 |
 Return toHome Page |
Documentary Film
Julie Taggart Rabe
JULIE TAGGART RABE
CREW
The Yellow Road Over the Water to Charlie/St. Patrick's Day
in the Morning Piney Woods/Animation/Susquehanna O My Father Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief Kitty O'Neil Don Jolley Waltz Old Smooth/John Eyre's Quadrille Captain Kidd 1835 Mormon Hymnal Black Rock Mexican Waltz The Soldier's Dream Come, Come Ye Saints/All is Well The Freemason's Apron/God Speed the Plough Brighton Camp/The Scotch Reel Newcastle Hornpipe Taggart's Hornpipe/Sugar House Old Hans/Frolie Hohsy Doc Kemmerer's Favorite Miss Brown's Reel/Broaching the Cider Arkansas Traveler King's Fold Adagio For Strings, Op. 11 Snow Deer Rosin the Beau So So Polka Lady Bartlett's Whim/Sailors Set on Shore Amazing Grace All is Well The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning NEW ENGLAND AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS STEVE BERLIN CHARLES R. SAVAGE - Pioneer Photographer EDWARD MARTIN - Pioneer Photographer CHARLES W. CARTER - Pioneer Photographer OLD DESERET VILLAGE, Tracy Aviary
Salt Lake City, Utah ARTISTS C. C. A. CHRISTENSEN CLARK KELLY PRICE
|
|
Assistant
Producers JAN MAKINEN MAYNARD. I also can't say enough about Jan. I love Jan. She is an officially adopted Taggart family member (yes, on Steven Laird's authority) and proud of it. She read and corrected everything I wrote, did everything from run sound recording tests all day to tote cameras and lights around Old Deseret Village and maybe most of all kept me animated and focused when the project threatened becoming overwhelming.
EILEEN ROBINSON. Eileen is Spencer's daughter and wrote a fine biography of GWT relying on much of her father's work. Eileen's work was so good that many of the film's facts are drawn from it. In some cases her exact language is used - without attribution. Typically, Eileen was just fine with that. RANDALL DIXON. Randy is an historian and senior archivist with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church Archives. Among a lot of other scholarship he knows more about early Salt Lake than anyone and over a lengthy period has been very supportive and contributed numerous facts and information used in the project, to say nothing of the informative interview he graciously gave on camera and which is used extensively in the film. ALLEN D. ROBERTS. From a sketch at his firm's website:
Allen is also an exceptionally knowledgeable student of Western and Mormon History and is the authority on pioneer mills in Utah, having written extensively on the subject including an essential pamphlet published by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers. As our good fortune would have it he is also a descendent of George Taggart, and like the rest of us is haunted by this fascinating ancestor. Allen's extensive interview at the Chase Mill combines with Randy's to really supply the film's historical meat and potatoes. LYNDIA CARTER. Lyndia (pronounced Linda) is a friend who is a fine professional historian and author and who is especially expert on the handcart companies, particularly the Willy and Martin companies that suffered the disaster on the plains in late 1856. Lyndia tried to keep me straight in the handcart storytelling and any errors are my own. RON ANDERSEN. Ron is another historian, author and good friend who is deeply knowledgeable about the Mormon Trail, pioneer emigration and early Salt Lake City. He has taken me on walking tours of the city and taught me much about its first days. I am indebted to him for checking related parts of the script, and again, any remaining errors are my own. RICK MCCONKIE. Rick and his wife Evelyn are the authors, editors and compilers of the "blue bible" on GWT, George Washington Taggart - Member of the Mormon Battalion - His Life and Times and His Wives Harriet Atkins Bruce, Fanny Parks, Clarissa Marina Rogers and Their Ancestors - 1711-1901. This encyclopedic book is a treasure to all Taggarts and an exhaustive source of information. Rick also supplied photographs and answered questions whenever I asked for help.
STEVEN LAIRD TAGGART. Steve is a great guy too. He got me involved in the family organization when he told me my ability to create a website was an answer to prayer. Gulp. He has been most supportive throughout and assures me there are favors in heaven for having completed this work. I certainly hope he is right. CHRIS TAGGART. As treasurer Chris handles the family funds. Whenever there is a need there always seems to be resources available. Some of us have our worries that Chris makes up any shortfall himself but one thing we know for sure is that the organization's monies are in good hands. Chris told me he fully expected the early version of the film to be ready for the August reunion. He'd included it in his prayers. Gulp, again.
Fanny Parks Taggart is played by KRISTI BUSH. Happily for the family, Fanny left significant writings that tell us much about George and the whole family. Kristi is Julie's sister, their parents are Blaine and Susanna Taggart. Kristi's voice was perfect for the role and I think she should do some professional work. She was there many times, whenever asked, for shooting and voice work. Harriet Maria Taggart is played by WENDY MCKENNA, who is a descendent. She was excited by the project and willing to help in any way. I have the e-mails to prove it. She hit just the right note when telling about the flooded-out Taggart cabin that first difficult year. Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke and Brigham Young are played by my good friend BUD RUSHO. Bud has been professionally producing movies and videos all his life and to boot he has that mellifluous authoritative voice that the battalion commander and church commander needed. Bud is a published author of several works, western historian and current member of two organizations I'm a part of, OCTA, the Oregon-California Trails Association Utah Crossroads Chapter and Westerners. Frederick Taggart is played by his great-great grandson TIM TAGGART. I don't know how often Tim is in front of the microphone but in his role as head of the Audiovisual Department at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints he has plenty of experience putting other people there. Tim was available for any help he could offer and is going to take me around to see how the pros do it sometime soon. Norma Ricketts and George Taggart cousin (Amy) Namah Carter Young are played by JAN MAYNARD who listened to horrific and touching descriptions of the battalion's and George's suffering before voicing these two emotional passages.
Gordon B. Hinckley is aptly played by my good friend
VERN GORZITZE. Vern has an abiding interest in western history
which carries him in a lot of directions. At present he is vice
president of OCTA, the Oregon-California Trails Association, an
international group dedicated to preserving, marking and educating about
the old emigrant roads that brought a quarter million people to the
American West on foot 150 years ago, before the railroad. He is a past
president of the Utah Crossroads Chapter, as am I. Vern got me into Utah
Westerners, a rather exclusive invitation-only western history group
full of professionals, authors, professors, etc., and a few dedicated
devotees. Vern is a dignified guy, a good choice since I didn't think I
should try President Hinckley directly. Alice Taggart speaks about her mother and my great-great-grandmother Clarissa Marina Rogers Taggart and is played by ELIZABETH HAWKES, my niece through my sister Connie. Elizabeth is clear and respectful. Just right, I think. The owner of the 1852 Deseret Bakery is John Willis played with the right commercial flair by another much-admired historian friend from Utah Westerners, ROY SOUDER, an engineer, businessman and former fighter pilot.
SUSIE RABE was key grip. She's Julie's daughter. JAN MAYNARD was a grip and did anything that looked like it needed doing on our shoots without being asked. JACOB TAGGART RABE is also Julie's son and his excellent performance vied with his sister's for key grip designation. I shot the video and recorded the sound. CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF
LATTER-DAY SAINTS At the Museum of Church History and Art CARRIE SNOW arranged for us to see, handle and film GWT's Mormon Battalion fife which they conserve and on other occasions to film the 1870 Salt Lake City model as well as carpenter's tools, battalion uniforms, the cabin outside, millstones and anything else we wanted footage of. Three people in the Church Archives were pivotal to the production. RANDY DIXON, historian, author and senior archivist was my primary source of information about old Salt Lake and the conduit for photographs and information about GWT in what were to me unsuspected sources such as the letters of Heber C. Kimball and the journal of Peter Sinclair. I never asked a question that Randy hadn't already thought about and nearly always knew the answer to without looking it up. He was patient and gentle with my mistakes and gave us a terrific interview that is full of fun and new information for the family. WILLIAM SLAUGHTER is also a historian and archivist and he specializes in historic photographs. I've known Bill for years and he is a very good and helpful guy. Along with Randy he hunted up pictures of Arsenal Hill and the Taggart house, he made the scans and provided them in a form that fit perfectly into the film. RONALD O. BARNEY contributed in a key conceptual way that I want to call attention to in the Thanks segment.
Imagine my joy when both sources agreed readily to letting some of their work appear in GWT's story. Though they didn't ask for it, in most cases I put labels down in the corner so the viewer would know that their fine work was not mine. I felt free to cut and edit the images into any order I felt was appropriate for our story and did so. Lee Groberg of GROBERG COMMUNICATIONS was most open and generous, letting me use what I wished from his beautifully photographed story Trail of Hope. Producer of many familiar works, his most recent project is America's Choir. Ken Verdoia of KUED is such a household name I wouldn't know where to start in listing his numerous film accomplishments. Here is a teaser. What a great guy. When I contacted him asking that I use footage from his Mormon Battalion story Battalion, in which he singled out GWT for an important scene, he replied with the following:
As I have time to develop this page I will post some of the photographs of the Taggart home here. JAN MAYNARD furnished some wonderful scenes of autumn leaves she had made in the canyons. DAUGHTERS OF UTAH PIONEERS have a fine collection of old photographs and I spent many profitable hours looking through it. I used some of their early Salt Lake pictures. UNIVERSITY OF UTAH has online photograph collections from the early days of the Salt Lake City Engineer's office in conjunction with the Utah State Historical Society. I used some of them. In addition the University has a spectacular resource in online searchable newspapers which I used. UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY has an amazingly extensive collection of old photographs and I searched through it with glee and had many scans made that appear in the film. The collection is housed at the society's library. NEW ENGLAND AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY had two perfect pictures of Peterborough and one of Mt Monadnock I used. BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY has an extensive collection of black and white photographs and stills of artwork that were very useful. I included pictures of Brigham Young and the artwork of C. C. A. Christensen from this source. In addition, they have online access to a collection of early editions of the Deseret News which I searched and included some of in the film. CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS as mentioned supplied most of the pictures of Arsenal Hill and the Taggart home as well as others of early Salt Lake City. They have to have amassed the finest collection extant of such materials. Just to visit the archives is to see big beautiful prints of photographs taken virtually from the Taggart's front door. DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY has a superb highly organized searchable online collection that is highly recommended. UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY has a small but useful collection of online photographs. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS has extensive collections and links to collections of online prints and photographs which I accessed. STEVE BERLIN is credited because I used some of my own stills. UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD makes photographs available online. RON ANDERSEN sent a nice picture of the trail entering Salt Lake Valley at Little Mountain in autumn, when the Taggarts came. Many of the photographs I used are from the pioneering
work of three Mormon photographers to whom I am greatly indebted. EDWARD MARTIN - Pioneer Photographer CHARLES W. CARTER - Pioneer Photographer OLD DESERET VILLAGE,
THIS IS THE PLACE HERITAGE PARK,
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY The cooperation we received in making our
film's scenes at Old Deseret Village was superb. All thanks to the many who
helped us find great locations and allowed us to photograph virtually
anything we wished. Tracy Aviary where we were given a marvelous day's access to Chase Mill by assistant to the director, Liz. Russ Wood, director of marketing at Old Deseret Village McCune Mansion where we had free reign for shooting on the grounds on multiple occasions. Old Rock Mill and Tom Owens who spent hours swapping histories and giving me access to what had been the Richards Mill in Farmington and is now his home he is so lovingly restoring. Bott Monument Company who for more than one hundred years have owned the Snow-Smith Mill in Brigham City where they operate what is primarily a cemetery marker business and live upstairs. They spent time during their business day and allowed us to film all of the mill we wanted including the original beams, flooring, bricks etc. Brigham City Museum who supplied us with detailed information on the Brigham City mill. Gardner Mill in West Jordan, Utah where I was given total access to film the mill machinery still installed inside the old gristmill. Dickson Family - Richville. These folks date back to the earliest days of the town and I knocked on their door - across from Fanny's old place - or caught them in the yard many times to pester them with questions about where something had been and what barns had the old wood from George's mill, etc. Lee Groberg is the owner of Groberg Communications mentioned above for his generous permission to use footage from Trail of Hope. Ken Verdoia, senior producer at KUED for his support and generous permission to use parts of Battalion in the film. Leonard Coulson of the Deseret String Band for his generous permission to use music from the group's Utah: Songs of Statehood CD. More on the Music page. Mark and Stephen Jardine of the Beehive Band for their generous permission to use music from their Mormon Trail 150 year anniversary two CD set. More on the Music page. Randy Miller of the New Hampshire Fiddlers Union, both a student of history and fine musician who talked Taggarts and Taggart music at length with me and generously gave permission to use songs from the group's album The Music of John Taggart. More on the Music page. Marsha McBride my contact with Firewood Band that plays all summer and all the special events at Old Deseret Village who generously arranged permission to use their period music in the film. More on the Music page. Dan Ahlstrom the wonderful husband of my daughter Shannon and an MFA teacher of music who patiently but enthusiastically taught me a little musicology on the origins of the terrific music for this film and its uniqueness compared to developments in Europe. Bud Rusho, a great friend, and a fine historian and filmmaker for his enthusiasm. encouragement, examples, and expertise, all of which he freely shared. Blaine & Susanna Taggart, Julie's and Kristi's parents, both for raising them and generously sharing prints, slides and videos from their Nauvoo mission and placing of the Washington Taggart memorial in the old Nauvoo cemetery. Rick McConkie, Taggart historian par excellence who came through on every request for a photograph or information that I could throw at him. Ronald O. Barney, author, historian and senior archivist with the Church archives who first got me thinking about the idea of the history of ordinary people, not just the great leaders, in an address he delivered at a Utah Westerners meeting. Ron made his point so clearly and forcefully that this is a direction that histories need to take that it has stuck with me as a guiding concept for this film. Lerud Productions' Steve and Jennifer Lerud, Dixie Davis' son-in-law and daughter have given critical support for the project. As a sound and recording engineer and high-tech guru, Steve was at the reunion to project the film on a very large screen - thrilling to me - and then ride the volume control on the sound to compensate for the level differences I had not yet tweaked out of the sound track. They operate Lakeview Recording Studio and Steve did all the duplication of the DVDs on his specialized equipment. Peggy Brown, Sharon, NH still lives in the home of Captain James Taggart of the Revolutionary War where I met her in the early 90s after scheduling a few extra days to visit the old family sites while on a business trip to Boston. Peggy introduced me to her husband Win and spent hours showing me through the home and property, describing its modifications over the years, showing me historic photographs, gifting me with a map Win had made of Sharon and guiding me to the Jarmany Hill Cemetery up the lane and into the woods, where so many of our ancestors lie. In a recent telephone conversation we relived that experience, she expressed her support for the documentary project and she pledged her welcome if I venture there again - and I plan to. Will Bagley has made a name for himself as a serious, thorough and unflinching historian of the West and especially Utah. He is a good friend of many years and fellow member of OCTA and Utah Westerners. His interview in Battalion regarding the arrival of the nearly dead Mormon Battalion members there at Christmas time 1847 is the most heartfelt and moving thing I have ever seen in historical documentaries. To tell George's story right it cried out to be included. Connie Berlin Hazen is my smart sister and the source of nearly daily encouragement on the project. It was her love of our ancestors, detailed knowledge of the family history and genealogy and her boundless enthusiasm for the subjects that kindled my own previously latent interest in these things nearly two decades ago. Jeanette Taggart Holmes sets the bar for family history and genealogy higher than nearly anyone can reach. Her scholarship on all the Taggart lines including the wives is where I got the pedigrees I refer to so often. She just keeps on going. Though she lives in California somehow in contact with Julie she told her about the New Hampshire Fiddlers Union and its John A Taggart cassette. One thing lead to another and now we've the pleasure of a dozen of their authentic Taggart New England songs in our documentary.
Café de Normandie in Holladay, Utah is a great place for a cup of your
favorite beverage and a lot of good history discussion with your
friends. I go as often as I can. When I needed a place to record
voiceovers they provided it. When I needed some shots of tasty bakery
goods to illustrate John Willis' 1852 Deseret Bakery they gave me the
run of the place.
Salt Lake City, Utah
Bountiful, Utah
Farmington, Utah
Brigham City, Utah Richville, Utah
Morgan Utah
West Jordan, Utah
Murray, Utah
Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah
Sharon, New Hampshire
Nauvoo, Illinois ARTISTS C. C. A. CHRISTENSEN The Museum of Art at Brigham Young University has a wonderful retrospective on this great Mormon artist's work. I used his prints liberally.
Saints Driven From Jackson County, Missouri CLARK KELLY PRICE
Ephraim Hanks: Obeying the Spirit
The camera is broadcast quality mini-DV from Panasonic's Professional
Video line.
|
 Home Page |
Who Are We? |
GWT Biography |
Beloved Wives |
|
Visitor
Comments |
Forum |
Newsletter |
GWT's Writings |
| Events |
Genealogy |
Links |
Artwork |
Copyright © 1997-2006, George
Washington Taggart Family Organization
John M. Taggart, Coordinator
All rights reserved
Site Design: Steven L. Berlin
For questions or comments regarding this website please contact by e-mail: Webmaster
Last updated: 07 Jul 2008