Comments on: I Have a Question, 1899

By: Curt A.

Curt A. — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:18:14 +0000

Ardis,
There were no form letters, and I got the impression we were to come up with an answer for everything, even those that started with:”Send you all you have on my great-great”, etc. I dealt with several where they wanted info on the missionary service of a grandfather, but no name was given. But the craziest I handled was:

“My grandmother says her great-grandfather (name given) pushed a wheelbarrow from Illinois out west. I heard that’s what the Mormons did when they were searching for a place to settle. Was he a Mormon?” It was easy just looking in the Mormon Overland Travel database, and not finding him, just writing :”We have no record of …..”

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:40:39 +0000

I don’t doubt that, FHL! As a patron at the Church History Library, of course I’m not privy to the questions that come in or the answers that go out. Under recent crowded conditions, though, I couldn’t help but overhear some questions at the desk, or overhear missionaries struggling with how to find answers to bizarre questions. (I think they shouldn’t even try; some questions are so bizarre that they merit nothing more than a form letter stating that the question is outside the scope of the reference desk.)

Some of my favorites:

1. How many of Helaman’s warriors were married, and how many were single?

2. When the Jaredites made bread, did they use sprouted, or unsprouted, grain?

3. I heard that the Hotel Utah was built using funds loaned by European financiers, and that one condition of the loans was that the hotel always maintain a brothel for the use of the visiting lenders. Do you still have a brothel there now that you use the hotel for a church?

By: FHL

FHL — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:00:22 +0000

Ardis, my brother-in-law used to work in reference at the COB and now works in reference (I think?) at the BYU library. He said he got all sorts of crazy questions.

By: Maurine

Maurine — Fri, 29 May 2009 05:07:11 +0000

Well said, Ardis, especially when the same people are late every week. One of our Gospel Doctrine teachers comes late every week, along with her older children and married son and daughter-in-law who lives with her. Many years ago her husband gave up and now he arrives to church fifteen minutes early. Although he doesn’t doggedly save the seats by him for his family, everyone in the ward knows they will show up. Once in awhile when we have visitors who sit in “their” seats, it is comical to watch the late-comers come in, walk to their bench, get a surprised look on their faces, then try to find other seats. I have yet to see them arrive on time during the four years we have been in the same ward. I will add that this person is one of my best friends.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:56:48 +0000

Guilt-tripping doesn’t work with punctuality any more than it does with family history, eh?

By: kevinf

kevinf — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:52:31 +0000

In the first question, this goal is stated:

a more punctual and prompt attendance might be secured

My experience says we’re still looking for the answer to that particular question. Perhaps it is time to indulge in n “wild speculations and all sorts of fancies” about that one.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:48:40 +0000

I’m not familiar with that fireside, Coffinberry. Can you summarize it, or point me toward something more about it?

By: Coffinberry

Coffinberry — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:31:59 +0000

represents truthfully the person or the time that the wearer has in mind

Wow. That put me in mind of Elder Bednar’s recent CES fireside address on truth.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:36:19 +0000

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the reference staff for stirring up business for them ... FHL, very often people do contact the Church History Library to ask questions, some of them doctrinal rather than historical questions. Such questions are usually farmed out to the many senior missionaries assigned to the library; there is some sort of supervision by staff, but I don't know how much vetting of answers is really done or how official or reliable they should be considered. Still, you can ask a librarian and get some sort of reply. (Wait until the library reopens on June 22 to ask anything; you'll only get an automated ask-us-later response if you were to ask anything right now.)

By: FHL

FHL — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:14:00 +0000

As long as we’re talking about blogging…

…not indulging in wild speculations and all sorts of fancies concerning things about which the Lord has not given His word.

It’s pretty cool that people could write in questions and get answers like these. What do people do now, call the reference folks at the Church Office Building? (No, of course not. First, they search Wikipedia.)