by Robena (Bee) Miller Ence, daughter of Minerva – Sarah

I don’t remember my first contact with Grandpapa, but I was told many times that a Prophet of the Lord came to our home when I was eight days old. He took me in his arms and gave me a blessing and a name. (What I always wondered was-if I was so important, why he gave me a name like Robena.)

I think my first memory was of being taken on his lap and told to put my hand in his pocket to see what I could find. That was the deepest pocket! It went down and down and I nearly fell off his lap. What I found was candy corn.

I liked to sit on Grandpapa’s lap because he smelled so good. In [his] later years, Mother said that he always used a little perfume on his lovely white beard.

I seem to remember a birthday party at the Beehive House, and that the little children sat on the floor around Grandpapa’s big chair and we saw some pictures shown on the wall.

Most important seems to be the influence of Grandpapa on my life after he was no longer here to guide us: that we be baptized on our eighth birthday was so important that when mine came on a Sunday we all got in the car and went to the Jordan River. Father and I walked down into the cold running water and I was baptized on my birthday following the tradition Grandpapa had started.