Enjoy the attractive and sometimes sentimental covers of the Juvenile Instructor, vintage 1926:

January

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The Bottle Message

The Adventures of a Boy on a South Sea Island

By Janet Tooke

Previous Chapter

Chapter Two: The Boy at the Waterfall

Synopsis: Thomas Tathom, Jr., better known as Tee Totum, has been sought and found by his uncle, Thomas Tathom, Sr., who is taking Tee back to his island of Waiki-pali to live with him. Before they reach the island a terrible storm occurs, which the native crew attribute to the fact that there are two people on board who bear one name. To subdue the storm they attempt to throw Tee overboard. Tee is saved by Peter Malua, his uncle’s head man.

It was very early morning, the sky streaked with red, and the palms of the little island a-glisten with dew. Tee Totum stood on the edge of the wide balcony, which the islanders called a “lanai,” and looked out on this silent world to which he was a stranger. He had arrived the night before in the blackest darkness he had ever experienced, and so weary with the long journey that he had tumbled into bed without caring what kind of a world he had landed in.

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For links to other parts of this series, see this chart.

For a statement on the unofficial nature (i.e., personal interpretation for discussion purposes, not necessarily representative of church doctrine) of these lessons, see this notice.

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE

Dealing with Religious, Social and Economic Questions and Their Solution.
A Study for the Quorums and Classes of the Melchizedek Priesthood. 1917-1918.

By Dr. Joseph M. Tanner

XXXV. – The Negro Question

Its Origin. – The Civil War did not end the negro question. The freeing of that race from the bonds of servitude brought about one of the most destructive and hate-engendering wars that the world has ever known, and gave rise to what is known in politics as the solid South. During all of the period of reconstruction the animosities between members of Congress from the north and south were often wholly beyond control, and disputations on the floors of the Senate and House sometimes led to physical encounters. Economic conditions in the early history of the United States were responsible for the transportation of hundreds of thousands of black men from their home in Africa to the land of freedom and to conditions wholly unlike those to which the black race was inured. It was no fault of that unfortunate people that they came in contact with the Anglo-Saxon race. They were creatures of the slave trade carried on generally by the Arabs in Africa and were the victims of a slavery that is often portrayed as in most instances heart-rending.

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Back in the dim recesses of my blogging past, I showed you trade card dating to the 1880s that had a Mormon theme: a young man with two female admirers solved his romantic dilemma by moving to Utah. Har har har. Then I discovered that that trade card was one of a set of four telling a longer story. You might want to take a quick look at those earlier posts.

Well, the stars of our little romance are back, in bright new costumes, engaged in the same melodrama:

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From the Children’s Friend, 1938-39:

The Bottle Message

The Adventures of a Boy on a South Sea Island

By Janet Tooke

Chapter One: Old Father Sea

Thomas Tathom the Second lay on a bunk in the schooner Mynah, experiencing his first qualms of sea-sickness. The voyage aboard the liner from New York had been quiet sailing and uneventful. Then he and his uncle, Thomas Tathom the First, had transferred themselves and their baggage to the Mynah, which had met them at Hilo. And it was the second day after they set sail in the small boat that wind and sea commenced a game of catchball with the schooner, tossing her to and fro in a manner that Thomas Tathom the Second (to be known hereafter as Tee) considered dangerous and utterly erratic.

His head grew dizzy with the sight of the great waves and the milk-white surf that shot angrily over the decks. His ears ached with the continuous roar of the elements, with the savage slap-slapping of waves against the sides of the comparatively frail Mynah. The boat plunged sickeningly, diving into the belly of the ocean only to rise again to the very crest of a mountainous wave, setting his inwards trembling. And with the falling of darkness he crawled miserably into what he believed to be the cabin he shared with his uncle.

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Some months ago I picked up two pictures from the collection of my brother Patrick. They were different poses of the same 60+ year old woman done in a nice portrait style. Crisp and clear, they seemed to be taken in about 1920 and were each labeled with the handwritten notation “Aunt Lizzie Baker.” I did not recognize the name or the face as anyone I knew, but I did recognize the distinctive Palmer style handwriting as that of my aunt Gae Ogden Smith, born in 1910 and died in 2001. Gae was the older sister of my father and a family expert of the peoples and characters in Richfield, Utah. This was a “slam dunk” identification job; all I had to do was find an aunt of Gae’s named Lizzie and into the books the pictures would go.

If only life were this easy. Sure enough I found an Elizabeth Baker, married to William “Tom” Ogden, my grandfather Josh’s oldest half brother. Elizabeth was born in 1875 and died in 1941. She met the requirements of being an “aunt” and also living in the time period, so I connected the dots with confidence and went on to other things. When I proudly showed the pictures to Jeff Johnson, grandson of William and Elizabeth Baker Ogden, he offered a one-line, rather terse reply; “That’s NOT my grandmother!” Oh bother, I thought, and proceeded to think of ways to convince him otherwise. But the far reaches of my mind (which I seldom admit to listening to) was telling me he was right. Why would my aunt Gae use Elizabeth’s maiden name of Baker? She would have grown up knowing Tom’s wife to be an Ogden and would no doubt refer to her as such. Back to the archives I trudged, a duster in hand, four sharp pencils in my pocket, and not a clue where to look.

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For background, see here
previous episode
next episode (to be added when posted)

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The Story of Ruth

“Now,” said Andrews, after introducing the subject, “who can tell me anything about Ruth?”

Up went a hand in the rear of the class.

“Well, Willie,” asked the teacher, “what do you know about Ruth?”

“He made 29 home runs last season,” was the answer.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, October 1960 –

Last Summer

by Christie L. Coles and Beth C. Johnson

The day was parched and dust filtered. Leaves and foliage at the side of the gravel road were covered with a thick, gray film. The air was still as a waiting breath.

Mina sat on the dirt-packed bridge and dangled her feet in the plastic-clear stream, wriggling her toes in its coolness. The sunlight stenciled arabesques upon her brown arms.

“Are you really going away, Virginia?” Mina asked her friend who lay flat on her stomach by the stream, cupping water into her hand and catching “skaters” to place on the sand, then watching them hurry back to the water and their endless sliding.

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The night of March 3, 1876, found a 12-year-old boy, coughing and sickly, walking with his mother the three miles between their home in Stockholm, Sweden, and a small lake outside of the city. They left home about 11:00 that night, “to avoid publicity and the danger” that might result if their neighbors became aware of the pending Latter-day Saint baptism. When they reached the lake shore, “we found some brethren and sisters who had cut a hole in the ice” – the transcription of his autobiography says the ice was 18 inches thick; an interview he gave to a young Gordon B. Hinckley says it was 8 inches thick. However cold it was or however thick the ice, John Vitalis Bluth was baptized that night, in between coughing spells. “I felt no fear. I entered the water and was baptized … when wrapped up and on my way home, I felt so light and happy, that it seemed as if I were treading on air. … I was never troubled with the cough and pain from which I had suffered so keenly previous to being baptized. So that baptism, instead of proving my death, as some predicted, it restored me to health.”

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From the Relief Society Magazine, August 1937 –

Ferdinand’s Strategy

by J.S.

The sun shone like brass in the little mesa and even the herd seemed to wilt in its hot glow. Scattered along the river edge and the hillside, they grazed with their big, mellow orbs half-shut.

Ferd looked down at them from his post on the hillside. It was hard watching, these hot July days. Nothing less imperative than the strict discipline of his uncle’s establishment could keep him awake and alert, as one must be, with some of the finest stock on the ranch under his supervision, and lawless Mexican cattle thieves about everywhere wanting only a chance to drive off a stray from the herd.

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William Orum Pederson (1914-2000, baptized 1922) and his wife Ida Margrethe Rasmussen (1901-1977, baptized 1910) were the first Danish Latter-day Saints to emigrate to Utah following the war. Bro. Pedersen offered his lessons on the war to the Church News in 1947.

Now World War II is past it may be both correct and of value to consider what the war has taught us.

While most of the readers very likely have spent the terrible war years at home in the United States, my family and I lived in Denmark, and thus we had the war close at our doors.

World War II taught us that with the knowledge of the gospel of faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ, we could meet all tribulations and sufferings. We recalled the history of our Church pioneers and realized their greatness, and what they accomplished for their love of the gospel.

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The sister who was my visiting teaching partner (she decided this month to retire) was born in 1917 to a French-speaking LDS family in Switzerland. Although a partial edition of the Doctrine and Covenants had been published in French translation years before, it was out of print and unavailable during the childhood of my friend. Her mother, so hungry for the words of revelation, borrowed the book from a missionary who had a French translation and laboriously, by hand, copied out every revelation with pen and ink. She then sewed the pages between covers, and her homemade Doctrine et Alliances served as the family’s copy of the scriptures until a new edition was published in 1958.

Without knowing it, Sister Louise Puenzieux (1887-1955) was re-enacting a practice of the Saints in the earliest days of the Restoration. Those lucky enough to work closely with Joseph Smith could read the manuscript revelations recorded by his scribes. Orson Pratt, for instance, recalled in later years that “We often had access to the manuscripts when boarding with the Prophet; and it was our delight to read them over and over again.” The elders made handwritten copies of some of the most important revelations to share with their families or to take on missionary trips. There is a copy of one section (I don’t recall which one) in the Brigham Young papers.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, February 1960 –

Grandpa’s Red Suspenders

by Myrtle M. Dean

It was near the middle of May, when Grandpa Foster came to stay at Brookside, with his son James and his family. Janie would always remember the time, for it was so near her eighteenth birthday. She had planned a big birthday party. She had made a list of all of her young friends, the most special one being Stan Dalby, who was just home from college. Janie was anxious to make a good impression on Stan this summer.

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Alfred George Pollard was born 5 October 1872 in Brighton, England, and died 20 November 1967 in Brigham City, Utah. He was baptized on 1 January 1889, in England. He married twice, first to Caroline Granat, in 1897, with whom he had seven children, and late in life to Anna Marie Krauss.

His genealogical facts are all that I’ve been able to find about him – that and the following story, which suggests the possibility of a remarkable life.

How I Reached Zion

The first thing that anyone wants to do when he joins the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is to gather to Zion. I partook of the same spirit, and felt that I would like to go there, too.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, March 1958 –

Wee Pine Knot

By Edna H. Day

Margaret Davenport stooped to retrieve the morning paper from the front steps where the boy had flung it, and carried it into the kitchen.

Jim was finishing the last of his hot cakes. It would soon be time for him to leave for the law office where he worked and hoped someday to be a partner.

“Want to see it for a minute?’ she asked. “You have time.”

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This post continues the death notices of Latter-day Saint soldiers in the German military forces, published in Der Stern, the publication of the Swiss-German Mission.

Part 1 is found here, while images of all notices as they appeared in Der Stern can be viewed here.

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From the Juvenile Instructor, October 1910 –

“If It Wasn’t for Tillie”

by Annie Malin

Jed Brown set his tin pail on the ground and put the largest berry in his mouth meditatively. There was a thoughtful look upon his freckled face as he swallowed the delicious morsel, and then he calmly helped himself to another.

“If it wasn’t for Tillie,” he said to a fat toad which hopped into view at that instant, “I’d not pick another one this morning.”

The toad stopped and looked at the boy for a moment and then, with a solemn blink, hopped away.

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(See here for background)

From 1956 –

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Lesson 14: “Who Is My Neighbour?”

The purpose of the lesson in our current manual is “To help class members humble themselves, forgive others, and show charity for one another,” drawing on the parables of the unmerciful servant and the Good Samaritan as examples. A related lesson from the 1970-71 Sunday School manual for 18-year-olds teaches some of the same ideas, but from the point of view of how the church is organized to enable us to serve those we are responsible for, and that sharing the gospel is a form of charitable service.

A Divine Commission

”I have chosen you …” (John 15:16.)

As Jesus Saw It

A lawyer tried to tempt Jesus by asking, “… who is my neighbour?”

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For background, see here
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These jokes came from odd corners of the Children’s Friend of 1918 – obviously a feature of the magazine intended more for the parents and teachers than the kiddies:

-oOo-

Sir William S. Gilbert was once standing outside his club when a stranger approached him and said:

“I beg your pardon, sir, but do you happen to know a gentleman, a member of this club, with one eye called Matthews?”

Sir William paused for a moment.

“I can’t say I do,” he replied. “What is his other eye called?”

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Anne Brent, Helpmate

By Elsie Chamberlain Carroll

Previous episode

Part 9

The thing that had troubled Anne most when she had learned about their financial condition had been that they could not send Gloria to college as they had planned. Although they had met financial reverses frequently in their twenty-five years of married life, when Morris and Suzanne were through high school they had managed to allow them to go on with more specialized training. It seemed a dreadful thing not to be able to find a way to bring her dreams for all the children into realities.

It didn’t matter how much she and Peter had to sacrifice, if they could only do the things they wanted to for the children. Their future lay in the accomplishments of the children. Gloria had been looking forward for years to going away to college, and now that her friendship with young Hal Gillmore was becoming more firmly established through their frequent letters, she was more eager than ever to go to the State University where he was a sophomore.

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(The Vanguards were 15- and 16-year-olds in the Church’s program for boys.)

Radio Services, Sunday, Jan. 29, 1933 Under
Auspices of the Mutual Improvement
Association Boards

Firm as the mountains around us,
Stalwart and brave we stand
On the rock our fathers planted.
the rock of honor and virtue,
Of faith in the living God.
They raised his banner triumphant
Over the desert sod.

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Artemus Ward (the pen name of Charles Farrar Brown[e], 1834-1867) was a popular American humorist and lecturer, whose stories appeared in countless newspapers and were compiled into several volumes. He was reportedly a favorite author of Abraham Lincoln, and one of Mark Twain’s inspirations.

We – we Mormons – should be flattered (?) that we were the subject of so many of his writings. He visited Utah in the days when wagon travel was the only way of reaching us, and he wrote an entire book (Artemus Ward among the Mormons, 1866) about us.

Following is one of his Mormon “romances.” Whatever else we might say about stereotypes and being held up to ridicule, I have to say that this extended “Mormon joke” completely lacks the scorn and bitterness of most of the rest of the public press of the 1860s.

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A slight acquaintance, into whose mass-email-forwarding address book I have had the misfortune to fall, regularly sends me … stuff. Political stuff. Religious stuff. Sometimes stuff that combines the two in ways I find ludicrous, or offensive, or awash in sentimentality.

Much of this stuff is military-related.

It started with the general theme of “We Support Our Troops.” Fine. I do, too. If we’re going to send them out there, regardless of whether we support the specific political agenda that sent them, we should make sure they have what they need, where and when they need it.

It progressed to “We Love Our Troops.” Okay. I do, too. When men and women put their lives on hold to answer the call of their country, and as long as they act legally and honorably and morally in their individual conduct, they deserve respect – love is an alternate term for that.

But now it has reached the point of “We Worship Our Troops.” No. This is where I draw the line.

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Anne Brent, Helpmate

By Elsie Chamberlain Carroll

Previous episode

Part 8

As the weeks passed after Peter’s signing the contract with the delegation concerned with the new real estate company, Anne discovered no waning in his enthusiasm. He worked incessantly, and she did everything she could to relieve him of worries and responsibilities, and to make home cheerful and restful when he was there. That, she had long since decided was part of a helpmate’s job. Even if a wife couldn’t understand all the details of her husband’s work, even if she could not become enthusiastic about his plans, even if she sometimes doubted his judgment and ability, she owed him loyalty and support.

A few times Anne had asked about the merger of the general merchandise businesses which was supposed to increase their profits so remarkably, and always Peter assured her that though the actual completion of the transaction had not been effected because of some technicality to be seen to, there was nothing to worry about. One of the stores hadn’t sent in the necessary papers, but he was sure things were going to come out all right.

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As I turned the pages of Der Stern (1917), the publication of the Swiss-German Mission, I was rather startled to see an Iron Cross. To my eye, the Iron Cross is an enemy symbol, something akin to a swastika. Then I noticed the text accompanying the Cross: “Ehre ihrem Andenken,” literally, “Honor to their Memory” or as translated here, “In Memoriam.” The black-bordered notice listed three recent war deaths, all of them young men of mission age, two from the Chemnitz Branch and one from Hamburg.

As the Kaiser’s military forces continued to fight the First World War in the trenches and at sea, Der Stern continued to publish the death notices of the members of the church who died in the service of their Fatherland, among articles on doctrine and explanations of church procedure and letters from the battlefield like the one from Karl Püschel. Sometimes the cause of death is noted, sometimes the place of death. Sometimes the editor includes a personal note. In a couple of cases, the member is listed as missing, presumed dead.

These notices are the first in a series.

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“What Shall I Do?”: Paid Employment for Mormon Girls, 1927

Agnes Lovendahl Stewart

The introduction to this series is posted here.

VIII. The Artist

If you love the feel of a pencil or crayon in your hand, if you thrill to lovely color and graceful lines in landscape or figures, if you can smear daubs of paint on canvas so realistically that folks can tell what it represents without a label – what can you do by way of putting that talent to work for you?

Art for art’s sake, unfortunately, seldom pays fabulous returns until after the artist is dead. It is true in more ways than one that the artist paints for future generations, because it is the heirs of his collectors who receive big sums for his merest sketches in many instances. The stories they tell of artists in garrets aren’t all based on fancy.

But, art for laughter’s sake, art for the sake of business – now here we have a different story! For if folks won’t pay for real art, they will most assuredly pay for commercial art and for comic strips and sketches.

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Anne Brent, Helpmate

By Elsie Chamberlain Carroll

Previous episode

Part 7

Anne’s first look into the finely modeled, intellectual face of Marian Welling gave her a little twinge. What a daughter-in-law the girl would have been! Her deep brown eyes with little warm pools of gold were full of understanding and tenderness; her smile was sweet and friendly. Anne felt the pull of the girl’s personality even before she heard her low, cultivated voice.

But she never once lost her sense of loyalty to Phyllis. She knew that no matter how Marian Welling had to be hurt, no matter how Morris had to be hurt, no matter how she herself would have liked to have things different, she would go through with her plan to save Morris’s home, to save the future well-being of little Junior.

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Joseph Soderborg – he of the Tenth Ward Cornerstone – ran across the following letter recently while researching his paper on LDS missionaries at the outbreak of World War I, to be given at May’s meeting of the Mormon History Association.

Rudger Clawson, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve (formerly a counselor in the First Presidency of Lorenzo Snow, for a grand total of four days) was president of the European Mission, based at Liverpool, England, from 1910 to 1913. This letter was written to the president of the Swiss-German Mission immediately following Clawson’s summer 1912 tour of the Continental missions.

This is not, shall we say, a side of Elder Clawson that you’ll find in his Conference sermons … more’s the pity …

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