Hermanas

By Fay Tarlock

Previous chapter

Chapter 5

Synopsis: The story “Hermanas” (sisters) is narrated by an American woman living temporarily in Mexico. She has befriended Lolita, a widow, and her lovely daughter Graciela. At Church, Graciela is introduced to Jim Flores, studying to be a doctor, and their friendship deepens into love. While dining with the American Senora and her husband in a fashionable restaurant, Graciela becomes acquainted with a wealthy older Mexican man, Senor Munoz. Through the aid of the American Senora, Graciela secures a secretarial position with Mr. Carson, a banker. Senor Munoz discreetly begins to court Graciela.

It was September again, and the valley of Mexico City was one vast flower garden. Amporo brought me loads of pink and white cosmos, purchased for a few centavos in the market. The rains slackened, then took on new force. The white peaks of the twin mountains seemed forever obscured in clouds and mist, but the air was soft as a baby’s cheek, and the grass and trees were a lush green. The cool freshness was exhilarating; yet I often caught myself standing in the patio, my errand forgotten. In more than a week Graciela had not been to the house. Pues, the telephone was still on the mantle in the living room. With quick fingers, I dialed Mr. Carson’s bank.

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We’ve had brief mention of Charles Devignez (sometimes d’Evegnee), one of three Aaronic Priesthood holders who kept the Saints in Liège, Belgium, together during World War I. Charles Devignez welcomed the missionaries back to Europe and served as a leader of the Church in Belgium until his death in 1931.

Charles Devignez’s oldest son was Paul Joseph Devignez. Born in 1910, his earliest memories must have been of those dark days during the war. Like his father, he became a leader in the Belgian Church; his English skills were an asset in communicating with the missionaries and American Church leaders. Also like his father, Paul had his own adult experiences of war.

Writing to the absent European Mission President Thomas E. McKay late in 1945, he reported:

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Goodbye

By Helen S. Hughes

How loath I was to say goodbye
To those I loved, until I knew
The word goodbye came from a term
Used long ago, God be with you.

And now to you I say goodbye;
I wish you joy, good fortune, too;
Until again we meet, you will
Not be alone – God goes with you.

(1950)

From the Relief Society Magazine, November 1962 –

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For all the pixels spilled in the Bloggernacle on American politics, we see very little about political events in other countries. I thought some readers might enjoy reading this trio of short articles written in 1936 by Latter-day Saints, concerning the death of King George V of England and the coronation of his son Edward VIII.

The Good King

By Dora Bargh, Sheffield Branch
District Genealogical Supervisor

When I was born the body of King Edward VII. was lying in state. I was a child in the early tremendous years of George V.’s reign, the war years. A few days ago it was my sad privilege to join the nation’s vigil for its dying king. It is a tale that I may tell to my children’s children, that I grew up in and lived through the reign of the best-beloved, one of the best, and one of the wisest of England’s kings.

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Hermanas

By Fay Tarlock

Previous chapter

Chapter 4

Synopsis: The story “Hermanas” (sisters) is narrated by an American woman living temporarily in Mexico. She has befriended Lolita, a widow, and her lovely young daughter Graciela. At Church Graciela is introduced to Jim Flores, studying to be a doctor, and they are immediately attracted to each other. Graciela enrolls in a secretarial school, and her friendship with Jim deepens into love. One day the American Senora and her husband take Graciela to dinner in a fashionable restaurant, where they meet a wealthy Mexican, Senor Munoz.

Because it was late, Graciela spent the night with us. Before she removed her jacket, she must call Jaime to tell him of the wondrous events of the day. It was his night to be on duty, but she felt close to him, she said, in the house that was a home to both of them. Eager about Saturday’s plans, her eyes soft with love, she said, “If Jaime had this day free I would not go.” Anxiously she looked at me. “Senor Munoz was kind enough to include my mother in the invitation … would it be proper, would you be in agreement that she go?”

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Ann Fairfax Washington Lee’s life was better documented than many women of her era since she belonged to three notable families and was one of the central figures in a lurid scandal that rocked colonial Virginia.

Ann’s father, William Fairfax, was the nephew of the fifth Lord Fairfax. The Fairfax family was of immense wealth and influence on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Ann’s mother was Sarah Walker Fairfax. Sarah’s father was a major in the British Army in the Bahamas and her mother may have been of half or full African descent.

Ann was christened in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1730, shortly after her parents arrived there from the West Indies. Her name is alternately written “Anne,” as it was in the St. George Temple record, but her family and friends called her Nancy.

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Lesson 43: “A Chosen Generation”

1 and 2 Peter; Jude

Purpose: To help class members live in holiness and be a chosen generation.

LESSON DEVELOPMENT

Introduction

Some of you probably spent part of the last few weeks looking forward to seeing family members you haven’t seen for a while – if you didn’t have any visitors this Thanksgiving, you remember what it was like to anticipate a holiday in the past. What are some of the best parts about looking forward to an anticipated event? What is the flip side of anticipating a happy event – what is it like to look forward to something you dread? How can our anticipation – either with good expectations or fearful ones – affect the life we live today?

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Lesson 46: “He Will Dwell with Them, and They Shall Be His People”

The current Gospel Doctrine manual provides two lessons on the book of Revelation, with the stated purpose “to encourage class members to face the future with hope because they know that the forces of evil will be overcome and the Savior will reign in triumph.” More than any other book of scripture, Revelation is impenetrable to me; more, too, than with any other book of scripture, the lessons devoted to Revelation seem to depend on isolated verses pulled seemingly at random from here and there throughout the chapters in a clear case of proof texting.

Perhaps it will be useful to teachers or class members to skim through this lesson from the 1955 Gospel Doctrine course, The Acts and the Epistles, by Russel B. Swensen. This chapter provides the historical setting for Revelation, John’s purposes for writing, and an overview of the narrative of John’s Revelation. While it contains matters not directly addressed in the current manual, it supports the same purpose, as stated in the opening paragraph: “It [Revelation] was not written to expound Christian theology, mysticism, or morals, but to assure the faithful saints that in the great conflict in this world between the powers of good and evil there is no doubt whatsoever as to the final triumph of righteousness.”

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For background, see here
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Quid Pro Quo

“Excuse this bit of sarcasm,” said Smith to Jones, “but I must say you are an infamous liar and scoundrel.”

“Pardon this bit of irony,” said Jones to Smith, as he knocked him over with a poker.

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Hermanas

By Fay Tarlock

Previous chapter

Chapter 3

Synopsis: The story “Hermanas” (sisters) is narrated by an American woman living temporarily in Mexico. Lolita, a Mexican woman, visits the American Senora and asks for employment for herself and her daughter Graciela, who is almost eighteen, a beautiful girl, well educated, and deserving the opportunity of living in a good home, which Lolita, now a widow, cannot give her. After some hesitation, the American Senora agrees to help Graciela with her education and in finding employment. Lolita and Graciela go with the Senora to the L.D.S. Church, and Graciela is introduced to Jim Flores, studying to be a doctor.

Jim and Graciela might have stood there forever in the intense sunlight, I do not know. Just then John signalled me he was ready. I saw Lolita with the twins already in the car. I did the obvious thing.

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Another look at who we were in 1928 –

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Rigby, Idaho, Stake Chorus

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The Sparrows’ Thanksgiving Feast

By Thelma J. Lund

I watched the fluttering sparrows eat their fill
Of pyracantha berries when the chill
Of winter held earth in its frozen grip,
And felt a joyous thrill I did not clip
The berried branches as a center spray
For my Thanksgiving table that bleak day.

(1955)

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For background and links to chapters in this series, see here

LESSON IX

ENGINEERING – ARCHITECTURE

The most majestic of “The Sister Arts”
Is that which builds; the oldest of them all
To whom the others are but handmaids
And servitors, being but imitation, not creation. – Longfellow

In the modern world with its large-scale construction and with the use of numerous improved building materials, practically all of the important development work is conducted under the supervision of architects and engineers. The ordinary man without training or experience has no place in planning these structures since the matter of safety on the one hand and of economy on the other must be so balanced that the structure will bel absolutely safe and adequate for the use to which it is to be put, and at the same time contain no surplus material at any point. This is an age of doing things by exact scientific standards and not by guess.

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For background and links to chapters in this series, see here

LESSON VII

MANUFACTURING

Manufacturing in its most complex phases requires such a diversity of ability and service that it is scarcely correct to call it a vocation; it is in reality an industry of production in which many workers bring together their diverse types of skill in a co-operative effort to produce some commodity. The size of the plant and the materials produced will determine the nature of the organization. The following departments are frequently found: management, designing, engineering, foremen, workmen, office, production experts, shipping, salesmen, and sometimes additional ones.

The great manufacturing industries of the day have been built up by the use of machinery to do work that was once done by hand. Raw materials of the mine and the farm have been so cheaply converted into the numerous articles of commerce that people of moderate means can now enjoy comforts that could formerly be had only by the rich. New inventions in manufacturing have absolutely transformed the industries of the world in the last generation.

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For background and links to chapters in this series, see here

LESSON XXI

KEEPING FIT

The foundation of ability to do good work is physical fitness. There have been not a few persons who have been so intensely interested in the necessity of finishing college and preparing for some profession, that they have been blind to everything else, even the preservation of their health. They have overworked; they have gone without sufficient rest; and they have neglected to eat nourishing food. As a result, just as they have finished their period of preparation, their health has broken and they have not been able to enjoy the fruits of their years of struggle.

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Not really – but Mark B.’s comment this morning about dampening clothes as part of the weekly laundry/ironing ritual of our mothers’ and grandmothers’ generations has had me reminiscing today, recalling the many uses to which the old bushel baskets – thin wooden slats with wire handles – were put during my Mormon childhood on the Wasatch Front in the 1960s. Resin grapes from that era get all the kitschy, nostalgic attention, but I’m not sure that wooden bushel baskets weren’t the basis of more Relief Society projects than those once-in-a-lifetime grapes. The grapes survived because they were hard and just sat there, and were consciously made as objets d’art; the baskets got used, heavily, and wouldn’t have survived too many years in basements and storage sheds.

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Hermanas

By Fay Tarlock

Previous chapter

Chapter 2

Synopsis: the story “Hermanas” (sisters) is narrated by an American woman living temporarily in Mexico. Lolita, a Mexican woman, visits the American Senora and asks for employment for herself and her daughter Graciela, who is almost eighteen, a beautiful girl, well educated, and deserving the opportunity of living in a good home, which Lolita, now a widow, cannot provide for her. The American Senora explains that she is well satisfied with the household help she already has. However, she hesitates and wonders if, perhaps, there is not some way that she can help Graciela. She learns that the mother and daughter had known Mormon missionaries.

The girl’s erudition surprised me. She knew three foreign languages and the history and literature of those countries almost as well as she knew her own Mexican history. There was a mature intelligence behind her childish front.

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A five-part (ten-verse) series dedicated to Keepa’ninny Mark B.

The Snooks

By Olive W. Burt

3.

Do Snooks think their mistakes are fun?
Is that why they write, “haven’t none,”
“He doesn’t know nothing,” and, oh, my hat!
“I didn’t go neither,” just think of that!

Real children think, “N-apostrophe-T
Is quite enough of no for me!”

4.

Even Snooks’ friends heave a sigh
When this phrase strikes an ear or eye,
“I hope I’m doing this alright” –
Was ever a more dismal sight?

Snooks quite forget that they’re absurd;
All right has never been one word!

(The Instructor, 1938)

The New York Evening Express of 20 February 1887 editorialized on the Edmunds-Tucker bill, passed by the U.S. Senate only the day before, and the widely touted view that this bill would finally put the last nail in the coffin of Mormonism:

According to the Washington correspondents Mormonism is to be killed forthwith, by act of Congress; in fact it may be said to be already dead, from the effects of the Edmunds-Tucker bill in the Senate yesterday. Mormonism has been so often killed before by act of Congress that it seems to thrive on fatal blows.

But Mormonism was killed in a similar manner even before Congress commenced the massacre. It was killed under Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, in the ’40s, and it was totally exterminated when driven out of Florence into the desert under the leadership of Brigham Young. After that it was annihilated by the U.S. army under Albert Sidney Johns[t]on, and next the discovery of mines all around Utah was to kill off Mormonism by the process of constriction. Then the act of Congress, prohibiting bigamous marriages in the Territories, was applied with the usual result of anti-Mormon remedies. Following that Mormonism was to be knocked off the track by the Union Pacific railroad, but even after the completion of that great work it kept on in the old way, apparently unconscious of how dead it was.

The destruction of Mormonism by the partition of Utah among the other Territories was the next process for its obliteration from the political and physical map, but as that didn’t “pan out” satisfactorily, the Edmunds Commission was invented to do the business. Still Mormonism and Mormons kept kicking without paying any attention to their very dead condition, and now the Edmunds-Tucker conference bill kills them over again. In view of the number of times it has been killed, Mormonism seems to be one of the best wearing political corpses this country has ever produced.

From the Relief Society Magazine, October 1939 –

A Rest for Rose Ellen

By Mabel Harmer

Elizabeth turned off the electric iron, took young Walter firmly by the hand, so that he would not tamper with it in her absence, and went to answer the front door.

“Oh, it’s you, come on in,” she said to her sister Margaret waiting outside. “Don’t tell me that you’ve finished your ironing already?” she asked, leading the way back to the kitchen. It was an entirely superfluous question for she knew that Margaret, being like herself a daughter of Rose Ellen Foster, would never leave home until the Tuesday ironing was laid neatly away in drawers or hung in closets.

“I did part of it yesterday after I finished washing,” Margaret explained, as she settled herself in a rocker and drew forth some darning from the large bag she carried. “Mac was coming into town today, and I wanted to come in and have a talk with you.”

“Anything special?” asked Elizabeth, bearing down on the collar of the blue shirt she was ironing.

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Thanksgiving Memories

By Mrs. Parley Nelson

Thanksgiving time! Again I live
Thanksgivings long since fled!
When you were just a little tad,
With ringlets round your head.
Again I see your childish form
As kneeling by my chair,
With folded hands, you softly lisped
A child’s Thanksgiving prayer:

“I thank thee, Lord, for mama dear,
And for my daddy, too,
I’m thankful that I have a home
And for my sister Lou.
I’m thankful for my nice new skates
And for my rubber boots,
I’m thankful for my jack knife and
My real air gun what shoots,
For these and other blessings, Lord,
I’m thankful as can be,
And as I lay me down to sleep
Please, Lord, take care of me.”

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Thanksgiving is a great time for family and friends to get together, eat too much food, and enjoy each others’ company. Every year we have one or two guests, and look forward to greeting these folks we haven’t seen for a while, or to introduce family to new friends. All of which got me to thinking, who from Mormon history would I think would make a great Thanksgiving dinner guest? Who would perhaps be fun to have around, or might be interesting to learn more about?

So here is the challenge. I’m going to suggest a guest or two, and then it’s your turn. Who would you like to invite, and why? And perhaps who would absolutely not get an invitation? Is it because they might not mix well with the other invited guests, or are perceived as a real party pooper? The only restriction is that they have to be legitimately related to Mormon history, and at least somewhat well known to Keepa’s knowledgeable and talented readers.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, 1955 –

Hermanas

By Fay Tarlock

Chapter 1

It has been said that the first person in secular history to dream of the brotherhood of man was Alexander the Great. I am no historian. I only know of the time in my life when I shed childish prejudices and could call all men brothers. And call them that from the heart.

Not so long ago I sat with my sisters (hermanas) and watched the gentle sunlight sift through the church windows and lighten their faces. I joined with them in the familiar hymns and bowed my head with them in prayer, but my thoughts were in another land and in a time some years past. In this land the sunlight, more golden and intense, fell upon women with darker faces. Yet I loved them, and each was my sister.

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One beauty of the Relief Society’s efforts to provide temporal services is that projects can be tailored to the individual needs of families and communities – there is no requirement that one size fit all. The efforts of the Jefferson Ward of Wells Stake to provide for its ward’s particular needs is an illustration of that flexibility.

In 1940, the Relief Society of the Jefferson Ward, located in one of the then-poorest neighborhoods of Salt Lake City, about three miles due south of Temple Square, discovered that a pressing need was an adequate supply of bedding for the health and comfort of ward members. The Relief Society presidency, under the leadership of President Alice Morris Graves (1893-1977), met privately with each woman in the ward and determined what bedding was required to outfit the family for the following two years.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, October 1942 –

Give Thanks for What?

By Martha Robeson Wright

From the deep-rutted road, one would not know that a house lay beneath the willows and branches that formed a roof for the cave-like place known as a dugout. It was cut deep into the side of the hill, with its door facing east, and any traveler on the country road would pass it without a glance. It was safer that way, of course, though the occupants of the dugout would have enjoyed seeing other white faces oftener. But it was their hope that the Indians’ keen eyes would not detect their hide-out and drop in on them for food; there was no food to spare. Many of the Indians lived more comfortably than most of the settlers in this year of 1860, but the white man’s food seemed to please the red man’s palate.

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Because I have such personal difficulty wringing any meaning out of the book of Revelation (I know, I know – other people can do it, but I cannot), I find little value in past lessons that assert without explanation the meanings of various symbols in Revelation. The lesson below, from Lowell C. Bennion’s Teachings of the New Testament (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1956), used in seminaries and institutes, discusses the ideas – “To help class members understand some of the blessings that will come to those who overcome the trials of mortality through their testimony of Jesus Christ” – purportedly found by the writers of our current manual in miscellaneous verses of Revelation.

Patience for Righteousness’ Sake

In your patience, possess ye your souls. (Luke 21:19)

Jesus Christ Rejected

There is one aspect of Christ’s life to which we have made only incidental reference. While he was followed by multitudes and loved by many, he was understood by few and not too well by these. In a sense, he walked alone, save for the Spirit of the Father and the Comforter which were with him. His teaching was too lofty for men. They twisted it after the image of their own ignorant and selfish natures. they imputed to him vainglory and selfish desires, which were not his, but their own.

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

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From the Relief Society Magazine, November 1939 –

Thanksgiving for Emily

By Beatrice Knowlton Ekman

It was a raw November morning. Emily made a fire in the Home Comfort range with chips that were piled in the woodbox back of the stove. She filled the teakettle from the water bucket in the pantry and put the oatmeal on to cook. When the kitchen was warm, she opened the door to the sitting room adjoining and, putting on an old sweater, went out to milk the cow. In spite of her years, her step was light and quick.

Her fingers numbed with cold as she unfastened the chain on the gate of the corral, but the warmth of the cow’s udder soon warmed them, and the milk quickly filled the small brass bucket.

She set the bucket on a barrel inside the gate and turned the cow into the field. The chickens were pressing against the wire netting of the coop. Strewing some grain in the straw, she opened the coop door, and out they flew in wild disorder to scratch and scatter the yellow waste.

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