Back Ground: Cardston Temple, Cardston, Alberta, Canada
To see Pictures of the Robin Gae Richard FORREST II Family
click on My name.
For current pictures of me click HERE.
Pictures of homes we have lived in.
By Robin G. R. Forrest II ©
I was born on 5 April 1938 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, and we lived in Detroit for about 9 months and then my father was transfered to Cincinatti, Ohio, by his employer, the U.S. Rubber company. We lived here for about a year and then went to Denver, Colorado.
While in Denver we lived in three different places. I remember a large house with a big porch and going out and collecting leaves with my mother here. Dad also made a nice slide but the girl next door got a large splinter in her bottom and we stopped using the slide.
I believe that it was here that I got bit on the lip by a large dog that lived accross the street. This was about the time I road the electric busses to the doctor for shots. Probably something to do with the dog bite, and may have been rabies shots.
The house I remember most was at 503 South Bryant. There were severial fields around the property and I remember most one with a work shack on it. I would go to the fields and collect insects and other things. One time I went out bare foot while I had a baby sitter and I was wadding in a puddle and cut mu foot on a piece of broken bottle. I don't remember what my parents did when they got home, however, I believe that they were mostly just worried because I was hurt.
I started school while living here I was age 6 and I remember a large sign with pictures of Hitler Musellenie and Hiro-Hito on it advertising the war effort and pictures of the enemy. I also had a good friend Julian Lambie he and I would play together alot. I remember one time I was at his home and no one came to get me so Julian and I walked home about 1 1/2 miles we also had to cross the highway we made it and I believe mother took Julian back home. It was quit a hike for a couple of six year old's.
When mother got pregnet with my sister my grandparents moved to Denver and Grandpa got a job in a powdered egg plant. They, mostly grandma, would baby sit me when mother went to the doctor. One time I was riding my trycicle and did not want come in when she called and she chased me around the block.
My sister Sharon Lee was born 29 November 1943.
At Christmass time we would go and see the displays in the store windows. They had animated figures in these displays.
After the war was over Dad was transfered back to Detroit Michigan. All I remember was that we moved in the winter and the roads were covered with snow and I think we were traveling through a blizard. Dad also remembers it being very bad traveling weather.
Mother, Sharon, and I were left at her parents home in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and dad went on to Detriot to work and look for a Home for us. Aunt Helen and her children were also living here at the time, and I enjoyed playing with Mickey McCook, she had two brothers Jonnie and Jimmie.
Grandma Eva McCook had a large grey stucco home two story, it was on a court so there was not much traffic. It had an old Juke Box it played paper rolls like a player panio. We could not touch the rolls but she would put one on and play it for us if she had time. She also would put bonami on the windows and let us paint pictures on them. I remember she had a very nice mountain scean on one of the windows and we were always very carful not to erase it. When it was bed time she would come in and tell us stories about when she taught the Indians in Washington. I wish I could remember them now. She canoed most of the Puget Sound rivers.
My dad found a house located at 50 Kensington in Pleasant Ridge Michigan. My mother went and looked at it liked it and they bought it. Dad brought her back to Grandma's and he went back to Detroit to work. We then followed by train. This was a very nice home and my sister and spent the rest of our child hood in this home.
My first friends were the Webbers they lived across the street. The Detroit Zoo was about 4 blocks away and many a summer day was spent there. Other friends in the neighborhood were Mike Smelt, Norman Ford, and Jerry Watson.
I went to the Presbyterian Church Camp on Higgins Lake one summer, and my parents liked it (the Lake) so we spent several summers there. We stayed at Dunlops Cottages for several years. (click on link to see pictures of the place mentioned) The last year was in 1953, and we went home by way of Kalamazoo to visit my grand parents and cousins. When we got to the Loomises, Uncle Louie said come with me I want to show you something. So we did. He took us to a lake called Huzzy Lake and he said "be carfull when you get because you are walking on my new lake property. We really liked his property and bought the lot next to his.
We used the money that mother had earned being an Avon Lady.
I was just starting High School that Fall and the year before I had joined a Nature Club sponcered by the Detroit Zoo's Nature Cabin.
Also I met a friend who was a Native american. His father was a full blooded Cree from Canada and worked as a master Electrician. He had found his wife while attending the Univerisity of Michigan. She was a full blooded aztec from Centeral America.
From his parents I found their beliefs about their Great Sirit from his father I was told that his fore fathers had prophets among them, and from his mother i was taught about a great white God had visited her ancestors, that he had been born across the great waters of a mother named Mary and that he was know by many names.
I believed that this last person was Jesus Christ and so when the youth fellowship in the Presbyerian Church, we were studying other Churches in 1957, we had the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints they taught us about the Book of Mormon things fell into place.
These Missionaries told us that the Book of Mormon was a second witness of Jesus Christ and that his Gospel had been taught to the native americans through prophets. and that he,Jesus, had indeed visited the ancestors of the Indians. Thus reinforceing my belief in the stories I had heard from the friends mentioned above.
Then a few weeks later in my Senior Sochelstudies class we were asked to make a report on a Religion to which we then did not belong. I then went to the local library and checked out a copy of the Book of Mormon read it and made a report on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints. After ths I knew that this Church was the one I was looking for.
However I could not at that time find where they met as there were no chaples for that Church untill 1959. Then while in the Army I saw a Chaple that said The Church of Jesus Christ met there at 1400 hours on Sunday. When I arrived at the Chapel no one showed up but the custodian and he said the members were at a convention at the Mission Home listing to an Apostel Spencer W KIMBALL. He also told me they also met on Wednesday's. So I went to their meetings on Wednesday, these were Priesthood meeting, Relief Society, Young Men's and Primary. I was taught the first two Missionay lessons that night.
I went to Church the next Sunday where we had Sacrement Meeting and Sunday School. They asked me to go to the Genealoy Class and afer I had another missionary lesson. After the lessons were finished I was baptized 2 July 1960 and confirmed 3 July 1960 which was a Sunday. That next Saturday the Lamenite Generation were performing at the Mission Home so I went and they talked me into going to Brigham Young University after I left the Army on 13 July 1960. When I joined the L.D.S. Church I called my Parents and told them what I had done, and told methat was fine for me but not to try to push the Church on them.
The first things I did when I got back to the Detrit area were to find where the Church was and how to apply to Brigham Young University and starting doing Genealogy finding my ancestors.
The first thing I found out about BYU was that the final day for applying for fall semister was July 1st and I would need a recomendation from my Church Bishop, and it was already mid July. I then got my Bishop's recomendation and applied for winter semester with a note that I would like to start in fall as I had only joined the Church July 2nd after the application deadline. So I was supprised when I got a letter from BYU a few weeks later that I had been accepted, and could I be there the next Monday for freshman orientation. My father had to go to Arizona on a bussiness trip that weekend and was able to get a seat on the same airplane as him. We got to Denver where my father got off and went to Arizona and I went on to Salt Lake City and on to Provo to start school at BYU.
I got home and found outthere was a good genealogical section at the Detroit Public Library I went there and found some records on my grandparents and great grandparents on my dads side of the family. My mother did not have time to go to the library so we made a decision that she would continue doing correspondence and I would do the library research. I found information that George and Polly SHEFFER were going to the Presibyterian Church in Tecumseh, Lenawee, Michigan. I wrote this down in a spirial notebook and took it home to show m father. That night I opened the notebook and the pages were missing. The next time I went to the library I got the book back out and when I opened the book and saw the baptisim of my great grandfather Robert McCOOK along with his sister Mary. I do not think I would have found them if that page in the notebook had not been lost.
I got to Provo early Monday morning and reported to BYU they sent me to the Housing area and I got a list of appartments available looked at a couple then was approched by a person who called my name, with an eastern massachusetts accent. and asked if it was me. I did not recognise him but he had baptised his sister the same day I was. His name was Robert SNOW, and asked to see my housing list. He asked me to come and see where he was living because they had one bed open in their appartment. I took this appartment at the time it cost $30.00 a month.CHILDREN of Robin Gae Richard FORREST and Susan Ellice HANCOCK:
+ 14111. 1. ELLICE GAYE b: 9 Jun 1967; Royal Oak, Oakland, Michigan.
md: 1 Feb 1985; Orem, Utah, Utah.
W V TAYLOR.
+ 14112. 2. KARIA LYNN b: 8 Jan 1969; Provo, Utah, Utah.
md: 20 Aug 1987; Manti, Sanpete, Utah.
Michael Doyle ADAMS.
+ 14113. 3. STEVEN BLAIR b: 24 Oct 1970; Windser, Essex, Ontario,
Canada.
md: 1 Nov 1996; Provo, Utah, Utah.
Traci Annette LEE.
div: Jun 2002; Provo, Utah, Utah.
14114. 4. DAVID HANCOCK b: 28 Mar 1973; Avon Twp, Oakland, Michigan.
+ 14115. 5. PHILIP DOUGLAS b: 23 Nov 1976; South Haven, Van Buren,
Michigan.
md: Jun 2004; , , Florida.
Terri Lynn GARY
CHILDREN of Susan Ellice HANCOCK and Name Unknown:
Born in the Covenent before the Temple Divorce was started.
+ 14116. 6. KRISTIN SUE b: 19 May 1982; Provo, Utah, Utah.
md: Dec 1901; Pleasant Grove, Utah, Utah.
Jeremy ERICKSON.
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This Web Page was created on 07/25/1997 with
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