The Darlington Bowling Club

Aunt Gloria had this picture among some of her mementos from Willard's life.  He served a mission to England from 1904 to 1906.  A few months before coming home, he, along with three other missionaries had this picture taken.  I was wondering what the occasion was and found the answer in Willard's journal:

Tues. Aug. 28/06 Darlington. Fine [referring to the weather].This forenoon we spent the forenoon at lodge. I cut Elder Aisncough's hair.  At noon, Elder Barton came who was to be my future companion.  He is a son of Bishop Barton of Kaysville.  We all took dinner together, after which we took a walk to the Park and had another game of Bowling.  Elder Ainscough beat this game also. Returning to the lodge I cut Elder Riches' hair.  We spent some time there when we left to get our train for Penrith.  Elder Ainscough accompanied Elder Barton and I to the station.  We took the 5:08 P.M. train.  Changed at Kirkby Station thence to Penrith.  We spent the evening at lodge, it being 7:40 when we arrived.  Retired at 10 P.M.

Hope you are all doing well.  I added a couple more descendants to our group email this week--welcome Kay and Kathy!  If there are others that you'd like me to add, please have them contact me or send me their email address.

Thanks,
Loren

Picnic Pictures and Journal Entries

Hello Willard Neeley Descendants!

Hope you all are doing well.  It was really wonderful to meet many of you earlier this month at the picnic.  The general consensus from those I heard from was that we have a picnic every couple years.  So, we'll tentatively pencil in summer 2017 for our next extended get-together.

While I was in Utah, I scanned all the pages from Willard's mission journals (1904 to 1906).  I did miss at least two pages from his 1st journal, so if one of you could get a scan or picture of those pages I would appreciate it.  They are pages 12 and 13, written between Nov. 4, 1904 and Nov. 7, 1904. Aunt Gloria has the journals. Also, if you're interested in the complete set of images (over 300 pages), I'm happy to share, just let me know--the files are rather large, so will probably need to upload to Dropbox or something like that.  As I find interesting experiences, I'll share them here as well.

Here's one entry I enjoyed reading:

Mon. May 14/06. Penrith Eng. Fine day.
Spent the forenoon writing a letter home.  After dinner we went tracking.  Nothing of consequence occurred.  Had fair success. Offered a man tract at a pub who had just called for a glass of beer.  Offered to sell him a book.  Just as his beer arrived, he took a penny and gave it for beer instead of buying my book.  I told him the book would do him more good than that, but he said “I am thirsty.” I told him that would only quench the thirst for time being, but the book would give water that would spring up unto everlasting life, but he rather have the pleasures of this life and cared not for the hereafter.  The conversation between us very much vexed the woman bartender, and she cussed us half way up the street. We came home to tea and spent the evening at lodge.

Please feel free to send me additional email addresses of people that you think would be interested in staying in touch and/or getting passages from Willard's journal.

All the best,

Loren

Here are a few pictures from the picnic.