I’ve actually put together quite a number of these photo posts already, waiting in Keepa’s draft queue (there are so many posts in that queue that I could be dead a year before anybody noticed). A second 1936 post has another picture from this conference, Steve, which is probably the same one you’ve described from the Church News. It all must have been as interesting to church members in 1936 as it is to us, since they used the same material in both publications.

Frank, Pres. Uchtdorf was still a young child at the end of the war. He told a story in Conference once about refugeeing with his mother and siblings on a train — his mother went to look for food or something, they moved the train, she came back and couldn’t immediately find her children, and all that. So this would be too early for him. Still, I know what you mean — it would be fun to know that someone prominent now appeared in a picture long before we knew who he was.

But I will say thatI love seeing the missionary/MTC photos, with the names!!! Everytime you post one I scan for names I might have run into elsewhere. None this time, but I appreciate your putting it online.

I’m not sure where Ardis got the picture of the Berlin MIA convention, but the photo was used in a Church News article entitled “Germany Holds M.I.A. ‘Echo of Joy’ Festival,” published 18 July 1936. The MIA conference was held from Saturday, 30 May to Monday, 1 June 1936. The conference was held, according to the Church News, “in one of Berlin’s most prominent assembly halls.” At the time, the Church owned only one building in Germany. It rented meeting halls throughout the country. In the photo are President Joseph F. Merrill of the European mission and President Roy A. Welker of the German-Austrian mission as well as their wives. The event was like a typical youth conference with a Gold and Green ball, a testimony meeting, and several other inspirational sessions. Presidents Merrill and Welker were the keynote speakers at the Sunday session.

This particular conference was well attended and considered by mission officials to be very successful. With the 1936 Olympic games spotlighting Germany, Nazi officials were more tolerant of all religions which, I think, contributed to the success of this youth conference. From the tone of the article, it seems that Church authorities were impressed that they could hold the conference in a “prominent” meeting hall—an indication that the Church was accepted in Germany.

As for the National Socialist flag displayed, it was probably part of the “established décor” as Ardis puts it. I’m sure that Church authorities were not going to push the issue of the flag. If fact, it was not uncommon for meetings to be held in rented halls with Nazi flags in the background. Remember, this was Nazi Germany. In 1937 the Church News published a photo of President Heber J. Grant attending a meeting in Frankfurt. Behind him was a large swastika flag. While such photos are a bit jarring, at the time the Nazi flag did not carry quite the same sinister or evil connotations as it does now (we now know the evil nature of the Third Reich which they did not know in 1936). I get the impression that at the time, CN editors included the flag in its publications as a devise to emphasize where the event took place and the international nature of the Church. The problem is that the same picture could be misinterpreted as Church support for the Party/ideology.

Regarding the first pic, I think that by 1936, the swastika was the national flag (not political party) which might explain its presence.

In the Oakland, Pa. pic, the gentleman on the right bears an uncanny resemblance to a young J. Reuben Clark.

The Wilshire Ward pops up quite often in this series. I wonder if it’s because LeGrand Richards lived there, or if there was another connection with the church magazines, or if I just have a selective memory.

I can’t imagine getting food for that Norway banquet. I also can’t imagine any kind of ward event that requires stemware.

The Kidderminster photo- am willing to guess who the missionaries are; you can always tell, especially back in those days

As for the Berlin photo- eeewwww. Interesting though.