time. Some of them who can’t go because of education or other things that they’re doing are upset because the rest of the family is going and they can’t go with them. That’s been a good family tradition.

 

We still go hunting here locally, in the state of Utah and some of the surrounding states like Colorado and Wyoming every year. We do quite a bit of riding on horseback, and we go to various places, usually taking the horses in a trailer to a certain area, and then we get out to ride up on top of the mountain. In the Uintah’s we do a lot of fishing on those kinds of trips, and most of the family have enjoyed that.

 

In the last ten years, it’s probably been mostly deer that we have hunted.

Shortly after Carol and I were married we received our first tax refund check and we used part of it to purchase 2 horses. One from Rex Coates and one from a rodeo in Cedar Fort where they brought the horses in from a ranch in Nevada where they had an auction. From that point on we always had horses.

The Horses that I have owned In chronological order:

-Old Blue- My Dad traded a calf from my uncle Rollo for Old Blue

-Duster- I bought in Wallsburg (was the mother of original ginger the mother of Ginny, star and chocolate)

-Original Ginger (bought from Cedar Fort auction)

-Ranger (bought from Rex Coates)

-Ginny

-Star

-Chocolate (the 2nd Gingers Colt)

-Ginger

-Poco

-Warrior

-Johnny

-Rebel

-Peaches

-peaches colt

-Honey (squishy)

-Angel

-Poco

-Junior

-Fancy

 

I remember when our sons were growing up, they all chose to spend a two-year mission for the church. Because of that, I raised a horse colt for each one of them.

 

I retired in the year 2006, and for those last 15 years I have been raising hay to feed their horses.  We cut, rake and bale the hay three times a year, and after doing that, they come by with their kids, and we usually make it a family affair. They go out and load the hay and carry it into the barn and store it for their horses for the year.  We have 15 acres that we’re farming.

We lived in our first home in Pleasant Grove for three years because I transferred my credits from Utah State University to Brigham Young University. That’s where I finished my BS degree in December 1966.

 

The first job I accepted was in San Mateo, California, which is just outside of San Francisco. I accepted a position as a District Scout Executive, and I was in that job for just over a year.

 

We moved to Half Moon Bay in February of 1967. While living there, I brought my two horses from Utah so that I had something to ride during my hobby time. I worked for the Boy Scouts of America for about a year and a half. I was serving as the Elders Quorum president and I was asked to come to a social activity at the Branch Presidents home. Everyone played a game where we told something about our spouse and wrote it on a piece of paper without names. Then the papers were handed out around the room and we would read the paper and try to decide who we were talking about. I wrote that Carol had baked me a pie but before I got home she sat down and ate the whole thing. Everyone had a hard time guessing it was Carol.

 

Carol and I wanted to move back to Utah, and I interviewed for a job selling insurance. After I accepted it, I told Carol we would only keep that until we get back to Utah and find something better.

 

We moved back to Utah in 1968.

 

I was in the Insurance profession for 45 years. In the first 18 years, I worked for Metropolitan Life, which is the largest life insurance company in the world. I left them and started my independent agency in 1985, then retired in 2004 and sold my business to a daughter and son. They still have that business today.

 

We moved from Orem,  back to Pleasant Grove to a home on Geneva Road in 1970.  Shortly after I was called to be the Elder Quorum President of the Pleasant Grove 1st ward where I served for 4 years.

Then I was called to serve on the Pleasant Grove Stake High Council in 1974 where I served for 9 months.

I was then called to be the 1st counselor in the Bishopric with Bishop Lloyd Ash 1975 where I served for a year and a half.

In August of 1976 the ward was divided and I was called to be the bishop (400-500 members) of the Pleasant Grove 12th ward for 1.5 years. The week before I was called into the stake presidency I was in the Temple one Tuesday evening and I was sitting in the Chapel next to another Pleasant Grove Bishop Jack ???. I had the most warm feeling come over me, one like I had never felt before and he looked over at me because there were tears rolling down my cheeks and I didn’t know why. The rest of that week I had a hard time sleeping at night and it finally dawned on me that a number of months before, a bishop from Orem, Larry Kirk, called me and said that he was meeting with a brother in his office who said that he had had an affair with a married women in my ward.  Now even though I knew the name they weren’t active so I didn’t know them very well. Because I didn’t know them very well I had put off calling them. But when it started to work on me I decided it was my duty to call her in and talk with her. I called her to see if she would come in for an interview but she refused to come in so I drew up a letter and had my ward clerks deliver a letter to her to tell her that we were going to hold a church court and gave her the time and the place and asked her to come to the court. That Friday night (3 days after I had been to the Temple) we were having a ward party at the church and I went up to my counselors and told them that we need to hold a church court (they thought I was crazy for bringing this up at a ward party). When they realized that I was serious they asked me when and I said tomorrow morning at 10:00am. So we held the church court at 10:00 and a final decision was rendered and I drew up another letter that was delivered to her from my clerks. Then at 2:30pm a new stake presidency was being called and I was called in for an interview with Elder Bruce R McConkie. At 5:50pm they called me to ask if I would come in again and bring Carol in with me and I was called to be the 2nd councilor in the Stake Presidency.
After I had been called to be the Bishop in 1976 I had made up my mind that I had to give up playing softball because I didn’t have time. But I was having interviews with the ward members at the church one evening and this couple showed up and sat out in the hall with the rest of the people I was interviewing. They just sat there until I finished interviewing all the people that came in and they said “well, the Beagley family that are sponsoring the team asked us to come and get you to come and stand out in the field for one inning or they will have to forfeit their game”. So I went down and stood in the outfield so they wouldn’t forfeit. The next day one of them showed up at my house with a uniform, and said by the way we’re going into a tournament and I want you to pitch. I told them that I hadn’t Pitched for four or five years. They said that was ok so I went down there and I had to pitch, two games on the Friday night, and three games on Saturday. And I remember getting a bloody nose, but I don’t know what it was from. Shortly after that my father said to me about playing softball “there’s no fool like an old fool”.

 

The week before in February 1978 I was called as a councilor to Noal Greenwood in the Pleasant Grove Utah Stake Presidency (3000-4000 members). In 1983 we had sent a letter to the church requesting that they divide the Pleasant Grove stake and create the first new stake in Lindon. Since President Greenwood and I both lived in Lindon we were called to serve in the stake presidency in Lindon where Robert J Matthews was called to serve in the Stake Presidency with us.
I served a total of 10.5 years in the Stake Presidencies.

 

I was called to go to the church missionary training center to teach and train young men and young women who were becoming full-time missionaries. It was a great job, and we had a lot of young men and young women who came in and learned about our savior and about becoming missionaries. Many went into different parts of the country to spend two years as missionaries.

I married Juanita Carol Hood on July 5th, 1963, in the Salt Lake LDS Temple.

One week before we were to be sealed we went to the Salt lake Temple where Carol took out her endowments.
During that session they had 103 brides going through for their endowments and they forgot to have me take Carol through the veil to have her reveal her new name to me. Four years after we were married we were living in the Orem 20th ward (where Carol had been called as the Laurel Class Teacher and one of her students was Diane Leavitt whom she later introduced to her brother Howard and were later married. I was called as the Stake Young Men’s Secretary.) and during relief society our Bishop was speaking to the Relief society sisters and he mention in his talk how the sisters should remember the day they were taken through the Veil by their fiancé to reveal their new name. That’s when Carol realized that there were so many Brides on the day that she was endowed that they failed to have me take her through the Veil to receive her new name. After the meeting she went up to Bishop Harms and told him about this and he suggested that we go back to the temple asap and have the temple re verify the name of the day of when she was endowed. We then went back to the Salt lake Temple where I was able to take her through the Veil and she revealed her new name to me.

 

Our reception was at a church in Pleasant Grove, and we had a line with our parents and the maid of honor and the best man. We were there from about 5 pm until 10 pm before it finished.

My Best Men were: My brother Kent, Alton Hone and Gary Pierce
Carols Maid of Honor was my sister, Colleen

 

Then two weeks later, Carol and I went to California, where her parents lived, and we had a second reception there.