Part Two Sentimental Journey

Saturday morning, August 7, 2010, we decided to find a Denny's restaurant for breakfast since we couldn't eat at our "favorite" place. Before we reached Spokane, we found a Denny's, but right next to it appeared a European Breakfast Restaurant, with Germanic architecture. There was no dissension about where to go for breakfast when we saw that place! It was adorable! European decorations and sayings were at the windows and every space on the walls. The menus were even fun to read with a story about each item to choose. We all enjoyed something different like biscuits and gravy, Swedish pancakes, aebleskivers, omelets, German potato pancakes, or eggs Benedict with the most delicious Hollandais sauce ever imagined! We really wanted to stay until lunch or take some with us, but our stomachs were too full to complete the thought, so we left with happy hearts and went on our way.

We spent a few minutes at the Spokane Temple, enjoying the peaceful surroundings and beautiful landscaping. A nice pavilion and baseball field adjoined the temple grounds. It too, belongs to the church.

We stopped in Cheney, Washington, a few miles off of I-90 to visit Enoch Lybbert and his wife, Donna, and daughter, Debbie Kerkes and her granddaughter. They gave us maps of Moses Lake and shared some stories of our Lybbert people. Enoch is the grandson of Enoch Lybbert, one of the sons of CFB and Anthonette Lybbert.

The land surrounding Spokane is close to mountains and is covered with pine trees, but as we drove to Moses Lake, the land flattened out and became rocky and treeless. The arable land appeared green or gold with crops of corn, wheat and potatoes. Upon entering Grant County, we read a sign that claimed more potatoes were grown there than in any other county in the US.

We drove through Moses Lake out to the cemetery, found our father's grave with the new headstone Kent ordered. His grave is close to a corner, across the street from the little house where the caretaker lives, about the third grave from the street and close to a pump house. A huge pine tree makes a shady spot for our dad's resting place.

This first photo is Marsha, Kent and Sheri behind Dad's grave. You can see the pump house to my left and the pine tree to Marsha's right.
Eileen and I took photos of Nelson, Marsha, Darrell and Kent. There is an irrigation pipe running in front of us nearly over the headstone. Sorry, I don't know how to turn this photo around.
Eileen, Kent, Nelson and Marsha contemplate.

The next activity was going to Forrest Lybbert's house on his farm close to the graveyard, and visiting with him and his wife Betty. Forrest is Uncle Jake's son from his first wife, Elma Goodrich. (Uncle Jake married our mother's older sister, Orva Eaton, after his first wife died leaving him five children to raise. Uncle Jake also is the youngest child of CFB and Anthonette Lybbert. Jake's sister, Mary Sophia Elizabeth Lybbert, married William Porter Merrell. They had a daughter named Irene, who married Luther Gale. Luther and Irene had a son named Bruce Gale. Bruce Gale married DeLoy Eaton, the sister of Uncle Jake's second wife. Did you get that? No surprise if you didn't. Anyway, Uncle Jake is our uncle in two ways. another related tidbit is that Nelson Williams' grandmother is Elma Goodrich's sister.) It was Uncle Jake who brought many people from Vernal and other Utah towns to help settle and farm in the area around Moses Lake. The Grand Coulee Dam had been built before World War II and after it was over many people migrated to Washington for the rich, inexpensive farmland now available because of the new water source.

Anyway, Forrest and Betty were so kind to visit with us and take us on a tour around Moses Lake and the town named after it. He showed us everything we could remember plus some we didn't even know about the people and places in Moses Lake's past and present. We saw the sand dunes where hundreds of people enjoy the sun, water and three-or four-wheeling in the dunes. The tour included old downtown and farms, Grandpa Gale's property and May and Hiawatha Valleys, beautiful new homes built in a neighborhood where some streets are named Goodrich and Vernal and many other sites.

After returning Forrest and Betty to their home, we checked into our hotel, ate a great dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and then drove to the part of town where we lived 51 years ago.

Continued in next post.