Sacrament Talk: January 16, 2011
Stan and I were asked to give talks about The First Article of Faith in Sacrament Meeting this week. The outline for this talk became a summary for how I joined the church. As I gave the talk, I restyled the talk to include some incidents that I had not remembered until I was on the stand. I have rewritten the talk to include those remarks as well as some remarks I did not actually say for clarity.
First Article of Faith: We believe in God the Eternal Father and in His Son, Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost.
I have always believed that while we have many stories to tell about our lives, the most important story we have is how we came to accept the truths of the gospel.
I was born to parents who weren't members of any religion. My father was brought up Protestant but by the time I was 10 claimed himself as an agnostic (meaning he did not believe or disbelieve that there was a God) and my mother, a non-practicing Methodist.
I did not attend church or Primary, have Family Home Evening, read the Book of Mormon, know who Joseph Smith was or have any knowledge of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. However, even as a little girl I knew there was a God and thought of Him as my Father. I attribute this to my mother’s relatives who did pray over meals and went to Christian churches regularly. They were also very kind and loving to me. The source of their peace and kindness seemed to be their belief in God.
Someone taught me a night time prayer which goes like this:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Every night before I went to bed, I would recite this prayer. Once settled, I remember gazing into the Heavens and wondering about God before I went to sleep. Around five years of age, my wonderings turned into personal prayers that allowed me to ask questions or pray fervently for some need.
For me, God was the creator of all the wonderful and beautiful things in my world and my protector at night. I felt a very personal relationship with Him and knew that He loved me and watched over me.
I remember asking my father about Jesus Christ. He told me that there were many great teachers in the world and Jesus was one of them. He would be pleased if I used the teachings of Christ as a guide in my life but that he did not believe that Christ was a God or that there was a God for sure. However he said that I could believe in anything I wanted to as long as it came from my heart.
I was always amazed that my Dad did not know there was a God. As a young girl I thought that his lack of faith was the source of his depression and addictions. But I listened to my father about Jesus Christ as I had no other reference point.
As my brother and I asked other questions about religion, my parents noticed that we were looking for answers from our peers. About the time I was thinking about being a nunn, they decided to take us to a number of churches always careful to not impose any religion on us but merely to introduce us to other ideas. As time went on we were informally introduced to various world religions and philosophies.
When I was ten, I befriended Sally, a girl in my sixth grade class. I highly respected Sally because she was the youngest of nine children whose mother had died and was in charge of running her family's household. With eight older brothers on a large farm, Sally was in charge of breakfast, dishes, laundry and house cleaning chores. When she invited me to attend her church one Sunday, I was curious to see how her religion helped her manage her life.
Her church was a small wooden, clapboard building at the end of a dirt road surrounded by trees. Inside was one long room with pews down the both sides leading to a pulpit area with a portrait of Jesus in the highest arch of the room. Everyone was dressed in Sunday best, very friendly and appealing. But I was astounded by their church services. There was no mention of God. Every song, story, prayer and sermon was the retelling of Christ, His life and teachings. I was horrified that they had put Jesus in God’s place of worship, worshipping the teacher instead of the Father. I went home angry and determined to never have anything to do with Jesus or Christianity again.
That night as I knelt down to say my prayers, I told God about my experience and promised Him that I would never worship Jesus Christ. I laid out my anger and reasoning to Him expecting peace to settle down upon me. Instead, I immediately felt God’s displeasure with my decision. It was the feeling of being rebuked, even chastised and I started crying in response. Then I became very frustrated by my situation. I knew that my parents would not support my claim that God told me Jesus was something more than just a teacher but at ten, I didn't have the resources to go looking for answers in other churches. With resignation and some irritation, I told God that if He wanted me to understand who Jesus was, He would have to provide the way for that knowledge to come to me.
A year later, we had moved to Florida and I was introduced to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by a Karen Mitchem, a classmate in the 7th grade. I was so impressed by how happy her family was and how they responded to me. Eventually Karen asked me to attend Young Women's where I learned the hula. I also went through about four sets of missionaries but never got past the first discussion because they always talked about a baptism date and I could never understand what baptism had to do with anything relating to God. Finally in ninth grade Karen started attending early morning Seminary every day before she went to our high school. That was just too much for me. I felt she was becoming fanatical. I drifted to other friends not knowing that my Mormon friends fasted for me every fast day for two years.
When I was fifteen, I started working at a facility for the mentally retarded in the nursery helping to care for approximately 30 children under four years of age. One of the other workers would sing hymns and spirituals as she worked feeding, bathing and dressing the babies. One day she started lamenting to herself about how these children would all be damned to eternal damnation because they had never been baptized. I was aghast that anyone could possible believe these innocent sweet children would be anything but loved and healed in the next life.
Shortly after this incident, Karen invited me to attend a fireside. The speaker was going to address the topic of "Do Little Children Need to be Baptized?". I went purposefully to debate the topic. I wanted to express my disapproval in the belief that children who died without baptism were damned.
The fireside was held in the newly built chapel in Orlando. A girl also about 15 years of age lead the discussion and I was impressed with her articulate message and clarity. She explained that little children could not sin until about eight years of age and God didn't require baptism of innocent babies.
Over cookies and mingling, I met a nice red haired boy who asked me out. After two weeks dating, he gave me a Book of Mormon to read, asking me to read 50 pages a night. I didn't know this was hard and quickly knew that the book was a true record God's relationship to men. It was like coming out of a dark tunnel into the light and I felt more clear and secure than I had ever felt in my life.
My brother and I asked to be allowed to go to early morning seminary at the start of the school year. There were nine of us that traveled about a half an hour in an old 1940s automobile leaving at 5:00 a.m. We would seat four in the front and four in the back with one of the smaller boys laying across the four in the back. The class was taught by Vera Smith. We studied the New Testament and the mission of the Savior. It was in Seminary that I finally found the knowledge of who Jesus is, His relationship to God and the Holy Ghost.
The concepts of God as the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are some of the precious truths that were lost because of a series of historical events. With the deaths of the Apostles and Prophets, converts with many different backgrounds tried to interject their old beliefs into their new Christian faith, especially the ideas and philosophies of the Greek converts. This caused many disputs and factions within the church and eventually transformed Christianity.
“From Wikipedia:The First Council of Nicaea (ni-SEE-ah) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea (an old city in what is now Turkey)* by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in A.D. 325. This council did not create the doctrine of the deity of Christ (as others including my father have claimed) but it did settle to some degree the debate within the early Christian communities regarding the divinity of Christ. (This idea of the divinity of Christ seemed by many to be confusing because they thought there should be only one God.) The council affirmed and defined what it believed to be the teachings of the Apostles regarding who Christ is: that Christ is the one true God in deity with the Father.” (And the Holy Ghost.) (My comments in italics)
Dallin Oaks
“We must begin with the truth about God and our relationship to him. Everything else follows from that.
In common with the rest of Christianity, we believe in a Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. However, we testify that these three members of the Godhead are three separate and distinct beings. We also testify that God the Father is not just a spirit but is a glorified person with a tangible body, as is his resurrected Son, Jesus Christ.
We maintain that the concepts identified by such nonscriptural terms as “the incomprehensible mystery of God” and “the mystery of the Holy Trinity” are attributable to the ideas of Greek philosophy. These philosophical concepts transformed Christianity in the first few centuries For example, philosophers then maintained that physical matter was evil and that God was a spirit without feelings or passions. Persons of this persuasion, including learned men who became influential converts to Christianity, had a hard time accepting the simple teachings of early Christianity: an Only Begotten Son who said he was in the express image of his Father in Heaven and who taught his followers to be one as he and his Father were one, and a Messiah who died on a cross and later appeared to his followers as a resurrected being with flesh and bones.
The Nicene Creed erased the idea of the separate being of Father and Son by defining God the Son as being of “one substance with the Father.”
While trying to unify the Christian believers, we believe that essential truths were lost. Ones that bless the lives of Heavenly Father’s children by defining Who God is, His relationship to Christ and the Holy Ghost.”
This quote is part of a marvelous talk from Dallin Oaks in April 1995 Conference. called Apostasy and Restoration.
The conclusions I draw from it are that there had to be a restoration of basic truths and these were brought to Joseph Smith, 14 year old boy is was seeking to find out the nature of God." April Cconference 1998
Monday, December 3, 2012
Forty Years Ago, Stan and I Met
Forty years ago this month, Stan and I met. I was twenty-three, getting ready to graduate from BYU and Stan was twenty-five . I had won a bet with another young man who in payment, had to wash my hair. As he was in process, in walked my roommate’s cousins, Stan and Sam, looking for dates for the next month financed by Sam’s military Per Diem. After some scrutinizing, Stan called his cousins and said he wanted to ask me out.
Our first date was on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. He had a terrible cold, snotty nose and everything but I just really liked him. We went to the John Wayne movie, “Cowboys”, a wedding reception and to his parent’s home for homemade pie. I was normally very careful about affection with young men, but I would have let him kiss me good night, cold and all after that first date, something I had never done before. By the second date we were completely enthralled and started seeing each other every night financed by Sam’s military money. We owe a lot to Sam. By the third date, we started having prayers together after the kissing.
In May, we were talking about our future and everything seemed to just fall into place. We became engaged June 4, 1972 and were married August 18, 1972 in the Salt Lake Temple. There were some worries and hesitations but every time I prayed about it, I felt like my answer was “well, duh, yes, marry this guy. He’s the best thing that has ever happened to you.”
Forty years later, I still feel that way about him most of the time. We have learned so much from having to compromise, communicate and celebrate. He is giving me some really good smile wrinkles, something we talked about while we were dating. And I look forward to the future knowing he will be by my side for as long as the Lord allows us this sweet pleasure.
Grandmother Dot and Grandpa Glenn Mornings
My grandmother and grandfather Skinner lived in a small town about fifty miles outside Richmond, Virginia. While I only visited them for probably 30 days during my entire childhood, they had a profound effect on my life.
It was a second marriage for my grandmother (my mother’s side) who was widowed at age 31. They were married when my grandmother was 35 and lived in a large two story home, renting to a few boarders, while my grandfather Glenn taught “Shop” at the local high school.
Every morning after a restless night, listening for the trains on the East side of the property, I would awake to the smell of bacon coming from the Grandma Dot's kitchen. Running downstairs, grandmother was in the kitchen, powdered, groomed, wearing a simple dress and nylons, finishing the final touches on breakfast and standing next to a table set with dishes, mats and glasses embossed with "The Great State of Virginia." Those glasses seem to announce what I felt about being in the home. It was great.
We said grace before every meal. Sometime into the breakfast, Anna ( one of the boarders) would knock on the door bringing with her a voice that had a high hollow bell tone in a deep southern dialect difficult to understand. Her voice sang and fluctuated with a cadence and lyrical value beautiful and alluring. She welcomed the day; she welcomed me back into her life. We continued our bacon, eggs, toast and butter breakfast to conversations of what was happening that day and the gentle rhythm of human interaction bound to a place that calls to us, bringing back memories both pleasant and sad. It was like Christmas but the presents were the presence of those around the table. These adults surrounding us were infatuated with our childish aura. They filled our cup with attention and adoration. We were a novelty and something about the way we grew was very important to them.
My grandmother loved us with her rhythms and routines of daily living. She was happy to love us and for our company. I loved her so much.
My First Experience with Organized Religion
My first experiences with organized religion happened in the home of my mother’s mother in Alberta, Virginia. Grandmother Dot was a short, plump powdered woman who always managed to smell of talc and perfume instead of the cigarettes she smoked on the front porch in the evenings. She kept a house as clean as imaginable, decked in the linens and crystal of old southern culture.
Sunday mornings were hurried. We were expected to attend church on time. I was scrubbed, primped, and otherwise made ready to be presented to the community at the Bethel Methodist Church. At a quarter to 9:00 a.m. the church bell tower would sound echoing through the community and we would pile into Dot’s car to drive the two or three blocks to the church on the same street as my grandmother’s house.
Hats with netting, pearls, dresses, suits, oriental paper fans, and soapy clean floral smells all blended to compose the atmosphere of the Bethel First Methodist Church. Southern politeness, rich accents, nodding, knowing glances, greetings, hurrying to a hard wooden pew, Randy and I were the treasures Grandma Dot brought to share with all the country folk who came to church for just such a surprise.
Their culture consisted of clean houses, consistent journeys, weekly routines, visiting, cooking, drinking ice tea from tall chilled glasses with silver spoons for stirring the added sugar, and taking occasional trips to Richmond. Glad they were to hole up in their safe quiet world where children were the silver they polished. Charitable, devoid of sandal or lasciviousness, they immersed themselves in the rich sweetness of southern hospitality, blended with long summer nights, fireflies and humidity. Their hospitality was born of a desire to please and be of service.
Church meetings were long, so long on those hard wooden benches. Paper fans would cool the surrounding corseted powdered women while the preacher smiled and convinced us to be more like the beatitudes and other lessons taught in Christian churches. But they knew and worshipped Jesus, working hard to be more like Him in all their actions and words.
As a child, I didn’t connect with Jesus. But attending church with my grandparents was the beginning of a questioning attitude toward Christianity. They made Christianity very attractive and I wanted to understand my relationship to the Savior because of watching them. I will always be grateful for their community service and devotion in their Methodist Church.
Lorraine Walker Swenson Boyer
On my first date with my future husband, Stan, I met his mother, Lorraine. She was standing next to the fireplace in a long sapphire blue robe trimmed in white. Her hair was lightly mussed from the day's work but that pure white color apparent and her presence regal, confident, graceful and serene. She welcomed me into her home with the practiced manner of someone who has welcomed many of her children's friends and possible spouses before. I felt like I had entered a sanctuary with symbolic collections decorating the walls, fireplace, sideboards, china hutch and table. They heralded a love for nature, wild life, the mountains, family, work and most of all children. With seemingly no effort, she handed me a slice of apple pie, hot with a dipper of ice cream on the side and I began my tutorial of womanly graces with Lorraine.
Her husband, Roy, was a handsome, young man with dark curly hair she met at the Y. He swept Lorraine off her feet dancing long into the night and taking motorcycle rides in the canyons. Their courtship began during the depression. They eloped. As the years went on they worked together to raise a family of seven children and establish a car repair business, eventually becoming very successful in both areas despite life's challenges and upsets.
In her first home in Provo, she painted flower borders in the living areas to decorate the walls. As she was telling me this, her eyes seemed to glisten going back in time. She indicated this was a precious time in life for her, working with Roy, raising little boys, struggling to make ends meet and putting her heart into that modest little home by painting her flower borders. She even commented on how she loved the effect of her handiwork. it gave her a great deal of pleasure to create beauty in her home. Her love of beauty, nature and flowers is reflected again in the beautiful yard she crafted in Pleasant Grove.
Golf was Roy's passion. But rather than staying at home, Lorraine, a natural athlete, adopted and excelled in golf too. Tuesdays and Thursday were her golf days with the woman's league. She won many trophies and was a competitive golfer with Roy and their golfing friends as well. Along with others, I have often speculated that it was Lorraine's good food and golf that contributed to her longevity.
In Roy's later years, after Roy had recovered from the first bout of prostate cancer, he said to me that once he decided to just do what Lorraine suggested, he was happiest he had ever been in life. Creating an atmosphere of love, hospitality and beauty, nurturing with food, activity and laughter, and being an example of healthy living, Lorraine had a positive influence on all of her large extended family.
Stan and I discovered each other through Roy and Lorraine's watchful eyes, our future more apparent to them than to us. They recognized the difference, the attraction, the affection and cultivated their rights to observe by introducing us to "Rook". We competed, we won, we lost, we laughed and came again and again to bask in their company as we learned how to be a couple in the game of life. Rook was a vehicle to draw us back as much as Lorraine's food.
Meal preparation was an art form. Lorraine understood menus, complimenting tastes and compatibles in food, timing and presentation, like a skilled oil painter creating a composition, carefully calculating lighting, tones, and contrast. Her dinners were an experience beginning with the aroma greeting us at the front door to the table center piece carrying the theme of the day. A farm girl, Lorraine also understood the rhythms of harvest, so food was selected by the seasons, temperature, and occasion. A cold wintry night would be offset by a fire in the fireplace and hot vegetable beef soup or pink-eyed beans and ham with homemade rolls and a dessert. A warm summer's evening would feature a cold shrimp in lemon jello salad with rolls and cold drinks.
Dessert was a requirement. Pie was a favorite but real homemade cake watered my mouth as soon as I walked into the kitchen trying with my x-ray vision to see into the metal cake cover. Black Walnut Cake, Anything-But-Cake, Picnic Cake, Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, Sour Cream Chocolate Cake she discovered and delivered all during my nearly forty years of marriage to Stan and every diet I ever tried was tested by our mutual love of sweets. The cookie jar was required to be full with homemade or store bought cookies but always full and clear glass so you could see the contents.
And then there was the candy. Always a stash somewhere supplied by her sons and kept constant by herself, never hoarding, always offering and bemoaning her own weakness for candy. Not the cheap stuff, mind you, See's or Kara's or what's the name of the one in Salt Lake off of 7th East? That's the one she most preferred and savored each bite like a true connoisseur. She would open her mouth wide and then with her front teeth clip a third of the chocolate behind them pressing the candy into her palate and rolling it around her taste buds, moaning as the flavors hit her senses. Watching her eat candy became part of the experience. Only one piece at a sitting unless she was driven to eat two...and always offering a second (of her precious candy) to every one. Love: love was food, service, beauty, sacrifice, time and money for Lorraine and she gave freely.
Family gatherings in the spring and summer were set in the landscape of her ever blooming yard with all kinds of flowering shrubs, bulbs, annuals, perennials and trees. With Roy as her best worker, Lorraine cultivated the acre grooming every shrub while dubbing the yard "the canyon look". She weeded mounds of myrtle, planted hundreds of bulbs, cut flags and pruned roses, staging a magical garden around her home. Visitors were mesmerized by the colors, heights of varying blooms, positive and negative space drawn in the grass or through the branches of the trees. How many different varieties of irises, roses, daffodils, tulips, crocus and lilies were there? It was like she had to celebrate all of them to express her passion for horticulture. Then she would hose down the patio, make cupcakes, hamburger patties, two salads, have chips, dip, buns and hot dogs for her growing clan of children, spouses, grandchildren and greats. And we would gather, playing pin-pong, watching the children, laughing, talking, growing into a close-knit family.
Cultivating family came as naturally to Lorraine as gardening. She resisted losing her freedom to the demands of tending little ones in her late 50s but by her early 60s embraced grandchildren as the reason for life. She loved them, smiled at their discoveries, provided good books, old toys and an acre to explore while chronicling their lives in pictures. Every event deserved a picture. New shoes, pretty hair, Easter, Christmas, baptisms, rain, mud, kittens, Thanksgiving, school programs, eventually weddings and more babies are all preserved for us in her Life Books. We watched ourselves grow up in those books. All the joys, pains, growth, sorrows and happiness are sandwiched in Lorraine's Picture Books. She was our historian while looking at us through rose colored glasses hoping we could live up to our potential. Lorraine provided a backdrop for us to observe our growth as we tentatively faced the trials and triumphs of life.
One day during my early years of marriage I visited her while she was doing spring cleaning. This meant the drawers under her bed, although nearly empty, had to be wiped on the inside and on the outside. Inside one of the drawers was a collection of old magazine pages about a woman's most glorious traits, illustrated by models dressed in formals from the early 1950s. I don't remember the exact categories but they were something like grace, hospitality, charm, dignity, character, fidelity, loyalty, etc. I was immediately struck by how these traits were the epitome of Lorraine. Long before the notion was popular, Lorraine had created herself, defined herself by her standards and by what she wanted to leave behind. Lorraine was a beautiful farm girl from a large family with heavy responsibilities. Early in life she learned never to shrink from work but bent it to meet her own ambitions and goals. Lorraine was a Lady.
Her standards were high for herself. She worked very hard to elevate her family and encouraged them to pursue talents, gain an education, marry well, be happy and optimistic. Her remarks would sometimes be construed as criticism but were usually laughed off or put into a collection of Grandma B's stories brought up later to amuse or gossip about. When she complimented you, it was generous, enthusiastic and in front of others.
From what I observed, Lorraine's perception of her relationship to God was humble and honest. There was no pretense that she was special to God or any messages that she was holier than anyone else. She just seemed to live the best she knew without worrying about some details like "coffee". She told me once she prayed regularly but didn't want to bother Him with silly problems or insecurities. Surely He had more important things to worry about. But I observed her worshipping daily with her gratitude. She was always very grateful for her many blessings and acknowledged them openly.
This developed into what I feel is the most prominent of all Lorraine's attributes, her positive attitude toward life. Life was the most glorious of all opportunities and wherever she was, she was grateful for what was around her. She noticed birds, deer, hawks, butterflies, grasshoppers, blooms, clouds, the sky, sunsets and even precocious weeds as part of the wonder and beauty of this earth. Every conversation contained some comment about an element she had noticed and enjoyed, part of nature not man-made but gifted from God as part of the tender mercies we receive so generously.
And she smiled. She smiled when we came, she smiled when we left, she smiled when she drove down the road as if the pavement somehow pleased her. Having a pleasant countenance was part of her beauty and charm, scripted by her as part of her life. Lorraine lived her life wisely with purpose and decisiveness.
There are three tangible images that will always represent Lorraine to me. First is the porcelain Lladro Roy bought of a dancing woman who resembles Lorraine as a young woman. Her figure is slim and alluring taunting the observers with the twist of her hips, position of her arms and style in her grace. Lorraine was that kind of woman. A woman to reckon with so to speak.
The second is a video I saw once of her coming out of the house to hang up her laundry. She and Roy may have staged this to show off her lovely legs in the shorts she was wearing and her confident attitude as she cast one last beguiling look at the camera before going up the stairs and into the house as a young wife.
The third one is the little figurine she put on her kitchen table most frequently. A little scrub woman dressed in a blue house dress white polka dots and matching kerchief, bending over accentuating the woman's prominent hips as she holds flowers in a vase at her feet. She talked to me about this once, how she sometimes felt in life like all she did was the cooking and cleaning, etc. The little scrub woman was her salute to women's work, she said, and for me a salute to her . Lorraine worked so hard while striving to keep the grace, style and loveliness of the porcelain Lladro woman she really was. One of her legacies to all the women in our family is that she has succeeded in keeping her loveliness all her days.
Her husband, Roy, was a handsome, young man with dark curly hair she met at the Y. He swept Lorraine off her feet dancing long into the night and taking motorcycle rides in the canyons. Their courtship began during the depression. They eloped. As the years went on they worked together to raise a family of seven children and establish a car repair business, eventually becoming very successful in both areas despite life's challenges and upsets.
In her first home in Provo, she painted flower borders in the living areas to decorate the walls. As she was telling me this, her eyes seemed to glisten going back in time. She indicated this was a precious time in life for her, working with Roy, raising little boys, struggling to make ends meet and putting her heart into that modest little home by painting her flower borders. She even commented on how she loved the effect of her handiwork. it gave her a great deal of pleasure to create beauty in her home. Her love of beauty, nature and flowers is reflected again in the beautiful yard she crafted in Pleasant Grove.
Golf was Roy's passion. But rather than staying at home, Lorraine, a natural athlete, adopted and excelled in golf too. Tuesdays and Thursday were her golf days with the woman's league. She won many trophies and was a competitive golfer with Roy and their golfing friends as well. Along with others, I have often speculated that it was Lorraine's good food and golf that contributed to her longevity.
In Roy's later years, after Roy had recovered from the first bout of prostate cancer, he said to me that once he decided to just do what Lorraine suggested, he was happiest he had ever been in life. Creating an atmosphere of love, hospitality and beauty, nurturing with food, activity and laughter, and being an example of healthy living, Lorraine had a positive influence on all of her large extended family.
Stan and I discovered each other through Roy and Lorraine's watchful eyes, our future more apparent to them than to us. They recognized the difference, the attraction, the affection and cultivated their rights to observe by introducing us to "Rook". We competed, we won, we lost, we laughed and came again and again to bask in their company as we learned how to be a couple in the game of life. Rook was a vehicle to draw us back as much as Lorraine's food.
Meal preparation was an art form. Lorraine understood menus, complimenting tastes and compatibles in food, timing and presentation, like a skilled oil painter creating a composition, carefully calculating lighting, tones, and contrast. Her dinners were an experience beginning with the aroma greeting us at the front door to the table center piece carrying the theme of the day. A farm girl, Lorraine also understood the rhythms of harvest, so food was selected by the seasons, temperature, and occasion. A cold wintry night would be offset by a fire in the fireplace and hot vegetable beef soup or pink-eyed beans and ham with homemade rolls and a dessert. A warm summer's evening would feature a cold shrimp in lemon jello salad with rolls and cold drinks.
Dessert was a requirement. Pie was a favorite but real homemade cake watered my mouth as soon as I walked into the kitchen trying with my x-ray vision to see into the metal cake cover. Black Walnut Cake, Anything-But-Cake, Picnic Cake, Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, Sour Cream Chocolate Cake she discovered and delivered all during my nearly forty years of marriage to Stan and every diet I ever tried was tested by our mutual love of sweets. The cookie jar was required to be full with homemade or store bought cookies but always full and clear glass so you could see the contents.
And then there was the candy. Always a stash somewhere supplied by her sons and kept constant by herself, never hoarding, always offering and bemoaning her own weakness for candy. Not the cheap stuff, mind you, See's or Kara's or what's the name of the one in Salt Lake off of 7th East? That's the one she most preferred and savored each bite like a true connoisseur. She would open her mouth wide and then with her front teeth clip a third of the chocolate behind them pressing the candy into her palate and rolling it around her taste buds, moaning as the flavors hit her senses. Watching her eat candy became part of the experience. Only one piece at a sitting unless she was driven to eat two...and always offering a second (of her precious candy) to every one. Love: love was food, service, beauty, sacrifice, time and money for Lorraine and she gave freely.
Family gatherings in the spring and summer were set in the landscape of her ever blooming yard with all kinds of flowering shrubs, bulbs, annuals, perennials and trees. With Roy as her best worker, Lorraine cultivated the acre grooming every shrub while dubbing the yard "the canyon look". She weeded mounds of myrtle, planted hundreds of bulbs, cut flags and pruned roses, staging a magical garden around her home. Visitors were mesmerized by the colors, heights of varying blooms, positive and negative space drawn in the grass or through the branches of the trees. How many different varieties of irises, roses, daffodils, tulips, crocus and lilies were there? It was like she had to celebrate all of them to express her passion for horticulture. Then she would hose down the patio, make cupcakes, hamburger patties, two salads, have chips, dip, buns and hot dogs for her growing clan of children, spouses, grandchildren and greats. And we would gather, playing pin-pong, watching the children, laughing, talking, growing into a close-knit family.
Cultivating family came as naturally to Lorraine as gardening. She resisted losing her freedom to the demands of tending little ones in her late 50s but by her early 60s embraced grandchildren as the reason for life. She loved them, smiled at their discoveries, provided good books, old toys and an acre to explore while chronicling their lives in pictures. Every event deserved a picture. New shoes, pretty hair, Easter, Christmas, baptisms, rain, mud, kittens, Thanksgiving, school programs, eventually weddings and more babies are all preserved for us in her Life Books. We watched ourselves grow up in those books. All the joys, pains, growth, sorrows and happiness are sandwiched in Lorraine's Picture Books. She was our historian while looking at us through rose colored glasses hoping we could live up to our potential. Lorraine provided a backdrop for us to observe our growth as we tentatively faced the trials and triumphs of life.
One day during my early years of marriage I visited her while she was doing spring cleaning. This meant the drawers under her bed, although nearly empty, had to be wiped on the inside and on the outside. Inside one of the drawers was a collection of old magazine pages about a woman's most glorious traits, illustrated by models dressed in formals from the early 1950s. I don't remember the exact categories but they were something like grace, hospitality, charm, dignity, character, fidelity, loyalty, etc. I was immediately struck by how these traits were the epitome of Lorraine. Long before the notion was popular, Lorraine had created herself, defined herself by her standards and by what she wanted to leave behind. Lorraine was a beautiful farm girl from a large family with heavy responsibilities. Early in life she learned never to shrink from work but bent it to meet her own ambitions and goals. Lorraine was a Lady.
Her standards were high for herself. She worked very hard to elevate her family and encouraged them to pursue talents, gain an education, marry well, be happy and optimistic. Her remarks would sometimes be construed as criticism but were usually laughed off or put into a collection of Grandma B's stories brought up later to amuse or gossip about. When she complimented you, it was generous, enthusiastic and in front of others.
From what I observed, Lorraine's perception of her relationship to God was humble and honest. There was no pretense that she was special to God or any messages that she was holier than anyone else. She just seemed to live the best she knew without worrying about some details like "coffee". She told me once she prayed regularly but didn't want to bother Him with silly problems or insecurities. Surely He had more important things to worry about. But I observed her worshipping daily with her gratitude. She was always very grateful for her many blessings and acknowledged them openly.
This developed into what I feel is the most prominent of all Lorraine's attributes, her positive attitude toward life. Life was the most glorious of all opportunities and wherever she was, she was grateful for what was around her. She noticed birds, deer, hawks, butterflies, grasshoppers, blooms, clouds, the sky, sunsets and even precocious weeds as part of the wonder and beauty of this earth. Every conversation contained some comment about an element she had noticed and enjoyed, part of nature not man-made but gifted from God as part of the tender mercies we receive so generously.
And she smiled. She smiled when we came, she smiled when we left, she smiled when she drove down the road as if the pavement somehow pleased her. Having a pleasant countenance was part of her beauty and charm, scripted by her as part of her life. Lorraine lived her life wisely with purpose and decisiveness.
There are three tangible images that will always represent Lorraine to me. First is the porcelain Lladro Roy bought of a dancing woman who resembles Lorraine as a young woman. Her figure is slim and alluring taunting the observers with the twist of her hips, position of her arms and style in her grace. Lorraine was that kind of woman. A woman to reckon with so to speak.
The second is a video I saw once of her coming out of the house to hang up her laundry. She and Roy may have staged this to show off her lovely legs in the shorts she was wearing and her confident attitude as she cast one last beguiling look at the camera before going up the stairs and into the house as a young wife.
The third one is the little figurine she put on her kitchen table most frequently. A little scrub woman dressed in a blue house dress white polka dots and matching kerchief, bending over accentuating the woman's prominent hips as she holds flowers in a vase at her feet. She talked to me about this once, how she sometimes felt in life like all she did was the cooking and cleaning, etc. The little scrub woman was her salute to women's work, she said, and for me a salute to her . Lorraine worked so hard while striving to keep the grace, style and loveliness of the porcelain Lladro woman she really was. One of her legacies to all the women in our family is that she has succeeded in keeping her loveliness all her days.
Catharine Houtz Boyer
In July, Stan and I attended the Catharine Houtz Boyer Family Reunion in Springville, celebrating Catharine Houtz Boyer, who came to Utah in 1853. Previous to attending the reunion, this family story had not been passed down in Stan’s family line. The following is taken from a blog about her life:
In May of 1853 Catharine Houtz Boyer gathered her six children and departed from her beloved Pennsylvania to go towards Zion. She left family and friends and two lonely graves containing her husband, Augustus, and daughter, Bregetta. As yet, Catharine and her children were all un-baptized but that did not alter her desire to gather with the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints already settled in the valley of Salt Lake, Utah.
Traveling first by team, railway, and steamboat to Council Bluffs, Iowa they would ultimately travel in a very unique independent wagon company consisting of only twenty-four persons; the Orson Spencer/Joel J. Terrell company. They had seven wagons, five of which were pulled by ox teams and two lighter wagons pulled by horses.
They left Council Bluffs on Thursday, July 28, 1853. The oldest member of the company was fifty-two years old; the youngest was the age of two. More than half (thirteen) were under the age of twenty. The company consisted of nine females and fifteen males. Only two of the females were adult women. One of those was Catharine Houtz Boyer.
At the Reunion, we learned that Catharine’s husband died from complications from an abscessed tooth. He suffered for a couple of months and knowing that he was going to die, arranged for his oldest sons to be apprenticed to his brothers farm in Pennsylvania. At the time of his death, Catharine felt strongly that she should follow her brother to Utah and with her sons pleaded to keep the family together and for the sons to be released from their pledge to apprentice at their uncles’ farm. The uncles agreed and helped to send Catharine and her family to Utah. Stan is descended from the oldest son.
We heard many other stories about Catharine’s six children and the rest of her prosperity, including their numerous contributions to Springville area. It was very humbling to know how Catharine’s courage in her choices affected our family’s future. Yesterday was our Fortieth Wedding Anniversary. Thank you Catharine.
Christmas 2012
Forty years ago this month, Stan and I had our first Christmas. We had been married about two and a half months but were waiting for our eligibility for health insurance to start our family. Like many young brides, I was baby hungry and fixated on a beautiful peach faced love bird I saw at the Pet Shop. The Bird was shy and so every day after work, I would stop by the shop and talk to the bird. Finally I asked Stan for the bird.
He feigned disapproval but immediately paid the shop keeper to hold the bird while having a turquoise ring set in gold made for me additionally.
I bought him his first heavy weighted hammer and some addition tools; wrapped them in brown paper bags and then decorated each gift with a colorful characterture of the tool made of some left over felt. We were so in love.
On Christmas Eve, he took the bird to his brother Jerry’s family for safe keeping. Christmas Morning the phone rang about 8 a.m. Jerry described to Stan how careful he had been with the bird but that when he looked into the cage that morning, my love bird was on the bottom, feet upward and not moving. It was a sad Stan who came to tell me my big surprise was dead.
I have never forgotten how disappointed he was. We have eternalized the moment with “love bird” salt and pepper shakers. Over the years Stan has given me many surprises but our first Christmas set the tone for the many loving Christmasses that followed.
Captain John Locke
Until about 1998, I did not know the name of my paternal grandfather. He went by Kenneth R. Lock-Smith and Lock-Smith is my maiden name but I couldn’t find him in any census or listing. Then my daughter Michelle miraculously found a book linking my father to the “Locke Family” who were early settlers in the East. Here is one account of my eighth great grandfather, Captain John Locke, I found on the internet.
"In 1694 John Locke being at Locke's Neck was ambushed and killed by the Indians as he was reaping grain in his field." The spot where this happened is along the seashore, and can be seen by turning off Ocean Boulevard onto Locke Road. The Locke Burial Ground is there, with John and Elizabeth Locke and several generations of Lockes. There is a marker on a granite post, labeled 1934, and a memorial roadside marker, which now reads:
“Locke’s Neck- named for Captain John Locke who settled here before 1665 with his wife, Elizabeth Berry, born in London in 1627. He landed in Portsmouth ca. 1644 and according to tradition framed the first meeting house there about 1654. As Captain of militia he was noted for his defensive actions against hostile Indians. He was killed here August 26, 1696 by Indians as he worked in his fields with only a sickle for defense.
The best part of the story is not from the archives, nor the memorial markers, but is an anecdote from the Locke genealogy (which means that the best part is probably a myth!) According to the family myth, when the Indians ran up to scalp Locke, he summoned his last breath to cut off the nose of one of the Indians.
In the New Hampshire Historical Society Museum, in Eagle Square, Concord, New Hampshire, John Locke’s famous hand sickle, which he was supposedly using as he reaped grain on that fateful day in 1696, is on display in a glass case. The very obliging curator of the museum, Doug Copely, told me that as a descendant, he could also take Captain John Locke’s sword out of storage and show it to me. He also said that although it may be myth, the docents tell the tale of Captain Locke and the Indians to visiting children at the museum. Both items were donated in 1890 by George Locke of Manchester, New Hampshire. I’m sure that many generations of school children have been thrilled by this bloody story and have carefully examined the sickle for any signs of gore.
Family Tree (new.familysearch.org) shows that Captain John Locke Senior’s LDS ordinances were performed in 1934. I am one of the branches grafted on this long tree whose pioneers were baptized long before me. Please email your family history story to t roxannaboyer55@gmail.com .
Vera Dunn Smith-And the Hand Written Family History
My grandmother Vera Dunn Smith lived with my family all my life. She was a talented woman knowing several languages and aspired to be a concert pianist in her youth. During the early Great Depression years she used her talent to play piano music for silent films
When I was just a girl, before I joined the church, she showed me a hand written copy of the Biography of the Beighley Family of Europe. In the 1930’s, she had copied the biography with her lovely scrolling handwriting while visiting her uncle Isaac Newton Beighley. I have kept that copy all my life as a lost family artifact, using it to connect to ancestors in the France.
A couple years ago, I was on the internet and decided to just “Google” my ancestor’s name. There it was in less than five second, the treasured biography of the Beighley Family History abridged by someone and posted on the internet.. Here is the story I want to pass down to my family.
“Johan BUEHL came under notice from King Louis XIV under the following conditions: Louis XIV, profound in his belief in the divine right of Kings, found himself opposed by half the armies of Europe; wherein the Rhine Valley, for many years was destined to be a battleground. Many of the settlers of the area intermixed with the thrifty Hollanders whose beliefs were diametrically opposed to those of Louis XIV. These people adhered to self government, free thought and Protestantism. The victorious armies of Louis XIV seized the city of Strausberg, mistress of the Rhine, and decreed that all Protestant Churches be closed. All were ordered to embrace Catholicism and into the homes of those who refused, groups of solders known as the Dragoons were sent for the purpose of persecuting the inhabitants until they submitted to Catholicism. When members of the detested Dragonade entered the home of our Johan BUEHL, he handed a small bible to the officer in charge and told him, "I am guided by this Book and will flourish as yon evergreen tree, as this Book promises." It is said that the shamed officer took his departure and the incident was reported to the King. Whereupon, the King sent Johan an invitation to become one of his officers and sent him a coat of arms. The College of Heraldry describes this coat of arms as "a green tree on an azure background, quartered with the king's own color." As an officer of the King, Johan would have been permitted to wear this on his sleeve. Also as an officer of the King, his name was to have been changed to BUCHLI, meaning "little book." After the revocation of the Great Edict of Nantes (which promised protection of Protestants), Johan BUCHLI, who refused to convert to Catholicism, was forced to leave the land occupied by generations of his family and travel across the border into Germany, where he made a new home in the city of Stutgart. Having lost everything, he had taken up the trade of weaver. [Excerpted from a family history compiled by Harry L. Hutchinson, great-great-great grandson of Johan Conrad Buchli, son of Johan Buehl.]”
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