The lessons in the manual for weekly Melchizedek Priesthood quorum study in 1953 are so unexpected, at least to me, that I didn’t think you’d believe me without a scan. Here are the cover, the preface, and the table of contents.
The Baltic seaport of Klaipėda, Lithuania, was under the political control of Prussia/Germany for much of its 800-year history, when it was known as Memel. During the 19th century and up to the end of World War I its inhabitants were mostly ethnic Germans rather than Lithuanians. Political realignments after the Treaty of Versailles caused most of Memel’s German inhabitants to migrate to Germany proper; the ethnic shift was virtually complete at the end of World War II.
LDS missionary work in Lithuania dates to the early 1990s, and we have enjoyed some success there in the years since. There was an earlier LDS presence in the region, though, the memory of which has been all but lost in the shift from German to Lithuanian ethnicity.
Kimi Yamada was eleven years old in 1907, and had attended the LDS missionaries’ Sunday School for a year and a half. She was not a member of the Church, and I do not find a record of her ever having been baptized.
The aunt with whom she lived told the missionaries that Kimi knelt in prayer every night and morning, and “is so earnest in her prayers that she will not say good morning or anything else to us before she says her prayers to God.”
Her letter to the Juvenile Instructor was translated by Elder Alma O. Taylor, who explained one part of Kimi’s letter by saying that the little girl had objected to a Methodist teacher’s denial that Joseph Smith had seen God. His diaries — available online at the BYU library — refer to Kimi’s participation in Sunday School, her singing with a small group of girls on special programs, and her glee at a Christmas party given by the elders.
The New York Picayune, in weekly publication from 1847 through 1859, began life as a comic newspaper chiefly dedicated to selling its founder’s patent medicines. While it always retained its focus on humor – political cartoons, spoofs of great literature, social satire – I think it must also have dealt with straight news on occasion. At least, my sarcast-o-meter can detect no double entendres in the following piece published in early 1851.
Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if its editor’s sympathetic opinion of the Mormons was built on the evident character and sincerity of Latter-day Saint John M. Bernhisel, in town that winter tasked with the selection of a library for the Territory of Utah.
As visionary as its writer was, he didn’t foresee the half of it …
At least, I don’t think we see ads like these from 1964 and 1965 anymore — do builders still advertise by using the pictures of LDS buildings they have helped to construct? (more…)
While this year’s Lesson 4 focused on the Book of Mormon and Lesson 9 will include the formal organization of the Church, I have chosen these lessons from 1934 concerning the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the organization of the Church because so many parts of these lessons deal with the receiving of revelation, in keeping with our lesson next week. (Again, a reminder that old lessons posted here may not represent current historical scholarship; that is particularly true with some details of the 1934 lessons. On the other hand, one 1934 lesson does cite from the Journal of Discourses and does discuss seer stones – when is the last time you heard mention of those in Sunday School?)
Mission President Charles A. Callis published a wonderful little booklet in 1921 to preserve the songs being written and sung by his elders. His Preface reads:
A few words relative to the origin and use of the “Old-Time Southern States Missionary Songs.” They were written by Elders during their missionary days in Dixie. In response to numerous requests these songs are now compiled and published. … It is not intended that they be sung at religious services in lieu of the “strong, stalwart hymns of the present dispensation” which are in our hymn books.
President Callis alludes to an appeal by B.H. Roberts, an earlier president of the same mission, in his 1907 work, Seventies’ Course in Theology, First Year: (more…)
Earlier this week I posted a letter written by Walter Lee Noblin, with the comment that his letter represented one of those pieces “that I can’t really develop into stories.” Maurine commented, “I find myself wanting to know more about Walter and his parents, like who baptised them? Are there others in the family who were converted?” Another reader remarked to me in person that he wanted to know what had happened to Walter after the date of his letter.
Well, I was premature in saying that Walter’s letter couldn’t be developed into a story.
He was no coward; nay, rather, men had even called him brave. At the peril of his life he had stopped runaway horses, had plunged into the sea to rescue a child from drowning, and had gallantly charged up San Juan Hill in the face of the Spanish bullets. But now his face paled and he trembled.
“I dare not,” he muttered. “But,” he added resolutely, “since she whom I vowed to love and cherish has asked it of me, I will not falter.”
So, with calm courage and a resolute mien he descended to the kitchen to discharge the cook.
This year’s Gospel Doctrine course based on the Doctrine and Covenants has sent me to the bookshelves to see how previous generations taught those lessons.
The lesson for the upcoming Sunday covers everything from public reaction to Joseph’s telling of his vision, through Moroni’s visits, the translation of the plates, the history of the lost 116 pages, and the experiences of the Witnesses. The real purpose of the lesson, though, is to inspire class members to read the Book of Mormon and pursue a testimony of its divinity.
Lessons from the past tend to focus almost exclusively on the history, and to spend many class periods, not just one, on the events covered by this week’s lesson. (more…)
Walter Lee Noblin (1878-1936) would have been about 30 years old when he wrote this letter to the Juvenile Instructor. The parents he mentioned were William Henry Noblin (1851-1910) and Margaret Catherine Hughes Noblin (1855-1935).
Here’s an opportunity for someone to make an unusual contribution to Mormon Studies, in an easy way if you’re in the right place to investigate: A Greek language newspaper, The Atlantis (I have no idea what the title would look like in Greek), published in New York City, printed a series on Mormon history illustrated by cartoon strips, in six consecutive issues, May 22-27, 1931. Find a run of the papers and get clear copies, and you’d have the basis of an interesting article.
The text accompanying the illustrations was translated by Peter Spero Marthakis, a non-Mormon member of Salt Lake City’s Greek community during much of the first half of the 20th century:
This week’s post on the 1960s “Era of Youth” section of the Improvement Era reproduced a particularly poor issue — in my opinion — of a mini-magazine aimed at the youth of the Church which was representative — in my opinion — of the fluff constituting many “Era of Youth” sections, especially in the early part of the decade. Other issues had much more substance, especially as the decade went on.
The pages posted below are the full October 1968 “Era of Youth” which represents — in my opinion — one of the better issues, one that foreshadows the New Era that would follow in 1971:
Tahauri a Hutihuti was born in 1882 on the island of Takaroa, in the Tuamotu Islands – the same specks of volcanic rock in the Pacific where Pahoa a Tahiaroa served as governor, and where the cyclone of 1903 swept a hundred Latter-day Saints to their deaths. Tahuari was a pearl-shell diver; whether or not he was among the divers on Hikuero at the time of the cyclone, I do not know.
When Tahauri was baptized in 1893, or when he married Pipi Tehetu Tetoka in 1903, it probably never occurred to him that he might one day go to a Latter-day Saint temple – in that era, temples existed only in Utah. The temple at Laie, Hawaii, was dedicated in 1919, but that was still so far away as to be impossible to reach. Nevertheless, in 1933, six years after his wife died, Tahauri began to save his money in the hope of someday going to a temple and being sealed to his family.
The Improvement Era began publication in November 1897 as the official organ of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations. The Young Woman’s Journal, in print since October 1889 as the organ of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Associations, merged with the Era in November 1929 to become the “Organ of the Priesthood Quorums, the Mutual Improvement Associations and the Schools of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” The magazine appeared monthly until December 1970, and was replaced the following month by The Ensign and The New Era.
Popular stories of the 19th century had it that Brigham Young had so many children that he couldn’t even recognize them when he met them on the street:
Riding in the outskirts of the city one day, Brigham Young came upon two boys fighting. Descending from his carriage, he boxed their ears, and asked them whose boys they were. “Mother says we’re Brigham Young’s,” whimpered one of the boys. [See “The Puissant Procreator,” Sunstone Magazine, November-December 19__, for this and other examples.]
Speaking of revelation in his April Conference talk of 1946, future church president Harold B. Lee said,
As the Latter-day Saints go home from this conference, it would be well if they consider seriously the importance of taking with them the report of this conference and let it be the guide to their walk and talk during the next six months. These are the important matters the Lord sees fit to reveal to this people in this day in the year 1946.
So … It’s been three months since October Conference, 2008. Are you walking and talking with the major talks of that Conference enough to recognize them by their key words?
The lecture series sponsored by BYU’s L. Tom Perry Special Collections library, entitled “‘In Honorable Remembrance’: Thomas L. Kane and the Latter-day Saints,” continued yesterday with a dual lecture by Lowell “Ben” Bennion and Thomas R. Carter.
Their lecture, “Twelve Mormon Homes: Touring Utah with Elizabeth & Thomas Kane in 1872-73″, uses as a launch point Elizabeth Kane’s two books about her family’s visit to Utah, which included a wintertime trek to the southern settlement of St. George. The two books, Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona and A Gentile Account of Life in Utah’s Dixie are out of print but are standard catalog items for large Utah libraries and are available as used copies at moderate prices from Amazon and no doubt also from your favorite used book dealer specializing in Mormon items.
You might think that after my last experiment with a recipe found in an old church magazine – an unfortunate incident necessitating a moon-suited HazMat crew to dispose of leftovers – I would have learned my lesson. But indeed, I have not. The nightmares faded. I was tempted by an empty stomach and the siren call of the unknown, and yea, verily, I did fall.
The December 1966 issue of the Improvement Era era offers a collection of holiday recipes, and this one – Cranberry Pudding – caught my eye. I like fresh cranberries. I had a few packages in the freezer where I had stashed them after buying an abundance during the few holiday weeks when they are available in the grocery store.
The Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah announces the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation Fellowship in Mormon Studies for 2009-2010.
These fellowships, to be awarded to two qualifying graduate students “of unusual ability and achievement” for the 2009-2010 academic year, are full time research, writing, and speaking positions, complete with stipend and office. Writes Paul Reeve, (more…)
I’m looking for input to help me with a future post. This poll is not so much about the Civil Rights Act itself as it is about our expectations concerning the Mormons of 1964: How do you think they thought about the legislation?
You can see the results as they come in, and of course you may comment if you wish. But the real purpose of this poll is to help me with a future post, so I won’t be adding anything more right now.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Anglo-Irish author of more than 60 plays and winner of both the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925, for the totality of his literary contributions rather than for any specific work) and an Academy Award (Oscar) (1930, for Pygmalion), as well as prolific producer of literary and music criticism, focused most often on social issues. He supported equality of political rights for women and protested what he saw as exploitation of workers; his socialist idealism was bone-deep, to the point where he refused to believe news of famine in the supposed agrarian paradise of the Soviet Union, despite all evidence of that system’s failures.
Dresden, Germany was the site of two international hygiene exhibitions (1911 and 1930), World’s Fair-class exhibits dedicated to both the scientific and popular presentation of all issues relating to hygiene: biology, medical advances, mental health, nutrition, disease prevention, exercise, demographics, workplace safety, public morality, child welfare, anything remotely connected to human health.
Before anyone is sidetracked by wondering: The museum (at right) built for the 1930 exhibit was seized in 1933 by the Nazi Party and its mission was corrupted into racial propaganda; in 1930, though, the displays and goals of the museum were professional, scientific, and comparatively free from political taint. There were presentations on eugenics and racial politics, true, but those topics played small roles in the legion of hygienic displays, and were the subjects of world-wide study independent of what would shortly play out in Germany.
Who remembers the release of the new edition of the scriptures in 1979 and 1981? I do. This announcement of the 1921 re-issue of the Book of Mormon resonated with my own memories of a new edition.
It has ever been the desire of readers of the Book of Mormon, especially of its devoted readers and students, to see it improved typographically, and in general and mechanical makeup. Several efforts have been made to issue it in better form. Some of these were successful, others apparently were not fortunate. The first edition, printed at Palmyra, in 1830, was in large type on very good paper and made a well proportioned and very presentable volume, superior to several editions that have followed it, both in America and Europe, which were made to reduce the size of the book when bound, and also its cost, so that a wider sale and distribution of it could be effected.
Our great-grandparents laughed in the face of danger and whistled past the graveyard in these Juvenile Instructor jokes from the last year of the Great War. Will we pull humor from the hard times of our own era?
Sudden Fortune
Two young Irishmen in a Canadian regiment were going into the trenches for the first time, and their captain promised them a dollar for every German they killed.
Pat lay down to rest, while Mike performed the duty of watching. Pat had not lain long when he was awakened by Mike’s shouting:
“They’re coming! They’re coming!”
“Who’s coming?” shouted Pat.
“The Germans,” replied Mike.
“How many are there?”
“About fifty thousand.”
“Begorra,” shouted Pat, jumping up and grabbing his rifle, “our fortune’s made.”
The Baltic seaport of Klaipėda, Lithuania, was under the political control of Prussia/Germany for much of its 800-year history, when it was known as Memel. During the 19th century and up to the end of World War I its inhabitants were mostly ethnic Germans rather than Lithuanians. Political realignments after the Treaty of Versailles caused most of Memel’s German inhabitants to migrate to Germany proper; the ethnic shift was virtually complete at the end of World War II.
The lecture series sponsored by BYU’s L. Tom Perry Special Collections library, entitled “‘In Honorable Remembrance’: Thomas L. Kane and the Latter-day Saints,” continued yesterday with a dual lecture by Lowell “Ben” Bennion and Thomas R. Carter.
Dresden, Germany was the site of two international hygiene exhibitions (1911 and 1930), World’s Fair-class exhibits dedicated to both the scientific and popular presentation of all issues relating to hygiene: biology, medical advances, mental health, nutrition, disease prevention, exercise, demographics, workplace safety, public morality, child welfare, anything remotely connected to human health.
Our great-grandparents laughed in the face of danger and whistled past the graveyard in these Juvenile Instructor jokes from the last year of the Great War. Will we pull humor from the hard times of our own era?