Remembering

Just bringing in my clothes I hung out yesterday and remembering that I used to always hang out clothes before clothes dryers.  And remembering our Moms and all they did.  And remembering Geff's Mom as a wonderful missionary....

Rowene Robinson was born in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico on 11 July 1919.

Lived in Colonia Dublan and rode bus to Juarez for high school at the Academia Juarez .

Called to Serve in the Mexican Mission

Rowene is on second row, sixth from the left.

2-12 December 1940 Salt Lake Mission Home

Traveled to mission and arrived 27 December 1940

Served under Presidentes Lorenzo Anderson and A.L. Pierce

Hermanas Elisa Flores and Rowene Robinson:

 

“I labored in Mexico City, Puebla and Monterrey with wonderful companions….  The outstanding experience of my mission was gaining a solid personal testimony with which I have been fortified to this day”.

picture labeled "Get away from there, Bro. Romney"

picture labeled "Getting ready for Conference"

picture labeled "Conference at San Marcos"

A fun article from the Ensign:

“Las Colonias:  Once a Haven, Still a Home”  Ensign, August 1985,  LaVon Whetten

In the fall of 1879, Elder Moses Thatcher of the Quorum of the Twelve was sent to Mexico City to establish the Mexico Mission; on 25 January 1880, he dedicated the land to the spread of the gospel among the people and to the establishment of LDS colonies in the republic.

In January 1885 President John Taylor sent word to Saints in Arizona that a gathering place had been designated in the valley of the Casas Grandes River, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The first party of colonizers left Snowflake, Arizona, on 9 February 1885. Within six weeks there were some three hundred fifty colonists camped on the banks of the Casas Grandes River.  The Mexican colonies were to be a refuge for many who had practiced plural marriage and would not abandon their families. But the colonies would also serve, President John Taylor said, as something much more enduring—a focal point for spreading the gospel in Mexico.

The outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910 forever changed the lives of the colonists. Although Church officials declared their intention to remain neutral, Saints were threatened and robbed, and some were even killed.  In 1912, the colonists were evacuated from Mexico. Housed in rude lumber sheds and temporary tent cities in El Paso and in Douglas, Arizona, they waited and hoped for a speedy return to their homes.  A few families returned within a short time. Under the leadership of Bishop Joseph C. Bentley, they weathered the next seven years of war-torn uncertainty. Because of their stalwartness, there was a nucleus of Saints in Mexico whom others could rejoin when the revolutionary violence had subsided….

Through the years the colonies have produced many leaders. Some of their surnames are known throughout the Church: Romney and Eyring (President Marion G. Romney of the First Presidency and Sister Camilla Eyring Kimball, wife of President Spencer W. Kimball, were both born there), Taylor, Turley, Bowman, Brown, Hatch, and many others. The gospel also spread from the original colonists to native Mexicans, and to their children….“I feel that my children are safer both spiritually and physically in the colonies. I don’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about where they are or what they’re doing,” says Kelly Robinson. “Here it’s the popular thing to be good. For instance, nearly all of our young men (95 percent of the graduates from the Juarez Academy for the past five years) go on missions.”

Love you Mom.  What a wonderful example to all of us.