Our current manual covers Noah, the flood, and the Tower of Babel in a single lesson, with the stated purpose that “class members [will] desire to live worthily [interpreted, according to the illustrative material, as obeying God through the medium of a modern prophet] and avoid the evils of the world [interpreted as avoiding punishment for sin].” The 1930 manual, while drawing the same basic morals, is a little less black and white, a little more thought provoking.

The Noah lesson, for instance, raises but does not attempt to answer the physical difficulties of a literal universal flood and the housing of the animals. The old lesson asks class members to consider what his ancient neighbors thought of Noah, and where he found the strength to walk with God in the midst of an ungodly society. The lesson on the Tower of Babel approaches the Old Testament as a text with its own ancient audience and purpose; it teaches in simplified style that out of all the materials available to him, Moses selected the items that were of most use to his people at the time, to mold them into a separate nation apart from the other peoples of the world and to hold themselves aloof from the world in order to live a godly life.

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Artwork by Nelson White; text by unknown author

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Time Element

Two men were seriously discussing Biblical matters, when one declared, “Did you know that Jonah was three days in the stomach of a big fish they call the whale?”

Sam looked disgusted. “That ain’t much,” he said. “My uncle was longer than that in the stomach of a big animal they call the alligator.”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed the first. “How long?”

“He’s there yet!” answered Sam.
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Born into slavery in Kentucky in 1842, Allen Allensworth escaped to serve as a hospital steward with a Union army unit during the Civil War. Before the war was over, he joined the Navy, becoming a chief petty officer aboard a gunboat on the Ohio River.

The young man seized every opportunity for the education denied him as a child, and by 1870 became a teacher himself. He was ordained a minister in 1871, served from Kentucky in the Electoral College of 1880, and in 1886 was appointed chaplain of the 24th U.S. Infantry, an African American unit.

The 24th was transferred to Utah’s Fort Douglas in 1896, a transfer harshly condemned by the Salt Lake Tribune.

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In celebration of today’s bright blue sky, what could be more wholesome, more glittering and pure, than crystallized sunshine?

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Very early in the 20th century, leaders of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association addressed a lack they saw in the education of the young women of the church — girls who had been reared in “pioneer circumstances” according to a later entry in this series. The course of study they developed, of which this is the introduction, aimed to teach the girls the elements of polite society: home life, dress, travel, public behavior, entertaining, shopping, everything.

I’ve hesitated to post these lessons. I think they’re fascinating, but some readers’ first inclination may be to mock them as irrelevant. After all, since young women don’t wear big hats anymore, any specific instruction about big hats was transitory and therefore, perhaps, trivial. There is a tendency to dismiss any instruction in etiquette as a relic of an unenlightened, unegalitarian age, of no value.

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“I endorse it with all my heart,” Heber J. Grant said. “This is one of the greatest days of my life.”

That’s oddly strong support for a commercial movie featuring a not-entirely-accurate version of Mormon history – but that’s probably because President Grant remembered 1922’s viciously anti-Mormon propaganda film Trapped by the Mormons. In fact, he had been so concerned over the possible direction of 1940’s “Brigham Young” that he assigned Apostle John A. Widtsoe as a special ambassador to the project. Elder Widtsoe hosted Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield on an automobile tour through Utah with emphasis on Temple Square and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Such good relations were established that when church leaders suggested corrections to the storyline, their views were considered and sometimes implemented.

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For a dozen years or so, dozens of church service missionaries (under the overall supervision of Mel Bashore, and for at least six years under the day-to-day development of missionaries Judy and David Wood) have worked to identify all Mormon pioneers who gathered to Zion, whether from east or west, before the 1869 completion of the transcontinental railroad. J. Stapley has written a great overview of the resulting Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel database as Beautiful Are the Feet.

Perhaps two-thirds of the pioneers have been identified and placed in their travel companies, but thousands remain to be found, usually one traveler or one family at a time. Whenever I run across a reference to the date someone arrived in Utah, I’m in the habit of checking the database to be sure they are listed. Usually they are. But when they are not, I always spend a few minutes or a few hours finding sufficient information to list them. Some people like crosswords or soduku; I like solving the puzzles of the pioneers.

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Stephen Andrew Childers, age 20, might have liked to have been at home in Alton, Illinois, when his little brother James turned 12 late in 1960. But he couldn’t be there, so he wrote a letter:

Dear Jim. Happy birthday! How does it feel to be twelve? if I were home, it would feel painful in a certain spot, understand?

By the time you get this you will be twelve. This is an important time in your life because you will be able to hold the priesthood now.

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Artwork by Nelson White; text by unknown author

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My outline prepared for teaching Sunday School this morning. We didn’t get to nearly all of the questions prepared because the discussion was very good, but I like to have more questions in mind than we can get to, or in case discussion shifts in a direction other than the one I expected. Today’s chief challenge was getting class members to stop when they reached the end of revealed truth, and not continue on with folklore of the past or private speculation — why are so many Latter-day Saints reading near-death experiences of Protestant ministers and wanting to share the wacky ideas of said ministers?

Purpose

To help each class member understand that the Fall was a necessary part of Heavenly Father’s plan for us.

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Lesson 5 is built around two scriptural stories, one (Cain) illustrating the consequences of choosing an evil path, and the other (Enoch) illustrating the rewards of choosing a righteous path. In 1980, those concepts appeared in two successive lessons.

Genesis 4-5; Moses 5:14-6:24

Objective

Class members will more clearly understand the concern the Lord has for each of his children as is shown and thus why he gives them the law of acceptable sacrifice.

Suggested Lesson Development

Introduction

From the very foundation of human history the lord instituted the law of sacrifice. This law has continued throughout the various dispensations, though it appears to have undergone some changes.

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Dumb, dumber, and dumbest, from the church magazines of 1933 –

Kith and Kin

Father: “What did you and Joe talk about last night, dear?”

Daughter: “Oh, we talked about our kith and kin.”

Small Brother: “Yeth, pop, I heard ’em. He seth, ‘Kin I have a Kith?’and she seth, “yeth, you kin.’”

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LDS Business College, the last remnant of the old Latter-day Saints University, remains in operation today, now in quarters only two or three years old (North Temple and 300 West, Salt Lake City). In 1944 and for years before and after, they were housed in the original LDSU building facing the temple, on the block now occupied by the LDS Church Office Building tower — the December ad shows the front of their building, and the June ad includes a creatively framed photograph of the gardens shared by the old Church Administration Building and the Hotel Utah, suggesting a wide park-like expanse which really was limited to the landscaped interior of a single city block. (Of course, Business College students also had easy access to the gardens at Temple Square right across the street.)

Here is their advertising campaign for1944, tied closely to the ongoing World War II.

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A few years before my Aunt Dorothy Streeper passed away, she took me into her bedroom and handed me a shawl that she retrieved from her dresser drawer. This was a shawl, she said, belonging to my second great-grandmother, Mary Haskin Parker Richards, given to her by her husband, Samuel Whitney Richards when he was in Scotland on his mission.

Mary

Mary was born 8 September 1823 in Chaigley, Lancashire, England to John Parker and Ellen Heskin. Most of the Parker family were converted to the LDS Church and were baptized in 1838 when Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Joseph Fielding, and Willard Richards were proselyting around the River Ribble.

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Winter has kept most Keepa readers in the deep freeze for weeks, my Facebook friends are slipping and falling, and if I had a toboggan I could probably sail from my front door to the door of the Church History Library in a fraction of the time it takes me to pick my way gingerly over unshoveled walks.

It’s time to put a brave face on again and remember that winter can be fun — FUN, I tell you! — especially when we were children who didn’t have to commute over icy roads, or when we were young and/or romantic.

Here’s a song about that kind of winter, with words and music by prolific Mormon composer Evan Stephens, recorded especially for Keepa by our own Phantom of the Chapel. Enjoy — and be careful out there.

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This is too fun not to share (with her permission): Keepa’ninny Bessie, who admits to having a little too much time on her hands in the last couple of days, has cut out and put together the building models shown in last week’s Build Your Very Own Salt Lake City, ca. 1941 post, from the Salt Lake Temple down to the greenhouse, from the Social Hall to Primary Children’s Hospital. (She recommends that you not try to do this during a business meeting.)

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Pictures from our family photo album of 1921:

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Montpelier Stake, Idaho
Fathers and Sons Outing

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We’ll have another, more substantial post up in a few hours – I need to check an item or two at the library first. In the meantime, maybe you’ll enjoy this poem written by 16-year-old Hazel Workman (later Walker, 1902-1980), of Hurricane, Utah, describing another time like the season we are passing through now.

“Flu” Time

Long weeks ago, in days of old,
When we could walk through town at will,
When those you met were not disguised,
And everything was not so still –

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Formalized auxiliary lessons were still in their developmental infancy when this lesson was published in 1901. Even so, the lesson takes the approach favored in today’s manual: A focus on the scriptural account from the Pearl of Great Price, cross-referenced to both Old and New Testaments and the Book of Mormon, with some explanatory narration and questions, making the identical points taught today. This year’s lesson even includes a point-by-point catechism of doctrinal points to be extracted from the story – which in this 1901 lesson is called “What We May Learn from This Lesson.”

Although not as prominent in this old lesson as it is in the modern manual, both lessons remind class members that the atonement of Christ is the antidote to the fall of Adam and Eve.

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I fear that this 13-part series will be a disappointment after the charm of the Wilford Woodruff mission cartoons — there are no cliffhangers, no Teflon suits, no coordinating of the story with Bruce Crow’s intimate familiarity with local history. Still, it might be fun to follow on its own merits. The style will change in an installment or two to include more text in perhaps a slightly higher reading level, making it suitable for older children who like to read as well as young ones who like to color.

The artist, Nelson White, was a frequent contributor to the Children’s Friend — we’ve seen some of his work here before, in the 1952 Children’s Friend covers. Otherwise I know nothing about him; I’ll try to find out more during the course of this feature.

No author is named for the text. The series was published in the Children’s Friend.

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From the church magazines of 1950 (I know that you know that, but I always worry about someone who stumbles on these for the first time and wonders what in the heck they have to do with Mormon history) –

One of those sweet helpless things had just bought a postage stamp. “And must I stick it on myself?” she asked.

“Oh, no, ma’am,” said the obliging postal clerk, “it will do more good if you stick it on the envelope.”

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Reality TV isn’t an invention of the 1990s – it dates back to the earliest days of television and shows like “Queen for a Day” (broadcast nationally by NBC from 1956 to 1960, after ten years on radio and local television). On that show, host Jack Bailey interviewed contestants, extracting all the tearful details of their unhappy lives, as those contestants explained why a new washing machine or a weekend in Las Vegas would help them cope with unemployed husbands, crippled children, and house fires. The contestant with the most pitiable story, sobbed out in the most engaging manner, was rewarded by the highest score on the audience applause-meter and was crowned Queen for a Day. Seated on a throne, cloaked in satin and fur, with a sparkly crown on her head, the Queen received the item she had asked for, together with a boatload of other “fabulous prizes” donated by the show’s sponsors.

Near the end of July, 1956, a dark-haired young woman from Oklahoma stood in line day after day, hoping for a ticket into the studio and an interview with producers. When she won a spot on the show on Thursday, August 2, and Jack Bailey asked her to tell her story, she looked through the camera and into living rooms all across America.

“I want to know, Who am I?”

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Trading in your brother’s company for the company of that fun young man you just met? Engaged but wanting to accept attention from other young men? How do these girls come up with such questions?!

—oooOooo—

Will you please give me a simple lotion for the complexion. I live where the wind blows a great deal and my face is much tanned. – Rosebud.

I think the following will help you:

Powdered borax, three drams.
Glycerine, three drams.
Rosewater, six ounces.

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Enlarge the patterns, then snip, snip, snip, fit slot A into slit B, maybe add a little tape, and build your own model of the LDS buildings in Salt Lake City as they appeared — more or less — in 1941.

We offer you the Temple, the Tabernacle, the Assembly Hall, and assorted smaller monuments and buildings on Temple Square; there’s Primary Children’s Hospital, and a couple of the buildings of LDS University that stood then where today’s Relief Society Building and the gardens of the Church Office Building now stand; add Eagle Gate, the Beehive House, the Lion House, and the old Church Administration Building; even build the Social Hall, the Salt Lake Theater and the Tithing Office (although they were long gone in 1941); … and as a bonus, hold your own (totally out-of-scale) MIA Dance Festival on the old Saltair dance floor, with the roller coaster as a backdrop!

If you don’t recognize everything, like the Oriental fantasy that is the old Temple Annex, let’s talk. Maybe I can post photos of the unfamiliar buildings.

Just the thing to occupy your fingers while you’re sitting in some boring office meeting this week.

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Since its establishment in 1948, the Republic of Korea, with its capital at Seoul, has survived a high level of volatility in its government. The Korean War of the early ’50s resulted in a division between North and South, and the republican form of government, interrupted by various (sometimes violent, sometimes non-violent) student revolts, military coups, and other revolutions, has evolved into its present Sixth Republic. Despite it all, the Church, introduced into Korea during the 1950-53 war by American servicemen, has grown steadily.

In May 1961, Gordon B. Hinckley – then an Assistant to the Twelve, a position which would now be the Quorum of Seventy – toured Korea with Mission President Paul C. Andrus of the Northern Far East Mission. They met with servicemen’s branches and local congregations, offered instruction to local leaders, and in general assessed the progress of the Church there. On Sunday, May 14, they met in Seoul, working with 158 priesthood holders in their morning priesthood session and addressing 500 members in an afternoon meeting which resulted in the organization of three branches. They spent most of Monday, May 15, working with the new branch presidents. On Tuesday, May 16, they planned to fly to Tokyo to continue their tour of the mission.

Those plans were altered overnight.

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Am I the only one who sees other people’s projects and thinks, “Hey, I could do that”? Want to write a guest post to see what response your story gets?

If you’d like to try your hand at a guest post for Keepa, please do. You have to promise, though, not to be offended if your post isn’t published.

Guest posts need to meet these criteria:

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Daynes Music was the pioneer music company of Salt Lake City, is still in business, and is one of the longest-running companies to be operated by multiple generations of a single family. (I don’t understand the “established 1860” claim of the logo – the Daynes family didn’t arrive in the Valley until 1862; maybe they were engaged in the same business prior to emigrating.)

The John Daynes family made an early mark on Deseret’s music culture. John’s son Joseph, age 11, was already proficient on the organ when he first played for Brigham Young in 1862. Following training in New York City, he became the first Tabernacle organist at age 16.

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The Creation lesson from the 1928 Sunday School manual corresponds very nicely with this year’s manual, but is noteworthy for two reasons:

First, the lesson explicitly makes room for the “testimony of the geological record,” distinguishing between what we know by divine revelation and what we know by human study. Nothing  said here contradicts in the slightest what is presented in the current lesson – but the current lesson stops short with divine revelation and makes no mention of secular knowledge.

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I usually type out word-for-word how I expect a lesson to go – not that it ever goes quite that way, and certainly not that I read my plans as scripts. I find, though, that it is useful for me to put my thoughts into words ahead of time – this helps me clarify my thoughts, helps me transition smoothly from one part of the lesson to another, and, if I get tongue-tied or stumped while actually teaching, I can always glance down and find a way to get back into the lesson.

Better scriptorians and teachers than me (Julie at Times and Seasons, Jim F. at Feast Upon the Word, a whole raft of scholars at Faith Promoting Rumor) are posting ideas and questions and material to help gospel doctrine teachers. As long as they’re already typed up, and for what it’s worth, I’ll throw my lesson plans into the mix in hopes that some idea may be useful to a reader, even when the plan is posted after most of us will have given/heard a lesson.

Lesson 2: “Thou Wast Chosen Before Thou Wast Born”

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

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