Pioneer home focus of family service project
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MEADOW, UTAH — The old log home wasn't much to look at when he first saw it in 1997. Years of neglect, as well as use as a barn, had long taken a dilapidating toll. But Vernal J. Taysom felt a twinge of longing and a tug of responsibility to reclaim the building that was once the home of his ancestors, Charles and Mariah Taysom.
Every summer for the past six years this 80-year-old patriarch of the family has led a charge to restore the home as his ancestors would have known it. In the process, he not only grew in appreciation of his forebears, but also helped unite an extended line of descendants.
The square log home is located in Meadow, a quaint pioneer community nestled near rolling mountains and just off I-15 in central Utah.
It is a serene farm setting that remains largely untouched by the push of progress. Ties to its pioneer past still linger. A number of original structures dot the deafeningly quiet landscape in an area originally settled because of its rich soil and abundance of water.
In 1866, Charles and Mariah were sent to Meadow Creek by Brigham Young to help settle the land in the middle of the Black Hawk War. Lots were cast and Charles drew the straw for a five-acre spot along the town's main street.
The Taysoms were adventuresome people. Charles joined the Church in 1840 in England, and Mariah in Wales in 1841 despite being disowned by her parents. They married and arrived in Nauvoo six months before the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum. They entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1852, and 10 years later were sent to Fillmore.
Still two years later, willing to leave the security of the Fillmore fort, they were sent to colonize Meadow located 4 miles to the south, an area long inhabited by the Paiute Tribe. Here he built a one-room log home where they lived with their eight children until 1879.
The cabin remained generally vacant for about a century, open to vandals and stray farm animals. Any notion of restoring the cabin was visionary. Vernal didn't know the magnitude of his undertaking when he began, yet he and his wife, Jean, always felt it was possible.
"While pondering the sacrifices of the family, a very sweet spirit verified that this restoration was the right thing to do," he said, noting how his feelings were heightened after a visit to the pioneer cemetery where he saw the graves of Taysom children who died here in their infancy.
Family members from distant locations converged on the log home each summer. The first challenge was replacing the crumbling foundation. With jacks braced around the walls, they inched the four sides 3 feet off the ground, fearing that the mortar could give way at any time and send the logs spilling in all directions.
But the walls held and cement footings were poured and new foundation logs laid. During excavation of the foundation, a few pair of pioneer shoes were found where Charles, who also worked as the local shoemaker, must have buried them.
A brick mason in the family rebuilt the fireplace using bricks salvaged from other structures of the same period that were meticulously cleaned and prepared.
Hand-blown glass replaced broken windows. An authentic whitewash was painted over the interior logs. Other family members searched for original furniture of the period. Strict attention was paid to detail, like the rope-springs bed.
"The thrill," said Jill Ann Taysom Bates, a great-great-great-granddaughter, "is to walk the streets of Meadow and trace their steps to the [home] where they gathered."
E-mail: shaun@desnews.com
