A Surprising Home Teaching Visit.
While visiting the Gilleland family, home teachers Kirk Parkinson and myself discover we all have ancestors from Franklin, Idaho.
Mark and Nina Gilleland are a special couple who lived up the street from us when we lived in Layton, Utah from 2000 until about 2018. At the time of this experience, Mark was serving as our stake president in the Layton East Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He had formerly been our bishop. As a neighbor and in his church callings, Mark treated us with so much kindness. I had the wonderful opportunity to be his family’s Home Teacher, a calling to minister to families in a ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My companion was Kirk Parkinson, who also lived up the street with his wife Sue. What a great guy and couple. Kirk was so fun and personable.
Imagine the surprise when on a visit to the Gillelands, we discovered that Mark, Kirk, and I all had ancestors from Franklin, Idaho, a small town in southeastern Idaho just over the Utah border. The current population today is a little over 1,000 people. I remember reading a sign as a child as we entered Franklin to visit my grandparents and seeing “Population: 560.” Needless to say, it was a very small town.
It’s easy to think that the odds of such an event are quite small. I don’t know how to figure those odds, so I won’t make a claim that the odds are small. I will say, however, that this fun visit was a catalyst that led me to research my ancestors from Franklin and discover common roots with Mark and Kirk.
I remember Mark saying he was related to the Hatches in Franklin. I shared that as a teenager living with my grandparents in Franklin one summer, I was my grandfather Reed Jamison’s home teaching companion. We visited a brother Hatch who lived across the street from my grandparents. Brother Hatch was tall and slender with silver hair, just like Mark. When I shared this with Mark, he laughed and said that was his uncle. He had visited him many times.
I remember Kirk telling me he was related to a Samuel Parkinson who had been a bishop in Franklin. Hatches and Samuel Parkinson, I registered those names in my curious brain. This was my first foray into the world of coincidences with family roots.
Our Ancestors at my Great-Great Grandmother’s Funeral
I discover a Funeral Program for Emma Jane Comish with Lorenzo Hatch (Mark Gilleland’s ancestor) and Samuel C. Parkinson (Kirk Parkinson’s ancestor).
Shortly after our visit to the Gillelands, I was reading some material on a Sunday afternoon about an ancestor named Emma Jane (Howland) Comish. I found a funeral service program and her obituary. As I read through it, I spotted some speakers: Lorenzo Hatch and Samuel C. Parkinson.
On our next visit to the Gillelands, I shared what I had found. Bishops Lorenzo Hatch and Samuel C. Parkinson had spoken at my great-great-grandmother Emma Jane Comish’s funeral service. Mark said he was a direct descendant of Lorenzo Hatch, and Kirk was a direct descendant of Samuel C. Parkinson. Here we were, sitting in the Gillelands’ living room, enjoying each other’s company, and our ancestors had a close association in Franklin. As I went home, I began wondering what thoughts these bishops had shared at my great-great-grandmother’s funeral. I wanted to know more about her.
Emma Jane (Howland) Comish – Source: FamilySearch.org
Obituary (from Newspaper Clipping below)
Mrs. Emma Jane Comish died December 24, 1917, of rheumatism of the heart. The funeral was held here (Franklin) December 27 and was attended by practically all the grown people of Cove and Franklin. “Mormons” and non-“Mormons” alike turned out to show their respect for her memory. The services began at 1 o’clock, Bishop S. C. Parkinson presiding. Prayer was offered by Cecil Woodard and the benediction by Robert G. Lowe. Mrs. Nora Daines and Miss Hazel Larsen sang solos. The speakers were Bishop H. L. Blair of Cove, former Bishop L. L. Hatch (of Franklin), Thomas Durant, and Bishop S. C. Parkinson.
[Deseret News, Jan. 5, 1918.]
Mrs. Comish was the daughter of Martha D. Howland and Henry Howland and was born in Flagtown, Ogle County, Illinois, January 14, 1849. In 1852, she and two of her sisters, Helen Packer and Martha Nash came to Salt Lake City with their mother, their father having died on the plains. The family resided in Salt Lake till 1860 when they moved to Franklin, where Emma J. Howland married Robert Nephi Comish in 1865. Ten years later the couple moved to Cove, where Mrs. Comish proved up [sic] on a homestead and devoted herself to the rearing of a family in which labor she was very successful. For 11 years she was President of the Primary Association of Cove and for nearly as long, she was in the Presidency of the Relief Society, and a teacher in the Sunday schools.
Mrs. Emma J. Comish was the mother of ten children: Joseph N. Comish of Mountain Home, Utah; William H. and Myron E. Comish of Grace, Idaho; George F. Comish of Franklin, Idaho; Mrs. Peter Whitehead (deceased); Mrs. J. C. Larsen, Jr. of Lewiston, Utah; Robert C. Comish of Grace, Idaho; Mrs. William Robinson of Franklin, Idaho; and Newel H. Comish of the Oregon State Agricultural College, Corvallis, Oregon. She also is survived by two sisters and a brother: Mrs. Helen Packer of Showlow, Arizona; Mrs. Robert Parsons of Blackfoot, Idaho; and Don Hickman of Eureka, Utah. All the living children, together with the second sister attended the funeral.
Note: Emma Jane’s husband Robert Nephi Comish died November 15, 1882 just short of his 40th birthday due to a ‘swelling on his neck’. She married John Christian Larsen Sr on April 27, 1887.
To learn more about Emma Jane, visit FamilySearch.org id: KW83-44Q.
See Emma Jane Howland in our Family Roots site for more detail.
