Found On The Interwebs - Holy Cow!

We introduce a new, occasional feature called FOTI (found on the interwebs) where we track down online family history information. This is a great feature for audience participation, so send me your links and suggestions.

Today we have two stories from two different sources about cows on the Stutz farm. The first is from an unidentified Provo neighbor who wrote a May 24, 2009, blog entry entitled Memories of my father on Memorial Day PART II, with lots of wonderful reminiscences, including the following.

We always had time to visit my fathers friends…The Jameses, Cliff, Beaver, Irvin and Muriel, Nathan, Kamel, Sweed, Clair, Wally, Charlie, Danner, Murdock , Ted, Van, or Uncle Jack and a host of other NEIGHBORS, or those he knew from his many years in Provo.

We added onto the house, built his barn, picked cherries peaches and pears at the orchard he bought from Cliff on the S-bend of the canyon road, or apples and plums in his orchard behind the house. He loved growing a garden, between the trees, before he decided to surround the trees with lawn. Once when the garden was in full production, our Neighbor’s (Howard Stutz) cow got out after we had just irrigated, and it walked down one row of dads garden eating every cabbage plant in the row. When dad saw what had happened I expected him to blow a gasket, but he liked Howard, so he just said He trusts his cows too much… he needs to have a better fence…and I never have liked cabbage all that much anyway.

I don't know who "Thot man" is or where he lived, but if anyone does know him or want to contact him, he might enjoy our stories as much as we enjoyed his. Thanks, Thot man!

The second story was an article contributed by Ellen to the Mormon Times on August 1, 2008, entitled Heavens to Betsy -- milk cow paid her tithing.

Growing up on a small farm in Provo offered some unique experiences for our family.

We raised most of our own food. The orchard provided apples, peaches and cherries. Eggs from the chickens needed to be gathered each day. But it was our fence-jumping milk cow, Sheboygan, that I remember best.

Mother was troubled by the fact that she was not paying tithing on the money she collected by selling raw milk. She set out to rectify this error, but she didn't know in whose name the money should be paid. It was really Dad's cow, but my brothers were the ones who milked her, and Mother was the one who sold the milk and collected the money.

Mother simply decided to submit the money in the name of Sheboygan Stutz, give it to Dad (who was serving as the bishop) and let him decide what to do with it. Unfortunately, on this extremely rare occasion, he did not open the tithing envelope before he handed it to his clerk.

As a result, there is a bona fide, tithe-paying cow somewhere beyond the pearly gates. And knowing that cow, she probably jumped the gate to get there.

I'm sure Ellen (and others) have a lot of other great stories like this to share. Thanks, Ellen!