Taking Grandma Hafen to China
submitted by: H. Roice Nelson, Jr.
116.4386284 39.9442430 1985
I called Grandma Hafen almost every Sunday. I started this sometime after I got home from my mission and remember being much more consistent the last few years of her life. These calls helped me to be very close to Grandma Hafen. She helped fund my mission, sending money (I think it was $25) each month for 2 years. In one of our conversations, she did make sure I knew she helped fund my mission, as I had forgotten.
A highlight for both of us was when I used miles and took her with me to China. Uncle Glenn's third wife, Aunt Linda, went with us. She is a trained nurse. Grandma was in her 80's when we took that trip. There were a lot of interesting things which happened on that trip. When we arrived I wrapped my passport inside a pair of Levi's and went for a run. While I was gone, someone in the hotel came in and stole my Levi's (and inadvertently my passport). Here I was in China with my Grandma and no passport. I went to the police and got a piece of paper in Chinese with a stamp on it allowing me to travel. The day after we arrived, I left Aunt Linda and Grandma at the Great Wall Sheridan and flew to Urumqi in far northwest China. This is about the same as flying from Miami to Seattle. I gave my talk, and could not get Grandma on the phone. So I made arrangements to leave early and to go back to Beijing. When I told my host what I was doing, he said, "You brought your Grandmother here? You will live a long life." Little did he know he was quoting the first law with a promise: "Honor thy mother and father that thy days may be long in the land." I asked Grandma questions and recorded her answers on this trip, and these notes and recordings became the basis of the personal history she wrote. My secretary Sherry Sump transcribed these notes for me, and Grandma got a friend to help her put the final book together.
Grandma Hafen was born on February 26th, 1905. Her father was David Richard Forsha and her mother, Charlotte Marie Ashby, died when she was 10 months old. Grandma was raised by David Hyrum Morris and Annabella MacFarlane. Annabella was the daughter of John Menzies Macfarlane, a principal in the settlement of St. George, originally from Cedar City, and author of "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains."14 The Morris' did not adopt Grandma, and her Father did not take her back, as they had agreed. The Morris' were her legal guardians. I recently found a census where Grandma and Grandpa Hafen and my Mom were living with David Hyrum Morris and he listed Grandma as his daughter. These relationships had a big impact on Grandma and on her three children. The Morris' oldest daughter, Mom's "Aunt" Flora Brooks, "raised" Grandma.
For song about Helen Hafen see http://www.psalmscountdown.net/?p=1901