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family history

Benjamin Franklin Milner

My great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin “Frank” Milner is buried beside his wife Ella in the Temple Hill Cemetery1 near Raymond, Ab. I remember we’d always take the time to check out his gravestone whenever we visited there but even my dad is too young to have known Frank, since my dad was born 18 years after he died. It’s not surprising though because my Great Grandpa Milner was really old. For some perspective, he was born seven years before the start of the American Civil War and another full 40 years before Utah achieved statehood.

I don’t know too much about Frank except what I’ve read in the excerpt below from p.196-198 of Valiant in the Faith, with spelling corrections, notes, and links added by me.

  1. My grandpa Marshall used to jokingly call it Boot Hill. Boot Hill is the name or nickname of many cemeteries in the old west with reputations for the number of men that died with their boots on (presumably involving gun play or hangings). The Raymond cemetary was called Temple Hill because of the hope and plans by the folks in Raymond to have the first latter-day saint temple built there—ultimately the Alberta Temple got built in Cardston much to the multigenerational disappointment of the locals in Raymond. I guess a cemetery is the next best thing?[]