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30 Years A lady at the memorial asked me, how did you get started? I’d like to explain my 30 year search.
It all started in 1977, I had just moved to, Phoenix, Arizona. I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. My grandmother, Viola McKellips Brizzee called me, she said, look in the Mesa phone book for the, Brizzee’s, they are family. (I knew my grandmother was trying to keep me busy and get my mind off of my illness). So I looked in the Mesa phone book and found, Genevieve Brizzee Emery. She invited me over and I also met, Mildred Brizzee Dixon. Both these lady’s were the granddaughter’s of, Henry Willard Brizzee & Ann Long Didsbury Brizzee. We had a great time together, we drove all over Mesa, they were showing me the old family homes. They both loved their family history and they gave me pedigree charts and a photo pedigree chart. Genevieve even had a photo of my gr-grandfather, William Everett Brizzee. The pedigree chart’s were very interesting to me, Henry Willard Brizzee had so many wives listed. I noticed the name of, Emily Amanda Rockwell because she had 2 son’s with Henry. That’s how I got started in genealogy. From then on I would write letter’s and ask family member’s for copy’s of their birth certificate’s, photo’s, whatever they would give me.
While at Mildred’s house, I saw small copy’s of photo’s of, Henry Willard Brizzee & Ann Long Didsbury Brizzee. They were copy’s of old oil paintings, Mildred told me Ann Curnutt in Tucson, Arizona had the original oil paintings. I wrote to Ann and asked if I could come see them and take photo’s. Ann wrote back and said sure, you’re welcome to come anytime. At this time I was also writing letter’s to, Helen Stoddard and she mailed me a copy of her husbands pedigree chart.
At the time, my first husband and I were driving a 1968 GMC pickup truck (cool truck). On our trip to, Tucson to meet both Ann & Helen, our truck started having transmission problem’s so we had to turn around. I never did get to meet, Ann or Helen. (Ann is, Roger Curnutt’s mother). I just got an email from Helen’s son, David. He told me, Helen passed away in 1996. He was told about the Salt Lake Tribune article and that’s how he contacted me.
My grandfather’s 2 sister’s, Dorothy Brizzee Banke & Marti Brizzee William’s had contacted me to see how I was feeling. They told me about their mothers (Harriet Ellen) brother, John Ellis Johnson. He was living with his son, Donald Johnson and his wife Betty. I drove out to meet them, Betty copied a lot of Johnson history for me. Very nice people.
I was really getting sick, from having radiation treatment. My radiologist upset me and I left his care and went to, UCD, Medical Center in, Sacramento. My mother got an apartment for me and I started having Chemotherapy treatments. Back in those years I was a pioneer in Chemo treatments, so that’s a whole other story. I ended up moving in with my dad. I finished the Chemo in 1978 and left my first husband and moved to, Battle Mtn., Nevada, living with my Mom & Royce. I got remarried and started writing letter’s to everyone again to catch up where we left off on the family search.
Around 1979, Aunt Dorothy Brizzee Banke, mailed me a letter written to her by, Charles Porter Brizzee (Paul Brizzee’s father). She asked me to write to him and find out what I could. I did write to him, but I don’t think I ever heard back from him, I think he might have already passed away by that time. Aunt Dorothy had also mailed me the Johnson book, and negatives of, Henry Willard Brizzee & Ann Long Didsbury Brizzee. I had the photo’s printed up immediately. I was amazed at the little girl sitting by, Henry Willard Brizzee. I really wanted to know her name because she looked just like me.
Now it’s the early 1980’s and I’m in contact with, Lillian Idella Lee Wilcox. Thinking back it must have been, Helen Stoddard who told me about her. Idella was great, she mailed me pedigree charts of her family line, so now I had pictures of, Henry Willard Brizzee & Emily Amanda Rockwell. I was thrilled. At this time, Idella was moving from, Idaho to Utah, so we lost touch with each other. She did tell me about her brother, Gaylon Arlo Lee, so I contacted him.
Lillian also told me about her uncle, Raymond Henry Brizzee, so I got one letter to him, he answered but soon after he passed away.
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Arlo was great, he was happy to hear from me. First thing I asked him was if he had photo’s of, Henry Willard Brizzee & Emily Amanda Rockwell Brizzee. He said he did, but in those day’s getting copy’s of photo’s was a hard thing to do. Arlo invited me to one of his family reunion’s near, Twin Falls, Idaho. I didn’t get to go because we were branding on the ranch that day.
It was in the early 90’s that we drove out to, Grouse Creek, Utah, to look for Emily Amanda Rockwell’s grave. I also thought, Henry Willard Brizzee’s parent’s, Henry & Lucinda Brizzee were buried out there. We searched the graveyard and found nothing. I remember writing a letter to, Arlo and telling him, no luck finding Emily’s grave. Arlo was sweet and said, someday we will meet out there and look for it together. We never did do that. I wrote back to, Idella for more information. She mailed me information about the marriage of, Henry Willard Brizzee to a young woman named, Eliza G. Smith she had found, it puzzled us both. I think this was the last contact I had with, Idella.
In 2003 my life was not going well. That’s why I said at the Memorial, Just like, Emily I was lost to the world. Emily was called, “Crazy Lady Tyrrell”. I was being called, the “Hermit”, by the towns people of Wells, NV. Then I got the internet and my life changed right away. I found the, www.FallenHeroes Memorial.com, website and became friends with, Tim Rivera. Because of our friendship he built the, Millennium Birdhouses, website for me. While, Tim was building this website, I found the Mormon Battalion website. It took me a year to get the photo of, Henry Willard Brizzee onto this website. I found out, the emails are deleted as spam, so once I mailed the photo, it was put onto the website. After getting the photo of Henry on the website, one day I looked at the message board and noticed, Roger Curnutt looking for information on Henry Willard Brizzee. We mailed each other all our information and photo’s. Roger told me who the little girl was sitting by, Henry Willard Brizzee that looked so much like me. She was, Melissa Ann Brizzee. Henry & Ann’s first child together.
Then I got an email from, Janie Penney Olafson, she saw the photo of, Henry Willard Brizzee. Janie emailed me and asked about the photo, we became friends right away.
Roger was thinking I built the, Millennium Birdhouses website. He asked me if I could build a website for, Henry Willard Brizzee? I said, Tim Rivera built my website, I wouldn’t know how to build one, so I emailed Janie and asked her if she wanted to build it. She said, no she wouldn’t know what to do, but she did have some family photo’s and story’s to share. So that left me, that’s when I started building the website for, Henry Willard Brizzee. Roger really started digging out beautiful family photo’s of the, Brizzee Family of, Mesa, Arizona. I had a lot of information to start with and other’s started to help fill in with their family’s. Roger has also help fund this Brizzee-Rockwell project. Thank you, Roger for the help!
I contacted, Arlo and told him about the website and asked him for information. He told me, his niece, Arlene Hepworth had all her mother’s genealogy and he gave me her phone number. I called, Arlene and she started mailing me photo’s and information that her mother had.
David Paul Brizzee emailed me photo’s of the, Brizzee graves & pioneer monument in, Mesa, Arizona. His father, Paul Brizzee emailed me information on the, Charles Porter line.
Other’s that donated, Raymond & Sue Vickerman Chuck Kimber (Emily’s Iron) , Elsie Mae Grow (photo, Emily’s necklace) John Tyrell (Estate & family history for, Emily Amanda Rockwell) Carole Gates Sorensen (history for, Hiram & Emily Gates) Wilford Whitaker (Woolsey, family history).
Donna Brizzee Ford
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