Comments on: Snapshots of Mormon Life, 1938

By: bekah

bekah — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:57:52 +0000

Santa Catarina is one state north of where I served my mission, but part of the area of Brazil heavily populated by Europeans (hence all the blond children, a rarity in that country). I was surprised to see what a large group they had.

Thanks for all the fascinating photos!

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:02:17 +0000

We’re part of something truly magnificent, aren’t we?

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:55:16 +0000

I’m not an emotional person, but these pictures filled my heart with tremendous gratitude for my membership in the Church. Thank you.

By: Maurine

Maurine — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 05:17:46 +0000

I noticed a few rebels in the Pioneer Stake 4th Ward boys–a few colored shirts and a few long ties.

I liked the girl’s winning softball team, too. No long faces there.

I was born in 1939, so I loved these pictures. I especially liked the returned missionaries attending LDS Business College. They remind me of pictures of my parents and aunts and uncles about the time I was born (hair and clothes).

By: Steve C.

Steve C. — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:06:51 +0000

I like the Aaronic Priesthood, 4th Ward, Pioneer Stake (Salt Lake City) picture. Were those bow ties part of the “Deacon Uniforms” of the time? (There has been Keepa discussion about that.) The photo of the East German mission is interesting. That mission had been created on 1 January 1938 so it was just a few months old (although it was created from the German-Austrian mission). I should go through all my papers at my office to see if I have any information on the mission conference in Dresden. I would guess that most of the children in the Brazil primary were German-speakers since most of the early work done in Brazil was among the German-Brazilians.

By: JonW

JonW — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:27:30 +0000

Ok that is funny,
“Deacons of Pella, Idaho, working in Church beet fields”
Looking at the picture you can tell the boys are like all deacons so happy to be doing chores…

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:32:37 +0000

Hunter, virtually all of these come from the Improvement Era that year — it’s just a year I picked at random. As with the ward groups, I expect to do a number of similar posts from various years. I loved seeing how the photos changed in the magazines of the ’30s to include action shots and more variety in pose!

bekah, the state was something like Santa Catharina (I know zilch about Brazilian geography — does that ring a bell, even if I haven’t used the correct spelling of the name? I can look for it again but won’t have time today.)

Glad you’re liking these!

By: bekah

bekah — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:25:43 +0000

Any more info about the Primary in Brazil? Do you know what state they were in? The church was still pretty limited there in the 1930s (geogpraphically and due to restrictions on the priesthood), but while I was on my mission in 1996-7, I lived with an older sister who would have been in Primary at that time.

By: Hunter

Hunter — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:14:08 +0000

I think I enjoyed this set of photos from the past more than any other I’ve seen at Keepa. The variety of photos is huge and just plain a lot of fun. Each photo has so much to say. Thanks for this!

Ardis, was there anything special about submitting photos for the year 1938? In other words, were these photos all in one repository, or did you do a search among several sources? And if so, why 1938?

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:46:57 +0000

Yeah, we’re a busy, bright-looking bunch, ellen, aren’t we?

Clark, it’s just fate. Or you’re living right. Something. (I tend to choose pictures outside of Utah when available, just for the “exotic” effect. If you and your wife do have Utah grandparents, you should tell me where so that I stop discriminating against their local status.)

The Aaronic Priesthood leadership held a church-wide observance in 1938 commemorating the anniversary of the restoration (109th anniversary — not a major milestone, just something they wanted to do, I guess). There are brief reports of activities from all over. The one corresponding to your picture says:

Long Beach and Los Angeles Stake joined in an outing in Mocking Bird Canyon near Riverside. More than five hundred boys participated. The site was an old Indian Camp ground. A group of Indian boys from Sherman Institute, an Indian school for boys, made the day a real Lamanite celebration. Yakima, Shoshone, navajo, and Hopi Indians participated and in full regalia presented Indian dances and ceremonies.

A camp fire, a night in the hills, services, and a program of sports made what supervisors report the most successful event of the kind ever held in California.

All or nearly all of events reported from around the church involved a Lamanite theme. That couldn’t have been coincidence, but at the moment I don’t have information on planning the commemoration that would explain that theme.