George D. Pyper (1860-1943) – member of the Tabernacle Choir, manager of the Salt Lake Theater, and General Superintendent of the Sunday Schools – tells this story about his time in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1897, when he was directing Utah’s exhibit at the Tennessee Centennial:

I had been pestered to death, as the saying goes, with the questions, “Are you a Mormon?” and “How many wives have you got?” so I thought I’d try an experiment, even though it might be a little dangerous. In the crowd visiting my booth was a very haughty but rather handsome woman, and the following conversation occurred:

“Are you from Utah?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

(more…)

Because he’s always good for riling up a discussion – we’ve read his ”Adjustment Problems of the Modern Woman” and his thoughts on the never-married in past posts – here are some questions from a family relations manual written by Harold T. Christensen (1909-2003), a sociologist who contributed his professional expertise to produce many of the church’s family relations material.

Also, because we tend to groan or laugh at his conclusions (and I’ve deliberately picked some bits for this post that I think we might be equally passionate about), I want to be sure we’re laughing at the way our understanding – or at least our way of expressing the issues – has changed, and that we’re not laughing at the author, who had excellent credentials for his day. A Memorial Resolution passed by the faculty of Purdue University upon Christensen’s 2003 death summarizes their respect for the man and his career. (It’s long — skip past it, but know that he was a respected scholar.)

(more…)

Inez Robinson Preece (1899-1985) was born into a musical and missionary Mormon family (her father was a one-time president of the California mission, and her grandfather had served in the British Mission, as well as being a professor of music in London). She herself was a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for at least 10 years, and began publishing church music when she was about 20 years old. Inez Jean Preece is probably her daughter, and is probably still living. The only bit of trivia I have learned about her so far was that her 1943 photo was carried by a soldier in the 1999 LDS film “The Last Good War,” representing his sweetheart.

Click here to hear Phantom’s recording of the melody.

(more…)

Thanks to an extraordinarily talented and generous Keepa reader, who shall be known for the time being only as “Phantom of the Chapel,” we can now hear beautiful sound recordings of the pieces posted on our early Advent calendar. This post will be updated in about a week with additional audio files, and I’ll update past posts to include individual recordings.

Thank you, Phantom, more than I can say.

(more…)

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

(more…)

Orson F. Whitney wrote a second Christmas song with the title of “A Stranger Star …” (different from the A Stranger Star we have seen in an earlier Advent post). This one was set to music by Edwin Francis Parry (1850-1935), who also wrote the music to “Hail to the Brightness of Zion’s Glad Morning” and “Oh, Holy words of Truth and Love.”

Click here to hear Phantom’s recording of this tune.

(more…)

More, more, more humor from the funny pages of the Improvement Era of 1947:

Lost Art

“Is it true,” the friend said to the art dealer, “that the picture you just sold that man was a genuine work of art?”

“I’m afraid not, but that story I told about it certainly was.”

(more…)

Here’s another piece composed by Willy Reske (1897-1991) of New York City. The music is dedicated to Claude Cyril Cornwall (1889-1983), originally from Salt Lake City and a member of the YMMIA General Board, who probably met Reske when Cornwall was based in Hoboken, New Jersey, from 1926-1933. During those years Cornwall was the recreation director aboard the S.S. Leviathan, one of the world’s great passenger liners … despite the American-registered ship’s legal requirement to comply with Prohibition.

Click here to hear “Christmas Carol” played by Keepa’s own “Phantom of the Chapel.”

(more…)

In Vietnam of the 1960s, the troops had a fatalistic, all-purpose phrase to express their horror, disgust, or even contempt: “There it is.” Platoon sergeants heard it as their grunts slogged past a body in a ditch; war correspondents reported it after listening to reactions to visits from the brass. The phrase popped into my head the other night when I unexpectedly had the chance to watch retrospectively a president of the United States and his secretary of defense bat around on national television the military fate of my lost youth.

The scene was the Oval Office. There, on July 2, 1965, Lyndon Baines Johnson rang up Robert Strange McNamara to compare notes on what both men referred to as a “helluva mess in Vietnam.” The issue du jour was whether and how best to escalate the American military presence in Vietnam from 75,000 to 150,000 troops against the background of an uninformed but restive public, a highly ambivalent Congress, and a hawkish political opposition led by Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon. McNamara’s advice – secretly recorded by LBJ and broadcast on PBS a few days ago – was to move forward with doubling America’s troop commitment but to begin to “educate” the public and rally Congress to the president’s side. McNamara’s mechanism for doing all this was to call up the reserves. LBJ grunted and kept his own counsel while he continued to worry the problem and shop for advice.

(more…)

The apostle Parley P. Pratt (1807-1857) was one of Mormondom’s first “native” poets and is the author of nine hymns in our current hymn book, including No. 1, “The Morning Breaks,” which opens every Sunday’s broadcast of “Music and the Spoken Word.” We met George Careless (1839-1932), early director of the Tabernacle Choir, in an earlier post of this series.

“All Hail the New-Born Year” addresses the millennial year but could just as fittingly be sung to welcome 2010. This scan comes from the Latter-day Saint hymnal of 1927.

(more…)

Thomas L. Kane, the 19th century Philadelphia lawyer for whom Utah’s Kane County was named, was moved by his humanitarian instincts to champion causes as varied as educational reform, the anti-slavery movement, and the troubles of the Mormons. Without Kane’s timely negotiations between Brigham Young and Alfred Cumming (the newly appointed governor of Utah encamped with the federal army at Fort Bridger in 1858), the Utah War could have been far more bloody than it was.

Kane’s wife Elizabeth would have preferred that her husband stay quietly at home in Pennsylvania, building his reputation as a civic leader and providing for her and their children. Understanding, however, that her husband’s temperament compelled him to such grand gestures, she stoically supported him when he hurried to Utah in 1858, and later when he raised, equipped, and commanded a Civil War regiment.

(more…)

From the Children’s Friend of sixty years ago –

Moiselle Renstrom (1889-1956), born in Huntsville, Utah, and teacher in the Utah school system, had a knack of writing short, simple songs that small children love to sing and act out. At least a dozen of her songs remain in the children’s song book today, among them –

“Jesus Said Love Everyone”  (treat them kindly too)
“Once There Was a Snowman” (snowman, snowman)
“A Happy Family” (“I love mother, she loves me”)
“Rain Is Falling All Around” (on the housetop, on the ground)

(more…)

Travel safely, enjoy your families, and catch up on Keepa next week.

Charles Hutchinson Gabriel (1856-1932), born in Iowa, lived and worked in Chicago and San Francisco, was a Methodist, a self-taught musician, and the composer of an estimated 7,000-8,000 gospel songs, hymns, and other church music. He is the author and composer of “I Stand All Amazed” in our hymnal, and this Christmas song first published in 1900 and printed in our Primary song book in 1939.

(more…)

Last January I wrote two posts featuring Walter Lee Noblin, a church member in South Carolina in the late 19th/early 20th century – first we read a letter featuring his testimony, then I used his life as a model to illustrate how we can find information about people to turn them from anonymous names on the page to brothers and sisters we care about.

That all just got a little more real, with this photograph of the gravestone of Walter Lee Noblin and his second wife, Stella Blanch Dial:

(more…)

Bits and pieces from LDS manuals and magazines of 1914, aimed at the boys and men of the church:

Loud Laughter

On the street corner, or other hoodlum rendezvous, and in the saloon, human voices are coarsened by ribaldry, even as they are first loosened by grog. Naturally all decent men and women condemn the excessive laughter of such places; but what of the noise and almost reckless abandon of our dances and other social gatherings?

“Perfectly innocent,” you say. Perhaps so; but even at that, not very cultured, to judge only by human standards of conduct; and when measured by the scriptural criterion of what a Latter-day Saint gathering should be, they all come under the condemnation, quoted at the head of this article [“therefore, cease from all your light speeches; from all laughter; from all your lustful desires; from all your pride and light mindedness, and from all your wicked doings.” – Doc. and Cov., 88:121] Pleasure – garish, flaunting, unrestrained – is both solo and chorus: you shall listen in vain for the subdued, spiritual pulsations of joy.

(more…)

Frances Kingsbury Thomassen Taylor (1870-1952) studied piano and organ at the University of Utah and Columbia. Among other church service, she was the Secretary of the Primary General board 1910-1918, and the long-time organist for the ward I attend now. She authored an entire volume of “Kindergarten and Primary Songs,” and is best remembered today for the Primary songs beginning “I’m so glad when Daddy comes home, glad as I can be …” and “I know a name, a glorious name, dearer than any other …”

This lullaby was published in the 1927 Primary song book.
(more…)

.
1915 was the first year the Juvenile Instructor used full-color covers. These images were purchased from an art supply house; most, but not all, are marked with the turn-of-the-century copyright of the “O. Co.” of New York City, and a few bear the names of artists.

.

.

(more…)

U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963. On this anniversary, and in light of the sick humor? even sicker sincerity? of the currently popular “Prayer for Obama,” consider Richard L. Evans’s words of tribute and prayer, broadcast with the music of the Tabernacle Choir in 1963:

The Passing of the President

With a sorrowing America, we join this day in mourning the passing of the President. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is mourned by unnumbered multitudes, not only here, but wherever there are knowing human hearts. In a short lifetime he realized an almost incredible accomplishment, and will be remembered unpredictably far into the future.

(more…)

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

(more…)

From the Juvenile Instructor of 1940 –

Embarrassing Moments

Miss Brown, a young and enthusiastic fourth grade teacher prided herself upon knowing by sight the parents of all her pupils.

One day she boarded a crowded street car and believing she saw one of the parents, she called out a cheery, “Good morning, Mr. James.” The gentleman addressed turned and she found that he was a stranger. Blushing rosily, she attempted an apology.

“I – I beg your pardon,” she stammered. “I thought you were the father of one of my children!”

(more…)

Lula Greene Richards (1849-1944) (have you noticed how long-lived some of our song writers are??), a great-niece of Brigham Young, sold the very first poem she ever offered to a newspaper. She was the first editor of The Woman’s Exponent, and a turn-of-the-century editor of the Juvenile Instructor. Her poetry appeared in virtually every church publication in existence during her lifetime.

We’ve already met Willy Reske, the German-born, New York City-based Latter-day Saint organist and composer.

(more…)

Wash your face with milk. Don’t use toothpicks in public. Serve cream and sugar with your rice.  And what if your brother doesn’t treat you right?  The “Girl Query” department of the Young Woman’s Journal has the scoop.

Oh, and avoid constipation.

—oooOooo—

“Betty.” – Massaging with face creams and using powder will not help a bad complexion. Too much powder will injure the skin, clog the pores, impair circulation, and in a way cause blackheads. Taking the proper foods and drinks will do much more to insure a beautiful complexion. Drink milk, which is a beautifier, eat plain nourishing foods, avoiding much meat, pastry, and pickles, and eating freely of green vegetables, fresh fruits, wheat cereals, eggs, etc.

Drink much water daily, also drinks made from fruit juices. Go to bed early so as to get your “beauty sleep.” A girl of your age requires nine hours undisturbed sleep. Washing the face with milk once daily will tend to make the skin smooth and white, if the general health is good. Avoid constipation.

(more…)

Mary Hale Woolsey (1899-1969) and Robert Sauer (1873-1944) are the same Mormon poet and composer team responsible for “Springtime in the Rockies” discussed in an earlier post.

This Christmas carol was published in the Young Woman’s Journal of December 1924.
.

.

(more…)

You might remember Kedzie Noble Winnie, the young man baptized in the Bering Sea in 1902, by Edward G. Cannon. His was the first known baptism in Alaska. Kedzie assisted Elder Cannon in preaching the gospel in Nome until Elder Cannon passed away in 1910 – and now we know that he continued as a missionary even after he was left alone.

On 8 January 1912, Elder Winnie wrote to Salt Lake with his report on recent activities in Alaska. A Methodist minister had recently appeared there, he said, a Rev. Baldwin, whose first sermons concerned the wickedness of the Mormons and supported the Spaulding theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon. Elder Winnie reported that the preacher had served him by the laying on of hands – that is, when Elder Winnie challenged Rev. Baldwin’s claims about the Book of Mormon, Rev. Baldwin took hold of Elder Winnie and physically pushed him out of the building.

(more…)

Willy Reske (1897-1991), the arranger of this traditional French carol, was a German-born convert to the church who emigrated from Königsberg to New York City in 1926. He was a professional organist, playing for 33 years for St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, while also serving in leadership positions in the Manhattan/Brooklyn branches/wards. He is the composer of two hymns in our current hymnal (“Thy Servants Are Prepared” and “God’s Daily Care”) as well as hundreds of other compositions that have been used in the Church — he was, for instance, the composer of the prelude/postlude music used in connection with the Sacrament Gem in Sunday School, composing new music for that purpose month after month, year after year.

This carol arrangement was published in the Instructor in November, 1940.

(more…)

From the Instructor, January 1939 –

(more…)

Reminder: This event is scheduled for this Friday, November 20.

Through the words of this witty woman poet come insights into the daily life, the courage and ambitions of early Utah people. Jill and Karen highlight the features, the fame, and even the fun of Eliza’s writings. They have arranged for talented musicians to help interpret her lyrics. This will be an evening of ideas and sociability. Free admission.

(more…)

Concert recitations, like 2-1/2 minute talks and Sacrament Gems, were a longstanding feature of pre-block meeting Sunday School. Their purpose was to plant a few additional scripture verses in the memories of older children and teens, especially those who were prospective missionaries.

Each class was assigned a verse or two of scripture to prepare as a recitation, two to four times per year. The scriptures were chosen by the General Sunday School Board based on the course of study of the class, and published in the Instructor a month or two before the recitation was to be given. The assigned class memorized the scripture, reciting it in class each week for about a month.

Then, on Fast Sunday, as part of the opening exercises, the assigned class would rise together and recite the scripture and its citation in unison (“in concert”), from memory.

(more…)

Have I mentioned that Mormon composer Evan Stephens was prolific? Here’s another one from his pen, both words and music. It appeared in the 1942 Relief Society Songs book.

(more…)