Nauvoo Pageant

Unbelievably, we decided to do a few more days of Mormon/family history--visiting such exciting places as Mt Pisgah, Iowa and Nauvoo, Illinois.

We met Mary and Alice in Nauvoo. We wanted to show the girls the family history in Nauvoo and Carthage. We gave them the "works", taking the tour of the jail in Carthage where Joseph Smith was killed, the gravesites of Joseph and Emma Smith, and walked through the old building of Nauvoo.

Then, on Friday night, we were with all our new Mormon friends under the stars watching a “fascinating” performance of the Joseph Smith Story.

Chicago, Chicago...

We put the coach on auto-pilot and headed back to the factory. We arrived on Sunday night and got ready for our 6 AM start on Monday. We knew that we had a long stay this time since we were getting the coach repainted, but had no idea of what the schedule would be. Drinks with Ken on Day 1 and we came home stinking of cigarette smoke and feeling the effects of too much wine. We had some great talks with Louise, the receptionist, in the Visitors Center. When asked how she deals with all of these angry customers, she calmly said, ‘Just treat them like little boys with broken toys…”

On Wednesday, they let us know that the re-painting would begin on Thursday so we had to vacate the coach for at least a week. We negotiated a per diem hotel rate rather than endure a week + staying in a B&B in Nappanee. So, we got on the web and found a hotel deal in Toledo, giving us a few days to do a bit more family research in Detroit and get our fix of Tony Packo’s chile. Checking into a hotel without luggage was a new experience. We walked into the Radisson Toledo with an assortment of bags- from Victoria Market in Melbourne, my training weenie bag… We got a corner room with a beautiful view of the river, WiFi, and we were in heaven. It sure beats getting a 6 AM wake-up call and spending the day in Nappanee.

After two days in Toledo/Detroit, we hit the road for Chicago and a weekend at John and Mary’s. We hit horrible traffic south of Chicago, but finally arrived at Mary’s. We stayed in Eleanor’s basement apartment and got adjusted to the rhythm of a house with teenagers, two cats and a large black lab (Holly). John was able to get a lot of family info from Mary’s files and we spent a lot of the weekend at the kitchen table sorting through piles of papers and photos. John and Mary had a dinner party on Saturday night, so we made our way to an Afghani restaurant in the next town. The restaurant was spectacular – we had our own little room and the food was heavenly.
After a weekend of family life, we were glad to pack up and drive into downtown Chicago for our next few days at a B&B in downtown Chicago. The owners of the B&B lived in the ground level of the house and rented rooms in the upstairs section.

The upstairs came complete with full kitchen, broadband connection with PC and some very unique artwork. We had a shared bathroom but were the only people in the B&B. Breakfast was on the main floor and was amazing. Forgetting our diets, we ate French toast and syrup that tasted like melted sugar.

We had lunch the first day at Irazu, a Costa Rican restaurant, and spent some time at the Map Room, a local bar.

We found an old guidebook among the B&B books that had tours of the individual Chicago neighborhoods- complete with maps and point by point narration. That set us up for the next few days, targeting several areas a day to explore. On Day One, we did the Near North, Old Town and Lincoln Park.—and enjoyed the beautiful old neighborhoods of Chicago and the gorgeous architecture. On Day 2, we did the North Side, Wrigleyville, Lakeview and Uptown. We started to get a better feeling for the city and the tiny sections of beautiful old homes/neighborhoods. On Day 3, we got to a few of the less attractive areas- Pilsen and Lawndale. Here we got a flavor of Hispanic Chicago. Many of the streets were exact replicas of Mexican city streets.

On Day 4, we went to the National Museum of Theater and did some research on the Pearce theaters and parks. We stopped for dinner in Wrigleyville at an Ethiopian restaurant. We had to move from the B&B since it was booked for the weekend, so on Friday night, we drove downtown to the Sheraton Chicago.

We took the Architectural Boat Tour on Saturday and got a view of the skyscraper architecture of Chicago. On Sunday, we took a trip to Hyde Park and the Southside and had a great breakfast in Hyde Park. We tried to find Jessie Jackson’s house to no avail.

On Monday, the coach was finally ready for us so we drove back to Nappanee and more exciting days. We spent a lot of time hanging around the Essex work area and one morning Ken introduced us to Dick Parks, the new president of Newmar. Dick took us on a tour of the new Londonaire coach and we got the presidential smooze. Dick’s pitch- “You’re not buying a coach, you’re buying a relationship” But as John said, “It’s more like surgery- I don’t want to have it, but if I have to, I want the best surgeon I can get”.

Feeling that we’d never leave, they finally declared the coach ready to roll on Friday. With one minor exception- the generator had to be serviced at Onan on Monday. We took off early Monday morning, and although we knew the road to Onan, we decided to check out the adjustments to the GPS. The "road ho" promptly took off into space and we called back to Ken to schedule a return visit to the factory. After the day at Onan, we pulled back into “our spot” in front of the Essex service doors. Nevin and the Pioneer rep took the coach out to try to figure out the problem. The Pioneer rep came up with his solution- a dirty CD. With a lot of skepticism, we decided to go with his solution and spent the night. With an appointment in Monroeville the next day, we were ready to leave bright and early. As I was fetching the VW, I saw John trying to open the window and his frustrated face. The drivers window was stuck. We hadn’t made it 5 feet from the door. So, Ken sent two of his guys out to repair the window. They diagnosed a faulty motor, so we waited while they replaced it. After a few hours, we were ready to head out again. After waving goodbye, we pulled the coach a few hundred feet in front of the paint shop while John set up the VW for towing. I decided to try the GPS and once again, the Road Ho took off into space. So, we went back to Ken and they decided to try swapping the unit. Oh the joys of owning a motorhome!

Finding a family connection...

The drive through Iowa seemed to last forever. After a terrifying ride on a narrow toll bridge across the Mississippi, we finally got into Nauvoo, Illinois. The entire town was Mormon and the first thing John had me do was ask where we could buy wine and beer. This was not an easy task- since Mormons don’t drink alcohol- they don’t even drink anything with caffeine! Our campground manager was a dyed in the wool Mormon who told us long stories about his ancestors and their role in the pilgrimage to Salt Lake.

We stopped at the LDS bookstore- snagged a Joe Smith plate and marveled at the young (20 year olds) women in their long skirts with their 50 year old husbands.

We started our Mormon pilgrimage at the Carthage Jail where Joseph Smith was murdered. We had the story told by a Morman elder and again via their canned film and audio presentations in the jail. The LDS Church has put a tremendous amount of money into presenting their story via extremely high quality video presentations in all of their major pilgrimage sites. We think that it’s to make sure that the story is told consistently and at a high level. After seeing where Joe was killed, we went to the LDS Visitors Center in Nauvoo. We saw the requisite film about Joe’s life and prophecies and started to walk around the exhibits. As we stood in front of the “Government in Nauvoo” exhibit, we found ourselves looking at two of John’s ancestors. The Mormons had a short tenure in Nauvoo- only enough time for 4 mayors to hold office. Two of them were Spencers- one was John’s great, great, great, great grandfather, Daniel Spencer and the other Daniel’s brother, Orson.

Seeing the faces of his ancestors started us on our own search for any records of these people. We spent a morning at the Land and Records Center and walked away with pages of information on the lives of Daniel, Orson and their children. As we started to put together a simple family tree, we began to see the complications- Daniel and his son, Claudius Victor, had both embraced the concept of polygamy whole-heartedly. It took a bit of time to try to figure out which of their multiple wives fit into John’s family tree.