--L. TOM PERRY
Yesterday, Sister Latey and I (after training) drove to the countrysides of Glenwood saw some of the trails, roads and fields of my ancestors when they lived there on their way to Salt Lake.
It was a great day of reflection and imagination. It was a great day filled with warmth and gratitude for them. And a warm feeling from them. I really did imagine and picture in my mind them being right there with us yesterday. I envisioned Dr. Coons traveling around this county as a medical doctor, a bishop and a politician.
We walked down a path to the banks of the Missiouri River and imagined that we were pretty close to where T L Coons might have had his ferry assignment. A place where he helped pioneers ferry across the Missouri River when they left the grand encampment and came to settle in areas they named Coonsville and Bethelehem. We scunched the leaves with our shoes on those trails and smiled as we thought of them doing the same thing. It was fun to picture it all in my head.
Sister Latey showed me where they think Bethlehem was. This was very exciting for me. Bethlehem as a town that doesn't exist anymore. But it is the place where the Coons family first settled when they left the grand encampment.
We drove through Glenwood and visited the cemetery.
Lebbeus Coons - a medical doctor - he was blessed by the Prophet Joseph Smith to "nurse the sick". It is recorded that this game he a special compassion for the sick and a new or increased desire to know and use the healing power of herbs for other benefits. Pioneer practice of medicine was filled with hardships and self-denial of the early settlers fatigue and exposure of all hours of the day and night, resulting from riding over a vast country with small settlements here and there, because doctors were few and far between. The early pioneer physicians were men of sterling worth industrious and of high intelligence.
Lebbeus was called to be one of the original members of the First Quorum of Seventy in this dispensation. He was ordained on May 2 1835. He was to always be ready to travel as a missionary when circumstances might permit.
Lebbeus and Mary Ann Coons were among those who were endowed and sealed in the Nauvoo Temple before the saints were forced to leave the city.
The Coons family was among the Saints who left Nauvoo early in 1846. They crossed southern Iowa through deep mud and swollen rivers, eventually reaching the Pottawattamie lands and the area which became Kanesville, (Council Bluffs, Iowa today). With thousands of saints arriving, it was necessary to spread out to get enough grazing land. The Coons family and others settled about 18 miles south of Kanesville on the Missiouri River. They named the town Bethlehem.
In 1848 Lebbeus and Sila (a relative) went exploring north to Harris Grove to find a new settlement. But decided on a site on Keg Creek about five miles east of Bethlehem in the bluffs. They found plenty of timber, water and grazing land. They named the town Coonsville. Libbeus was the first post master. The first branch president and other assignments.
There is so much more to read about this outstanding man in our family book - where this information is taken from - ANCESTRY OF JOHN LORENZO BUCHANAN AND JULIA ANN ZUFELT - writted by Hayle Buchanan, Janet Pearl and Reed Jeffery).
THERE ARE HIDDEN HEROS AMONG THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS - "THOSE OF THE LAST WAGON" WHOSE FIDELITY TO DUTY AND DEVOTION TO RIGHTEOUSNESS GO UNNOTICED BY ANYONE EXCEPT THE ONE WHO'S NOTICE REALLY MATTER. --DALLIN H. OAKS
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