50 years ago today - Apr 26, 1975-Saturday

[Leonard Arrington]

Reminiscences In retrospect, considering my subsequent career, it was an advantage to me that I did not grow up in a Mormon village, but at the same time grew up in a loyal Mormon family. I had a foot in the dominant Anglo Saxon culture of the nation, or at least the region, and at the same time another foot in the subculture of Mormonism. This gave me the opportunity of understanding each and of feeling perfectly free when in either. And it made it easier for me to keep my religion in one pocket, so to speak, and my livelihood in another. I have never felt that I was an alien in either society. While many Mormon youth had attended only LDS meetings as they grew up, I recall many occasions when I attended other churches in Twin Falls and elsewhere. At no time did my parents seek to dissuade me from attending other churches, nor express other than confidence that I would remain loyal to Mormonism. ...

Within our little Mormon congregation of perhaps twenty families in the early 1920s I recall interesting patterns. We used a goblet for the water of the sacrament, rather than little individual cups, and I recall my mother instructing me to drink from the area behind the handle, since most people drank from the front. This was to avoid contamination. I recall persons arising during testimony meeting to make confession of their sins. This practice was later discouraged, but there was plenty of it when I was very young. The women all had their hair uncut-it was supposed to be sinful and unbiblical for women to cut their hair, and usually tied up in a bun at the back of the head. Women were not supposed to wear a hat in church, and women with hats were asked to remove them before partaking of the Sacrament. Men blessing the Sacrament were mature men, and they usually kneeled on the floor and raised one knee and a hand as they said the blessing prayer. The men were mostly
farmers, working in the open sun all day during the summer, and I recall many of them put olive oil on their faces on Sunday as a kind of skin ointment. There was a certain odor penetrating the churchhouse for this reason. The Sacrament meeting talks were all delivered without preparation and without notes or a paper. ... I particularly enjoyed stake quarterly conference when General Authorities came. Their talks, it seemed to me, were exciting and energetically delivered. And loudly as well. Many of our local people were local farmers, very humble, not well educated, so they were not articulate, did not enunciate clearly nor speak with confidence. My favorites among visiting brethren-well, they all were favorites. I remember that brilliant orator B. H. Roberts, although he talked a long, long time. Another brilliant orator was Orson F. Whitney, tall, magisterial, an old fashioned orator of great power. Rulon S. Wells spoke a little too rapidly, but with great enthusiasm. Richard
R. Lyman was everybody's favorite-a big smile, a big voice, a big man-and he gave a popular talk on courtship in which he said he did not kiss his wife until he was engaged, and recommended we all do the same. In fact, I am not sure but what he recommended not kissing her until we were married. Another popular figure was J. Golden Kimball, tall beanpole of a man with a high pitched voice. Everybody laughed just to see him, and everybody kept on the edge of their seats waiting for a hell or damn. He had a strong testimony and I'm sure kept more persons in the faith than any of the others who were more careful and more intellectual. Melvin J. Ballard was a great speaker and was regarded as particularly spiritual because of his vision of the Savior, and the other spiritual experiences he related. [[Ballard related his vision as a dream, prefacing it with, "I found myself one evening in the dreams of the night." Hinckley, Sermons, 156.]] He was a handsome man. I recall David O. McKay
coming when I was just a young child. So tall, so handsome, such a big infectious smile, and such interest in young people. He asked all those under ten, as I recall, to come to the stand. There he had us sit on the floor around him. And he stood there and told us stories, rather neglecting the audience of adults in front of him. We liked him-he was interested in us. "For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

Another I remember was Reed Smoot. This was about 1930. Tall, powerful, commanding, august and solemn. A friend of mine, Freddie Babbell, asked me which I thought would be greatest-to be an apostle or a senator. I replied to be a senator, and Freddie chided me, indicating why it was so much greater to be an apostle. Clearly, on that answer, my foot was more firmly rooted in the dominant culture than in the subculture of Mormonism. There were of course others I saw, such as Heber J. Grant, James E. Talmage, John A. Widtsoe, and others, but my memory of them is primarily of a later period in my life, rather than early childhood. ...

[Confessions of a Mormon historian : the diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971-1997, Gary James Bergera, editor, Signature Books, 2018]