Another page from our Latter-day Saint family album, with photos taken in 1920:

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St. Thomas, Nevada
(now flooded by Lake Mead)

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Give me the end of the year an’ its fun
When most of the plannin’ an’ toilin’ is done;
Bring all the wanderers home to the nest,
Let me sit down with the ones I love best,
Hear the old voices still ringin’ with song,
See the old faces unblemished by wrong,
See the old table with all of its chairs
An’ I’ll put soul in my Thanksgivin’ prayers.

- Edgar A. Guest
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The Instructor, November 1951

The Improvement Era offers up these wartime ticklers:

Harry: “Mother, won’t you give me five cents for a poor man who is crying out in front?”

Mother: “Yes, my son, here it is, and you are a good boy to think of it. Poor man, what is he crying about?”

Harry: “He’s crying, ‘Fresh roasted peanuts, five cents.’”

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The wind that makes music in November corn is in a hurry. The stalks hum, the loose husks whisk skyward in half-playing swirls, and the wind hurries on … A tree tries to argue, bare limbs waving, but there is no detaining the wind.

- Aldo Leopold
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The Improvement Era, November 1950

Sooner or later – probably sooner – you’re going to run into discrepancies in the records concerning your family. You’ll find conflicting birth dates, or variations in names, or differences in places of death, or two of your cousins will swear that two totally different couples are your great-great-grandparents. You’ll need to be able to evaluate the differences and decide what is most likely to be accurate.

Some points to consider:

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I ate too much turkey,
I ate too much corn,
I ate too much pudding and pie,
I’m stuffed up with muffins
and much too much stuffin’,
I’m probably going to die.

I piled up my plate
and I ate and I ate,
but I wish I had known when to stop,
for I’m so crammed with yams,
sauces, gravies, and jams
that my buttons are starting to pop.

I’m full of tomatoes
and french fried potatoes,
my stomach is swollen and sore,
but there’s still some dessert,
so I guess it won’t hurt
if I eat just a little bit more.

- Jack Prelutsky

The Friend, November 1974

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You shared the spark,
You fanned the flame,
You fed the fires,
You passed the Names.
For all those known and
For all unnamed,
For all who have walked the Way;
We raise this toast,
With thanks this day.

- Mike Garofalo, Kindreds
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Relief Society Magazine, November 1939

You remember the 1947 movie “Miracle on 34th Street,” where Kris Kringle, played by Edmund Gwenn, is undergoing a sanity hearing? Although nearly everyone is on the old man’s side, everything seems to be going against him. Then the courtroom doors open and a dozen or more mail clerks march in, carrying canvas bags stuffed with thousands upon thousands of letters addressed to Santa Claus. A blizzard of letters overflows Judge Harper’s bench as the judge seizes the opening to rule in Kris Kringle’s favor: If the United States Post Office, a branch of the federal government, supports Kris Kringle’s claim to be Santa Claus, who is the New York court to dispute that? Kris is liberated and works his magic so that Maureen O’Hara, Natalie Wood, and John Payne live happily ever after.

I submit that something similar happened in Liverpool, England, in 1923, involving Mormondom rather than Santa Claus. (more…)

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Ah! on Thanksgiving day…
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.
What moistens the lips and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?

~John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Instructor, November 1964

Each of these Wordles (courtesy of wordle.net) is built from a different text (talk, scripture, hymn, article, etc.) that should be generally familiar to most of us. As with all Wordles, the words that are used most often in that text are larger, while words appearing less often are smaller. Many short, common English words have been eliminated altogether.

Can you identify the texts from which these Wordles were created? To keep the fun going longer, please identify only ONE text and leave the rest for others. If you want to identify lots of them, write to me at Keepapitchinin at AOL dot com (that’s -inin at the end of Keepapitchinin), and I’ll announce how many you got right without actually giving the answers.

[Update: The texts have all been identified (most answers are listed in comment 23, with the rest in following comments). If you've come too late to play with us, test yourself and let us know how you did.]

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I was quite interested in a recent Keepa post about events going on in the Church in July, 1942. World War II was raging. The United States had entered the war seven months earlier and, although it had suffered a number of setbacks in the Pacific theater, had recently won a major victory at Midway. In July, 1942, my own father turned eight years of age and a few weeks later was baptized in the Ford County Lake in Kansas—his mother had converted two years earlier and his father joined the Church the next February.

While reading the post of Church events in July, 1942, I could not help but notice that there were no reports from Church members in Germany. That really should come as no surprise since the German Saints were cut-off from the mother Church in the USA. Nevertheless, the Latter-day Saints in the Third Reich had their share of war-related experiences. (more…)

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Thou hast given so much to me,
Give one thing more, a grateful heart;
Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if Thy blessings had spare days,
But such a heart whose pulse may be Thy praise.

~George Herbert
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Juvenile Instructor, November 1913

Steve’s recent Big List of things we used to do differently has had me thinking about why some of us are nostalgic for the way things used to be. Some of it is just because we’re old and doddering; some of it is simply because things worked better the way we used to do them. Hence the inauguration of an occasional series of posts about the way we used to do things – not from rosy memory, but from the actual handbooks and lesson manuals we used to use.

In those paradisiacal days – No, wait, that’s rosy memory. Let’s try again –

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So once in every year we throng
Upon a day apart,
To praise the Lord with feast and song
In thankfulness of heart.

~Arthur Guiterman, The First Thanksgiving
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Relief Society Magazine, November 1934

Eric Nielson at Blogger of Jared has concluded his five-part short story, “The Secret Life of Earl Johnson.” Maybe because I was a daydreamer trapped for too many years in a nowhere life, this well-written Mormonizing of James Thurber’s “Walter Mitty” — with an ending much more satisfying than Thurber’s — has come as a real gift. If you haven’t read it yet, do yourself a favor and head over to Blogger of Jared.

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Howard S. Swan, “The Music of the Mormons, 1830-1865,” The Huntington Library Quarterly, v. 12, no. 3 (May 1949), 223-252.

Howard S. Swan (1906-1995), “Dean of American Choral Music,” as one 1995 obituary called him, was the choir director at Occidental College in Los Angeles for nearly 40 years. After his “retirement,” he went on to teach at Fullerton and Irvine. A prize in his name is awarded annually to a retired California music teacher who typifies Swan’s artistry, personality, humanitarian spirit, and continuing dedication to music after the end of a formal career. Tragically, Swan himself could not sing during much of his adult life, suffering from a paralyzed vocal chord.

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Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen.

– Alma 26:37
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The Instructor, November 1950

From the pages of the Young Woman’s Journal, 1911:

The teacher was telling the story of Red Riding Hood. She had described the woods and the wild animals that live there. “Suddenly,” she said, “Red Riding Hood heard a loud noise. She turned around, and what do you suppose she saw standing there, looking at her and showing all its sharp, strong white teeth?”

“Teddy Roosevelt!” cried one of the boys.

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“For as some were thus imployed in affairs abroad, others were excersised in fishing, aboute codd, & bass, & other fish, of which they tooke good store, of which every family had their portion. All the somer ther was no want. And now begane to come in store of foule, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besids water foule, ther was great store of wild Turkies, of which they tooke many, besids venison, &c. Besids, they had about a peck a meale a weeke to a person, or now since harvest, Indean corn to yt proportion.”

– William Bradford

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The Friend, November 1975

Deseret Book: the publisher we love to hate. Well, don’t we? For generations Deseret Book has published books and other materials unique to our culture that no mainstream publisher would have touched – we love them. We don’t like much of what they sell, and they won’t publish much that we would like – we hate them. But like our sometimes generous uncles or too-kissy aunts, Deseret Book is ours, a member of the family, and we keep running into her whenever the family gets together.

Deseret Book descends from the pioneer publishing empire of George Q. Cannon, who, with his sons and assorted others, printed the Deseret News newspaper, did job printing for the public, published many of the tracts used by missionaries, and published the Juvenile Instructor beginning in 1866. Eventually they opened a bookstore on Salt Lake’s Main Street, where they sold their own publications and books imported from elsewhere. (more…)

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On the 10th of August [1848] we held a public feast under a bowery in the centre of our fort. This was called a harvest feast; we partook freely of a rich variety of bread, beef, butter, cheese, cakes, pastry, green corn, melons, and almost every variety of vegetable. Large sheaves of wheat, rye, barley, oats and other productions were hoisted on poles for public exhibition, and there was prayer and thanksgiving, congratulations, songs, speeches, music, dancing, smiling faces and merry hearts.

– Parley P. Pratt
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The Improvement Era, October 1957

I’m too lazy today, apparently, to write a real post, so here is another visual. LDS Media Talk points us today toward wordle.net, a nifty little site that analyzes a block of text to produce a “word cloud” indicating by relative size which words are used most often in that text. I pointed Wordle toward Keepa’s Topical Guide, which lists the titles of all posts.

This is what Wordle says we talk about:

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The heading on this one from a 1949 Improvement Era just made me laugh — can you twist your mind far enough to imagine your EQP, or any other man in your ward, responding to the bishop’s call this way?

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Heap high the board with plenteous cheer
and gather to the feast,
And toast the sturdy Pilgrim band
whose courage never ceased.

– Alice W. Brotherton
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The Improvement Era, November 1940

Jot it down in your diaries, folks: the day is finally here. Today, the first volume of the Joseph Smith Papers – Vol. 1 of the Journals series, covering 1832-1839, edited by Ronald K. Esplin, Dean C. Jessee, & Richard L. Bushman – is off the press, out of the bindery, and being trucked to the editorial team even as you read this.

This volume is not only the long-anticipated firstfruits of the Joseph Smith series, but is also the maiden volume of the new The Church Historian’s Press. Long life to the press, and best wishes for many future projects! (more…)

This is a modified version of one of several “introduction to the Utah War” talks I’ve given over the past couple of years. Bill MacKinnon is the one who uncovers new documents and offers professional analyses — I just try to bring everybody up to speed with the basic outline.

This “Utah War Primer” is only an overview of the Utah War. Rather than breaking new ground, it is my purpose to remind you of the basic story of the Utah War, so that you have the framework on which to hang the more original information you may have heard or read during the 2007-08 sesquicentennial observance of the Utah War. If I do it right, you won’t think you have learned a thing – merely recalled stories and facts that you have heard before but which may have become jumbled or faded in your memory.

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Heap high the farmer’s wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn!
No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn!

– John Greenleaf Whittier

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The New Era, November 1975

[The feedback I'm getting suggests that I should warn readers that the following article may be painful or disturbing, especially if you have lost or are threatened with the loss of a child. I chose it because it is so direct and candid, and because it memorializes the short life of a boy who otherwise would be invisible to our history. Do brace yourself, though, before reading it.]

These extracts from the 1884-85 diary of Lafayette Guymon have been selected and edited by his daughter Lucy.

Mancos, Colorado, Sept. 30, 1884

I believe I’ll try and keep a journal. Wish I’d kept one for many years past, but now I’ll try and record things as they happen to us.

My little Heber boy who is eleven years old does not act right. Phebe noticed it first. He eats well but acts so tired and, after I notice, he is pale.

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Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the creator triumphantly raise.
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who still guides us on to the end of our days.
His banners are o’er us, His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth through the night.
Till shadows are vanished and darkness is banished,
As forward we travel from light unto light.

His law He enforces, the stars in their courses,
The sun in his orbit, obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean proclaim Him divine.
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
In glad adoration a song let us raise
Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
“To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!”

– Katherine K. Davis

The Relief Society Magazine, November 1940

David J. Whittaker, curator of Mormon and western materials for L. Tom Perry Special Collections at BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library, has organized an exhibition and lecture series featuring the Thomas L. and Elizabeth W. Kane papers now housed at BYU.

Last Wednesday’s (November 12) lecture by Bill MacKinnon was the first of the series I had been able to attend (see this Juvenile Instructor post for the listing of past and future entries in the series). The lecture was held in the Lee Library auditorium; I estimate that about 150 people were there. The lecture was taped for future broadcast on KBYU. David J. Whittaker introduced Bill like the old friend that the two of them are, and Bill gave his lecture, entitled “Thomas L. Kane and the Utah War: BYU’s Kane Collection as Lodestone.”

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The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,
Ya-honk! he says,
and sounds it down to me like an invitation:
The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer,
I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky.

– Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
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The Children’s Friend, November 1964