Although Brigham Young was eliminated from the final runoff when he lost to Joseph F. Smith in the “Patriarchal Beard” category of our recent contest, he did have a notable, distinguished patriarchal-style beard. (Anyone know how long it would have taken him to grow one that long?)

This portrait is a familiar one, used, for example, on the cover of the Teachings manual from a few years ago.

His own family didn’t like the picture, though.

Children and grandchildren living in 1932 who remembered Brigham Young claimed that he wore such a beard only a few times in his life, that ordinarily it was much shorter, much neater, much less caricature-worthy.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, November 1959 –

The Shining Gift

Rosa Lee Lloyd

Mary McMillen put the bowl of stew and dumplings on the table in front of her husband Fred and handed him the silver ladle.

Ten-year-old Judy smacked her lips. “I’m hungry, Daddy. I’ve pushed Mrs. Gladstone in her wheelchair all afternoon. She buys bushels of Christmas presents. Where does she get all her money, I’d like to know?”

“So would I,” Bill said, gloomily. “I’ll bet she has it in that purse she carries. No wonder she likes Christmas. She doesn’t have to worry about presents.”

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A while ago we kind of adopted the slogan “We’re Adequate” as the official Keepa motto. I fondly remember the praise showered on that post by kevinf: “Ardis, what an, umm, okay post. This post is just so average, it makes me feel like I can go out there today and be kinda competent. Maybe.”

Well, we are not alone in our [lukewarm] quest for modesty and moderation. I hereby nominate Salt Lake City’s 1908 Clayton Music Co. as the official phonograph dealer of Keepapitchinin:

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The source of these questions and answers can be found in the first installment of this series. It bears repeating for newcomers that the person(s) answering these questions is/are not identified, and that the answers given here are not necessarily current teaching. The chief value of these columns today is in seeing what issues were on the minds of ordinary Church members 60 years ago, and in noting what has changed since then, or what issues we consider modern concerns were being discussed that long ago.

Q. Is it permissible for a person living in one stake to go to another stake to receive a patriarchal blessing from the patriarch in that other stake? – J.L., Vernal.

A. Stake patriarchs may give patriarchal blessings to only those who reside in their respective stakes and only upon presentation of the applicant of a recommend and duly signed and approved by the bishop of the ward. However, stake patriarchs may give patriarchal blessings to members of organized missions by presentation by the applicants of a recommend signed and approved by the branch president and the mission president. In such cases the applicants come into the stake for the blessing. The patriarch is not to go into the mission.  (more…)

From the Relief Society Magazine, 1957 –

A Doll Buggy for Christmas

Florence S. Glines

“Aren’t you glad they brought the doll buggy?” Three-year-old Bobby anxiously searched his mother’s averted face as he leaned on her knee. Five-year-old Ann cast an appraising eye over the old-fashioned buggy, brown and frayed, standing in the middle of the small sitting room. But Ruth stooped over, swooped up the yellow cat, and tried to make him sit in the buggy.

Barbara Lind forced herself to smile into the eager eyes of her three children so intently regarding her. “Yes, Bobby,” she said, “of course I’m glad. It was thoughtful of them to remember us and bring sister a buggy.”

“He said Santa Claus sent it,” observed realistic little Ann. “Why did he send an old one, Mother?”

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Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

By Dorothy Clapp Robinson

Chapter Eight

It was the evening of March seventeenth. My first, and it had taken on greater proportions than we had at first anticipated. For weeks our social and enlistment committees had worked to make it a success. Gloria and I had written a pageant and after its presentation we were to have a dance. That was a gesture toward the younger group. I wanted the younger women, especially, to see the pageant to help build within them a consciousness of what Relief Society really is.

I had been at the recreation hall all afternoon superintending last minute preparations and was hurrying home when I overtook Salle Richards. We walked together.

“How is your work by now?”

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Most readers are probably familiar with the Monument to Women – 13 life- or larger-than-life-size bronze sculptures set in a beautifully landscaped garden in Nauvoo, Illinois. One of the sculptures depicts Joseph Smith placing the first charitable donation in the hand of Emma Smith; the other dozen sculptures depict a woman in prayer, in study, in creative activity, and in various family or social roles. Dennis Smith sculpted eleven of the pieces; Florence Hansen sculpted the remaining two. The Monument was sponsored by the women of the Relief Society, and it was dedicated by President Spencer W. Kimball in the summer of 1978.

The monument is beautiful, grand, and meaningful.

It isn’t Nauvoo’s first monument to women, though.

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From the Juvenile Instructor, December 1909 –

A “Reel” Gold Christmas Present

By Jennie Roberts Mabey

“Father, will you please give me a quarter?”

John Fenton wheeled about in his chair and faced his son. The little fellow stood with flushed cheeks, nervously twirling his cap round and round his fingers.

“What do you want of a quarter?” the father asked, sharply.

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So you pick up your Juvenile Instructor in 1921 and notice a Christmas advertisement for a Salt Lake department store. You expect it to be decorated with a Christmas tree – a snowman – a holly leaf – a candle. But not this, right?

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For decades, the Tabernacle on Temple Square was the largest indoor seating space in Utah. Consequently, it was used for many kinds of civic and cultural gatherings – concerts, patriotic gatherings (like the “campfires” of the Grand Army of the Republic when the 1909 national gathering was held in Salt Lake City), speeches by visiting celebrities and dignitaries. Especially after the Salt Lake Theater was torn down in 1928, the Tabernacle was the site of pageants and dramatic presentations.

Speakers could stand at the same podium used by General Conference speakers, of course. Other performers, especially group performers, could be accommodated by covering the fixed seats on the stand with movable platforms, and even extending those platforms into the space between the stand and the congregational seats. It’s a system still in place in the Tabernacle today; similarly, the space in the Conference Center can be endlessly adapted by removing or rearranging seats and by installing platforms in any dimension.

Some presentations need more than a surface for standing, though. Some dramatic performances, especially, need the drama and mystery of curtains to conceal and reveal at suitable moments. But how do you hang curtains in a space as large as the Tabernacle, when there aren’t columns and posts to attach crossbars to? You don’t exactly want to pound a lot of nails into the antique plaster of the ceiling, either!

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From the Relief Society Magazine, 1957 –

Merry Christmas, Mother!

Rosa Lee Lloyd

“Now listen, honey,” Joe said, smiling at Shirley over his newspaper. “I think it’s a great idea for your mother to come for Christmas. We can afford to show her a good time on her first visit.”

Shirley felt her nerves tighten. All the lazy, lovely months of living here alone with Joe since their marriage last June faded away like sunshine before a thunderstorm.

“Oh, Joe,” she breathed, “if you knew what Christmas means to Mother, you’d run for the nearest desert!”

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Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

By Dorothy Clapp Robinson

Chapter Seven

“Do you think we shall ever get all our dues in?” Our secretary, Irene Walton, looked up at me in dismay.

“How many are still owing?”

“The usual group.” Mrs. Walton, like Mrs. Blomquist, had been with the former presidency. “Most of them could pay, but they seem to have forgotten.”

“Let’s remind them,” Rhoda suggested, “in a way they won’t forget.”

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Daniel Albert Keeler, 1924-1999, returned missionary (France and Belgium), Temple Square missionary, and a young member of the Deseret Sunday School Union general board, was inspired in 1957 by the assignment of a Sunday School teacher: To  find first-hand information about Brigham Young, not from the descendants of those who had known him, not from history books, but directly from the lips of people who had met Brigham Young.

Could it possibly be that there were people living in 1957 who had known Brigham Young prior to his death in 1877?

To his own great amazement – and to my surprise in 2010 – Dan Keeler found a round dozen of very elderly people who had known, or at least seen and heard, Brigham Young during his lifetime. He visited and interviewed them, recording their stories and preserving little bits of history that few would have expected would be available so far into the 20th century.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, 1957 –

The Christmas Cards

By Dorothy Boys Kilian

Mrs. Alice Colts, rocking idly in the deep-cushioned platform rocker, stared out the front window into the early December twilight. Nowadays she put off lighting the lamps as long as possible; in the deep shadows it was easier to pretend that Harry’s chair was not empty. He had been gone over a year, and she knew she ought not to brood and knew that Harry would say she was much too young to waste her time this way.

But she did allow herself this half hour or so at the close of each lonesome day. Besides, she rationalized, it saved electricity, and goodness knows she had to use her funds carefully now.

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Lesson 44: “Every Thing Shall Live Whither the River Cometh”

Ezekiel 37; 43-44; 47

Purpose:

To learn about the restoration foretold by Ezekiel, and encourage class members to partake of the life-giving, healing powers that are available in the temple.

LESSON DEVELOPMENT

Introduction

This is our second – and last – lesson from the book of Ezekiel this year. Let’s review how Ezekiel fits into the ongoing story of how God interacts with his people:

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Lesson 48: “The Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord”

The current manual struggles with the amazing feat of covering Zechariah and Malachi in a single lesson, and does that by reducing the incredible variety of prophecies in these two relatively short Old Testament book to the single point: prophecies that have been or will be fulfilled by the time of the Lord’s Second Coming. This point is illustrated by a few favorite Mormon proof-texts (“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse” and “I will send you Elijah the Prophet”). Teachers with the urge to “cover all the material” will find they have time for only the shallowest coverage of such disparate topics, especially if they try to include the supplemental points of the Savior’s appearances to modern man and the timing of the Second Coming.

I have no way of knowing how much time – how many college class periods, with outside reading hours – the books of Zechariah and Malachi consumed when Sidney B. Sperry taught them at BYU, but as you’ll see if you even skim the following chapters from his 1952 text (Sidney B. Sperry. The Voice of Israel’s Prophets. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1952), you’ll get an idea of the richness of these two books and the importance their prophecies ought to command among Latter-day Saints.

Zechariah – Prophet and Seer of Israel’s Restoration

THE PROPHET’S LIFE AND TIMES. – Zechariah, whose name means “Jehovah remembers,” is said in the superscription to be the “son of Berechiah, son of Iddo.” At least twenty-nine different persons mentioned in the Old Testament bear the same name. In the Book of Nehemiah there occurs the following notice.

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From the Children’s Friend, December 1952 –

Marie and the Christmas Story

By Winn Alford

The members of the Redcliff Junior Red Cross were having a stormy meeting. The classroom sizzled and sputtered with angry words. Marie Conn, the cause of the trouble, stretched her long legs under her desk waiting for her classmates to quiet down. Marie was new to Redcliffe but she was using her old method of getting what she wanted. It wasn’t making her popular.

“I’m sure Daddy would be sorry if I didn’t play the part of Mary in the Christmas story.” Marie knew that her father would let them have his storeroom if she was in the play or not. Jennie and the rest of the children didn’t know that.”

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For background, see here
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From the Relief Society Magazine, November 1947 –

Christmas, Or a Reasonable Facsimile

Mabel Harmer

Ella raised her head with a slight start as she heard her niece’s voice in the next booth. She knew that Janet was an old patron at the salon – that was why she had come herself – so there was not too much cause for surprise.

“I guess you’ll want something extra swish this time,” the operator said. “You’ll be going to the dance at the Country Club on Christmas night, of course.”

“No,” answered Janet in a flat tone. “On Christmas night I’ll be going, as usual, to my aunt’s place to gorge on an old fashioned, homey dinner, sit around a tree with a hoary angel on top, and sing carols with all my relatives. I tried to get out of it last year, but Father says that we can’t let her down, that she starts planning for one Christmas the day after the other is over. You can’t tell me that he wouldn’t like to go to the club himself.”

“But, why do you have to go?” asked the operator.

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Literary Experts

Auctioneer: “What am I offered for this beautiful bust of Robert Burns?”

Man in crowd: “That ain’t Burns – that’s Shakespeare.”

Auctioneer: “Well, folks, the joke’s on me. That shows what I know about the Bible.”

Strangle-Hold

“Madam, would you like me to get you a strap?”

“No, thank you, I have one.”

“Then would you mind letting go of my necktie?”
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Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

By Dorothy Clapp Robinson

Chapter Six

I was quite elated over the way my various officers were assuming their responsibilities. So far their outlined plans for the season’s work had met with instant approval. It has been my experience that any well thought out plan prepared and presented intelligently by the officers will be happily received by the members. They have confidence in their leaders.

The day of her first lesson, Mrs. Horne, the Sociology class leader, came before the class with a map. On it was indicated with pictures the sections where the principal industries of men are carried on. She had drawn it herself and had tacked it to a piece of beaver-board so it would be moved in and out easily. She began her lesson by telling this incident:

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Recent posts around the blogs have discussed young people’s dropping out of the Church – whether, and when, and why, and how many. While I don’t pretend to have the answers to any of those questions, I thought it could be a contribution to provide context by noting that this is not a new phenomenon, not a new concern, in Mormonism. Fifty years ago, the teacher training manual used by the Church included the following section in a chapter on teachers’ stewardships:

2. We lose many young people from activity.

For every class in the ward or stake, there are certain people who should be present to receive its help. The classes in the Sunday school, the Primary Association, and the Mutual Improvement Associations are intended to include every person in the ward. Some of them are elective. In the Relief Society, it is intended that all women in the ward take part. All holders of the Priesthood should be present in Priesthood classes. One of your most fundamental responsibilities as a teacher grows out of the fact that many people are not present in their classes. For various reasons, many members of the Church are absent from the classes in which they might learn the principles which will save and exalt them.

In fact, for 1956, only 38.4 percent of the members of the Church were in attendance in Sunday School, on the average. For 1959 it was nearer to 41 percent. This means that six of every ten were absent. Of all those who were absent, only six percent were visited by representatives of their classes, to invite them to attend. This means, of course, that nothing was done about the other 94 percent.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, 1957 –

A Grandma for Christmas

Myrtle M. Dean

Nancy knew afterward that she would never be able to forget the slender, dark-eyed boy who came to her door that morning. She knew she would never forget him, any more than she had forgotten her only child Michael, who had been struck down in the snow while riding his new sled the day after Christmas. That had happened many years ago, but Michael was the only child she had ever had. Now another boy had suddenly come into her life.

Nancy saw the boy as he came up the sidewalk alone two days before Christmas. He seemed not to notice the other children who were playing in the snow along the street. Children in bright jackets and warm caps and mittens were tossing balls of whiteness at each other. Some fell in the deep softness making figures in the snow. Nancy could hear the gay shouts and happy laughter of the others, while the lone boy hurried along as though bent upon some important errand.

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From the December 1929
Relief Society Magazine

(the first-ever use of color
in that publication)

“Book of Mormon illustrations.”

Despite having already seen this post’s title, you almost certainly flashed on one of Arnold Friberg’s paintings illustrating the Book of Mormon, no? Or maybe if you’re one of Keepa’s 18 Sunday readers of Phil Dalby’s comic strip adaptation of the Book of Mormon, you thought of that. We’ve talked of other illustrators – like C.C.A. Christensen’s 1890 illustrations for the Juvenile Instructor. Minerva Teichert’s series is also well known and deservedly well loved.

Here’s another illustrator to be familiar with. Your grandparents may have known his paintings, because in the few years between 1937 when most of them were painted, and 1953 when Friberg’s paintings began appearing in the Children’s Friend, these were the pictures used in lesson manuals and on the covers of church magazines specifically to assist teachers in telling the stories of the Book of Mormon to young children.

J[onathan]. Leo Fairbanks (1878-1946) was one of that great Fairbanks dynasty of artists who have done so much for the Church art (and for American history, as well). He was a son of painter John B. Fairbanks and a brother of sculptor Avard Fairbanks. He studied first under his father, then in Paris. He continued producing art even while his career focused on art education, first in the public schools of Salt Lake City, and later at Oregon State University. His most well-known work in a Church setting was as the sculptor of the frieze decorating the temple at Laie, Hawaii.

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From the Children’s Friend, December 1951 –

A Mountain Boy’s Christmas Gift

By Etta W. Schlichter

“There was a fine ship in the North Countree,
It went by the name of the Golden Vanitee,
And it sailed upon the lowlands, lowlands low,
It sailed upon the lowlands low.

“O Captain, O Captain, what will you give to me
If I’ll go and sink the ship of the Weeping Willow Tree
As she sails upon the lowlands, lowlands low,
As she sails upon the lowlands low?

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Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

By Dorothy Clapp Robinson

Chapter Five

Before our visiting teachers were sent out we had a meeting with them. The Teacher Topic leader worked hard to get them all there. “If we cannot have a good beginning,” she said to me, “what condition will the teaching be in before spring?”

She had asked that all bring pencils and notebooks but provided herself with extras for those who would forget. She had the lesson carefully outlined and put it on the blackboard where all could see. She gave the lesson from the outline and all the teachers copied it, together with some illustrative material she had brought. Then when the lesson was finished she opened her own notebook and on the inside of the front cover was pasted a picture of an old-time sailing vessel. she held it up where all could see.

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This ad for Heber J. Grant’s insurance company appeared frequently in 1908. Now, ordinarily I would agree that house fires are a very bad thing. But if your house is such that this is a realistic scene, is a house fire really the worst of your problems?

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From the Children’s Friend, 1912 –

Christmas in Bowlder Gulch

By Mabel Earle

Sixteen compositions, in various grades of handwriting, lay upon the teacher’s table at the close of the afternoon session. The teacher cast a weary glance upon them as his last pupil departed, then slipped them unceremoniously into a drawer. “No more of you today!” he said. “This high-souled instructor of youth is too nearly done for. Queer how a slip of a girl can stand this sort of thing, year in and year out. It’s the hardest work I ever tried. I’m going forth to breathe a little of our bracing mountain atmosphere – fifteen below zero, and still going down! Nice weather for December, but it doesn’t go with this sort of sedentary occupation. Think I’ll resign when the board meets again, and take a pick and shovel.”

He closed the stove carefully, made sure that the windows were fastened, and put on his overcoat, drawing the collar up about his ears. The stinting air nipped his fingers as he locked the door.

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In 2008 we marked Advent with a series of magazine covers from past Church periodicals; the post for December 1st is here; you can find the others by going to the Topical Guide and using your browser’s search function to find “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

We marked Advent 2009 with Christmas music by LDS composers or lyricists published in 20th century hymnbooks and periodicals. We started by posting the sheet music and words; soon a mysterious Keepa’ninny known only as “The Phantom” recorded those songs on organ or piano and shared them with us all. A list of that music with links to sheet music and sound files can be found here.

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