In the Era of Youth: The Indian Student Placement Program
"One Qf the greatest spheres of influence in tf\e
lives ofydungmen and Women of college age is tf\e institute of Religion adjacent to college campuses-
<7 strongly urge tljat each
and evefy cLatter-day Saint
yOuth attending institutions
of higher learning otljer
than our QiurclicUniversity
arjd colleges becomes irjyolved
hi this inspired program . "
cPre§ident(T>avidO.<£MccKa!r
Involve yourself in the Institute program now!
Cover Note
"A choice people in a choice land!" The red sands and blue skies of Monument Valley, Arizona, and the three young Navajo girls in colorful native dress pic- tured on our August cover point to the fulfillment of these Book of Mormon words, as told in articles in the Era of Youth about today's Indian youth and their achievements.
The cover picture was taken by Don Gabbott of Bountiful, Utah.
Mail for Canadian Missionaries
During the Canadian postal strike, air and first class mail to the Alaskan-Canadian Mis- sion is being addressed to P. 0. Box 154, Custer, Washington; Western Canadian Mis- sion, c/o Ralph Sluys, P. 0. Box 9000, Great Falls, Montana; and Canadian Mission, P. 0. Box 696, Falls Station, Niagara Falls, New York.
Official organ of the Priesthood Quorums. Mutual Improvement Associations. Home Teaching Committee, Music Committee. Church School System, and other agencies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Improvement Era, 79 South State, Salt Lake City. Utah 84111
August 1968
The Voice of the Church
August 1968
Volume 71, Number 8
Special Features
2 Editor's Page: On This Evidence, President David 0. McKay
9 The Long Hot Summer of 1912 (Part 1), Karl E. Young
18 Oliver Cowdery's Non-Mormon Reputation, Dr. Richard L. Anderson
33 How Much Do You Want to Pay for Your Money? Melvin L. (Bud) Brain
53 A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price: Part 4, Second String, Dr.
Hugh Nibley
73 My Sick-a-Bed Pillows, Florence J. Johnson
81 New England Leadership in the Rise and Progress of the Church,
Dr. Gustive O. Larson
Regular Features
5 The Era Asks President N. Eldon Tanner About the Word of Wisdom
28 The LDS Scene
30 Major Genealogical Resources in the Netherlands
34 Lest We Forget: Sam Brannan and the Sea Saints, Albert L. Zobell, Jr. 65 Teaching: It's Later Than It Has Ever Been Before, Jim Johnston
70 Today's Family: Swings and Things, Florence B. Pinnock
74 The Presiding Bishopric's Page: The Presiding Bishop Talks to Youth About Decisions, Bishop John H. Vandenberg
76 The Church Moves On
78 Buffs and Rebuffs
85 These Times: Church Ceremonial, Dr. G. Homer Durham
88 End of an Era
35, 69, 77, 78 The Spoken Word, Richard L. Evans
Era of Youth
37-52 Marion D. Hanks and Elaine Cannon, Editors
Poetry
4, 8, 36, 49, 69, 79, 80, 84 Poetry
David 0. McKay and Richard L. Evans, Editors; Doyle L Green. Managing Editor; Albert L. Zobell, Jr., Research Editor; Mabel Jones Gabbott, Jay M. Todd, Eleanor Knowles, William T. Sykes, Editorial Associates; Florence B. Pinnock. Today's Family Editor; Marion D. Hanks, Era of Youth Editor; Elaine Cannon. Era of Youth Associate Editor; Ralph Reynolds, Art Director; Norman F. Price, Staff Artist.
G. Homer Durham, Franklin S. Harris. Jr., Hugh Nibley, Sidney B. Sperry, Albert L Payne, Contributing Editors.
G. Carlos Smith. Jr., General Manager; Florence S, Jacobsen, Associate General Manager; Verl F. Scott. Business Manager; A. Glen Snarr, Acting Business
Manager and Subscription Director; Thayer Evans, S. Glenn Smith, Advertising Representatives.
©General Superintendent, Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1968, and published by the
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On This Evidence
• "I charge thee therefore before God," Paul wrote to Timothy, "and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long- suffering and doctrine.
"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
"And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
"But watch thou in all things, endure afflic- tions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." (2 Tim. 4:1-5.)
When Paul wrote this, he was a prisoner at Rome. These are among his last recorded words to Timothy, his son in the faith. In that first sentence Paul declares the existence of God, which he supports authoritatively in his writings. He declares the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the reality of his resurrection.
"Preach the word," Paul admonishes Timothy. What "word"? That "Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, . . . hath brought life and immor- tality to light through the gospel." (2 Tim. 1:10.)
"Behold the man!" said Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judea, as Jesus, mockingly bedecked with a purple robe, his head covered with a crown of thorns, stood before the mob, which cried, "Crucify him, crucify him!" (John 19:5-6.)
As on the occasion of that historic trial, so through the ages men have beheld Christ from different viewpoints. Some who reject him as venomously as did the rabble see in him and in his disciples "investors of a Christian moral system that has undermined and sapped the vigor of the European world." Others with clearer in- sight, begotten by experience, behold him as the originator of a system that "promotes industry, honesty, truth, purity, and kindness, a system that upholds law, favors liberty; is essential to it, and would unite men in one great brotherhood."
Others behold him as the "one perfect charac-
ter— the peerless personality of history," but deny his divinity. Millions accept him as the Great Teacher, whose teachings, however, are not applicable to modern social conditions. A few — oh, how few — of the approximately three and one- half billion inhabitants of the globe accept him for what he really is — the Only Begotten of the Father, who "came into the world, even Jesus, to be crucified for the world, and to bear the sins of the world, and to sanctify the world, and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness." (D&C 76:41.)
Prove it as a fact that Christ did appear after death as a glorified, resurrected being and you have the answer to the question of the ages : "If a man die, shall he live again?" Look at the deep significance of the testimony of the Savior's disciples, who were stricken with gloom when he was crucified. That his death was a reality to them is shown in their intense grief, in the state- ment of Thomas, in the moral perplexity of Peter, and in the evident preparations for a permanent burial of their Master. Notwithstanding Christ's assurance, repeated often during the two and a half years he was with them, that he would re- turn to them after death, the apostles seemed not to have accepted, or not to have comprehended, that statement as a literal fact.
What was it, we ask the world, that suddenly changed these disciples to confident, fearless, heroic preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ? It was the reality that Christ had risen from the grave, his promises had been kept, his messianic mission had been fulfilled.
On the evidence of these unprejudiced, un- expected, incredulous witnesses, the resurrection has its impregnable foundation. I like to think of one young man among them as an independent thinker. His mother had joined the Christian Church, but he did not pay much attention to it until he was disturbed one night by his mother's voice asking him to rise quickly: "Don't stop to dress; throw a cloak around your body and rush to Gethsemane. Tell Jesus that Judas and soldiers are coming to arrest him." I think that young
Improvement Era
By President David O. McKay
man who fled was John Mark, the author of one of the four gospels.
We have no evidence that Mark joined the Church while the Savior was on the earth. But we know that he did join the Church later, and that he labored with Peter. We know that Paul, in his letter to Timothy, said: "Bring Mark with you, for he is profitable to our ministry." (See 2 Tim. 4:11.) We know Mark went on a mission to the northern part of Africa, and that travelers today can walk over ruins of structures built to his memory.
Mark did not himself recount any appearance of the Risen Lord, but he testified that the Lord would meet his disciples. From Mark we hear the glorious proclamation of the first empty tomb in all the world. For the first time in history the words "here lies" were supplanted by the divine message, "He is risen." No one can doubt that Mark was convinced in his soul of the reality of the empty tomb ; and, if my inference is right, he knew about the trial, the humiliation to which Jesus was subjected, and the crucifixion. He devoted his life to the proclaiming of the gospel, and if tradition can be relied upon, he sealed his testimony with his blood.
Luke stood by Paul's side at the jail, and not long after that, according to the tradition, Paul was beheaded. Luke was a physician. He spent many years of his life studying about the cruci- fied Savior. He experienced the darkness that spread over the country at the time of the cruci- fixion. In chapter 24, Luke testifies to the divine message: "Why seek ye the living among the dead?
"He is not here, but is risen. . . ." (Luke 24: 5-6.)
With equal assurance, we can accept his state- ment and witness in regard to the testimonies of Peter and Paul and other apostles regarding the resurrection. "To whom also he [Christ] shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speak- ing of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." (Acts 1:3.)
Neither Mark nor Luke testifies as to having personally seen the Risen Lord, and, therefore, some urge that their recorded testimonies cannot be taken as firsthand evidence. That they do not so testify and yet were convinced that others did see him shows how incontrovertible was the evidence among the apostles and other disciples that the resurrection was a reality.
Fortunately, we have the personal testimony of a witness to an appearance of Jesus after his death and burial. This personal testimony also corroborates the testimonies not only of Mark and Luke, but also of others. Saul, a Jew of Tarsus who was educated at the feet of the Pharisee Gamaliel, was, before his conversion, a bitter persecutor of all who believed in Jesus of Nazareth. Later the thoroughly converted Saul, now the apostle Paul, proclaimed:
"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
"And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
"And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve ;
"After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part re- main unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.
"After that, he was seen of James ; then of all the apostles.
"And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
"For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I perse- cuted the church of God." (1 Cor. 15:3-9.)
In addition to the ancient apostles, we have the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, who gives in an unequivocal description the following stirring testimony in relation to his first vision:
". . . When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages . . . standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other — This is My Be- loved Son. Hear,Him!"( Joseph Smith 2:17.) -*"
August 1968
These words were spoken about eighteen hundred years after the resurrection of the Savior.
Thus, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day- Saints stands with Peter, Paul, James, and all of the apostles in accepting the resurrection as being not only literally true, but also as the consumma- tion of Christ's divine mission on earth. Other great religious leaders among the nations of the world since history began have taught virtue, temperance, self-control, service, obedience to righteousness and duty; some have taught belief in one supreme ruler and in a hereafter ; but only Christ broke the seal of the grave and revealed death as the door to immortality and eternal life.
If Christ lived after death, so shall men, each one taking his place, in the next world, for which he is best fitted. Since love is as eternal as life, the message of the resurrection is the most com- forting, the most glorious message ever given to man; for when death takes a loved one from us,
we can look with assurance into the open grave and say, "He is not here; he will rise again." (See Matt. 28:6.)
My dear fellow workers, I know as a divine truth that Christ preached to the spirits in prison while his body lay in the tomb. It is true!
". . . the Lord is God, and beside him there is no Savior.
"Great is his wisdom, marvelous are his ways, and the extent of his doings none can find out.
"His purposes fail not, neither are there any who can stay his hand.
"From eternity to eternity he is the same, and his years never fail.
"For thus saith the Lord — I, the Lord, am merciful and gracious unto those who fear me, and delight to honor those who serve me in righteousness and in truth unto the end.
"Great shall be their reward and eternal shall be their glory." (D&C 76:1-6.) O
An Okinawa Sabbath By J. William Perry
/ ivas awakened this morning Here in a remote corner of God's
vineyard. It is the Sabbath. Raindrops dripping from- eaves Echoed through my room, And the windows were dull
gray.
Suddenly
An intense feeling crept through
my being. "Your radio — turn it on —
listen!"
And then —
"Music and the Spoken Word From the Crossroads of the
West."
My ears filled, as
Strains of pipe and voice,
As choir and organ,
Poured forth music
Illuminated by
The Spirit of the Lord.
And the spoken word,
Magnified and enhanced
By more than the Tabernacle
dome, Brought forth a simple message (Not verbose) About respect one to another,
And the family —
The very hallmark of His gospel.
Maybe it was heard by more
than I, By other servicemen; Possibly they too sensed, the
beauty thereof And will come to know That it was given to us As one gleaming pearl, A single bead From a golden string, The glory and extent of which Cannot be fully conceived By finite mortals. Thus came this message.
Improvement Era
Almost 100 percent of nighttime fatal
accidents to teenagers in St. Louis
in 1967 involved alcohol.
The Era Asks
President N. Eldon Tanner About the Word of Wisdom
With the deluge of new soul- and mind-destroying drugs, and the modern worldwide barrage of propaganda by alcoholic and tobacco interests, few topics are more timely than the Word of Wisdom. President N. Eldon Tanner, second coun- selor in the First Presidency, has kept abreast of the many findings involving the Word of Wisdom. Formerly a school principal, Minister of Land, Mines, and Forests of the Province of Alberta, Canada, and president of Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited, President Tanner has enjoyed a career of far-ranging influence.
Q. How do researchers, educators, and health scientists view the influence of alcohol upon society?
A. Alcohol— in liquors, beers, and all forms— has contributed more evil, sadness, and heartache to the world than will ever be imagined by our finite minds. Even in business, its toll is tremendous. Experts claim that more than five workers out of every 100 are alcoholics, and these include men from the execu- tive suite to the assembly line. They cost industry four billion dollars a year. One official, Lewis F. Presnall, director of the industrial services of the National Council on Alcoholism, says alcoholism among workers is a "huge problem and extremely costly to industry."
But alcoholism does more than hit industry in the pocketbook. It hits every citizen. In 1966 Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York introduced the Alcoholism Control Act in the U. S. Senate, and reported that some 15 percent of all new admissions to public non-federal mental hospitals in 1960 were alcoholics. It is calculated that over five million persons in the United States are alcoholics and that alcohol in-
directly upsets another 20 million lives— persons such as family members, employers, and close associates. Two billion dollars each year are spent for the care and rehabilitation of alcoholics. Every citizen pays in increased taxes the cost of alcoholism.
Q. Is alcoholism increasing?
A. Yes, national councils state that alcoholism has increased so rapidly that it now ranks fourth in the United States as a leading health problem. Only mental illness, heart disease, and cancer are more common. In our permissive society, the development of a state of mind conducive to the use of alcohol has been inevitable.
Q. Do parents need to be more vigilant in this matter?
A. Very definitely, and especially Latter-day Saint parents who have the word of the Lord on this sub- ject. Parents need to remember that their children associate with friends who are not aware of the dangers of alcohol, even with youth who themselves may be drinking. Dr. Frederick Hudson, director of an alcoholic clinic in San Francisco, claims that 70
August 1968
percent of all alcoholics begin drinking as teenagers. These youths see the drinking of alcohol as a natural way of life among their parents and others. Accord- ing to the 1963 White House Conference on Children and Youth, most youths who drink get their first drink in their own homes from parents who drink regularly.
I would like to refer to a story that I have often mentioned about the father who was called to the scene of a car accident in which his young daughter was killed. The group had been drinking, and the father in his anguish exclaimed: "I'll kill the man who provided this whiskey!" On returning home he found a note in his daughter's own handwriting in his liquor cabinet. It read: "Dad, I hope you don't mind our taking your whiskey tonight."
Since youth will not be able to avoid being exposed to alcohol, we need to encourage them to teach their friends the truth about alcohol. Parents may be in- terested to know that a special jury in St. Louis, Mis- souri, found that "almost 100 percent of the nighttime fatal accidents to teenagers in 1967 involved the use of alcohol." In fact, the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare reported in 1967 that 50 percent of all highway accidents are caused by drink- ing. In September 1964, the Medical Tribune reported that 68 percent of all highway deaths were caused by drinking. We should all be active in the enactment and enforcement of laws to protect the public against drinking drivers.
But alcohol's toll does not end on the highway. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1966 reported that almost 50 percent of all those arrested were under the influence of alcohol. The Quarterly Journal of Studies of Alcohol reported that alcohol was involved in 64 percent of homicide cases, 70 percent of physi- cal assault crimes, and 50 percent of shootings and other assaults. (Vol. 17.)
It is an established fact that much sex delinquency begins when one is under the influence of alcohol. Also, alcohol is the cause of more broken homes, frus- trated and disappointed children, warped personali- ties, and dulling of minds than any other single cause. No one needs to question the inspiration of the in- struction, "wine or strong drink is not good." (See D&C 89:5.)
Q. Has research confirmed the Church's teach- ings against the use of drinks containing caffeine?
A. Numerous researchers and students are cur- rently probing the influence on humans of many so- called harmless drugs, such as caffeine. According to a German geneticist, Dr. Wolfram Osterag, "coffee, tea, and certain soft drinks may not be as innocuous as they seem. The caffeine in these drinks and in some medicines can cause miscarriages or can be passed on to the unborn baby, causing mutations in its cells."
In experiments conducted with human cells, the physician found that caffeine causes the chromosomes of the cells to break up. Dr. Osterag has said, "The possibility exists that caffeine is one of the most dangerous mutation-causing agents in man, since it is known that caffeine penetrates to the human germinal tissue and through the placental barrier to the human fetus."
Q. Are the discoveries about tobacco that made so many headlines several years ago fully sub- stantiated?
A. Most emphatically. In fact, mounting pressure continues to pile up against the use of tobacco. At first, isolated studies linked cigarette smoking with an increased risk of death from lung cancer. Then in 1962 the British Royal College of Physicians reported that some 500 Britons were dying each week from lung cancer and that 80 percent of these deaths were caused by cigarettes.
Improvement Era
Heavy advertising by the tobacco industry has attempted to offset the truth about tobacco.
Besides being connected with lung cancer and pulmonary diseases, tobacco is also associated with deaths from peptic ulcers, stroke, and cancer of the larynx, mouth, pharynx, esophagus, and bladder, as well as other diseases. It is reported that each year tobacco is responsible for 11 million cases of chronic illness in the United States and 77 million days lost from work.
It is little wonder, then, that the Lord has said, "And again, tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is not good for man. . . ," (D&C 89:8.)
The truth about tobacco is coming more into the public consciousness, but heavy advertising by the tobacco industry has attempted to offset the truth, and even resulted in a 2.9 percent increase in cigarette sales last year.
But if we will continue to teach the facts about tobacco and alcohol, most of our people, we hope, will make the intelligent decision. According to re- search, teenagers are smarter than many adults in this respect. A U.S. Public Health Service survey reports that teenage smoking has dropped 10 percent in the last ten years throughout the United States, and that 80 percent of the teens who say they smoke also say they plan to quit.
Q. What are your thoughts concerning the drugs, such as LSD, currently in use?
A. Far too many of our own Latter-day Saints have experimented and continue to experiment with LSD and other modern drugs. They take drugs in opposi- tion to known medical and scientific research, and in opposition to sound thinking and moral teachings. Many reports of sad experiences with drugs, in which individuals involved now regret their actions, have come to our attention.
For example, LSD has been identified as a drug that "substitutes instant delirium tremens for the slower escapism of the whiskey bottle." It may cause
the emotionally disturbed to go permanently insane. Harvard University has reported: "We now know that long-term subtle psychological damage can result from LSD. Numerous cases have been reported of prolonged psychotic reactions lasting from a few months to two years." The university also reports that the drug probably structurally damages the brain. What sane, intelligent person would want to damage his brain permanently?
Q. How should Latter-day Saints view this ten- dency of our modern environment to discover and promote the use of these mind- and soul-wasting drugs of alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and LSD?
A. Despite all that we know about the danger of these drugs and their evil and shocking influence, many youths— some of them Latter-day Saints— each year begin the drinking, smoking, and drug-use ex- perience. Parents, teachers, and youth leaders must make a renewed attempt to reach all of our youth— the religiously active as well as the inactive— con- cerning this message, and to encourage our youth and adults to be ambassadors in informing their associates of the dangers of these drugs. No good comes from them as they are currently used in con- temporary society— only degeneration of physical and mental health. Many films on these topics are avail- able from the American Cancer Society, medical departments, police departments, health agencies, and other governmental agencies.
All Latter-day Saints should read again that blessed revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants concerning our latter-day environment, Section 89:
"Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation—
"And all saints who remember to keep and do these
August 1968
'We have not seen
the end of such
new drugs
nor their
devastating results."
sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones;
"And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures;
"And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.
"And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them. Amen." (D&C 89:4, 18-21.)
We have not seen the end of such new drugs nor their devastating results. There will be more. And there will be continual pressure by the forces con- nected with the tobacco and alcohol industries. Yet,
whatever the pressures, whatever our society may offer, Latter-day Saints need not succumb.
Our bodies are the temples of our personal spirits, and they are also the temples of the Spirit of God. Truly, the influence of the Spirit finds difficulty in penetrating a drug-dulled and drug-warped mind. May God bless us to seek after the good things of the earth, the good things of life. May all Latter-day Saints seek inspiration in their callings and encourage people everywhere to experience the full joy of mental, spiritual, and physical health that our Father in heaven has promised to those who follow his teach- ings. And may we all thank him for and determine to fully keep the Word of Wisdom. Never before has the divinity of its message been more apparent.
WHAT IS IT? By Heidi Vogt
What is it—
That makes the sweetness of life, That makes my heart rejoice And my breath stand still?
Is it the laughter of a child, Or the sunbeams kissing The fragrant roses in the morning. Or is it you, or is it God?
When I look at the rainbow And see the colors magnificently Joined together, Mv heart speaks clearly:
It's God through whom you are
inspired. It's you, and in your eyes I hear the children laughing, And with your smile you give me life Because you are my love.
Improvement Era
'/<?
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W
ummtf
1912
By Karl E. Young
A remarkable yet often overlooked chapter in Church history deals with the early Latter-day Saint colonies in Mexico. This is the first in a series of fascinating glimpses into the flight of the Mormons from Mexico in 1912. They are selected chapters from a forth- coming book, Ordeal in Mexico, to be published by Deseret Book Company. Today, about 60,000 Latter- day Saints in three stakes and five missions live in Mexico and enjoy the freedoms and opportunities of this important American nation. Karl E. Young, the author, is a former Rhodes scholar at Oxford Univer- sity in England and has taught English at Brigham Young University since 1930.
BEGINNINGS
• "The Mormons were driven from their homes. . . ." Thus begins the melancholy narrative, well-known to most Latter-day Saints. And most Saints could piece out the story, telling how their pioneer ancestors crossed the plains, goading their tired oxen or buck- ing handcarts with their own weary limbs. They would also be able to tell, readily and eagerly, why their folks left Nauvoo, toiling across the prairie and the mountains in order to find a place where they could worship God in their own way and raise their families free from the heckling and depredations of intolerant mobs.
No doubt most Mormons could also tell how, with minor variations, the tale repeated itself 40 years later, when devout believers in the divine law of polygamy gave up their homes rather than suffer separation, and pioneered a new life in a new country, Mexico, where they could live their religion and prepare for eternal glory according to the pattern laid down by the Prophet Joseph. These zealous souls were forced across the border by the pressure of the United States marshals who, with the passage of the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, galvanized their efforts to stamp out the practice of polygamy.
Parts of this material are reprinted by courtesy of The American West, in which it first appeared.
But it is doubtful that many Mormons who should happen to hear those bleak words about expulsion from homes repeated again in a third context would know how to complete the story. Some of them might be aware that the third exodus in less than 70 years was from Mexico. They probably would remember having heard such phrases as "the colonies," and "the exodus," and "Juarez Academy," but it is extremely doubtful that they would know that Juarez Academy is not located in Juarez City, across the Rio Grande from El Paso. It is most unlikely that they would be able to find Colonia Juarez very quickly on a map, located as it is in remote western Chihuahua, more than 150 miles southwest of El Paso, It is even more doubtful that they would know that the Mormons founded six colonies in Chihuahua and two in Sonora, and that the year in which all of these colonies were abandoned was 1912, when the revolution that swept Mexico was swirling with special violence on the lonely plains of Chihuahua,
But the ordeal through which the Mormon colonists in Mexico passed during that revolution of 1912 was of so painful a nature as to stir responses in every person, young or old, who looks with sympathy upon the human predicament. True, the colonists did not have to endure such pain and anguish as did the Donner party, stranded in the deep snows on the east side of the towering Sierras and reduced to the degradation of cannibalism for mere wretched survival. But the Chihuahua colonists suffered through the grinding misery of history repeating itself for a third time as Saints were once again forced to abandon their homes and their possessions and flee as did their ancestors from Nauvoo, this time back to a country on which they had already turned their backs as they sought relief from oppression a quarter of a century earlier.
Purpose of this story is to tell of the sufferings
August 1968
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Illustrated by Ted Nagata
Improvement Era
With threats and warnings, Caveda and 50 men blustered into town.
f
md hardships that attended that flight from Mexico. The impact of those harrowing experiences cannot be sensed adequately unless a reader is allowed to see the details and to participate in the events themselves. In order to achieve this effect, the writer has attempted to choose accounts that are most rep- resentative of the experiences of the Mexican colonists as a whole. And in order to capture the sense of immediacy, which alone can recreate the sensations of participation, he has focused the narrative lens on individuals and held the microphone close to the lips of the most articulate.
Nevertheless, before we isolate the individual, we must see him in his group. We shall therefore take a rapid survey of the events in the background of all Mormon colonists in Mexico. In order to understand the pains of relinquishment, we have to know what it was that the colonists were obliged to abandon.
It should be recognized first of all that the move to Mexico was not merely a private and personal affair. The Church authorities advised polygamists to go to this new country and actively supported their emigra- tion. High officials were sent from Church head- quarters in Salt Lake City to precede the colonists into Mexico and look for areas where colonies might be established. These men were instructed to help the emigrants to organize colonization companies in order to purchase tracts of land and lay out town- sites. The whole endeavor had the blessing of the Church.
After months of frustrating efforts to find land with clear titles that could be purchased, the agents for the colonists finally bought 50,000 acres on the Piedras Verdes River and 60,000 acres in Diaz and Corrales. Then the immigrants, who had been making shift in tents and wagonboxes, moved onto the land. It had taken almost a full year to locate the sites for their settlements. But now they eagerly set to work. At Colonia Juarez, for example, they constructed dugouts along the river bank for temporary shelters, laid out a townsite, set up poles with woven willows and chinked mud for a meetinghouse and school building, and dug a canal for irrigation water for their land.
Their pleasure in accomplishment suffered a severe blow when they discovered that a mistake had oc-
curred in the survey of their boundary line and that all of their improvements had been made on the property of the San Diego ranch. With heavy hearts they moved from the smooth, flat land they had been occupying, with its deep soil, so easy to till and irri- gate, up to the mouth of the canyon, where the land sloped off over uneven, gravelly benches down to the river. This stream ran through the middle of the purchase, presenting a formidable barrier to the establishment of a unified and well-planned townsite. Once again the settlers laid out a town and fields and dug another canal around a rocky hillside to lead water to their unpromising acres. Even the repeated shocks of an earthquake, which tumbled their new- laid chimneys, failed to daunt them. And when they realized that the heaving of the earth had opened up seams along the riverbed and increased the flow of water, these devout souls were sure that the Lord would take care of them. The later discovery that their rough and rocky bench lands were ideally suited to the raising of apples such as were unmatched by any others grown in all of Mexico only convinced them more profoundly that they were indeed the children of God.
Their town was named Colonia Juarez, after the great Mexican libertarian; and as other colonies were established, they were given names honoring other Mexicans, such as Diaz, Dublan, and Garcia. Within a few years six colonies were flourishing in the state of Chihuahua, three down on the plateau— Colonia Juarez, Colonia Dublan, and Colonia Diaz, and three in the Sierra Tarahumare Mountains— Pacheco, Garcia, and Chuichupa. Two colonies also sprang up in the state of Sonora: Colonia Oaxaca and Colonia Morelos. Other smaller settlements were established here and there, but these were hardly large enough to be recog- nized as towns.
In order to understand more clearly the action in the detailed accounts that follow, the reader should be informed of the location of the colonies with relation to each other and to the United States border. He might, therefore, look upon the Chihuahua colonies as lying like beads loosely strung on a thread that had been flung carelessly from the New Mexican border town of Columbus down south to the Sierra Tarahumare Mountains. Colonia Diaz would be the first bead on the strand, lying near the Mexican pueblo of La Ascension, some fifty or sixty miles south of the border. The second bead would be Colonia Dublan, a good sixty miles further south and two or three miles north of the railroad station Nuevo Casas Grandes. Dublan was and still is the only Mormon town on the railroad. The thread would then twist southwesterly, through the old Mexican town of Casas
August 1968
11
Grarides about four miles away from the new town, and then on for 13 miles to Colonia Juarez, the central gem on the strand, which lay adorning the slender stream of the Piedras Verdes River. Thirty-five miles farther south and west, in the mountain valleys, one would find the other beads, first Colonia Pacheco, then eight miles farther on, Colonia Garcia, and finally, Chuichupa, 25 miles beyond. One settlement, however, could not be considered a bead on the strand. This was Pearson, a lumber town, which had been established by an English financier. It straddled the railroad at the foot of the mountains about eight or ten miles south of Colonia Juarez.
All of these Chihuahua towns lay on the east side of the Continental Divide, though the mountain settlements were not distant from the western slopes of the Sierra Tarahumares and the state of Sonora. The two Sonora colonies, Morelos and Oaxaca, would represent loose beads. They were balanced pre- cariously on the banks of the treacherous Bavispe River, many arduous miles of travel over the Conti- nental Divide from the other Mexican colonies and also far away from the Arizona towns across the bor- der, Douglas and Bisbee.
The Mormon settlements stretched deep enough into Mexico to allay most suspicions among natives that here was another group of Yanqui settlers who, like the Texans, would one day be attempting to split off another big chunk of Mexican territory in favor of absorption into the United States. Yet the towns were still close enough to the border to preserve commercial ties with houses in the United States rather than doing all of their business with merchants in the distant cities of Mexico. This physical situa- tion magnified the importance of the Mormon colonies far beyond what their humble populations would normally have commanded, for the most productive towns, especially Colonia Juarez and Colonia Dublan, became the supply centers— willing or unwilling— for various troops of revolutionary and counter- revolutionary soldiers, as well as for numerous knots of bandits.
The growth of the Mormon colonies during the 25 years preceding the Mexican revolution of 1910-20 was, by Mexican standards, phenomenal. Not only did the Saints manufacture many items in general demand by their own people, such as shoes, harnesses, saddles, and various kinds of furniture, but they also ground much more than enough flour for themselves and cut vast quantities of good lumber for export to El Paso as well as for use in the mining and building industries of Chihuahua and Sonora. They had erected fine homes, putting on the Chihuahua plateau the old-fashioned Mormon stamp of tall, red brick
They had created an economy
in this adobe land
that far exceeded anything
immediately north
of the border.
houses, picket fences, broad lawns, and flower beds. Their businesses and factories were thriving, their sawmills ran full time, and their orchards produced the best apples in the nation. Cattle and horses multi- plied on the long grass of their upper valleys. Under the approving eye of President Diaz, they were pros- pering in almost every way. They had created an economy in this adobe land that was not merely reminiscent of the one they had left behind in Utah or Arizona, but that far exceeded in growth and value anything immediately north of the border, with the exception of El Paso. Such towns in the United States as Douglas and Columbus were mere villages by comparison.
But times had not always been so good to the colonists. In 1910 they could sit back in their rocking chairs at night before the red coals of oak wood in the fireplace and reminisce about the hard times of two decades ago. Life was easier now. It was good to have the tough part over. The colonists had ad- justed well to their new environment, and life was full of promise. The mutterings of social unrest beyond the horizon were not loud enough to disturb peaceful nightly slumber. Little did they know what awaited them.
EXODUS
The revolution, which had its genesis with Fran- cisco Madero, was slow in getting underway. But by the end of 1910 Mormon colonists in the Chihua- hua settlements were beginning to feel the effects of what they had at first regarded as merely an "insurrection." Bridges had been burned on the rail- way that linked them with El Paso, temporarily iso- lating them, and J. J. Walser recorded in his journal that the colony of Dublan had to be guarded every night to prevent revolutionist stragglers from com- mitting depredations. The comment carries the implication of a tendency that gradually developed into harsh and bitter realities as winter advanced.
Nelle S. Hatch records how the situation worsened as the revolution began to envelop her home town of Colonia Juarez:
"First there was a restlessness among the natives
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which found vent in a sudden disrespect for law. This attitude was at first felt rather than seen. Submission to law enforcement became tinged with resentment against those who enforced it, a challenge of authority. This grew into overt acts of insolence, open derision and finally into petty thievery. Bands of revolutionists coming into town to request help from businesses able to supply revolutionary needs increased this tendency to licensed robbery. Polite requests for horses, saddles, etc., from the Tanning and Manu- facturing Company, sacks of flour and grain from Skousen's Mill, and merchandise from the Colonial Mercantile, turned into firm demands. Owners of these properties were forced to comply and to accept in payment only promises or written agreements that both parties knew could not or would not be kept."
In 1911 Madero made a bold attempt to get the revolution moving by attacking Casas Grandes, which was near Colonia Juarez and next-door to Colonia Dublan. His forces won the battle but were then immediately overthrown by federal reinforcements, who arrived at the crucial moment to rout the rebel army. Notwithstanding the defeat, the rebel cause flared into life in many parts of the country. Madero's courage had strongly appealed to the imagination, and supporters now began to recognize his qualities as a leader and to respond to them. Not long thereafter Casas Grandes fell into rebel hands again.
Meanwhile, at the two nearby Mormon colonies, rebel factions preyed upon the settlements with little regard for the feeble efforts at control exerted by Inez Salazar, who had taken over command at Casas Grandes. A Mormon attempt to capture and bring a thief to punishment in Colonia Juarez resulted in the killing of Juan Sosa. And the incident almost ignited a local war against the hated gringo. The seriousness of the situation can be deduced from the fact that a trial in the courtroom was disrupted and four Mormon principals were taken to Nuevo Casas Grandes, where they were rescued at the last moment from an angry mob by Pascual Orozco and Raul Madero. Raul was the future president's brother, and Orozco was for a time the top figure among revolu- tionary fighting men. No lesser persons could have saved the colonists.
However, as soon as these prominent leaders moved on, local rebel bosses renewed their attempts to pun- ish the four Mormons. But first they had to find them, for the Mormons hid out until another, graver crisis obscured their own particular troubles. As Madero went on to Mexico City, Orozco was left behind, and he soon defected to lead a rebellion of his own. His rebellion came into the open in February 1912, and for several weeks his colorados, or "Red Flaggers,"
Raul Madero, the
future president's brother,
helped rescue
four Latter-day Saints
from an angry mob.
controlled much of Chihuahua. Pancho Villa, how- ever, had remained faithful to Madero. And now the Mormon colonists saw Villista and Red Flagger bands chase each other into the hills as skirmishes brushed their towns. Both factions depended upon the indus- trious colonists to replenish their spent supplies, and both demanded guns, horses, saddles, and money in a never-ending series of raids and intimidating visits.
Worried and frightened, the colonists kept appeal- ing to Salazar, who had gone over to the cause of the Liberales, as Orozco called his Red Flaggers, to pro- tect them from rebel depredations. But Salazar either did not want to protect them or was not able to. Consequently, the colonists, forced to take some kind of measures to save themselves, smuggled in two or three dozen high-powered rifles and ammunition with which to defend themselves if it came to the worst. Yet their first attempt to bring in weapons illegally not only miscarried but was also publicized. The second, therefore, could hardly be achieved with- out detection. In any case, Salazar was soon demanding a count of guns, and shortly afterward, when the threat of federal attack was imminent, he ordered the de- livery of all of the guns the colonists owned.
Junius Romney, the highest Church official among the Saints in Mexico, refused to order his people to give up their guns, whereupon Salazar declared Romney to be his prisoner until he submitted to the demand. Hot words were exchanged, • but when Salazar threatened to send Lino Ponce with a big squad of men to search Mormon homes and seize all guns, Romney, fearing for the safety of his people, temporized. He would request his men to deliver their guns to a central location if Salazar would guarantee safe passage for the women and children from the colonies on the trains out to El Paso. Six cannons in place on flat cars at Colonia Dublan with barrels pointing toward the town and the threat that the Saints would be treated as if they were a federal army, subject to attack in the same way, convinced the Mormon leader that he would have to yield.
Salazar was without doubt badly in need of guns and ammunition. Ever since March 14, 1912, an embargo on the export of arms from the United
14
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States to Mexico had been in force. In late May, Huerta had smashed Orozco's troops at the second battle of Telleno, and now, with General Jose de la Luz Blanco threatening to come in on Casas Grandes from Sonora on the west and General Sanjines bear- ing down from the south, Salazar feared that he would be caught in a pincers movement from which there would be no escape. In desperation he had to have whatever arms were present in the nearby country, and he would take them by force, if necessary.
President Romney's decision to send out the women and children came so suddenly that no one had time for adequate preparation. Some families from Dublan left town on the same day, July 25, 1912, fleeing precipitously from threatened danger. Yet there were many, especially in Colonia Juarez and the mountain colonies, who felt that an exodus was wrong and that they could continue to live in peace in their homes if they would pursue a course of undeviating neutrality.
Among these was Bishop Bentley, but his behavior was characteristic of devout Mormons everywhere. In response to President Romney's call, he said, "If our stake president's advice is to move women and children to a place of safety, mine will go right along with the others, and I'll instruct my ward members to do the same. No matter what private opinions I may main- tain, I know that safety lies in obeying the priesthood, and I am always subject to its direction."
With similar regard for authority, almost all Mor- mon families hastened to make ready for the move at once. Very little could be taken with them. Conse- quently, clothes were left hanging in the wardrobes, sheets and bedding remained in the drawers, dishes on the shelves, pictures on the walls, and food in the cellars and pantry bins. Many of the colonists ex- pected to come back within a few days. As soon as the federal troops arrived, the revolution would be quelled, and they could settle down to normal living once again.
It did not turn out that way. At the very outset one family was robbed by bandits as they drove in wagons over to the railroad station ten miles av/ay. Then all of the women and children, as well as the very elderly, were crowded into cars for the ride through the July heat across the desert to El Paso. They were disembarked beneath the sheds of an abandoned lumberyard on the banks of the Rio Grande without funds, without privacy, without husbands and fathers or any plans for the future. Some of them did go back to Mexico after a few weeks, but they fled again as trouble flared up once more. Many of them never saw their Mexican homes again.
The husbands and fathers, who had stayed at home to look after their property, were themselves called
out by President Romney within ten days after the women and children had gone. As rebel looting and thievery continued at Dublan, the chances seemed to multiply that some colonists would reach a point beyond which they would stand for no more abuse and would retaliate with arms. Then on August 1 the rebel Captain Caveda blustered into town at the head of 50 men, and with threats he warned the men in Colonia Juarez that he would not stand for the killing of any more of his men. This was, no doubt, a refer- ence to the execution of a soldier who had been shot for robbing colonists as they moved the women and children out a few days before. It mattered little that other rebel officers had ordered the execution. Mormon leaders were blamed as the "finger men."
It looked as if Caveda was spoiling for a fight, a situation that President Romney was most loathe to see develop. Fearing that blood would be shed, he called a meeting in which it was decided to leave Colonia Juarez for a while rather than face the possi- bility of violence.
Runners were sent to alert the Mormons on both sides of the river and tell them where to meet. But when the appointed time came, through some mis- understanding they failed to get together as they had expected. Some of the men did not even get out of the town, while President Romney and others went as far into the mountains as MacDonald Springs. From this point he sent word calling for all colonists to meet at the "stairs," a well-known point in the mountains. Riders were dispatched to Garcia, Pacheco, and Chuichupa, as well as to Colonia Du- blan, with the summons.
President Romney waited for the men from the mountain colonies to arrive, but at last, growing im- patient, he called the camp to assemble for a meeting and told them that stake and ward authorities had been discussing the question of abandoning the colonies and going out to the border to join their families or remaining to brave it out in Mexico. He then asked all who wished to express their opinions on the matter to speak up. A few responded briefly, but soon a vote was taken in which an almost unani- mous choice was expressed for exodus to the United States.
One of the men present at the meeting, J. H. Martineau, who later wrote a voluminous history of the colonies in Mexico that has not yet been pub- lished, observed that the result of the vote surprised almost everybody: "The general attitude of the colonists except some from Dublan, where the depredations had been severe, was in favor of remain- ing in the hills a few days or even weeks until the arrival of Generals Blanco and Sanjines, but somehow
J
16
Improvement Era
H
,.'-":,
we had voted contrary to our intentions." '
Now the die was cast, and President Romney sent word to the still-absent members that the main body would move on toward the border unless the men from the mountain colonies came in at once. This decision was shocking to Bishop Bentley and Alonzo Taylor, who had seen the rebel forces pull out of Colonia Juarez even before they left town. With the urgent need for flight gone, these two could not understand abandonment of their homes for the un- certainty of existence across the border, where none of the basic securities of life were visible. No houses, no food, no jobs— nothing beyond the bare necessities that charitable townspeople in El Paso and a con- cerned federal government would give them as objects of charity.
Yet go out they did. Bishop Bentley was true to his upbringing. When his superior officer in the priesthood uttered a call, he responded loyally. The whole band of approximately 250 men moved like a military unit to the border, keeping scouts before them and a rear guard behind, and organizing them- selves into small groups with leaders and men in clearly recognized chains of command. But once they had reached the border and met with Elder Anthony W. Ivins, one of the Council of the Twelve from Salt Lake City, the matter was talked out, and those who had felt that they might have done better to remain in Mexico were given leave without preju- dice to return to the colonies and take up life again on their own. By September 1, Joseph C. Bentley
Illustrated by Olinda Hoehne
and about 35 other men, women, and children were again in Colonia Juarez, harvesting crops, canning fruit, and trying to make up for the time they had lost.
All this will serve as an overview of the troubles through which the colonists struggled during the summer of 1912. In what follows, however, the camera lens zooms in on a few key figures, whose participation in the events of that summer should give a sharper picture of the nature of the ordeal through which the colonists passed. One of the most robust and articulate characters among the Mormons in Chihuahua was Dave Brown, an almost legendary figure who has survived and lives on in our own effete age. His voice still booms as he recounts the painful nature of the exodus of the women and children from their homes in the land where they had found refuge from the United States marshals.
The flight of the women and children was without doubt the most traumatic experience suffered by the Mormons as a group during the revolution in Mexico. The exodus of the men, approximately one week later, was by comparison an anticlimax, although in many respects it was the more significant move, since it marked for many families the termination of their existence in Mexico. But how the women and children got along is the business of the next installment. O (To be continued)
August 1968
17
%
9€ #g»
Illustration by Dale Kilbourn
Beginning- a new series on theThreeWitnesses
Oliver Cowderys
Non-Mormon
Reputation
By Dr. Richard Lloyd Anderson
• Oliver Cowdery played an extraordinary role in the beginning of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His title of "second elder" was appropriate, as an examination of incidents in which he was promi- nent indicates: the translation of the Book of Mor- mon, restoration of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, printing of the Book of Mormon, the conversion of Sidney Rigdon, and the vision of the Christ and the Old Testament prophets in the Kirtland Temple. Since he was announced as the sole com- panion of Joseph Smith in the foundation experiences, no one else stood in the unique position of being able to expose Joseph Smith at all critical points, if he could be exposed. Because whatever Oliver Cowdery reported about the earliest events of Mormonism is of the greatest significance, it is most important to study the kind of man he was and assess his reliability. Oliver Cowdery was respected by associates wherever he lived. The pinnacle of his Latter-day Saint career was in Kirtland in 1836, when he was a trusted "assistant president" to Joseph Smith and was involved on many practical fronts of the expanding LDS movement.1 In that year he reassumed the editor- ship of the Church newspaper, arid his brother-in-law eharacterized him publicly as "a man of piety, of candor, of truth, of integrity, of feeling for the welfare of the human family, and in short, he is a man of God."la Except for the religious connotations of such an evaluation, there is no reason to think that the non-Mormon community of the Kirtland region felt differently.
After the Mormons left northern Ohio, it was fashionable to portray them as less than respectable, but Cowdery is conspicuous by his absence in such negativism. The most specific recollection of a non-
improvement Era
Mormon is by Samuel Murdock. Toward the end of a distinguished career as attorney in Clayton County, Iowa, he recalled his youth in the Lake County, Ohio, area at the time of the Mormon settle- ment there. His family arrived in Ohio in 1827, and Murdock evidently participated in the educational program that was sponsored by the Latter-day Saints during the years 1835 through 1837. Journals of many early Mormons mention Sidney Rigdon and on occa- sion Joseph Smith as teachers. Although no journal yet found mentions Oliver Cowdery as a regular in- structor, he was a trustee of the school as a member of the First Presidency of the Church, and it is known that the trustees considered instruction under their "immediate care and inspection."- As a young man Samuel Murdock had the following contact with Oliver Cowdery:
"Kirtland is situated in the county in which I was raised from youth to manhood, and at the time Smith and his Mormons settled there I was nearly a man grown, and some of them were my immediate neigh- bors, with whose children I was often schoolmates, and I often met their prophet, Joseph Smith, although I was not personally acquainted with him. I was, however, intimately acquainted with Mr. Cowdery, one of his scribes, and to whom I was indebted for his special kindness to me, as well as for the many lessons of instruction I received from him as my preceptor in the school room, and a Mormon as he was, shall ever cherish his memory. A more amiable, generous, kindhearted man, I have not met since."'
Although Cowdery was prominent in Ohio, the history of Mormonism in Missouri is written with his name largely in footnotes. Personally hurt in his relationship with Joseph Smith, he allied himself with his Whitmer relatives in differences concerning Church administration in Caldwell County, Missouri. lie left Far West prior to mob violence and by the end of that year found his way back to Kirtland. In the decade between his excommunication from the Church in 1838 and his return in 1848, his name is absent from Mormon annals.
But no one can make an intelligent appraisal of Cowdery as a person without knowing a good deal about his non-Mormon career. By failing to conform to Church discipline, he forfeited his title of "second elder" and exchanged it for "Oliver Cowdery, Esquire," the traditional designation of an attorney- at-law. Without companionship of his church asso- ciates, he nevertheless belonged to the fraternity of fellow attorneys, who admired him as a legal crafts- man. During his non-Mormon decade, he was also a politician, journalist, promoter of education, and civic servant. The opinions of his friends of this period
show clearly that he was widely respected as a man of more than ordinary stature.
By the time of his excommunication on April 12, 1838, Oliver Cowdery had formulated definite plans for the practice of law. The only question was where. He exchanged much correspondence with his brothers in Kirtland in hopes of settling in the same vicinity, and one letter states his ideal of professional com- petence:
"I take no satisfaction in thinking of practicing law with a half dozen books. Let us get where people live, with a splendid library, attend strictly to our books and practice, and I have no fear if life and health are spared, but we can do as well as, at least, the middle class."1
After experimenting with living in Missouri, he decided to move back to Kirtland, where his brothers Warren and Lyman were beginning their careers in the field of law. This move to Kirtland took place at the end of 1838, and by January 1840 it is clear that Oliver Cowdery was practicing law.5 The year 1839 was undoubtedly devoted to study for his ad- mission to the bar," but there were other activities. His biography in the family history was compiled with access to information from his widow, Elizabeth Whitmer Cowdery, who lived until 1892, and it says that he "supported himself by teaching school while pursuing his study of the law."7 If this phrasing is strictly correct, then Cowdery taught during his non- Mormon stay in Kirtland. Perhaps this is why he appears as secretaiy of one of the organizational meetings of the Western Reserve Teacher's Seminary and Kirtland Institute, which utilized the Kirtland Temple in the period that he was there. s
Be that as it may, Cowdery was active in the Democratic Party during his Kirtland stay. In 1839 he was chosen as one of the 13 delegates from Geauga county to the bi-county senatorial convention.9 The upset victory there for Benjamin Bissell is most inter- esting,1" since, as Joseph Smith's attorney at Kirt- land, Bissell was well-acquainted with Mormon
For over a decade,
Dr. Richard Lloyd Anderson,
professor of history and
religion at Brigham Young
University, has researched
new information dealing
with the witnesses of
the Book of Mormon. His
interesting and stimulating
findings will be presented
to Era readers
in the months ahead.
August 196S
19
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21
leaders. He is .spoken of as Cowdery's patron in introducing him to law, and consequently he was the likely source of Cowdery's recommendation to the Democratic leaders in Tiffin, Ohio, where Cow- dery next moved.
The spirited presidential campaign of 1840 necessi- tated a Democratic paper in Seneca County, Ohio, and both a press and an editor were imported. Cow- dery was chosen for that job, obviously on the basis of recommendations of prominent Democrats of his Cleveland-Kirtland region, some 125 miles northeast. A prominent Tiffin politician later said of the found- ing of that campaign paper: "Oliver Cowdery was to have been editor, but was dropped on the discovery that he was one of the seven founders of Mormon- ism."11 If the arithmetic of the six organizers or the 11 witnesses is garbled, the recollection is clear that a Book of Mormon witness was no political asset and could not be tolerated in a local party post. The fact that Oliver Cowdery nevertheless remained in Tiffin for seven, years and earned the respect of a biased community says a good deal for his personal capacities and character. Before leaving he was ap- pointed temporary editor of the Democratic weekly and was publicly thanked in its columns for his "ability" as shown in "the management of our paper."1 -
While the above incident illustrates Cowdery's lifelong talent as a writer, it was through his pro- fession as a lawyer and his public activities that he was chiefly known while in Tiffin from 1840 to 1847. The courthouse today holds files of legal pleadings signed "O. Cowdery"; the two local newspapers of the period contain both his lawyer's advertisements and the notices of his cases requiring publication. More significantly, two colleagues of that period are on record with their estimate of the man and his legal talent.
William Lang had the greater personal contact with Cowdery, because he apprenticed in his office for the period of one and a half years. Lang was a self- reliant man of 25 at the beginning of his period of reading law in the Cowdery office, and the senior attorney created a powerful impression upon his stu- dent. This relationship with Cowdery terminated in 1842 upon Lang's own entrance to the bar, but he associated with Cowdery for another five years, both as a member of the Seneca County Bar and in the inner circles of the county Democratic organization. Lang's lifetime legal career was supplemented with public service as prosecuting attorney, probate judge, mayor of Tiffin, county treasurer, and two terms in the Ohio senate. He was nominated by his party for major state offices twice. In later life he wrote a History of Seneca County, in which he expressed
unlimited admiration for the "noble and true man- hood" of Oliver Cowdery. He there describes Cow- dery personally and professionally:
"Mr. Cowdery was an able lawyer and a great advocate. His manners were easy and gentlemanly; he was polite, dignified, yet courteous. He had an open countenance, high forehead, dark brown eye, Roman nose, clenched lips and prominent lower jaw. He shaved smooth and was neat and cleanly in his person. He was of light stature, about five feet, five inches high, and had a loose, easy walk. With all his kind and friendly disposition, there was a certain degree of sadness that seemed to pervade his whole being. His association with others was marked by the great amount of information his conversation conveyed and the beauty of his musical voice. His addresses to the court and jury were characterized by a high order of oratory, with brilliant and forensic force. He was modest and reserved, never spoke ill of any one, never complained."1'1
The other Tiffin attorney who left written recollec- tions of Cowdery was William Harvey Gibson. It is an adequate introduction to him to note that a statue in his honor stands in front of the courthouse. He won considerable fame as a civil war general, but the statue commemorates his more famous achieve- ment as an orator and nationally known campaign speaker in the late nineteenth century. Although Gibson was involved in a state scandal and resigned his elective office of treasurer of Ohio in 1857, no doubt remains that he won back a creditable reputa- tion as Tiffin's most famous citizen. An active lawyer from 1845 to 1872 and a seasoned businessman after- ward, he evaluated Cowdery from the vantage point of a fellow attorney and political opponent. In a letter designed for publication in 1892, Gibson said, "Cowdery was an able lawyer and [an] agreeable, irreproachable gentleman."1 '
Of Cowdery's considerable public service in his Tiffin career, most consistent and significant is his service as a member of the Board of School Examiners of Seneca County. Both William Lang and William H. Gibson's wife remembered his questioning them for certification to teach. Another individual of some ability attended one of these public examinations that Cowdery and two other trustees administered and reported, "I must acknowledge myself not a little instructed, though but a spectator."15 The court files also reveal that Cowdery was prominent in testing candidates for admission to the bar, so it is clear that he displayed lifelong interest and ability as an educator.
Several remarkable estimates of Cowdery as a person stem from his political activities in two states
22
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23
while out of the Church. In Tiffin, Ohio, he was regularly before the public as an active party worker, public speaker, and occasional candidate for civil office. In 1842, 1844, and 1845, he was elected by the party township meeting as delegate to the Democratic county convention. In all these years he was named on the resolutions committee at the county convention because of his characteristic role as an articulate party spokesman. He was regularly sent to political rallies as a persuasive stump speaker. In 1845 he was elected as one of three township trustees, defeating his nearest opponent by a 26 percent vote margin.1 '; In his last year of political activity in Tiffin, 1846, Cowdery was promoted for the office of state senator at a tri-county convention by a dozen delegates who were loyal to him through two ballots.17 At an early point of his stay in Tiffin, Cowdery had written Brigham Young that he labored to produce "a fair reputation and a fair business,"1" and his solid political career in Seneca County shows the continued truth of that statement.
The year that the Latter-day Saints migrated west, Cowdery moved also, mainly for reasons of health (perhaps tuberculosis). He located at Elkhorn, Wis- consin, where he was attracted by the personal association and established law practice of his brother Lyman. It is characteristic that his first known letter from Wisconsin is from the state capital, where he initiated contact with a chief justice and a key Democratic editor.111
His career had three phases in the year spent in Wisconsin prior to his returning to the Church. First of all, he continued his profession as a lawyer. The minutes of the Walworth County commission reveal that he was granted an office in the courthouse October 3, 1847;, the two known surviving issues of Elkhorn papers for that period contain his law adver- tisement: "O. Cowdery, Attorney & Counsellor at Law"; and court records include a number of his cases. Second, for a few months prior to rejoining the Church he was co-editor of the Walworth County Democrat.'1" A neighboring party newspaper acknow- ledged his appointment by observing, "Mr. Cowdery is highly spoken of as an editor."-'
The third activity, politics, provides the most im- pressive evidence of what associates thought of Oliver Cowdery while away from the Church. With less than a year of residence in Elkhorn, he was nomi- nated as state assemblyman in the first voting under the state constitution of Wisconsin. This election in the spring of 1848 was characterized by the pre- dictable campaign smears for which Cowdery's Mormon background left him vulnerable.
With no copies of local newspapers of that period
still available, the political infighting must be re- constructed from borrowed articles. The Whig paper of Cowdery's district first noted that Democrats had nominated "one of the three witnesses to the discovery of the Golden Plates, or Mormon Bible, by Joe Smith."-- It next ran liberal extracts from the Book of Mormon, undoubtedly including the testimony of the three witnesses, which were the basis of personal sarcasm against Cowdery not only in the Elkhorn Western Star, but elsewhere.'- :; Since the campaign was short, the timing of the vicious personal attack on Cowdery resulted in much of his defense reaching print after the election. He was defeated, but by only 40 votes out of about 500 total votes cast, which under the circumstances was both a moral victory and a vindication of the man.
Considering the unpopularity of Mormonism, Cowdery's Democratic associates might have chosen to respond to attacks on him with silence or even a disavowal of their candidate. Yet Horace A. Tenney, then editor of the important Wisconsin Argus in Madison and later a man of respectable public service to his state, deplored the defeat of "a man of sterling integrity, sound and vigorous intellect, and every way worthy, honest and capable."21 Tenney had conversed with Cowdery personally, as well as corresponded with him, so his opinion is a matter of more than casual impression.
The most significant defense of Oliver Cowdery, however, came from John Breslin, his close associate in Tiffin, Ohio. Breslin had assumed the editorial post initially offered to Cowdery and had constantly promoted and defended him in the Seneca Advertiser. A brilliant young man in Ohio politics, Breslin was elected in 1848 to the Ohio House of Representatives, where he was chosen speaker. He subsequently was reelected as representative and later elected state treasurer. While in that office he made private investments of state funds (an action somewhat condoned by contemporary practice), but he was ruined politically in 1857 when the money invested was uncollectable.-n But the personal mistake of Breslin is quite irrelevant to his judgment on Cow- dery prior to this scandal, especially since Breslin's open approval of Cowdery points to considerable public opinion in agreement with him. Immediately upon hearing that Cowdery's Mormonism was the basis of personal attacks upon him in Wisconsin, Breslin published an article deploring the "baseness of such a course" of attack; and in another article, entitled "Oliver Cowdery, Esq.," he insisted on the capability and integrity of his friend:
"Mr. C. was a resident among us for a period of seven years, during which time he earned himself an
24
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25
enviable distinction at the Bar of this place and of this Judicial circuit, as a sound and able lawyer, and as a citizen none could have been more esteemed. His honesty, integrity, and industry were worthy the imitation of all, whilst his unquestioned legal abilities reflected credit as well upon himself as upon the profession of which he was a member."-0
Although Cowdery had initially planned to come back to the Church at the April conference of 1848, his Wisconsin nomination obviously altered this deci- sion and postponed the return to late October, when he arrived at Kanesville, Iowa, the "eastern" head- quarters of the Church. Migration to Utah that fall was out of the question, so economic reality dictated his wintering with Elizabeth Whitmer Cow- dery's relatives some 250 miles southeast, in Rich- mond, Missouri. Since his chronic lung condition left him too weak to cross the plains and had reduced his finances, he was forced to continue his stay in Richmond for the year 1849. Research has so far failed to find evidence that he practiced law there. As a matter of fact, for a considerable portion of that year he was bedridden, and in early spring of 1850, his weakened physical condition brought his death (March 3, 1850).
The three Mormon periodicals noting Oliver Cow- dery's death did so either in brief comment or by way of reference to his early prominence in the Church. Until his brief reunion with former friends on his return to the Church, the Latter-day Saints were basically unaware of his non-Mormon achieve- ments. But he had created a marked impression upon leading men wherever he lived. Though hardly a resident of Richmond, where he died, the circuit court and bar awarded him the normal honor of a prac- ticing attorney in good standing. Adjourning all business in honor of his funeral, it passed a resolution of condolence on behalf of "his afflicted widow and daughter," and expressed regret that "in the death of our friend and brother, Oliver Cowdeiy, his profes- sion has lost an accomplished member, and the community a reliable and worthy citizen."27 Perhaps it is strange to those accustomed to modern communi- cation that publicity of his death was not given in Salt Lake City until some four months afterward, when it was printed in the first issue of the Deseret News. However, the news did not reach his main non-Mormon home at Tiffin, Ohio, until some eight months after his death. Breslin immediately head- lined a story "Death of Oliver Cowdeiy," in which he expressed sorrow at the passing of "our much esteemed friend and former fellow citizen." More important than the few circumstantial details in this article is the final judgment of Oliver Cowdery by
the friends who knew him best while he was out of the Church:
"His numerous acquaintances at this place will receive the tidings of his decease with much regret. He was a man of more than ordinary ability, and during his residence among us had endeared himself to all who knew him in the private and social walks of life."28
Such a man publicly insisted that he and the Prophet Joseph Smith on several occasions stood in the presence of divine messengers who brought revelation and authority to establish The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. O
FOOTNOTES
1Although the title "assistant president" is loosely equated with "counselor" in early sources, it is clear that Oliver Cowdery's position as "Second Elder" meant that he "preceded the counselors in the First Presidency in authority. . . ." ( Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954], Vol. 1, p. 212.) The main scriptural sources for this conclusion are his early designation as second in authority (D&C 20:3) and the 1841 appointment of Hyrum Smith to the "gifts of the priesthood, that once were put upon him that was my servant Oliver Cowdery" (D&C 124:95), a position distinguished in the latter revelation from that of the coun- selors in the First Presidency.
i« Messenger and Advocate, Vol. 2 (March 1836), p. 236.
"Messenger and Advocate, Vol. 1 (February 1835), p. 80. Com- pare Joseph Smith, History of the Cliurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (2nd ed.; Salt Lake City, 1948), Vol. 2, pp. 474-75, which describes a public examination in January 1837, of the "Kirtland High School," at which "the trustees of the school" were present.
"Dubuque Times, April 16, 1893. Only Oliver Cowdery fits the description of one intimate with Joseph Smith and one of his scribes. A convenient reprinting of this article is found in R. Etzenhouser, From Palmyra, New York, 1830, to Independence, Missouri, 1894 (Indepen- dence, Missouri, 1894), pp. 338-41.
"•Letter of Oliver Cowdery to his brothers Warren and Lyman, Far West, Missouri, June 2, 1838. Still in private hands, the letter was reproduced photographically by Stanley R. Gunn, Oliver Cowdery (Bookcraft: Salt Lake City, 1962), pp. 263-66.
sThe first known case is advertised under the name "L. & O. Cow- dery" with the publication date of January 20, 1840, in the Painesville Republican. The notice of the case is preserved in the issue of January 28, 1840.
"William Lang, who knew Cowdery personally, says that he came to Ohio as a young man "and enteied the law office of Judge Bissell, a very distinguished lawyer in Painesville, Lake county, as a student, and was admitted to practice after having read the requisite length of time and passed an examination." (History of Seneca County [Spring- field, Ohio, 1880], p. 364.) Whether Lang really knew the details of Cowdery's pie-Tiffin period is open to question. There is no evidence that Cowdeiy resided in Painesville, although he was undoubtedly assisted by Bissell.
7Mary Bryant Alverson Mehling, Cowdrey-Cowdery-Cowdray Gene- alogy (1905), p. 173.
"Painesville Telegraph, November 29, 1838.
'■'Painesville Republican, September 26, 1839.
"Ibid., October 3, 1839.
""Letter From General W. H. Gibson," Seneca Advertiser (Tiffin. Ohio), April 12, 1892.
^Seneca Advertiser, February 19, 1847.
'^William Lang, History of Seneca County (Springfield, Ohio, 1880), p. 365. In evaluating Lang's opinion of Cowdery, it must be admitted that he shows a distinct critical ability in appraising the qualities of his fellow attorneys in the Seneca County bar.
""Letter from General W. H. Gibson," op. cit.
ir,Scncca Advertiser, October 14, 1842.
'"Ibid., April 11, 1845.
"Ibid., August 7, 1846.
,sLetter of Oliver Cowdery to Brigham Young and Willard Richards, Tiffin, Ohio, December 25, 1843, copied in Journal History of that date, and cited by Gunn, Oliver Cowdery, p. 179.
'""Letter from Wisconsin," May 18, 1847, Seneca Advertiser, June 18, 1847.
-°Issues of January 19, 1848, and August 4, 1848, contain his law advertisements. The masthead of the latter issue also lists him as co- editor.
-'Racine Advocate, July 26, 1848.
--Milwaukee Sentinel, April 13, 1848.
-■Ibid., April 29, 1848.
■^Wisconsin Argus, May 16, 1848.
-•"'William H. Gibson, his brother-in-law and successor in the same office, was also discredited in this incident because he had bought time for Breslin to repay by not revealing the deficit at the beginning of his own term.
-''Seneca Advertiser, May 5, 1848. This article was copied verbatim as an endorsement in the Walworth County Democrat and then repub- lished (May 30, 1848) by Horace A. Tenney in the Wisconsin Argus at Madison several weeks after Cowdery's defeat.
-'Circuit Court Record, Ray County, Missouri, Book C, p. 190 (entry March 5, 1850).
-^Seneca Advertiser, November 1, 1850.
26
Improvement Era
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Track Coaches Officer
Clarence F. Robison, track coach at Brigham Young University and
a Regional Representative of the Council of the Twelve, has been elected president of the United States Track Coaches Association. This year he served as acting president during the National Collegiate Athletic Associa- tion track and field championships at Berkeley, California. In national competition Brother Robison's teams have placed second, third, and fourth (twice) in the past four years.
The IDS Scene
Assistant Administrator
Dr. Frank D. Day, formerly Atlantic Coast district coordinator of seminaries and institutes of religion, has been appointed assistant administrator of seminaries and institutes. Brother Day, who has served also as seminary principal and institute
director, will assist in the week-day religious education of over 150,000 youth of the Church, under the direction of William E. Berrett, administrator.
LDSSA Director
Elder Marion D. Hanks, Assistant to the Council of the Twelve and editor of the Era of Youth, has been appointed managing director of the Latter-day Saint Student Association. The association is an organization of the Church designed to relate all phases of Church activity to college students, and assists in the implementa- tion of priesthood and auxiliary objectives.
Governor Reagan Receives Era
A subscription to The Improvement Era has been presented to California governor Ronald Reagan by Elders Charles E. Cripps and Kenyon Hyatt of the Western States Mission. They made the presentation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Governor Reagan was on a speaking assignment.
CPA Vice President
J. Will Lewis of the Winder Ward in Salt Lake City has been installed as vice president of the National Association of Accountants at an interna- tional conference held in New Orleans. The 64,000-member association is the largest accounting organization in the world. Brother Lewis has served three years on the association's national board of directors.
28
Improvement Era
Annual MIA Conference
Thousands of Mutual Improvement Association officers and teachers from all parts of the Church attended the general sessions and department workshops of the 69th annual MIA June Conference. Many of the General
Authorities participated. Activities included the traditional reception line, a new parent-youth production, and the annual pre-conference camp day program in East Millcreek Canyon.
BYU Ambassadors Abroad
Brigham Young University and the Church were
represented throughout the world during the summer months
by seven talented groups of Brigham Young University
students. An 18-man track team and a six-man
tennis team toured Europe in July. The track team,
coached by Clarence Robison, faced competition in
England, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Finland, and
Switzerland. The tennis team
faced teams in England, Holland, Italy, France,
Monaco, and Portugal. The a capella choir toured Europe
throughout June and July. A dramatic arts production,
"Bye Bye Birdie," toured Europe in early spring.
In June a variety show, "Y's Five," toured armed service
outposts in Canada and along the DEW line. In
July and August another variety show, "Startime BYU,"
has been touring the Orient. The International Folk Dancers
toured Europe in June and July for their fourth
tour of folk dance festivals and competition.
Nauvoo Temple Excavations
Excavators of Nauvoo Restoration, Inc., a Church-owned corporation for the development of Nauvoo, Illinois, early headquarters of the Church, have discovered part of the stone basement floor of the Nauvoo Temple. The stones were laid on a sand base without mortar, and confirm existing sketchy reports that the Saints in the 1840-46 period at Nauvoo put a basement floor in the temple. Also discovered in the excavations was part of a leg of a stone ox that upheld the baptismal font.
August 1968
29
I
cMafor Genealogical ^Record Sources in
THE NETHERLANDS
Continuation of the series on new research papers
Prepared by the Research Department of the Genealogical Society
There are excellent genealogical sources available for research in The Netherlands. The researcher may choose from a variety of sources, some more valuable than others. As in most European countries, the parish records can be considered the most important and most valuable research source before the civil registers were introduced by law in 1811. After 1811 the researcher should use the civil registers and population registers because they contain more detailed genealogical information. For information prior to 1811, the parish records should be searched, and as a supplement the various sources found in the state archives (rijksarchieven) and city archives in each province.
Following are valuable printed references and guides :
De Rijksarchieven in Nederland (The State Archives in The Netherlands), ('s Gravenhage: Minis- terie van Onderwijs, Kunsten en Wetenschappen, 1953), 404 pp., index. A catalog of the state archives giving the titles of their holdings.
Hoe vindt me zijn voorouders in de Nederlandse archieven (How to find Dutch ancestors in the archives), (Amsterdam: Nederlandse Genealogische Vereniging, 1961), 183 pp., index. Gives in- formation on what types of records are available in the archives and what information the rec- ords contain.
H. Brouver, oud-Hoofdarchivist bij Het Algemeen Rijksarchief te 's Gravenhage, Geschreven Ver- leden (Genealogy and old script), ('s Gravenhage: Europese Bibliotheek, 1963). Gives informa- tion pertaining to various genealogical records and their contents; also a brief introduction to early Dutch handwriting.
Jhr. Mr. Dr. E. A. van Beresteyn, Genealogisch Repertorium, 3 Vols., ('s Gravenzande: Het Cen- traal Bureau voor Genealogie, 1962). Master index to genealogical publications, listing family names with the source where the name can be found.
K. ter Laan, Aardrijkskundig woordenboek van Nederland, ('s Gravenhage: G. B. van Goor Zonen's Uitgeversmaatschappij N.V., 1948), 510 pp. Lists all places in The Netherlands and the county and province of larger juirsdictions.
Beschrijving der Doop- Trouw & Begraafboeken, enz. van voor 1811 (popularly called by research- ers the "Retro-Acta"), (published by the state archive of each province). Inventories and des- criptions of the civil and church records kept by the state archive dating before 1811. All volumes with the exception of North Holland are available at the Genealogical Society Library.
The chart and table that follow contain answers to the above questions for the major genealogical record sources of The Netherlands. Major sources are listed, together with type of record, period covered, type of information given, and source availability.
Table A shows at a glance the record sources available for a research problem in a particular century.
Table B provides more detailed information about the major records available. For example, if a pedigree problem is in the 17th century, a. quick indication can be ob- tained from Table A of the sources available for that period. Reference to Table B will then provide more complete information.
TABLE A
MAJOR SOURCE AVAILABILITY BY CENTURY
TYPE OF RECORD
1. Population Registers
2. Civil Registration
3. Marriage Supplements
4. Impost Taxes
CENTURY
15th
16th 17th 18th 19th 20U
Improvement Era
r
^L
MAJOR SOURCES CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED
1. POPULATION REGISTERS
(Bevolkings registers)
2. CIVIL
REGISTRA- TION
(Burgerlijhe stand)
3. MARRIAGE SUPPLE- MENTS
4. IMPOST TAXES (Gaardersar- chief)
5. PARISH RECORDS
6. BURGHER ROLLS OR CITIZEN- SHIP BOOKS
(Poortersbocken)
PERIOD COVERED
About 1843 to present
About 1811 to present some in the South begin 1793
1811-1842; some later
1695-1806
About 1600 to present
About 1500 to present; some earlier
TYPE OF INFORMATION GIVEN
Name of head of family, maiden name of wife, names and sex of children, grandchil- dren, sons or daughters-in-law, dates and places of birth, religion, profession, residence and address, date of moving into town and from where, date of moving out of town and destination, dates of death, if died in the house registered
Births: name of child, date and place of birth; names, professions, and residence of parents; name and age of informer; names, ages, residences, professions, and signatures of two witnesses
Marriage intentions: names, ages, proles sions, residences of bride and groom; names, occupations, and residences of parents; date and place of proclamation
Marriages: names, ages, occupations, resi- dences, places of birth of bride and groom; names, occupations, and residence of parents; date and place of marriage; names and sig- natures of witnesses
Deaths: name, birthplace, age, last resi- dence, and occupation of deceased; name, residence, and occupation of informant; names of surviving spouse and children; names and signature of witnesses and official
AVAILABILITY
City archives; city registrar; bein filmed (Genealogical Society)
Before 1882: mostly in state ar- chives or in the arrondissement rechtbank (provinces are divided in- to judicial "arrondissements") of the region to which a city belongs; on film (GS)
After 1882: city archives; being filmed (GS)
The marriage supplements include all docu- ments and certificates that were required in older times to prove the identity of the couple who intended to marry Birth record of couples: names, dates and places of birth, names of parents, name of official
Affidavit of recognition: names of seven witnesses who can identify the bride and groom •
Certificate of military record of groom: name and other identifying data concerning military service of the groom
Declaration of intention: names of bride and groom and their parents, residences, names of witnesses,
Death or burial records of parents or other persons, which records could identify the couple to be married: name of deceased, date of death or burial, sometimes name of spouse
A register of all those who including nonconformists
Tarried or died,
Births or christenings: name, date and place of christening, name of father or both par- ents, sometimes names of witnesses
Marriages: names of bride and groom, date of marriage, date and place where license was requested, name of former spouse, if married previously
Deaths and buriahs: name of deceased, date and place of burial; in later records date and place of death; sometimes name of surviving spouse
Name, place of origin, profession, date of entering the city
Before 1882; mostly in state ar- chives or in the arrondissement rechtbank of the region to which a city belongs; on film (GS)
After 1882; city archives filmed (GS)
Only a few remaining in provinces of Holland and Utrecht only; state archives; on film (GS)
Before 1882, state archives; after 1882, local parishes
NOTE. After 1811 use civil regis- ters or administration records, the civil registers being more informa- tive
State archives; only a few remain; some in print (GS)
August 1968
?
¥
|
TYPE OF RECORD |
PERIOD COVERED |
TYPE OF INFORMATION GIVEN |
AVAILABILITY |
|
|
7. JUDICIAL |
About |
Wills: name of testator, date of document, |
Some in state archives; some |
in city |
|
RECORDS |
1400-1811 |
names of heirs, description of property, names of witnesses, residence, name of offi- |
archives; being filmed (GS) |
|
|
(Rechterlijke |
cial |
|||
|
Archieven) |
Deeds: names of buyers and sellers, des- cription of property, names of witnesses, resi- dence, name of official Rental contracts: names and residences of partners in the rental contract Land records, property appraisals for taxa- tion, etc.: name of property owner, resi- dence, year, amount of taxation |
|||
|
8. NOTARIAL OR |
About |
Similar to judicial records |
Some in state archives; some in |
|
|
COURT |
1400-1811 |
city archives; being filmed |
(GS) |
|
|
RECORDS |
||||
|
Orphan |
Acceptance oj guardianship: name of orphan, |
|||
|
Chamber |
names of guardians, residences |
|||
|
Records |
||||
|
(De Weeska- |
Appointment of guardianship: name of |
|||
|
merarchiven) |
guardian, name of orphan, residences, names of deceased parents, name of court Inventories oj property: names of parents of orphan, name of orphan, residence, date of document, place where document was issued |
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.J
Improvement Era
HowMuch DoYou Want toFay
for Your Money ?
By Melvin L. (Bud) Brain
Man's accumulation of monetary worth is arrived at in various ways. It is acquired at varying prices. Who is to say hoiv much money costs ivhen men use their best friend- ships to gain financial positions? When a man exchanges health for wealth, what kind of a bargain has he made? If a man sacrifices any principle to make money, he has paid too much for the commodity. Money gained by illegitimate means can do that person no lasting good.
The dollar ought not to be so close to our eyes that we cannot see that the purpose of life is happiness.
The progress of the world has been made by men, both great and small, ivho have put truth above all else. We ought to be ever on guard that the pursuit of money does not rob us of our everlasting blessings.
Finally, the man who pursues money with such headlong passion that he loses his relationship with his God pays the dearest price of all for that ivhich will perish with him.
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August 1968
33
Lest We Forget
SairiBraiman
aiidlhe <^(*£)
Saints
By Albert L. Zobell, Jr.
Research Editor
•
• A popular conception of the Mormon pioneers is of ox teams pulling prairie schooners through endless prairie grass toward the Salt Lake Valley. Of equal interest is a lesser- known company of Saints ivho took to the sea, under the direc- tion of Elder Samuel Brannan, departing from New York Har- bor on February 4, 184.6 — coin- cidental^ the same day that the western exodus started from Nauvoo, Illinois.
The 238 voyagers started their journey on the ship Brook- lyn, commanded by a Captain Richardson. They ivere well- equipped with farming tools, gristmills, a printing press, type, and paper. In their long trip around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America, they experienced gales and calm seas, each playing havoc with whatever schedule had been planned. During the storms women and children were lashed to their berths at night.
Once the passengers gathered around Captain Richardson to hear him say, "My friends, there is a time in every man's life when it is fitting that he
Illustrated by Maurice Scan/on
should prepare to die. That time has come to us, and unless God interposes, we shall all go to the bottom. I have done all in my power, but this is the tvorst gale I have,knoivn since I was master of a ship."
One woman answered confi- dently, "Captain, we left for California, and we shall get there."
Another woman said, "I have no more fear than if we were on the solid land."
The captain gazed in mute surprise and then turned, say- ing, "These people have a faith that I have not. They are either fools and fear nothing, or they know more than I do."
In May the Saints went ashore at Juan Fernandez (Rob- inson Crusoe's island) to bury Mrs. Laura Goodwin, who died from injuries received during a violent Pacific Ocean storm.
On June 25 they anchored at Honolulu, where they heard of the unsettled conditions in Cali- fornia.
Samuel Brannan, their ambi- tious and energetic leader, bought condemned muskets in Honolulu at $3 and $4 each, and
he drilled his men on shipboard. He believed that he would bring American victory to California. The Brooklyn arrived at Yerba Buena on a foggy July 31, 1846, only to find that peace had already been established.
Yerba Buena, whose popula- tion iv as doubled by the arrival of the Brooklyn settlers, had some 300 residents on January 1, 184-7, about 200 of whom were Mormons. The town was called Yerba Buena and the area San Francisco, causing some con- fusion, so on January 30 the bustling town was renamed San Francisco.
Brannan began publication of the California Star, the second newspaper to be established in California, shortly after his ar- rival there. Many from the Brooklyn were farmers, and they recognized the amazing fertility of California soil; Brannan himself saiv the im- mense possibilities of San Fran- cisco.
On April 4, 1847, Brannan and two companions left San Francisco and traveled east in search of President Brigham Young, who they knew had winter -quartered on the Mis- souri. They traveled by way of Fort Hall (near the present city of Pocatello, Idaho), and met the pioneers at the Green River on June 30. Brannan brought news that the Brooklyn Saints were now settling in the San Joaquin Valley and that the Mormon Battalion had reached the Pacific Coast; he also had with him copies of 16 issues of the California Star. He talked of the welcome the Church could expect in California. President Young was little impressed, as the decision had already been made to settle in the valley of Great Salt Lake.
While at Green River the pio-
34
Improvement Era
neers ivere joined by an advance party of the sick detachment from, the Mormon Battalion. Brannan traveled with the sick detachment and continued to extol the wonders of California. He arrived in the Salt Lake Valley with the members of that sick detachment July 29, and was disheartened to discover that crops had been planted, a city had been planned, and that this indeed ivas to be the abode of the Saints. Sadly he returned to California.
On April 5, 184-9, President Young wrote a special request for tithing ivithheld from the Church by Brannan. The letter held both a promise and a warn- ing: ". . . if you will deal justly with your fellows, and deal out with liberal heart and open hands, making a righteous use of all your money, the Lord is willing you should accumulate the rich treasures of the earth and the good things of time in abundance; but should you ivithhold, when the Lord says give, your hope and pleasing prospects will be blasted in an hour you think not of, and no arm can save. . . ."
Brannan participated in the early scenes of California's pio- neer life — the discovery of gold, wild speculation in San Fran- cisco real estate (at one time, it is said, he owned all of Market Street), a distillery, and mining, milling, and railroad companies. Known as the richest man in California, he had extensive land holdings there and in Mexico. But despite all his initial successes, he gradually became intemperate; his wife and family left him; his health and his fortune melted away; and he died penniless and for- gotten at Escondido, California, on May 6, 1889. For 16 months his body lay unclaimed in a
morgue in nearby San Diego.
Historian Hubert H. Bancroft declaimed that Samuel Brannan "probably did more for San Francisco and for other places [in California] than ivas effect- ed by the combined efforts of scores of better men; and, in- deed, in many respects, he ivas
not a bad man." ^History of California, Vol. 2, p. 728.)
When the Saints became es- tablished in Salt Lake Valley, many of the Brooklyn people left California and moved east to join them, thus ending one of the most interesting stories of early Mormon migration. O
Richard L. Evans
The Spoken Word
Never too far from our thoughts are questions concerning the length of life, the purpose of life— life, death, loss of loved ones, the whereabouts of those who leave us, and our own inevitable leaving of those we love. These are among the most insistent questions of all time. As to those whom we have lost, those whom we may lose, and as to ourselves: "No cogent reason remains for supposing the soul dies with the body," said Dr. Arthur H. Compton. ". . . We [scientists] find strong reasons for believing that man is of extraordinary importance in the cosmic scheme. ... It takes a lifetime to build the character of a noble man. The exercise and discipline of youth, the struggles and failures of maturity, the loneliness and tranquility of age— these make the fire through which he must pass to bring out the pure gold of his soul. Having been thus perfected, what shall Nature do with him, annihilate him? What infinite waste! As long as there is in heaven a God of love, there must be for God's children everlasting life!"1 So spoke this eminent scientist whose knowledge was full of reason and whose reason was full of faith. All of us have losses— or will have— and no matter how many friends we have, or family, the loss of one beloved one leaves always a place unfilled in our hearts, as David Mac- beth Moir said it:
"We miss thy small step on the stair; We miss thee at thine evening prayer; All day we miss thee, everywhere."2 To you who know the loss of loved ones, to you who think upon your own time— sometime— of leaving this life: there is a place where loved ones wait, a place, a purpose, and an everlastingness of life in the real and substantive sense. God grant to each one faith and peace and purpose, and memories made sweeter by this assurance, that when we go it will not be as strangers, but to find again beloved faces, the personal presence of family and friends.
^r. Arthur H. Compton, 1928 Nobel Prize winner in physics. -David Macbeth Moir, Casa Wappy.
# "The Spoken Word" from Temple Square, presented over KSL and the Columbia Broadcasting System May 26, 1968. Copyright 1968.
August 1968
35
The Heritage By Iris W. Schow
My cousin says Grandfather told her once
How as a hungry child he deftly picked
A crust of bread from off the brimming top
Of someone's pail of leftovers, and ate
With thankful heart before he did his chores.
My brother says, "1 wont believe that, though.
Not one of us; it cant have come to that"
Well, be that as it may, 1 see him best,
A bishop, at the head of his own board
Well-spread with dainties, urging more on all
Beneath his roof. And board and roof both serve
To symbolize the triumph of his hands,
His heart, and mind over the unkempt waste
Whose challenge he accepted in his youth.
When as a convert he attained these shores.
His were two assets— all that he need have:
A land that gave free enterprise to each.
A faith that recognized free agency—
These were his heritage from earth and heaven.
36 Improvement Era
The Day of the Lamanite Is Now
This is the theme for the Indian Placement Program this year. The Lord seems to be stretching forth his hand over his children of the great plains.
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all over the world, you may have ivondered what it all means. What do you know about your Indian brother? What can you tell of the heart that beats tvithin him? Can you understand, the depths of his dark eyes and the strength in his silent manner?
You've heard of his bravery, his forest wisdom. You've read of hogans and headdresses, war dances and tribal customs. You may even oivn some of his unique handmade jewelry. But what woidd you talk with him about, if you were given the chance?
What is so special about a Lamanite, anyway? Is he really a literal descendant of Israel? It is true that the scriptures indicate a great future for this special child of God, as he learns of His plan and lives according to His commandments?
You can't really understand the American Indian, it has been said, until you step into his moccasins. Not everyone can have this privilege in fact, but vicariously it's yours for the read- ing in this issue of the Era of Youth.
August 1968
37
Selflessness was the theme of the sermons of the Lord during his earthly ministry. The Indian Student Placement Program is one of placing Latter-day Saint Indian children in Latter-day Saint homes for the school years, there to absorb and make their own the best Mormon culture as well as the training and finest culture of the best communities of a great country.
Perhaps this is one of the most selfless of all the programs of the Church, for here the best people share their homes, their funds, their facilities, and their hearts with young Indian people who otherwise would be deprived of many of these great blessings.
It is significant that many of the homes that house an Indian child are homes already filled with children and where the children and the foster Indian youth, with the foster parents, all work out a delightful family relationship. The Indian child learns not only English and the best in the white man's ways, but he also learns the gospel, participates in the program, learns to pray, develops a testimony, and works out a satisfactory human relationship with others who have a different culture.
To contrast the advantages and blessings that are coming to the Indians today with that which they received 20 years ago, the improvement is almost unbelievable. And to look into the future and see the great direct benefits that will come to numerous Indian families as the Indian students reach maturity, fill hon- orable missions, and have their ceremonies performed in the temple is highly gratifying.
—Elder Spencer W. Kimball of the Council of the Twelve
38
Era of Youth
LamaniteYouth Speaks
Editor's Note: Students in the placement program speak, that you may know what is in their hearts.
ray LOVIS: The day of the Laman- ite is now, we're told — the day when the birds can sing again, when the children can play in peace again; the day when we are walking out of our wilderness to a beautiful morn as the flowers begin to blossom and the clouds depart from the sky; the day when we grow, when we learn, when we prosper again in righ- teousness. How long since our people have laughed in joy? This is the day when we are coming back to good, the day when the gospel of Christ abides in our midst.
VERENDA DOSELA: Eight years ago when I came into this pro- gram I got off the bus with just the clothes on my back and a few small possessions in an old shoebox. I came from a humble home. My people are humble. But you have opened your hearts to me, and for that I am thankful. Now I can go home with the clothes on my back and with my belongings in a small shoebox, but I am rich. I can be more wealthy than any of my
people on the reservation, be- cause that which is inside me is as precious as a pearl. I have a testimony of the gospel. I know that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ. I now have a goal — something to strive for. It is as precious as the sun and glows with beauty ahead of me as my fortune.
jesse holliday: If we Lamanites are to blossom as a rose, our confidence must wax strong in the presence of God. We must prepare and labor in this life. Let us not think of ourselves, my people, as being different from other people. We are all children of God, and his promise applies to all of us — brown or white, bond or free. God can recognize a humble heart wherever it may be.
SARAH NEZ: I learn the way of the white man's world. I learn to speak in English. I learn what it means to be a Lamanite. I learn the gospel of Jesus Christ and come to live with people I've never seen before. Their home
is not a hogan made of logs and mud like mine. I learn many things. Now I am proud to be a Navajo — proud of my home and my people and proud of what I learn from white mom and dad, sisters, and brothers.
BEN WATAHOMIGIE: The five years that I have participated in this placement program have been the best in my life. I have learned so much about the Church and have gained a stronger testimony of the gospel of Christ.
ERNESTINE CODY: When we go back from the white man's home to our own people, we should try to set an example of what we have learned in these past years. Then our people will want to join the Church and learn of modern ways. There was a Navajo hoy who tended sheep, and the missionaries found him and taught him the gospel. They told him about the placement program, and talked with his parents, who decided to let him go and learn more of God and go to good schools. After hard work and study this same boy now has a four-year scholarship to col- lege. Yes, our day has come, but it is up to us to see what we can do about it.
August 1968
39
Hue Proud and Free
By Stella Mosqueda
/ am a young Indian.
My hair is black and my skin is brown,
But I feel no inferiority before the White Man.
Brown is the color of the earth;
Black is the color of the sky before the
life-giving rain falls. As the soil and rain bring forth food for life. Materials of work, and beauty for pleasure, So must I, as the lord of nature, Bring forth good into the world.
All Indians are blessed at birth
With the precious heritage of independence and pride
Like a costly gem, this precious heritage must be treasured,
Lest it become a dull, worthless stone.
To live proud and free, as was meant to be,
Indian youth must learn to progress
In the White Man's hunting ground, for it is ours too.
The White Man has not taken our land;
He has only changed it, made it a tower of strength
For all Americans of ivhatever race or nationality.
America is my land; America is our land:
To hold, to cherish, to cleave unto, to preserve,
and to protect. It is our duty to learn to live in our changed homeland.
We can no longer use the bow and arrow
to obtain our necessities. Our new tools must be ambition and education. We cannot stand tall and proud If ive refrain from the pursuit of progress. We cannot be free if we do not try to break The. binding chains of poverty and ignorance.
God gave all his children talents to use for him.
God gave to Indian youth a special mission,
As first Americans: to preserve and cherish America's freedom,
And to hold themselves and others proud and free
As it ivas meant for all God's children to be.
40
Stella Mosqueda, 16, a Yakima Indiar from Longview, Washington, is attend- j ing Riverside Indian School at Ana- darko, Oklahoma. A recent convert to] the Church, she is a seminary student] and plans to major in journalism in] college.
They've Said It With Music
By David Smoot
• Music with a message espe- cially for them rings in the hearts of many young American Indians who recently have been entertained by the "Say It With Music" cast from Brigham Young University's Program Bureau.
When Bimmer Jones and Vickie Washburn stepped on stage to sing "Go, My Son," the theme for the program was set and the challenge was firmly planted in the hearts of the young Indian audiences. This song was written by Arliene Nofchissey Williams, a Navajo, and Carnes Burson, a Ute.
"Go, my son, go and climb the ladder ;
Go, my son, go and earn your feather ;
Go, my son, make your people proud of you.
Work my son, get an education ;
Work my son, learn a good vocation ;
And climb, my son,
Go and take a lofty view.
From on the ladder of an educa- tion
You can see to help your Indian
nation ; Then reach, my son, And lift your people up with
you."
Saying it with music proves highly effective, and besides be- ing thrilled, many of the young Indian students have taken steps that will lead to higher education and help for their people.
Matt Goudy, one of the cast members, is a good example of what this program can do. Matt is a Yakima Indian from Wash- ington. He is not a member of the Church, but he found his way to Brigham Young Uni- versity in Provo, Utah, after seeing just such a program as he is now helping to present.
Following the recent tour to Indian sections, letters flow in to Paul Felt, director of Indian education at BYU. They praise the ballroom dancers and rave about the Indian-Polynesian numbers and the members of the Tribe of Many Feathers, who also participate in the produc-
tion. Saying it with music gets it said effectively.
Jane Thompson has been planning and directing and touring with various program casts for several years. Many of them have gone to distant places. "But," says Jane, "as important as these tours have been, none has had a more spe- cial purpose or a more tangible sense of attempting to do some- thing worthwhile than have the tours we have taken to the In- dians. Our fifth tour has proven once again a delight for us in working with new and talented Indian students on campus. Presenting our show for enthusiastic Indian audi- ences and meeting Indian lead- ers and Indians from every walk of life has been an exceptional experience that we've all en- joyed."
President McKay has said that today is the day to prepare the Lamanite people for the work they have ahead of them. The cast of "Say It With Music" is helping to accomplish this goal. O
Matt Goudy and Vickie Wentz sing "Pass That Peace Pipe." They were favorites on the "Say It With Music" show.
Vickie Wentz talks to the animals. And the animals are almost as tall as she is.
August 1968
41
Student Placement Program
By President A. Theodore Tuttle
of the First Council of the Seventy
• The Indian Placement Program is a unique and distinctive program. It is based on love — the love of natural parents for their children that is sufficient to motivate them to send their chil- dren elsewhere to obtain better opportunities. And it is based on the love of foster parents that is sufficient for them to open their homes and hearts to accept another's child as their own.
Nephi saw the days when the Gentiles would help his seed, "both temporal and spiritual."
"And after our seed is scattered the Lord God will proceed to do a marvelous work among the Gentiles, which shall be of great worth unto our seed; wherefore, it is likened unto their being nourished by the Gentiles and being carried in their arms and upon their shoulders." (1 Ne. 22:8.)
. « "The sons and daughters of Zion will soon be required to devote a portion of their time in instructing the children of the forest. For they must be educated and instructed in all the arts of civil life, as well as in the gospel. They must be clothed, fed, and instructed in the principles and practice of virtue, modesty, temperance, cleanli- ness, industry, mechanical arts, manners, cus- toms, dress, music, and all other things which are calculated in their nature to refine, purify, exalt, and glorify them as the sons and daughters of the royal house of Israel, and of Joseph ; who are making ready for the coming of the bride-
groom." (Proclamation of the Council of the Twelve, April 6, 1845.)
The placement program is one of the many programs that help to accomplish these things. It is designed to make possible educational, spiri- tual, social, and cultural opportunities for Latter- day Saint Indian children, and to provide oppor- tunity for them to participate in non-Indian community life so they can use their own experi- ence now and later for their own benefit and that of their people.
The program exists primarily for the educa- tional opportunities it affords the Indian children it serves. These opportunities, however, consist not only of experiences in the formal school set- ting but also informal training and experiences received in the home and church.
The reaction to this program by families has been enthusiastic and wholesome. It has not only provided youngsters an honest-to-goodness oppor- tunity to play "cowboys and Indians," but has also extended the opportunity to the whole family to practice true Christian virtues.
As with all long-range programs, it is diffi- cult to see the fruits immediately. (Somehow it takes just so many years for children to grow up!) It is only when these young people have succeeded in school, filled honorable missions,
42
Era of Youth
married in the temple, and are faithfully giving service to their fellowmen that the effects of this program can be assessed.
There are, however, other benefits than those to the Indian students : the program also puts the next generation of leaders (today's young people) in contact with Indians, and provides an oppor- tunity to grow up with them. Most of today's parents have not had this opportunity.
I heard a young Indian boy say of his experi- ence, "The first day I went to school the other kids looked at me as if I were a freak or something — but now they all accept me and love me as I love them." Learning how to live better together now will make it far easier to live together as adults.
Another corollary benefit is that a non-Indian youth learns that an Indian child is more like than different from him.
The idea of "feathers" is soon (and just as well) forgotten when these fine young people are seen participating in sports, speech, drama,
August 1968
school, and other activities, just as other non- Indian children do.
Lamanite boys played in the championship games for both Class "A" and "B" schools in the Utah State Basketball Tournament this past season.
There are at this time 43 American Indians serving full-time missions to their people.
Temple marriage is becoming the rule rather than the exception among placement students.
Many students are receiving their Eagle Scout awards, often the first ones in their tribe to reach this goal.
An ever-increasing number of students are taking part in school activities, and many are receiving recognition for high scholastic achieve- ment.
There is still something more that young people can do for their Indian brothers and sis- ters. Elder Spencer W. Kimball has said : "My young brothers and sisters, I plead with you to accept the Lamanite as your brother, a people who ask not for distant, far-away sympathy, your haughty disdain, your supercilious penny throwing, your turned-up nose, your superior snobbery, and your cold calculated tolerance. I ask you to give them what they want and need and deserve : opportunity and fraternal brotherli- ness, your understanding, your warm and glowing fellowship, your unstinted and beautiful love, and your enthusiastic brotherhood."
This placement program is operated under the direction of the Church Indian Committee and the general presidency of the Relief Society. It is a state-licensed program, under the direction of Clare Bishop, program director, with 33 qualified professional social workers.
Many people become involved in such a mar- velous program. As with all Church programs, the stake president, with a high councilor to assist, is in charge of this work. The bishop recommends families in his ward who want to participate in this endeavor, and a caseworker (all are returned missionaries) helps the foster families to carry out their responsibility. It is the testimony of those involved in this work that the Lord gives special blessings to all who participate in this service. O
43
.—a
Dennie Deal helps with the chores on the farm of his foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ferris Fitzgerald.
Climbing the ladder on the farm is sym- bolic of the climb Dennie Deal is making in life.
Shooting for the basket is a favorite with all boys.
The New life of an Indian Teen
By Elaine Cannon
Off the reservation, on to the campus! Young Indian boys and girls relish the adventure. It's like a dream come true, and when it happens there is no more appre- ciative heart, no more responsive student. From the days of lying
Dennie Deal totes his new "sister," Kelly Ann Fitzgerald, Indian style.
on one's back counting stars over the hogan, to the complicated new world of new school, new friends, and new "family," the transition is swift. The old ways are tucked away and treasured as part of childhood, part of precious cul-
Era of Youth
Time out is also taken to develop talent. Dennie Deal hangs an oil he's finished and framed.
Learn a trade. Be good for something! That's the command Indian students re- spond to eagerly. Dennie Deal welding.
v ■' -**•* jg;****- j^- w .,«^ fug- .Mt
/t's a friendly tangle for foster brothers Dennie Deal and Kevin Fitzgerald.
August 1968
45
Homework is a community affair when LaVale Footracer, Pearl Keith, Becky Siler, and Suzy Mae Yazzie get together.
Sean Siler is comforted by his loving La- manite sister, Pearl Keith.
ture. The new ways are learned with some pain, but they are worth the struggle as life's boundaries are stretched. Young people, whatever their race, are rather alike. They make friends, fall in and out of love, learn a trade, get homesick and sick of home on occasion. They follow some trends and discount others. They worry
about their looks and their poise and their grades. They set goals and excitedly strive to reach them. For the young Lamanites, the world holds much wonder and much warmth in the homes of new families they come to know and love, and in the schools and ac- tivities of work and fun they choose to follow.
Photos by Efdon Lmschoten
46
Era of Youth
Don Johnson, foster son of Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. North, and Pearl Keith, foster daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Siler, go format in the marble rotunda of Utah's State Capitol Building.
'It's a date!" and Pearl Keith is the excited girl answering the call.
Helen Yazzie shows her winning handicraft to her foster mother, Mrs. Reed Newbould.
M
Pearl Keith is like any beautiful young girl
^•'>y::.i when it comes to her hair — it must look L^teril perfect for the dance.
47
Rainell Naha shows her speech award to her proud foster family, the Clayton Lamoreaux family.
Left to right are LaVale Footracer, (Karl Anderson home), Suzy Mae Yazzie (Shelby West home), Pearl Keith (Clifford Siler home), Martha Wayne (Burtis Jackson
home), Rosemary Decker (George Robinson home), Sue Williams (J. Ralph Mantle home), and Carolyn Dick (Dr. George A. Miller home).
Ben Watahomigie, foster son of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Hathaway, touches the audience when he bears his testimony.
Reflections of a Borrowed Mother
By Betty North
Members of the Richard North family of Holladay, Utah, have wel- comed a Lamanite son into their home this year, and the mother speaks from her heart to her own missionary son about the experi- ence.
Dear Jim:
Don's going on a mission ! This young Lamanite who occu- pies your bed, and shares our home, has chosen to go on a mission this fall ! As a senior he
had the choice to remain with us through the summer and work to save for this special call, rather than go by bus with the other students to spend the summer with their natural par-
ents. It's hard to believe that in a short time I will be writing to three sons — two on missions and one at college.
Looking back on the past, I feel grateful for the testimony I have gained of the Indian Student Placement Program. It is one in which families of the Church can usefully serve our fellowmen and can at the same
48
Era of Youth
time do missionary work and serve the Lord. Great blessings come to our homes through this opportunity. I must admit that sometimes I feel a bit guilty that we are reaping such joy and rewards from our experi- ence, when much credit must be given to the influence and love of the two families who came before us in Don's life — really three, counting his natural mother. In one particular year his mother allowed four of her LDS children (she's not a member) to leave home and go among strangers to gain an education and learn our way of life. What a sacrifice! I won- der if I could have such strength. Her anxiety would be lessened if she could only see how the buses are met at the BYU. Each boy's hair is cut by volunteer barbers, and the stu- dents are examined by volunteer doctors, dentists, and nurses. Friendly members of the Church help them freshen up and feed them, and loving families drive them to their homes throughout the state.
We had the opportunity to meet Don's first foster family in Kamas recently, and his fos- ter mother there expressed how well he looked, reminding him how thin he was when he ar- rived at their home for the first time. That first winter found him much heavier and able to lift a bale of hay over his head onto a truck.
Don has entered right into family life with us. He reads Book of Mormon scriptures after the evening meal with us, and he assumes responsibility
around the house and yard. Actually, Jim, he keeps his share of the room neater than you did! He helps with the horses and other animals and even pitches in to take his turn with the heavy household cleaning on Saturdays. Dad got some ter- rific movie action shots of Russ and Don playing basketball. Don is working toward becom- ing a coach when he returns to his reservation. These Indian youths are natural-born athletes.
We are learning a great deal from Don as he shares our home. We admire his courage to stick to the program, even though he becomes homesick at times. Our way of life is often different and difficult, but he adapts his life to ours readily and willingly. We respect his righteous desires to be a mis- sionary to his people and to uplift their way of life. We appreciate his strength of testi- mony and strong desire to keep the commandments of his Father in heaven.
We are learning from his calm and quiet approach to life, his insight and depth of under- standing, and his sense of humor. We never give without receiving, do we, Jim? Oh, on that recent outing to Kamas we learned too that he was as stoic
and brave as one would expect an Indian to be. He accidentally ran a broken arrow through his hand while practicing archery. Not one sound came from him as it was removed and attended to!
It's easy to accept these young people, Jim, as you get to know them. They are so talented and sensitive and strong. When our Don takes his turn at family prayers, he prays from a heart full of appreciation for the won- derful things he has received from all the families he has lived with over the years. It warms our hearts, I'll tell you, to sense his deep gratitude for the bless- ings of this program.
It's interesting to see how little discouragement or criti- cism mothers in this program have for the young Indian stu- dents. They feel as I do — grate- ful to be a part of it. Oh, we have problems, but we have them with our own children, too. We cope with them the best we can and go on to the joys that ordinary living permits. I pray daily for the wisdom, un- derstanding, and strength to make this experience fruitful for Don, as well as a blessing to our family.
Love,
Mother
Avant-Garden By Thelma Ireland
To write of nature now is trite; Taboo is love and pale moonlight; Passe the flowers, bees, and birds; And budding trees are simply words. So I will write an ode to space, A modern theme — not commonplace; A challenge; but excuse me, please, While I watch robins in the trees.
August 1968
49
50
Era of Youth
Samaritan
By Suzanne Eyestone
• It was one of those days of late fall when
it suddenly freezes. It was Sunday morning, and
I had started early for church, driving carefully
to avoid patches of ice along the road. The
car warmed and I sang gaily to the rhythm of the
motor, which was pulsing and coughing in
a new way. My breath frosted the windshield
in fragile, icy designs.
It wasn't until I stopped for a red light that I noticed huge clouds billowing up from the front of the car.
"Oh, no," I thought, "I've ruined the car."
I steered to the curb, turned off the key, and got out. I lifted the hood and stared at the motor. The only thing I knew how to do was to remove the radiator cap. I had seen Dad do it several times.
The cap was hot and burned my fingers as I unscrewed it, jerking it off as quickly as possible. Steam and hot water hissed out, narrowly missing my wrist, and formed more white clouds in the cold air.
"Oh, no! Oh, no!" New anxiety struck, and the tears stung around my eyes, running in little lines down my face.
The passing cars slowed, and the passengers stared. Sunday pedestrians also looked as they walked past, hands firmly planted in their pockets.
"Oh, no!" Sobbing the same words over and over, I climbed in the car and buried my head in my hands. Church would have to wait; I wasn't going anywhere.
Several minutes later someone tapped on the window.
"Need some help?"
"Oh, yes!" I nodded in both relief and gratitude.
A teenage boy was peering through the glass. Long blond hair hung around his face, almost covering his eyes. He shivered a
little and buttoned a bright purple school sweater with thin fingers. A pair of levis and some ornate cowboy boots completed his outfit.
"I don't know what's wrong," I explained, as I climbed from the car. "The motor just started steaming."
He bent over, looked under the hood, and felt the radiator.
"Where ya headed?" he asked, as he wiped his hand on his levis, surveying my red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.
"Church," I answered. "I'm supposed to be singing in the choir."
He raised an eyebrow slightly at the word "church" and smiled.
"Well, it looks like all that happened was your radiator froze up." He was looking under the hood again.
"The water couldn't get through, and it heated and boiled over." He poked around a bit more and then straightened up to look at me.
"I think all you'll need is a blanket over the radiator for a few minutes, some more water, and then everything should be okay."
He took a blanket from his brightly painted, late-model car and carefully covered the radiator and the hood.
"There's a gas station a few blocks from here. I'll go get some water. It'll only take a few minutes."
He revved up his car and roared around the corner, the tires squealing faintly.
Before long he was back, pouring water from a can into the radiator. He waited while I started the car and then followed behind me until I reached the church. Then, with a honk and a wave, he was gone.
"Hey, wait!" I yelled as the thought dawned. "I didn't even say thank — " But then, how does 1 one thank a good Samaritan? O
August 1968
51
LIVES THAT STAND
iNSPECTlON'series
Christian Brotherhood
There was an air of expectancy in the room. Several hundred Latter-day Saint servicemen had been permitted brief relief from action on the line to attend the Sun- day morning religious services.
Those who had come early greeted each other and then sat quietly as visitors and local Base officers entered the room. One of those in attendance was the Base Chap- lain, a man of high rank and much experi- ence. His courtesy in coming was beyond the call of duty. He had already arranged the place and had been most helpful in cooperating to make the meeting possible. His coming lent an extra flavor of gra- ciousness and kindness, and those present ivere grateful. While not a member of the Church, he had been a good friend, and he was called upon to offer a few words of
greeting. What he said amounted to far more than that.
"Good morning, my beloved brothers in Christ," he said, as he began. The spirit of his salutation and the sincerity of it and the strength of it touched every heart. Across the bounds of denomination or re- ligious difference came the sweet, sensitive spirit of a devoted man, an earnest fol- lower of Christ, speaking in the spirit of the Master he served.
As he finished, there came the united, reverent response of a large group of brothers in Christ who responded to his loving greeting with the solemn strength of their own "Amen."
We had seen and experienced the sweet blessing of brotherhood.
Marion D. Hanks
52
Era of Youth
Right Reverend Franklin S. Spalding, who half a century ago sought the opinions of Egyptologists concerning the Book of Abraham.
Both the vignette and the rubric announce that this
section of +he Book of the Dead contains a "Speech for Taking
the form of a Swallow," yet the chapter itself (No. 86)
seems to say nothing whatever on the subject. This is
part of the papyri, rediscovered by Dr. Aziz Atiya, that the
Prophet Joseph Smith once owned.
A New Look at the
Pearl of Great Price
• With the five giants accounted for, the other members of the team should not detain us long. But first, Theodule Deveria (1831-1871) deserves a word of notice because he wrote the first, the longest, and the most carefully considered report on the Facsimiles that has appeared to date.1 Bishop Spalding gives short shrift to Deveria because, as he explains, "unquestion- ably, this matter is far too important to depend on the opinion of a youth- ful amateur. Such an important matter deserves the thoughtful consideration of mature scholars — of the world's ablest Orientalists. "-
Youthful? When Deveria wrote his study of the Facsimiles he was 34 — two years older than Mercer was when he did the same — fully matured and at the height of his powers.
Amateur? At 17, urged by the Egyptologist Jules Feuquieres, Deveria had plunged into Egyptology while Charles Lenormand gave him Coptic
By Dr. Hugh Nibley
Second String
lessons and August Harle, the best Hebraist of his time, pushed him in Hebrew. At 19 he retranslated an important manuscript formerly ren- dered by Champollion; at 23 he was publishing in Egyptology and in the following year became attached to the Department of Antiquities of the Louvre, where he produced the first complete catalogue ever made of a major Egyptian collection. Still in his twenties, he succeeded the great Mariette as conservator of the Egyptian museum in the Louvre and, according to de Rouge, produced a work on the Turin Papyrus that "placed Deveria among the masters." It was only the jealousy of his superior at the museum, A. Mariette, that obscured his great contributions to Egyptology.'''
Thoughtful consideration? Whereas Deveria wrote a long study, two of Spalding's experts dashed off notes of a hundred words only, and five of them wrote less than a page.
World's ablest Orientalists? Spal- ding deems superior to Deveria four men besides Mercer, whose combined output in Egyptology could not begin to " approach that of the "youthful amateur." We have already considered Dr. Mercer; how about the others?
"Dr. John Peters, University of Pennsylvania. In charge of expedition to Babylonia, 1888-1895." In 1912 Dr. Peters (1852-1921) was pastor of a church in New York, and had not been at the University of Pennsylvania for 20 years. When Spalding's good friend, Professor Pack, discovered this, he was quite upset and wrote: "For an instant I was paralysed. . . . Could it be possible that Dr. Peters is not connected with the University of Pennsylvania, but is a rector in one of New York's fashionable churches? No. I could not believe it. . . . you had led the public to believe that Dr. Peters is at the University of Pennsylvania."1 So while he was back East Dr. Pack
August 1968
53
made a number of visits and inquiries, and summed up the results thus: "Now, Dr. Spalding, this looks like plain deceit. Am I mistaken? Why did you lead the public to believe that Dr. Peters is now at the University of Pennsylvania when you knew that he left there twenty years ago? Why did you hide from the public the fact that Dr. Peters is a rector in your own church and has been for years?"1
To be sure, being the rector of any- thing need not prevent one from being also an Egyptologist, but Peters was never that. He had taught Hebrew at Pennsylvania for eight years, and he wrote popular books on the Bible and modern politics, but his name appears nowhere in connection with Egyptian studies. A career churchman, he had in 1912 just finished serving six years as canon-residentiary of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.5 He is another of those devoted churchmen who, like Sayce and Mercer, combine with the dignity of the cloth an intel- lectual contempt for the supernatural and an ill-concealed impatience with those who would interpret the Bible too literally. Dr. Peters, in fact, wrote a book showing that the ancient patri- archs were nothing but myths, legen- dary figures "generously clothed with personal traits by successive genera- tions of narrators" by whom "striking episodes have been introduced into the stories and even romances which have no inherent connection with the origi- nal legends."0 Along with "racial and legendary" elements, the history of Abraham combines "features of a purely romantic character, in which we are to see no other meaning than the fancy of the story-teller. . . ."T In all the story of the man Abraham, he claimed, there is not a word of real history.
With such a view of Bible history, is Dr. Peters the man to give serious attention to the Book of Abraham as history? Peters' ideas reflect the con- sensus of scholarly opinion in his day, and that of the Spalding jury in par- ticular. At that time the establishment
"He combines with the dignity of the cloth an intellectual contempt
for the supernatural. . . ."
was solidly against the whole concept of the Book of Abraham.
"Dr. Arthur C Mace, Assistant Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Department of Egyptian Art." Though he is not mentioned in any of the usual biographical sources nor in W. R. Dawson's Who Was Who in Egyptology, 1910-1914, Dr. Mace (1874-1928) had been a student of Petrie and had worked with the Hearst collection in Berkeley before going to the Metropolitan.8 His chance for immortality came when Howard Carter, overwhelmed with work and expense on the tomb of Tutankhamen, asked for the assistance of a Metro- politan Museum crew who were work- ing close by; Mace at the time was taking Dr. Lythgoe's place in charge of the work, and on instructions from the latter he joined the Carter enter- prise and thus had a part in the most sensational archaeological discovery of the century.0 Dr. Mace was an archae- ologist and not a philologist. He assisted in the publication of discov- eries by and for the museum, but when he came to inscriptions, even short and easy ones, he turned the work over to others.10 His one serious attempt to deal with documentary sources, a study called "The Influence of Egyptian on Hebrew Literature," (1922), is described by Raymond Weill as nothing but an inferior re- hash of Herrman Gunkel's work of 1909 on the same subject.13
"Dr. Albert M. Lythgoe, Head of the Department of Egyptian Art of the Metropolitan Museum," should be added to the list, since Bishop Spal- ding intended to consult him instead of Arthur C. Mace, who was his under- study while he was abroad. Like Mace,
Dr. Lythgoe (1868-1933) was a mu- seum man and a collector who had been a pupil of Wiedemann at Bonn and assisted Reisner in the field. "His finest achievement," according to his obituary, ". . . was the arrangement of the Egyptian Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of New York."1- Arranging collections is not the same thing as interpreting abstruse texts, and the long interview with Lythgoe in the New York Times reads almost like a burlesque of pompous scholar- ship: "To make very clear just how great a hoax the Mormon prophet perpetrated upon his people," Lythgoe explains to the reporters with magis- terial ease exactly how Egyptian symbolism originated and just what Egyptian religion is all about, as he readily identifies solar hymns in the Facsimiles, and twice refers to Fac- simile I as depicting the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. The whole baffling complex presented "no puzzle to Dr. Lythgoe," though his strange theories of Egyptian religion and his guesses about the Facsimiles found no echo even among the other members of the Spalding panel.13
"Dr. George A. Barton." When he was challenged by the Mormons, Bishop Spalding sought further sup- port from the learned and got it from Professor Barton (1859-1942), acknowledged minister of the Society of Friends (orthodox) 1879-1922, deacon 1918, priest 1919, D.D. 1924.1-' In 1912 Dr. Barton's book, The Heart o\ the Christian Message, had just gone into its second printing. "Permit me first to say," Professor Barton began his contribution to the Spalding cause, "that, while I have a smatter- ing of Egyptology, I am not an Egyp-
54
improvement Era
tqlogist"15 — and indeed we have al- ready seen what Dr. Mercer thought of Barton as an authority on Egypt.10 But he was a minister, thus bringing to five the number of non-Egyptologist ministers sitting in judgment as Egyptologists on Joseph Smith.
Barton believed that the "faker" Joseph Smith merely attempted to "imitate Egyptian characters," the result being "untranslatable ... as they stand they do not faithfully rep- resent any known writing."17 As to the Facsimiles, the experts disagree about them, Mr. Barton explained, because "these pictures were differ- ently interpreted at times by the Egyptians themselves," and some of the jury "have given the original in- terpretation of the symbolism, and some the later Egyptian interpreta- tion."17 Odd, that that explanation should never have occurred to any of the experts themselves, who might have been very embarrassed had the Mormons chosen to exploit Professor Barton's foolish remarks.
P.S.: In 1915 the University of Utah brought in Edgar J. Banks, "one of America's most distinguished archae- ologists," to put the final seal of authority on the Spalding enterprise.18 Banks (1866-1941) had already sounded off on the subject in the Christian Herald in 1913, and duly reported through the pages of the prestigious Literary Digest that Dr. Spalding's zeal had forever discredited Mormonism in the eyes of the world and the more intelligent Mormons.11' Mr. Banks pictured himself in Who's Who decidedly in the romantic tradi- tion of Richard Haliburton. He had been U.S. consul in Baghdad in his youth, organized an expedition to excavate Ur, which, however, never got into the field, and claimed to have discovered in 1903 "a white statue of king David, a pre-Babylonian king of 4500 B.C. (oldest statue in the world)." While Spalding was working on his grand design in 1912, the dash- ing Banks, as he tells us, was climbing Ararat (17,210 feet high — he puts that
in Who's Who too), and crossing the Arabian Desert on a camel (from where to where he does not say).20
It is amazing, unless one knows this type of glamor-mongering archaeolo- gist, that Mr. Banks, after months in Salt Lake City as an expert on the subject, could come out with such howlers as that "Smith seems to have obtained the documents from a sea captain,"21 that it was the Mormon officials themselves who "turned the manuscripts over to Spalding" with the request that he investigate their authenticity,21 that hypocephali such as Facsimile 2 (of which less than 50 were known at the time) existed by the millions: "It has been esti- mated that something like 20,000,000 of Egyptian mummies have been dis- covered. . . . Beneath each mummy's head, [lay] a cushion. . . . The disks, found in great numbers, are nearly alike, varying only slightly with the period from which they come."22 Banks also announced that Joseph Smith had never possessed any papyri at all but only such little plaster disks.23 Apparently nothing Mr. Banks could say was too absurd to be swal- lowed by the open-mouthed scholars on the Bench as long as the magic words "science" and "progress" were evoked with ritual regularity.21
We should not leave our experts without a word about Sir E. A. W. Budge (1857-1934), who in 1903 had agreed with his colleague Woodward at the British Museum "in declaring the Prophet's interpretation bosh, rubbish. . . ."2r' This was a demon- stration of Budge's "ferocious bark, which could turn to biting if need be."20 Others could bark back, how- ever, and when Budge gave the Englishman Thomas Young priority over Champollion in the translation of Egyptian, an eminent French Egyp- tologist quoted Peter Renouf: "No person who knows anything of Egyp- tian philology can countenance so gross an error."27 Jean Capart noted that the highest praise of Budge must also be his severest criticism — the
phenomenal productivity for which he paid too high a price.2S Animated by the laudable objective of providing as many texts as possible for students and as many translations as possible for the public, Budge dashed off the longest list of publications in the entire scope of Who's Who.2S To do this he followed no plan, paid no attention to the work of others, never indicated his sources; "his interpreta- tion of figures is extremely defective," wrote Capart, "and his translations are full of completely erroneous ideas."29 "I can categorically declare," wrote the same critic, of Budge's Gods of the Egyptians, "that it is bad; the work lacks the necessary prepara- tion."30 As R. Campbell Thompson observed, Professor Budge was always "in too great a hurry to finish."31 Will anyone maintain that he was not in a hurry, his old impulsive blustering self, when he offhandedly condemned the interpretations of the Facsimiles?
It is still going on: If nothing else, our long involvement with the affair of 1912 has taught us something about the limitations of scholarship. We should know by now the meaning of the maxim, "there are no fields — there are only problems," with its corollaries that familiarity with a field does not mean mastery of all related problems, since no major problem is to be solved within the walls of any one depart- ment. Since closed systems are a fic- tion, the conclusions of science must remain tentative forever: ". . . the method of critical discussion does not establish anything [writes Popper]. Its verdict is always and invariably 'not proven. 3-
Consider for a moment the scope and complexity of the materials with which the student must cope if he would undertake a serious study of the Book of Abraham's authenticity. At the very least he must be thoroughly familiar with (1) the texts of the "Joseph Smith Papyri" identified as belonging to the Book of the Dead, (2) the content and nature of the
August 1968
55
mysterious "Sen-sen" fragment, (3) the so-called "Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar" attributed to Joseph Smith, (4) statements by and about Joseph Smith concerning the nature of the Book of Abraham and its origin, (5) the original document of Facsimile 1 with its accompanying hieroglyphic inscriptions, (6) the text of the Book of Abraham itself in its various edi- tions, (7) the three Facsimiles as re- produced in various editions of the Pearl of Great Price, (8) Joseph Smith's explanation of the Facsimiles, (9) the large and growing literature of ancient traditions and legends about Abraham in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Greek, Slavonic, etc., (10) the studies and opinions of modern scholars on all aspects of the Book of Abraham.
It will not do to consider just one or two of these areas before passing judgment on the Book of Abraham; yet so far nobody has done more than that. Who can hope to cover all that ground? Only a lot of diligent students with plenty of time and big libraries at their disposal. That is why we cannot accept as final the brief and scattered departmental studies of the Book of Abraham. It is not because we do not respect the knowledge and ability of the experts or because we feel in any way superior to them (the world will not see another Eduard Meyer until the millennium), but because the nature of the problem calls for infinitely more care and study than has been put into it.
There are two propositions regarding the Book of Abraham that none can deny. The one is that Joseph Smith could not possibly have known Egyp- tian as it is understood today. The other is that the Prophet has put down some remarkable things in the pages of the Book of Abraham. Why should we waste time on Proposition Num- ber 1? What can we say about a method of translation that completely escapes us? This writer is anything but an Egyptologist, yet he has stood on the sidelines long enough to know that there is no case to be made out
against the Book of Abraham on lin- guistic grounds for the simple reason that Joseph Smith did not commit himself beyond the interpretation of the Facsimiles.33 We cannot pretend to understand how the Book of Abra- ham was translated, but that should not seriously disturb us, since nobody understands the method by which some of the greatest scholars were able to translate texts that no one else could read — one thinks of George Smith, Edward Hincks, and the late Francis Llewellyn Griffith. In their case, it was the result that justified the intui- tion, and not the other way around. So let it be with Joseph Smith: we must still take his word for it that he was actually translating, but the re- sult of his efforts is a different matter — could such a monument be the re- sult of trickery and deceit? It is Propo- sition 2 that provides us at last with firm ground to stand on — and none of the critics have ever given it a moment's thought!
What Joseph Smith tells us about Abraham in the book attributed to him can now be checked against a large corpus of ancient writings, un- available to Joseph Smith, to which we shall often refer in the pages that follow. He has also given us, inde- pendent of any translated text, his interpretations of the three Facsimiles, and it is to these that we now address ourselves. It was in his explanation of the Facsimiles, it will be recalled, that our experts of 1912 were con- vinced that they had caught the Prophet out of bounds. But they were wrong: none of them knew nearly enough about the Facsimiles to pass judgment as they did. That we do not know the answers is beside the point, which is that present-day scholarship would reverse the funda- mental principle on which the authori- ties of more than half a century ago rested their conclusions, namely, the conviction that Egyptian writing is a good deal harder to interpret than Egyptian pictures. Actually, Mercer got it backwards when he said that
The largest part of the
consists of
"while the translation of ignorantly copied hieroglyphs is a precarious proceeding, the interpretation of Egyp- tian figures is a comparatively simple matter."34 For the beginner, to be sure, this is true; but as the student gets more and more of the grammar and vocabulary, the writing naturally becomes increasingly easier to read; but the pictures that once looked so simple and obvious become, alas, ever more puzzling, until we finally get to the top of the ladder where the full-fledged Egyptologists frankly tell us that the reading of a text is far easier than the correct understanding of symbolic pictures.
A hundred years ago Maspero and Naville agreed that "a philologically easily understood sentence, the words and grammar of which give us not the slightest difficulty," often conveys ideas that completely escape all the experts, these being also the ideas behind the pictures.35 And today Professors Wilson and Anthes would concur in the same view. The latter calls attention to our "helplessness in the face of these mythological records," both "texts and pictures,"30 while Dr. John A. Wilson suggests the amusing analogy of an Eskimo who had never heard of the Bible trying to make sense of the old hymn "Jerusalem the Golden"; he "might grasp the indi- vidual meanings of all the words . . . but he would still be puzzled by the allusions. . . . We have similar trou- bles in trying to apply our under- standing to the religion of the ancient Egyptians, which dropped out of human ken for more than 1500 years."37 The ancient pictures have a face value that is clear enough to us and to the Eskimo, but what they said
56
Improvement Era
...papyri in the possession of the Church
fragments from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. . . ."
to an Egyptian is another matter.
The Mormons were not slow in calling attention to this fatal limita- tion to the understanding of the Fac- similes: "I repeat," wrote Dr. John A. Widtsoe, "that something more must be done than to label a few of the figures Osiris, Isis or Anubis before Joseph Smith can be placed in 'the same class of fakers as Dr. Cook.' "3S The mere names tell us nothing un- less we can also tell "who and what were Isis and Horus and all the other gods of Egypt? Not by name and rela- tionship, but as expressing the Egyp- tian's vision of . . . the past, the present and the hereafter?"30 Sjodahl and Webb asked similar questions, but the Mormons were ignored be- cause they were not Egyptologists. Yet, shortly before, Georg Steindorff had written: "We know relatively little about Egyptian religion in spite of the abundance of pictures and religious texts of ancient Egypt which have come down to us. We know, it is true, the names and the appearances of a large number of divinities, we know in which sanctuaries they were hon- ored, but until now we have but few notions about their nature, and the significance which the people and the priests gave to them and the legends attached to their persons."40 And to- day Jaroslav Cerny can still write: "For the Old and Middle Kingdom there are hardly more than proper names to give us a glimpse into the beliefs of the common people and their relationships to the gods,"41 while Jequier points out that the "shocking contradictions" in the in- terpretation of religious imagery "show us that we have not yet found the truth."42 There is nothing for it, says
Jequier, but for each scholar to con- tinue on his way, "each interpreting in his own manner and according to his means . . . and so gradually pene- trate the mystery of the Egyptian religions."42 These were the very points that the Mormons were trying to make and that the opposition, determined at any price to give the impression of great and definitive knowledge, quietly ignored.
The Book of the Dead: The largest part of the Joseph Smith papyri in the possession of the Church consists of fragments from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the fragments having been recently translated and discussed by no less a scholar than Professor John A. Wilson of the Oriental Insti- tute.43 "Scholars had barely begun the study of the Book of the Dead," Edouard Naville recalled, "when they saw that the text swarms with diffi- culties . . . the prevailing mysticism, the abundance of images, the oddity of the pictures, the impossibility of knowing how the Egyptians expressed even the simplest abstract ideas — all offer formidable obstacles with which the translator is continually col- liding."44
These points can be illustrated by the most easily recognized section of the Joseph Smith papyri, namely, the fragment with the picture of a swal- low, Chapter 86 of the Book of the Dead. It is, according to the rubric (the title in red ink), "A Spell for Becoming a Swallow." But what do we find? To this day Egyptologists cannot agree on just what is meant by "spell" — is it a recitation? an ordi- nance? an act of meditation? an incan- tation? merely a chapter? Neither does
anyone know for sure in what sense the "transformation" is to be under- stood— whether it is a change of form, a transmigration, imitation, moment of transition, passage from one world to another, mystic identification, ritual dramatization, or what not. And what about this business of becoming a swallow? In the same breath the speaker announces that he is a scor- pion, and after the title there is nothing in the text that even remotely suggests anything having to do with a swallow — literal, typological, alle- gorical, or mystical. Certainly what the subject does is most unswallow- like and unscorpion-like as he ad- vances on his two legs and stretches forth his two arms in the accepted human fashion.4" Strangely, the titles are often easier to understand than the sections that go with them, as if, Thomas George Allen points out, the two were of different origin and his- tory.40
Such confusion may in part be explained by the alarming fact that the ancient scribes who produced these documents were often unable to read what they were writing. By the twenty-first dynasty, Naville noted, the ignorance of the scribes reached the point (toward which it had long been steadily tending) of complete miscomprehension of their own texts, betrayed by the common habit of copying entire sections backwards!47 "Even in their original state," how- ever, Professor Allen assures us, "the sanctity of the spells proper was fur- thered by intentional obscurities,"48 so that no matter how far back we go we will always be in trouble.
At all times, W. Czermak observes, "the concrete wording of the Book of the Dead is illogical and fantastic," but its religious sense, he insists, is not; if we confine our researches, therefore, to the examination of the text, as almost all students do, we are bound to get nowhere.49 This is not a paradox: the divine words don't need to make sense in order to be taken seriously. For some years this
August 1968
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writer taught classes of Moslem stu- dents who gloried in the thrilling sound of the Koran while resenting, some of them fiercely, any suggestion that a mortal listening to those words might possibly understand their mean- ing— their incomprehensibility was a stamp of divinity.
The Book of the Dead is a huge Chinese puzzle. In the first place, no two copies arc just alike and most of them differ widely, so widely, in fact, that if we were to gather together all the materials in all the various copies and reconstruct from them a single standard text, "the whole would make an ensemble that would be hard to reproduce and even harder to use."30 The pictures often have nothing to do with the texts they accompany, and sometimes illustrate things not found in the book at all.51 Texts and pic- tures (they are usually called vignettes) were usually done by dif- ferent persons, and "generally speak- ing, the beauty of the vignettes runs counter to the goodness of the text."32 By the same token some of the most beautifully written texts are among the worst in grammar and spelling, for everything seems to go by mere appearances, so that the relation be- tween the effectiveness of a certain spell and the actual contents of the spell is "often incomprehensible."53 Texts were valued long after their real meaning was lost from sight because "the magical use of these old religious texts is based on their external aspects; it is magic, not religion that loves learned obscurity, actually taking pleasure in what is incomprehensible because of its mysterious allure."54 This means that the documents defy classification, each being "an agglom- eration of texts related in content but coming from different epochs and backgrounds."55
Anything Goes! Since the Egyptians were, as is well known, the most con- servative of people, and since funerary rites, as is equally well-known, belong to the most tradition-bound and
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". . . each individual was free to impose his private taste and his personal history into the record whenever he saw fit."
conservative department of human activity, it is quite baffling to find just in this particular branch of this particular culture what seems to be a total lack of official or social control. Everything is up to individual choice: some vignettes drawn to order for a particular buyer might in the end be bought by somebody else ordering completely different texts to go with them;"'1 sometimes a text chosen by one person would catch the fancy of others who would order the same for themselves;57 individuals would for their private funeral texts "borrow, apparently without a qualm, many of the Pyramid Texts, including their implications of royalty," while at the same time blithely composing new chapters on the spot to suit their fancy. r,s If a person did not under- stand an old text, that made little difference — he would simply latch on to something in the manuscript that caught his fancy, even if it was only a single word or symbol, and put it down for its magical use/'9 "Some- times a space was kept blank for a vignette which was to record some special feature of the deceased. "°° As to the order in which the texts oc- curred, there was no fixed order, and different general arrangements were popular at different periods.01
It will be useful to keep all this in mind when we consider the Facsimiles, which have been brushed aside as "typical" Egyptian funerary docu- ments, though uniqueness is a conspicuous characteristic of such documents, and the Facsimiles are among the strangest. Completely counter to what one would expect in an ancient and venerable tradition of ritual documentation, each individual
was free to impose his private taste and his personal history into the record whenever he saw fit: ". . . each copy," according to T. G. Allen, "com- prised a collection of spells both selected and arranged on a more or less individualistic basis."6- And this goes for the oldest funerary monu- ments as well as the latest crude papyri: "Not one of the mortuary Temples hitherto excavated has proved to be an exact replica of any other known example. "e3 Typical is the representation of the rite of the open- ing of the mouth, depicted in some 80 tombs over a period of more than 1500 years: all but seven of the tombs offer only "an extremely curtailed repre- sentation," no single tomb shows the entire rite, and what one tomb shows another does not; also, during the long centuries of transmission "no syste- matic variation" appears. GI
It was at first assumed that the Book of the Dead was a ritual text, and Champollion gave it the name of the Egyptian Funeral Ritual; but that interpretation was given up when it was recognized that no ritual is de- scribed: There is not a single mention in the Book of the Dead of anything that the dead person or any priest or any member of the family is required to do/15 Taken as a whole or a part, "one gathers the impression that the compilers of the Book of the Dead included any religious material suit- able for recitation as a spell regardless of its contents. "GG
As an illustration of this puzzling unconventionality, we may take the best-known picture from the Book of the Dead, the well-known judgment scene or "Psychostasy," a fine example of which is found among the Joseph
Smith papyri. This judgment of the dead is the sort of thing that any amateur expert could explain at first glance, but those with experience tell us that "we do not even know what significance it may have had for the dead."07 Though the scene occurs in many copies of the Book of the Dead, it is by no means found in all of them, and it would seem that "not all the dead are required to stand judgment."07 What is more, there is no indication anywhere that standing trial success- fully will lead to any kind of blessed- ness, nor any certainty whatever about what is supposed to happen to the wicked in the hereafter; and except for its occasional representation in the Book of the Dead, the idea of judgment is nowhere so much as hinted at in all of the Egyptian documents.08 The dead person is tried for 42 sins: "How strange!" cries Naville, "the 42 sins are not the same in all the texts."09
We often read of transformations, the capacity of the dead to assume whatever form he will, "but not all the dead take advantage of this privi- lege and nothing obliges them to do so."09a Transmigration may be indi- cated, "but there is no doctrine of compulsory transmigration."70 In fact, in all this vast literature of the beyond, "there is neither a system nor any definite ideas about the fate of the dead beyond the grave. ... In the Book of the Dead the goal is as un- certain as is the way to get there. . . . there is no compulsion and no neces- sity."71 Down through the centuries of tradition there is not the slightest indication "of any authoritative transmission of theological interpreta- tions."7- And yet, in spite of this lack of controls, we cannot learn from these sources what the Egyptians really thought of death, for all thoughts on the subject such as occur in their secular writings have been rigidly excluded.7" The one safe, or at least what Gardiner calls the "most valuable," guideline to the under- standing of Egyptian texts, that is, "the logic of the situation," is denied
August 1968
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us here in this timeless, spaceless story without a development and without a plot.7i
The Book of the Dead stands in line of descent of a very ancient corpus of writings beginning with the Pyramid Texts. The so-called Coffin Texts, standing midway between the Pyramid Texts and the Book of the Dead, "con- tain in about equal number1' chapters found on the one hand in the Pyramid Texts and on the other in the Book of the Dead, while there are many passages in the Coffin Texts that are found in neither of the other two,75 some of these being nonetheless just as old as the Pyramid Texts them- selves.70 "The Coffin Texts," says Lacau, "overwhelm us with un- answered questions,"77 mostly the same questions that confront us in the Book of the Dead.78 It seemed to Breasted that "the priests to whom we owe the Coffin Text compilations allow their fancy to roam at will," so that "it is difficult to gain any co- herent conception of the hereafter which the men of this age hoped to attain."79
Thus, we see that the problems of the Book of the Dead are not merely the result of decadent and sloppy thinking; in fact, the same problems meet us in the very beginning, where the priests of Heliopolis in compiling the Pyramid Texts selected those "sayings" which they considered most desirable for particular individual kings. su The Pyramid Texts were used in ritual, but already "the Coffin texts have deserted the firm ground of ritual," presenting a "kaleidoscope of ideas that do not reflect the cult but are very free."81 Though the Coffin Texts differ widely from coffin to cof- fin and follow no plan of organization, they do all have certain ideas in common, according to Louis Speleers, namely, (1) the idea of a physical resurrection and a spiritual existence in eternity, and (2) the reception of the dead by Osiris.82 The doctrine of Osiris lies at the heart of the business, yet in all of Egyptian literature "no
Improvement Era
The view that "the Book of the Dead
is nothing but. . .fantastic ideas" is the easy way of "escaping a humiliating confession of ignorance. . . ."
systematic exposition of this myth is known,"83 and we would know nothing whatever about it were it not for the remarks of some poorly in- formed Greeks. Sf As in the Book of the Dead, the coffin text owner is al- ways going somewhere, "but where he is going on his long road is not to be clearly discerned from the spells."*5 "Yet there is method in 't": The scholars who condemned the Fac- similes in 1912 by labeling them scenes from the Book of the Dead never bothered to answer the urgent question of J. M. Sjodahl, "What is then the Book of the Dead?"8" The question is still in order. Since the beginning, "the idea has prevailed that the Book of the Dead is nothing but a conglomeration of fantastic ideas,'1 but that, as leading Egyptolo- gists are pointing out today, was just the easy way of escaping a humiliating confession of ignorance and a crushing commitment to years of hard work.87 As a result, "the 'illogic' of the Egyp- tians has almost become an article of faith in our science — much to its loss."88 We have been told ad nau- seam that things that supposedly intelligent Egyptians took seriously were "unmitigated rubbish,"8" that Egyptian religion is "inarticulate, fuzzy, and incoherent from the logical point of view,"90 that "the mentality of the East" will forever escape us logical Westerners,91 that the Egyp- tians "like all primitives emerging from the night of prehistoric times had yet to discover and explore the real world,"02 that "ancient Egyp- tian religion was a motley mixture of childishly crude fetishism and deep Philosophic thought,"93 "... a hotch- potch of warring ideas, without real
unity of any kind."04
Perhaps the most enlightening dis- course on this theme is that of Pro- fessor Louis Speleers, who in his work on the Coffin Texts takes the Egyp- tians to task with great feeling for holding religious beliefs that clash at every point with the teaching of Roman Catholic scholastic philosophy. He is shocked to find among the Egyp- tians "the total absence of the idea of an Absolute Being," but in its place the concept of a God who is "but man on a higher scale."9""' Their unpardonable sin is to prefer concrete to abstract terms: they "ignore the Absolute Good" to describe eternal bliss "in terms of earthly objectives."90 In their thinking, "everything is as ma- terial and concrete as the Christian metaphysic is abstract and spiritual."97 Even worse, if possible, they fail to place rigorous logic before all other considerations: "These ancients al- ways proceed by simple affirmation and negation. . . . They don't think, they only 'feel' ... no critical sense, no method."98 Thus, they "expect to live forever with their neighbors and the delights of material things while at the same time sharing the life of gods and spirits."99 "It is as if the principle of contradiction . . . did not exist for them."100 Disgustingly egocentric, too, with the individual clinging to his personal identity throughout the eternities;101 which is highly unscientific to the bargain, what with the "transposition of earth- ly things to a divine existence and of a dead person to another world . . . ," and otherwise "accepting the most improbable miracles, denying the laws of nature as we understand them."102 It all bespeaks "a disorder of the
brain . . . which provokes in us a horror of everything that offends our more or less innate sense of logic."10" "As to their cosmology . . . there is nothing in common between certain of their cerebral conceptions and our own intellectual operations"; where Christian thinking "applies the most rigorous logic," the Egyptian "accepts the most shocking contradictions," of the most "rudimentary and childish thinking."101
Significantly enough, Dr. Speleers admits that the early Christians were guilty of the Egyptian type of think- ing, regarding heaven and hell, for example, as definite places, "and it was only in the course of the Middle Ages [that is, thanks to the efforts of Scholastic philosophy] that they were recognized as a 'psychic state' of hu- man existence.""1""' And even as the Egyptians could not think of existence without some physical base, "one must recognize that the Christians them- selves could not free themselves from this idea until a certain period of time had passed, and even then only to a certain degree."11"'' To bring out their glaring contrast, Professor Speleers places certain of his own beliefs side by side with their Egyptian oppo- sites; and given the choice between the two, there can be little question but that the Latter-day Saint would choose the Egyptian version every time. Indeed, at the present time, Catholics are becoming rather cool to the appeal of Scholastic philosophy, and many Egyptologists are beginning to ask whether the Egyptians were such fools after all. As examples of some of his own impeccable logic. Speleers tells us how "God through the mediation of his creatures becomes aware of that which He is not,"107 and how the human soul "requires to be resurrected in a body, but . . . purged of all necessity of organs."108 And he calls the Egyptians confused!
From the very first there were emi- nent Egyptologists who suspected that people as clever as the Egyptians could not possibly have been as anti-logical
August 1968
61
as they seem to be from their writings. What we have in the texts, they argued, must represent the breakdown of a religion which in the beginning was entirely logical.109 The most widely accepted explanation for all the confusion was the well-known deter- mination of the Egyptians to throw nothing away: ideas, images, and stories originating in remote times and places were all welcomed by the Egyp- tian community and retained side by side, with ingenious efforts to explain their clashing coexistence and, when these failed, a good-natured and per- manent hospitality, that "liberal" or "additive" attitude that allowed room for everybody in the temple.110
Along with this, we have today an increasing tendency to seek the ex- planation of many paradoxes not in Egyptian intransigence but in our own ignorance of what was really going on. "We cannot subscribe," wrote Henri Frankfort, "to the preva- lent view that . . . the Egyptians held a number of incompatible ideas in hazy or muddleheaded confusion," this false idea being "founded on a discrepancy between our own outlook and the views and intentions of the ancients."111 Alan Shorter seconds this: "We are apt to stigmatize as 'contradictory' ' the apparently con- fused ideas which run through . . . many Egyptian texts, when perhaps it is ourselves who are interpreting them too literally."112 F. Daumas lays down some rules to be observed in the reading of Egyptian religious texts: (1) Assume a minimum of errors in a text, always giving the Egyptians instead of ourselves the benefit of the doubt. (2) "Believe that if we do not understand it is because we are badly informed, rather than imputing a shortage of intelli- gence to the Egyptians. . . . Let us not be hasty to condemn what on first sight looks chaotic and confused."11'5 It was for failing to observe these principles, it will be recalled, that Professor Mercer was taken severely to task by his reviewers.111 "Our atti-
'I have never met a specialist,"
wrote Professor Anthes, who did not have the highest respect for the Egyptian craftsman. . . .'
tude to the Egyptians," wrote Daumas, "has been that of children who find their parents to be outmoded and old- fashioned and conclude from that that they must be absolute nincompoops"; to fall back on Egyptian unreason to explain what we cannot understand is not a sound practice: "it is a vessel that leaks on all sides, and it leads quickly ... to the conviction that the Egyptians were utterly stupid."115 In the same vein the eminent Egyptol- ogist Adrian de Buck chided those who find fault with the Egyptian language as primitive and defective: the real fault with the language of the Egyptians, de Buck points out, is, after all, simply that it is not our lan- guage.110
"I have never met a specialist," writes Professor Anthes, "who did not have the highest respect for the Egyp- tian craftsmanship, and all agree in classifying the best Egyptian work as perfect in form and timeless in appeal." Moreover, Anthes continues, we judge Egyptian military and political history by the same measures we use for modern history, never claiming Egyptian leaders to be naive or primitive in their thinking. In everything militarily they come up to the highest standards and often sur- pass the best the later world can produce. Yet we give these same people no credit for brains whatever when it comes to the subject that interested them most, religion!117 A century ago E. Revillout called atten- tion to this strange bias.118 What is behind it? Anthes and Frankfort suggest not a different level of intelli- gence but a different method of solving problems.
We get neat final solutions to our
problems by isolating them in arti- ficially closed systems. Thus we find a tidy correlation between the con- sumption of cholesterol and heart disease and immediately announce that all cholesterol is deadly. We get quick answers by drastic over- simplification. The Egyptian, on the other hand, "did justice to the com- plexity of the problem by allowing a variety of partial solutions."110 After a statement in a funerary text, for example, it is common to find the phrase, "Some say this means so-and- so .. . ," followed by another, "Others say it means so-and-so . . . ," and so on, the reader being given his choice among a number of "official" explana- tions.1-0 What we have here is "liber- ality in dogmatics rather than inability to think clearly."121 Why settle for a final answer before we know all the facts? If two pieces of the jig-saw puzzle did not fit together, the Egyp- tians did not, as we so often do, pronounce one of them to be a fraud and throw it away, but they allowed for the possibility that there might be missing pieces that in the end would link up the two apparent contra- dictions.
This attitude some have called the "multiplicity of approaches": "An- cient thought . . . admitted side by side certain limited insights which were held to be simultaneously valid."122 Hence, "quasi-conflicting images should not be dismissed in the usual derogatory manner,"123 since they are expressions of "the habit of using several avenues of approach to subjects of a problematical nature."121 The modern single-line approach is neater and easier to understand, but the history of Christian dogma has
62
Improvement Era
shown only too clearly how brittle and
bigoted its solutions are. O
(To he continued)
FOOTNOTES
1TheoduIe Deveria, "Fragments de Mss. Funcraires Egyptiens considercs par les Mor- mons comme les memoires autographes d' Abraham," in Memoires et Fragments (Paris: Leroux, 1896), published in Bibliotheque Egyptologique, Vol. 4 (1896), pp. 195-202; see also "Specimen de l'lnterpretation des Ecritures de l'ancien Egypte," ibid, pp. 165ff.
-Franklin S. Spalding, Joseph Smith as Translator, p. 19.
^All this from the biography by his brother, Gabriel Everia, "Notice Biographique de Theodule Deveria (1831-1871)," in Bibliothe- que Egyptologique, Vol. 4 (1896), pp. i-xlviii.
477ie Improvement Era, Vol. 16 (1913), pp. 703-4.
"Who's Who in America, 1912, p. 1648. ljJ. P. Peters, Early Hebrew Story ( New York: Putnam's, 1904), p. 129.
nbid., p. 143.
,vHis work on mummy bandages while with the Hearst Egyptological expedition of the Uni- versity of California is noted by G. E. Smith, in Annales du Service, Vol. 7 (1906), p. 157.
"Howard Carter and Arthur C. Mace, The Tomb of Tutankhamen (New York: Cooper Square, 1963), Vol. 1, pp. 107-9.
■"Arthur C. Mace, The Tomb of Scnebtisi (New York: Metropolitan Museum, 1916), p. 35, note 1 : "The greater part of these transla- tions is due to the kindness of Dr. Alan H. Gardiner." Since the only inscriptions in the tomb were very short and easy ones, one wonders why Dr. Gardiner was needed to translate "the greater part" of them, and how much would be left to the genius of Dr. Mace. So also Carter and Mace, op. cit., Vol. 1, 109: ". . . Dr. Alan Gardiner kindly undertook to deal with any inscriptional material that might be found."
"Raymond Weill, in Revue Egyptologique, Supplement 1950, p. 48.
1:;Obituary in Journal of Egyptian Archaeol- ogy, Vol. 20 (1934), p. 107.
1:sNew York Times, Dec. 29, 1912, magazine section.
^'Who's Who in America, 1924-25, p. 331.
*'Era, Vol. 16 (1913), p. 613.
™Era, Vol. 71 (May 1968), p. 57.
17George A. Barton, quoted in Era, Vol. 16 (1913), p. 774.
lsQuote is from a Christian Herald article given at length in Literary Digest, July 10, 1915, 15. 67, where also Banks is quoted: "Lately I have been delivering a series of lec- tures under the auspices of one of the depart- ments of the University of Utah.
l'-'Ibid., p. 66: "The knowledge of such facts is working like a leaven. . . . The Board of Regents of the University of Utah, avers Pro- fessor Banks, is 'predominantly Mormon' and 'making desperate efforts to check the growth of progress," etc.
-"Who's Who in America, 1924-5, pp. 303-4.
21Banks, op. cit.
--Quoted in Era, Vol. 16 (1913), p. 774.
-'''". . . the inscriptions are not upon papyrus, but upon small clay objects. . , ." Banks, loc. cit.
-4See his sanguine remarks quoted in Era, Vol. 16, p. 774 75. "At the close of one of the lectures a bright young Mormon student accompanied me to the club where I was stopping. He asked about Joseph Smith's translation of the Egyptian inscriptions, for he remembered the discussion of two years ago. He is now a Mormon only in name. A Mor- mon gentleman . . . showed me about the Temple grounds. He was ashamed of his religion . . . and he represents the younger generation of Mormons," Banks, op. cit.
-'^Reported in Era, Vol. 16, pp. 341ff, and Deseret News, Dec. 19, 1912, p. 4.
-CR. Campbell Thompson, in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 21 (1935), p. 69.