United Kingdom, you will be assimilated!

This advert appeared in the Millennial Star in 1966:

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Angus Smith Hibbard (1860-1945) wrote the text to “Father in Heaven,” #133 in our hymnbook. A chorus from BYU-Idaho sang this hymn at last April’s General Conference (see YouTube link below).

Father in Heaven, In thy love abounding,
Hear these thy children thru the world resounding,
Loud in thy praises, Thanks for peace abiding,
Ever abiding.

Filled be our hearts with peace beyond comparing
Peace in thy world, and joy to hearts despairing.
Firm is our trust in thee for peace enduring,
Ever enduring.

God of our fathers, strengthen ev’ry nation
In thy great peace where only is salvation.
So may the world its future spread before thee,
Thus to adore thee.

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This post inaugurates an occasional series of related material from a year’s worth of the Church magazines and manuals.

These may be a year’s cover art which — like this entry — shares a common theme, or simply gives a clearer picture of the design trends of the times than a single month’s image could ever do. Other entries may be ad campaigns by a magazine’s regular sponsor, or music for the songs introduced in Sunday School singing practice, or featured recipes from a Relief Society homemaking class.

If you have suggestions for other cycles you’d like to see, please let me know.

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So, today at noon I finally got to teach the Sunday School lesson based on the rescue of the Martin and Willie handcart companies. After all of the drama kicked up by an earlier post regarding the manual’s single paragraph of historical error with a statement that could have sparked a doctrinally inaccurate discussion, I thought I owed it to anybody who cared to report how the lesson went in my ward. Don’t expect more drama, though – as I stated in comment 68 of that post, if all went as planned, there would be little to report.

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Adapted from Leaves from My Journal, by Wilford Woodruff; artwork by Douglas Johnson.

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Enjoy the humor of the Improvement Era of 1947 –

A Mouthful

“You take another mouthful like that,” said the stern father, “and you’ll leave the table.”

“Another mouthful like that, Dad, and I’ll be through, anyway.”

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Your ward may be asking you to prepare for the possibility of widespread illness this winter by keeping your refrigerator stocked with fresh food, your car’s tank filled with gasoline, your storeroom supplied with paper products – in short, living as if every day were the day after your regular errand day, so that if stores close due to illness, or you have to limit contact with people who may be ill, you’ll have the supplies for life to go on comfortably.

Can’t find Tamiflu for your private stock? I offer no warranty for the following substitutes, but I wonder if Brigham Young wouldn’t recommend his own home remedies –

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Gypsies, the Star Spangled Banner, oatmeal on the hands, and pimples (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Oh, and as usual, avoid constipation!  More advice from the “Girl Query” section of the Young Woman’s Journal:

“Bessie Van.” – To correct the roughness, and soften the hands, keep on the wash stand near the soap a dish of oatmeal or cornmeal, and rub freely on the hands after washing. Or, get a piece of pumice stone and rub the hands several times daily. At night anoint the hands with cream, mutton tallow, or honey, wearing a pair of loose gloves to protect the sheet. Mutton tallow is inexpensive and easily prepared. Get the real mutton tallow, put in a skillet over a slow fire and allow to melt thoroughly. Strain several times through cheese cloth, and when nearly cool beat with an egg beater until light and spongy. Add a few drops of perfume, put in jars and set in cool place. Avoid soaps containing alkali; to test, apply the tongue to it, if a burning taste, not good for the hands.

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We are a generation of superlatives — the best, the brightest, the generation kept in reserve for the last days. We are in pursuit of excellence, we look for Shakespeares and Miltons of our own. Thus on to eternal perfection, the honest and faithful will go!

But in the middle of the last century, we were modest enough for “adequate” to be a satisfactory descriptor.

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Everybody comments on the size of this volume; its weightiness, both physical and metaphorical, is inescapable. Other reviewers will do a more scholarly job of analyzing the contents. This is my idiosyncratic first impression of this beautiful book.

The left-hand side of every spread is a color photograph of a page from one of the two manuscript books used to record early revelations and commandments, with the right-hand side being a transcription of that manuscript page, line by line, each line of printed text breaking where the manuscript line breaks, insertions and overstrikes and erasures being marked on the text to mimic in type the handwritten page, as nearly as possible. The photographs are beautiful and clear, and I loved the detailed description in the forematter of how those photos were produced – the editors even tell us that the binding would not allow certain (identified) pages to lie flat, so archivists used small metal spatulas to hold the pages in place for photography (assuring us that no text was obscured in any case), then cloned color from the surrounding area to remove all visual trace of those spatulas.

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John M. Tippets is a proud Alaskan, although he and his family now call Texas home. Following his mission to Eastern Canada, John earned his B.S. and MBA degrees at the University of California, Los Angeles. He followed his father into aviation, and has recently retired from a long career in that industry. Last year he published his parents’ story as Hearts of Courage, which, while chiefly about his father’s incredible tale of survival in the Alaskan wilderness, also includes material on the formation of the first branch of the church in Alaska. He shares that story and pictures from the family photo album with Keepa readers today:

Joseph and Alta Mahoney Tippets had arrived in the northern frontier of Alaska in 1940 with great excitement. After a few months assigned to Yakutat, a small fishing village along the coast, Joe was transferred to the main Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) office in Anchorage.

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Fred Dankowske was a 12-year-old boy living in Chicago when he first heard of the Mormons: the newsboys calling the headlines one day in 1877 announced that Brigham Young, the Mormon king, was dead.

The news meant little to the Polish immigrant then, nor ten years later when he began working his way across the west, seeking adventure and looking for his place in the world. In 1890, his ramblings took him to Salt Lake City, where he went to a Mormon service for the first time.

What I heard at that service was not only a pleasing revelation to me, but convinced me beyond all question that all the anti-Mormon propaganda I had read and heard in the past was warped and false. This conviction reversed my views on Mormonism. Its edifying principles drew my profoundest admiration for the church and its people.

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Adapted from Leaves from My Journal, by Wilford Woodruff; artwork by Douglas Johnson.

previous installment

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Get Hep!

A visitor to an Indian trading post asked one of the clerks about the weather prospects for the following day. The clerk was unwilling to hazard a guess. But an old Indian standing around in the store volunteered, “Going to rain – much.” And it did.

During the downpour the visitor re-entered the store and sought out the native prophet. This time the Indian predicted “Clear and Cool.” Again he was correct.

When the question was repeated on the third day, the visitor received quite a shock. “Dunno,” chuckled the Indian. “Didn’t hear the radio today.”

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Do you remember feeling that it was, perhaps, just a bit crass when President Bush declared that the patriotic response to 9/11 — the way to show the terrorists that They.Would.Not.Win. — was to go on a shopping spree? Or perhaps that it was a tad counterintuitive to hear President Obama urge you to buy a new car rather than tighten your belt in the recent consumer credit crunch? (Note: I’m trying to be non-partisan here, and don’t want to spark a debate over current politics.)

Well, crass, counterintuitive, or not, it wasn’t the first time. Just think, sisters, you too could play an important role in World War II by giving your men something worth fighting for. And that something was …

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The Utah State History conference tonight made its annual awards, with two of the most prestigious going to William P. MacKinnon, a good friend and sometime Keepa participant and guest author. His awards:

Dale L. Morgan Award for his article “‘Sex, Subalterns, and Steptoe’: Army Behavior, Mormon Rage, and Utah War Anxieties,” published in Utah Historical Quarterly, Summer 2008.

Smith-Pettit Foundation Best Documentary Book in Utah History Award for his book At Sword’s Point, Part 1: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858, published by the Arthur H. Clark Company/University of Oklahoma Press.

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The Church Security Plan (now Welfare program) of the 1930s and beyond emphasized production and storage of essential goods against times of shortage, and meaningful employment for church members to support themselves and their families. The usual image of Mormon production from this period involves agriculture, sewing, and canning – but one project stands out dramatically from the backdrop of sugar beet fields and peach canneries:

In 1938, the church put out a request to deer hunters of the western states to save their deer hides and donate them to church members living at Washakie, Utah (in Box Elder County, near the Idaho line), all of whom were members of the Northwestern Band of Shoshone, a band that had joined the church en masse in the 1870s under the leadership of the warrior leader Washakie. These church members were practicing the ancient arts of tanning deer hides and producing fine buckskin clothing of the type their people had worn for uncounted generations, both for home use and for sale to an eager public.

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I don’t know why, yet, but we are, here. Become a fan, because … well, just because.

I’d like discussion of posts to remain here on the Keepa site as much as possible. If there’s something you’d like to have added to the Facebook page to make it useful to you, let me know.

The Sabbath quiet of the newly formed Mormon colony at Parowan, Utah, was shattered one morning by the arrival of Wakara, the most prominent of the Ute leaders, and a large contingent of his tribesmen, returning north after an expedition to the Colorado River.

In 1853, Wakara’s anglicized name, Walker, would become attached to a brief and bloody war between the Indians and the white settlers; previous clashes with Wakara over the Indian slave trade and payments made to the Utes for the use of natural resources had already taught the Mormons to be respectful and wary in their dealings with him. When they arrived at the log meeting house/schoolhouse in which church services were underway, Wakara and his brother Ammon – who, as his name suggests, had had extensive and far more friendly dealings with the Mormons – were ushered to seats in the front of the room, and invited to speak.

Wakara spoke, in Ute, translated by Ammon into very decent English. Wakara had heard of the frequent dances of the Mormons, he said. He wished to see such a dance, he said. Right now, he said.

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Ingvald Conrad Thoresen was three years old in 1855 when his parents, Hans and Karen Andersen Thoresen, were converted to the Church in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, and it wasn’t long before the small boy was called upon to make his first sacrifices for the gospel: Norwegians had not yet been granted religious freedom, and Hans, who was soon appointed baptist for the Saints in Christiania, was arrested for illegally baptizing converts. After each arrest, he served six- to ten-day prison sentences. Because his family was dependant on Hans’s daily labor as a cabinet-maker, these sentences meant hunger and want for the family. Hans, limited to a bread and water prison diet, hoarded his prison bread so that he could bring it home to his hungry children to tide them over until he could earn more.

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(See here for background, and here for an image of May, the MHA Presidential Seer Stone.)

Mormon History Association President Ron Romig has started a Facebook group to follow the travels of May, the MHA Presidential Seer Stone. By far the most exotic Seer Stone sightings have been made by Keepa’ninnies:

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As you’re no doubt aware, the earliest Mormon hymnbooks – like most hymn- and songbooks of that time – were published with words only, no tunes provided. People sang the words to whatever tunes they knew with compatible meters.

Some news accounts of Mormon meetings in England, aboard ship, and in the eastern U.S. mock our singing because words were put to tunes that fit – according to the meter, but not according to the mood. They laughed when texts speaking of sacred subjects were sung to popular, even drinking, songs. (To understand the effect, try singing “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” to the tune of “Oh, Susanna,” a tune apparently very popular among 19th century Mormons. It can be done, but the effect is ludicrous.)

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Adapted from Leaves from My Journal, by Wilford Woodruff; artwork by Douglas Johnson.

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Agreeable to Him

The chief officer of a United States Army recruiting station sat sunning himself in his chair, when a husky, country-appearing youth strolled into the quarters and stood gazing in admiration at the glittering sabers, belts and muskets which adorned the room.

“Well, sir?” spoke up the officer.

“I’d like to join the Army, sir,” said the young man, turning toward the speaker.

“Think you’d like army life, my boy?” queried the officer, in a fatherly tone, after a favorable glance over the youthful aspirant’s figure.

“I guess so. How much do you pay in the army?”

“Well, a private gets on an average $14 a month; a lieutenant $100, a captain $200, and so on!”

“I’ll join,” decided the applicant, throwing his cap on the officer’s desk. “Put me down for a captain!”

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The Sunday School lesson for most of us this Sunday will be Lesson 35, “A Mission of Saving,” illustrated chiefly by the rescue of the Martin and Willie handcart companies in 1856.

Because the story of this rescue is so well known – yet too often so badly misunderstood and misused – there will be a tendency to turn this lesson into something that is not intended. I hope here to offer some suggestions both for teachers and listeners – teachers, because you have the responsibility to teach truth; and listeners, because while it is not your right to take over a lesson, if you’re prepared you may be able to help guide class discussion in a way that is supportive of the teacher’s efforts while still managing to correct false doctrine if in fact it is suggested by anyone in the class.

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Like all the church magazines, The Children’s Friend published advertisements for some or all of its career. You might find a surprise from time to time — like this 1926 ad for lead paint (in a children’s magazine!) — but for the most part the ads are what you’d expect: Beneficial Life often took the back cover, Deseret Book and the Deseret News took slots, as did Z.C.M.I., Sears, and Auerbach’s department stores, and other local (Salt Lake City) businesses.

All of those advertisers were regular supporters of The Children’s Friend in 1949. So were Daynes Jewelers, and Vogeler’s, which seems to have been a local feed-and-seed store. Nothing unexpected there. What did surprise me, though, were these “games” that appeared in several issues of the magazine that year, mixed in with the stories, riddles, and connect-the-dot puzzles:

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A huge cake, dying your blouse using crepe paper, the joys of mutton tallow, and teaching children (and their fathers) good table manners. The “Girl Query” section of the Young Woman’s Journal to your rescue!

—oooOooo—

“Beatrice.” – A well-bred girl will not allow a young man to take undue privileges or liberties with her, or consent to automobile rides or afternoons alone with him far out in the country, even though they be betrothed. If a young girl is coy and careful of her affections, showing due self-respect, the young man’s admiration and love is only enhanced for her, and her happiness after marriage is doubly assured.

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Lorin F. Jones, accompanied by his wife Ivie Huish Jones, served as president of the Spanish-American Mission – with responsibility for all Spanish-speaking members and the proselytizing of Spanish speakers from California east through Texas and beyond – from 1943 through 1951. This couple was well prepared for their mission. Having grown up in the Mormon colonies of northern Mexico, and having fled Mexico in the Revolution to live in New Mexico, they spoke Spanish fluently and had experience with and sympathy for the difficult economic circumstances along the border.

The Joneses organized the first Spanish-American Mission Day in the Arizona temple (an event we should post here – it was a moving experience), and were later responsible for the first non-English language temple sessions conducted anywhere in the world. Sister Jones taught the members of her mission both the importance of and the practical skills necessary for recording genealogical information and taking family names to the temple – under her guidance, many thousands of ordinances were performed by members of the mission.

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For the first chapter in this drama, see here.

Saturday, September 5th, 2009.

The closer it got to the start of the celebration, the more nervous I became. There really is no way to predict how an event like this will run.

We were setting up a few finishing touches on the decorations when people began to arrive – exactly one hundred years since the box was sealed and the cornerstone was set. One lady who came was four months shy of her 100th birthday. I’m glad we had someone with a camera to interview her. Many former members came back, and a lot of curious people from the community helped us celebrate.

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Joseph Soderborg’s post revealing the contents of the Tenth Ward cornerstone will be up as soon as possible — once again, I’m wrestling with pictures. They’re worth it. Hang on!

The opening of September still feels like New Year’s to me, though it’s been eons since I walked off to school in pigtails with a pristine Pink Pearl eraser in my pocket. Heck, it’s even been years since September marked the significant beginning of a new TV season.

Still, I can’t help but want to make resolutions and get serious again about stuff I’ve let slide.

In that spirit of getting serious, won’t you please help me figure out what I should be concentrating on here at Keepa? You’d be especially helpful if you commented in greater detail on what you most like and what you think is a waste of time (I promise not to be offended … very). If you want most posts about the church in other countries, which countries? If you want more reviews, do you want them for new stuff, or old stuff you might have missed? Any specific requests for posts?

If this worked right, you should be able to mark multiple categories.

Thanks.

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