Lots of days I blog something that I have just learned hours or even minutes before. This isn’t one of those days – I learned this, oh, I don’t know, maybe three or four days ago.

We’re all familiar with the vertical pipes of the organs in the Tabernacle and the Conference Center. What I learned earlier this week is that organs sometimes have horizontal pipes that look like trumpets, projecting their sound directly into the church or concert hall. The term for such stops is (showing off my newfound knowledge here) en chamade.

But admitting my almost complete ignorance of organ construction isn’t the cat I’m letting out of the bag. This is:

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The 25 December 1965 issue of the Church News carried this announcement:

Group Plans Paper on ‘Mormon Thought’

A new quarterly journal, bearing the title “Dialogue – A Journal of Mormon Thought,” will make its appearance in 1966 at Stanford, California.

“Dialogue will be an independent publication to deal with Mormon thought and culture and the general relation of religious and secular life through articles, essays, reviews, editorials and the presentation of poetry and the visual arts,” according to its publication statement.

The journal will be published by the Dialogue Foundation, a nonprofit foundation incorporated under the laws of the State of Utah. All editorial and staff efforts will be given on a voluntary basis, as are manuscripts and artwork. Dialogue will be wholly dependent on its $6 a year subscription cost and financial contributions for its operation.

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The Deeper Melody

By Alice Morrey Bailey

Previous chapter

Chapter 2

Synopsis: Steven Thorpe, 150 miles from home on a selling campaign, has intuition that something is wrong with his three motherless children left in the care of a hired girl. His home telephone goes unanswered. Leaving his work, he goes home, to find his children neglected and his baby ill with pneumonia. Margaret Crain, a registered nurse, is sent by the doctor to take care of the baby.

Steve welcomed the nurse to his home with mingled relief at having help for the sick little Phyllis, alarm that she might not have the experience to give his baby sympathetic care, and chagrin at having the well-groomed girl see the confusion and actual dirt of his home. He felt his skin flush red, but made no apology.

“You must be Miss Crain,” he said perfunctorily, “the nurse Dr. Dunn sent.”

“I understand you have a sick child,” she said, by way of acknowledgment.

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Many of the Relief Societies (sometimes the branch leadership, sometimes the entire Society) contributed their pictures to a farewell album for Elizabeth Welker, who, with her husband Roy, was returning to Utah in 1937 after their mission as leaders of the German-Austrian Mission.

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Zwickau, Germany

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Poem for a Washday

By Miranda Snow Walton

She could not write a poem, she said,
About the flowers and trees,
But on her washday line, I saw
Poems fluttering in the breeze.
She used such gay, embroidered words
That passers-by could tell
Her cottage was a shrine, with love
A daily ritual.
She told of happy hearts within
Whose care was her delight,
Of him who shared her every joy
Coming home at night.
And there were tiny, dainty words
That looked like fairy wings,
Soft, cuddly words for lullabies
A new-made mother sings.
Ah, no, she could not write a poem,
But on her washday line
I saw a poem of living joy
More beautiful than mine.

(1949)

Anybody who’s ever been a missionary knows what it is to tract. Anybody who’s ever seen a Mormon missionary probably has some idea of tracting. Most of us didn’t especially enjoy doing it, and I suppose that most members of the public don’t especially enjoy having the missionaries knock. Historically, though, tracting has been a major source of converts – while it may not be particularly effective today, it was effective in some times and places.

Below is a rather longer-than-usual-for-blogging document, a booklet written by B.H. Roberts (1857-1933), one of the most powerful missionaries of the late 19th/early 20th century Church. If you skim through it, dipping in where your eye catches something of interest, you might catch Elder Roberts’ vision for tracting, and better understand what this now-disfavored activity meant to the work of introducing the gospel once upon a time.

If you’re not familiar with tracting, or want a shorter, more easily read introduction to it, see this 2008 post by Edje Jeter, on Juvenile Instructor.

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From the Relief Society Magazine, 1954 –

The Deeper Melody

By Alice Morrey Bailey

Chapter 1

Stephen Thorpe awoke with a start and sat up in bed in his hotel room, feeling that something was wrong at home with his small children, Davey, Ilene, and little Phyllis. It was, he thought, the same kind of intuition that their mother, Ellen, used to have before her death, when one of the children was running a temperature in the night. For a week he had been arguing himself out of such fears, telling himself that the new maid was all right, that they were probably well and happy and trying to reassure himself until his week’s work would be accomplished.

But now, at last, he swung out of bed, shrugged into his robe, for the room was icy, closed the window, and went to the wall telephone. He jiggled the receiver until the sleepy night clerk answered.

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This delightful minute book records all the usual Fast Meetings, Sacrament Meetings, various priesthood meetings, etc., that we find in most minute books – but it also contains minutes for events I haven’t seen recorded anywhere else (yet). Therefore, I’m skipping most of the usual Church meetings and presenting the record of one ward’s life beyond the typical worship services and business meetings.

13 January 1946

Scout Court of Honor was held in connection with Sacrament Meeting. Colors presented at beginning of Scout program.

Meeting commenced at 7 P.M. with Bp. Joseph W. Wright presiding and conducting.

Notices: Old Folks Party next Friday. Cleaning of Church House next Wednesday.

Opening Song: “We Thank Thee O God For a Prophet,” with Otey Bensen as choristor and Muriel Wright at the organ.

Invocation: Reed Olsen

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(Previous installment)

Fri Oct. 8th.

Today we feel as though we could relax a little after our pleasant and successful conference. Although we held it with the Hikueru branch alone, because none of the other branches were able to get here on account of the extremely rough sea we had had for the past week, we felt as though we were very well repaid for our efforts in coming so far to attend it. We had expected to be able to leave as soon as Conference was over in some of the boats that came from other islands but as none came, we haven’t the slightest idea when we shall be able to get away from here, it may be a few days & it may be several months The people have been very kind to us. Every day they have brought us fish and young cocoanuts to drink, washed and ironed all of our clothes and given us all sorts of canned goods, fresh pork and chicken. Te Dimana Sue our catholic friend has sent us fresh bread twice every week, and from his tiny enclosed garden which he had made with soil carried all the way from Tahiti, he has sent us ripe figs and iitas and occasionally a few fresh eggs. The children have done their part too, keeping us supplied in water and firewood. Today they have put a soft white blanket of sand all around our house which they carried on their backs up from the sea.

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From the Children’s Friend, May 1936 –

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