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LJA Diary 6 May 1976 – Recollection
Easter of 1942 – April 5
I proposed to Grace in January, 1942. She did not accept at that time; said she wanted to see if she thought she was the best person for me to marry. But I was prepared to marry her at any time. During the spring of 1942 I talked with Kenneth W. Cameron, a graduate of Princeton and professor of English at No C. State College. He was an ordained Episcopal minister. I asked him if he could marry a Mormon fellow to a Baptist girl. He said he would ask his bishop. He later told me his bishop had turned him down. So I then thought that if we were to marry we would ask the Baptist minister, Carl Townsend, to marry us. We were sure he would consent to do so.
[LJAD, 6 May 1976 – Recollection, Easter, April 5, 1942]
I am sending Mother’s letter and also a copy of my patriarchal blessing. You remember I told you about the one I got when I was 10 years old. I don’t have to tell you what I think about Mother’s letter or the Blessing, because you already know my point of view exactly from the many talks we have had. But I should mention that you should not worry over what Mother has written, because it isn’t as important to her as she makes out. She has always told me that she wanted me to have someone I could truly love, and someone who truly loved me, and that was the main thing. As long as we are happy together and love each other, and have a grand home and family and respect her feelings, that is all she will require. She no doubt would like for me to be married in the Temple. She would also have liked for me to go on a mission. She would like for me to make a lot of money. But she will feel almost as good without those things. I didn’t go on a mission, which is the biggest thing to them, and yet they love me as much as ever. Well, they won’t feel so bad if we get married here, and also if we get Dr. Cameron or somebody like that to marry us. But anyway, we have talked about this before. My mind is made up. I feel very, very happy about it. I am not in the least disappointed in anything. So far as I am concerned, ours is a perfect match, regardless. So please don’t worry. Mother will love you more than any of her other in-laws, because you have such a high character. That’s the important thing. We are going to do what suits us best, just as Mother did when she ran away to get married, and married without the consent of her parents, and didn’t join the Church till after her third child. And she will respect us most of all if we follow our own path and do it well. “For what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
[LJAD, letter to Grace, July 2(?), 1942]
Kenneth Walter Cameron
Department of English
State College
Raleigh, North Carolina
December 1, 1942
Dear Jimmy,
After leaving you yesterday, I examined the Canon Law of the Church, as I always do before writing the Bishop—One must not appear too ignorant when writing ecclesiastical superiors—and discovered that there isn’t a single loophole there. The law of the Church is rather clear, even if it seems a bit unsympathetic. My hands are tied, therefore, and we should begin to consider the alternative plan, which I brought up when we were together.
I would recommend that you have a little talk with Lee C. Shepherd, of the Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, telling him of my having sent you. He is one of the most friendly people in the city, and at the same time one of the most liberal. He has the State College situation much at heart. The second choice would be young Allyn Robison of the United Church. If you will give me the signal, I shall speak to them in advance and prepare the way.
At all events, the Chapel is yours whenever you want the ceremony performed, and I shall be on hand to add my felicitations, if you will permit it. Shall we see you both on Saturday evening at 5:45?
Loyally (and with regret),
Ken
[LJAD, letter from Kenneth Walter Cameron, Dep’t of English, State College, Raleigh, NC, December 1, 1942]
Sometime I feel like the soldier, who wrote home to his wife & said, “Honey, you better see all you can while I’m gone, for when I get back on my furlough you won’t get to see anything but the ceiling.” It’s much easier for me than I thought it would be, tho. Probably, it’s because I know that it is impossible for you to be here so I don’t think about it. We really will know how to enjoy each other when we are together won’t we? And we’ll never ever separate again! The war is teaching us something.
Remember, I love you with all my heart.
Your husband Jimmie
[LJAD, letter to Grace, August 25, 1943]
September 1, 1943
United States Army
Dearest Sweetheart,
The North African desert—a prison internment camp with barbed wire fences. Guards walking their posts. Tower sentries keeping sharp lookout. Now & then an Arab on a burro steals silently by on the highway.
An American army camp outside the barbed wire. There are countless tents, each housing 5 or 6 American boys. Each has a candle lit. Over there a mouth organ is being played. Oh Susanna! In another, a group of Southern mountain boys are singing old time revival hymns. In still another one can hear loud voices in argument. “The war will be over in six months.” “You fool, more than likely it will be six years,” etc., etc. Now & then a solitary soldier moves down the Company street to the lister bag (?) to fill his canteen. Some are going the other way to the latrine for the final visit before going to bed.
It is nighttime in North Africa. In the Platoon Orderly tent a solitary soldier sits at a rough wooden desk writing his sweetheart in America. The only light is a singe candle. A cool breeze is blowing. Pretty soon he will put on his field jacket to break the coolness of the night. The soldier carefully fills his pen. He looks out the tent flap at the stars. They are bright tonight. He looks at them longingly, as if to read in them some answer to his prayers. He begins to muse and reminisce. He remembers other nights that have engraven themselves in his mind. That night in December when he stole his first kiss. Oh, how lovely she was. So full of the happy holiday spirit. She wore the red knit sweater that hung low in the neck. Oh, how her face shone! Her lips were red, large & full… her eyes so dreamy and full of love… as though they were at peace for the first time in many years. She was so innocent and young. How could a man resist? The music that was playing—it was almost forgotten in the ecstasy of that first kiss. What a night to remember!
There was another night—exactly a month later. He doesn’t know why he remembers it so vividly—perhaps it was her eyes. For on that night he discovered the depth in her soul. For the first time she unburdened to him her soul, her life, her ideals, her hopes & fears. The night he first proposed—for this was the night—he learned for sure that she was no child. She was mature, very mature. She had experienced suffering and sorrow—intense suffering and sorrow. She had born it with courage and mastered it. She did not cry out against it, nor did it destroy or overcome her. At last she showed her strength and character, her courage and nobility. And then—that night—she shared her anguish & sorrow with her sweetheart. No one else had ever penetrated the depth of her soul & character, and no one else ever would. All the mustiness in her house of memory was aired out once and for all. Oh! She cried a lot—and for a little while she could not look him in the eye. Her eyes—yes, they are what he remembered most. Full of deep sympathy and understanding. Strong, loving eyes.
There is an afternoon that was like a night. Fayetteville. The finest hotel in town was a little rickety and stained. Two people—a bride and her groom. On the bed, laying in each other’s arms—they are talking about it all. They are happy now. Both have suffered considerable anguish. They have had their trials—their crosses to bear. Now they are together forever. They know it. Nothing can mar their happiness. They look into each other’s eyes and know for a surety that nothing can ever dim their love for each other. Each knows in the depth of his being the complete trust & respect & love of the other. They are at peace with the world, with each other, and with their God—and they know it without a word being said.
There is one other night. It was the night the soldier finally felt the faith, courage & determination of his bride. It was their last night together. In the morning he was leaving her, destined for North Africa and the war. He knew she was strong but never so strong as she was that night. He knew she had developed a real faith in “their” future, but never such faith as she showed that night. Her love for him was unbounded; her faith in God and the future was absolute and unquestioning. Never once did she break down. Never once did her eyes give her away. To the last, she was thinking of him, and what he would go through. No thoughts of herself. Not once.
Oh! My sweetheart I love you so much. You have so many wonderful qualities that I sometimes wonder how God could have spared so many for one woman. There is nothing your soul lacks. I love you for every quality separately and for all of them put together as you. I love you for your faith and consideration, your sincerity and honor, your determination and patience. I love you for your love for me—and for what you have made me by loving me. For I never have been happy before. Always there was a longing—a yearning—and a doubt as to whether the object of my longing existed. But when I found you, I felt like it couldn’t come true. But it did. And now we are one. God has made us one. 5,000 miles apart we are one. We are thinking the same things this very minute. Yes, I know you want to cry. Please cry, darling, for I am crying too. Tears of happiness. Not tears of sorrow or loneliness. Tears of happiness because we love each other so much and have such faith in each other. We are so well mated and so satisfying to each other that the very contemplation of being together and loving each other gives peace and comfort. We can never stray or look at another. What exists between us—and everything exists between us—is too sacred to be shown or exhibited to others. In a way it seems strange that the deep love we have for each other should have come exactly when it did to us, it was perfectly natural. Indeed, it has seemed as though it always existed…As though we knew each other long before we were born and had spent our mortal lives looking for each other. And now that we have found, each other we cannot even contemplate it all ending. Somehow, we know it must last forever—that death, when it does at long last come, will be only an interlude, as it were, and we shall love, admire & respect each other through all eternity, that we shall eat, play, sleep, work, worship, talk, & love together forever.
Darling, I know I will dream of you tonight. And if you will dream of me, we may have a tryst in some secluded spot and there look into each others eyes and love once more. And when morning comes, and the alarm clock rings, I’ll jump out of bed, wave good-bye, and vanish. And when you see the sun coming up & moving across the sky, you will know it’s me, in light & glory, sailing thru the heavens, over the far horizon, to a distant land where there are millions of my comrades, and there we shall destroy the evil force tyrannizing the world. When you see the sun at midday, you know we are doing it—stamping out that wicked one so our loved ones may live in peace always.
Sweetheart, this is almost too much for me. Good night. And remember our tryst!
Your loving husband,
Jimmie
[LJAD, letter to Grace, 1 September 1943]
I can just picture our Thanksgivings. All kinds of nice things to eat, but always: a fowl (goose, turkey, duck, or hen), dressing, cranberry sauce like you made for me last winter before last. None of that canned stuff, pumpkin pie out west or sweet potato pudding if we are down South: lots of rich milk. In the evening we will be much too full to eat supper, but we might want something. I suggest fruitcake & wine! How does that sound to you? I suggest Thanksgiving Eve, as the one time in the year we should have wine, say Barbera or some other good wine. Of course, we will soften up our Christmas fruitcake with brandy, too. I haven’t drunk any wine or brandy in so long I almost forget what they taste like. I want to drink my first glass with you our first Thanksgiving together. Do you approve of having fruitcake Thanksgiving as well as Christmas? I like it so well it would seem a shame to have it only once a year. I realize all these suggestions are very fattening, but maybe we’ll lose enough the first few months together to afford to splurge Thanksgiving & Christmas.
Should we entertain an LDS family or the folks for Thanksgiving we’ll have our wine alone a little while before we go to bed so as not to cause offense. But folks or no folks, religion or no religion, we’ll pour wine or brandy over all fruitcake served Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, or whenever it is. Not that I like them—I don’t. But I think they help out fruitcake. You proved that tome. And, anyway, I insist we do what we wish to do regardless of what may be correct. Nobody hates drunkenness as much as I do but this is another story. I think we shouldn’t serve cocktails, beer or any other intoxicating drink in our home for reasons I’ve already given (if you agree.). Please tell me your reactions on this. I think we should always keep on hand a plentiful supply of fruits, fruit juices & milk & such things as nuts & chocolates. If our guests can’t be satisfied with that you know what they can do.
[LJAD, letter to Grace, Friday, 22 September 1944]
I herewith tell the story of my romance with Grace for Chris and the diary. I was an instructor in economics at the University of North Carolina in 1941. At the time I went there in January of 1941 I kept inquiring about Mormons and finally wrote to the mission office in Louisville, Kentucky and found there was a formal group meeting in the third story of the I.O.O.F. Hall on the Main Street not far from the capital. The only members were Cloe Hodge and her mother, her sister Flonnie and husband Oscar Rogers and Brother Tilton and his two daughters. At any rate, I met with them regularly. I did not see any of the girls as prospective wives. I had during the previous year at Chapel Hill attended church in Durham, North Carolina and become acquainted with Idell Savage. She was called “Shug” for short. I had had a few dates with her. Although she had pretty blue eyes and was pleasant and full of fun, I really did not see her as a prospective bride. I talked to T. Wilmont Wood, professor of business at North Carolina State and a good friend, about some nice girl. He recommended a young lady whose name I don’t remember and in the fall I asked her for a date to go to a football game at Chapel Hill. She was pleasant and agreed to go.
In the meantime I received an invitation to have birthday dinner in honor of Nyle Brady at his apartment in the home of Ruth Partridge. Nile had come that fall to North Carolina State from BYU to work on a Ph.D. in soils and agronomy. He was a very bright person, intellectually oriented, and he and I hit it off very well.
I went to the football game with this young lady, enjoyed it, drove back, asked her if she would like to have dinner with me. She said “No, thank you.” I then asked her if she would like to drive for awhile and get some refreshments, and she said she would rather go home. The Woods told me afterward that just before the date her steady boyfriend had come back from the Army and that she had gone with me on the date just because she had promised to do so, and she was anxious to get back to him, but she mentioned none of this to me. At any rate that ended that affair.
I went off to eat dinner at the regular restaurant where I ate, and just as I started on my dessert I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to go to the Brady’s for the birthday dinner of Nyle, so I left the restaurant in a hurry and drove over to their place, arriving late. My recollection is that they had given me up and had already started eating, but maybe that is not correct. At any rate, Ruth Partridge was there and she had invited a fine friend of hers, Grace Fort, to have dinner also. According to what I was told later, she was supposed to be my partner at the dinner, but nobody told me that at the time and I was so dumb I didn’t realize it. I just thought she was a guest of Ruth Partridge. After the dinner was over I started to leave to go home and somebody asked if I wouldn’t be able to take Grace home. It still didn’t occur to me that I was supposed to.
On the way, home she asked me a dozen questions about the Mormons and Mormonism to which she had just been introduced. I was the first one she had met. After two or three hours of chatting I took her in and I suppose I really forgot her.
The little Raleigh Branch was having a Halloween party and so I determined to go and looked for a date. I phoned one of the Tilton girls and she had a date, I phoned the other one and she accepted. Then the afternoon I was to pick her up she said she wanted to go, but she wanted to go with another friend, which turned out to be her boyfriend, so I tried to think of somebody I could take. I suddenly remembered Grace. Having promised already to be there—maybe I was master of ceremonies at the halftime or something—I felt it necessary to have a date. I don’t remember if I phoned Cloe or not. At any rate, I asked Grace to go with me and she said she would. We had a good time and afterwards she asked more questions. We got to talking religion. She told me about her church—the Presbyterian—and a Bible class she was attending. I told her about our Mutual and said that I would be glad to go with her to her Bible class if she would go with me to Mutual. So we did this. Our Mutual, I think, met once a month but anyway I remember going with her to Bible class and we had nice discussions afterwards.
Apparently I still had occasional dates with Shug Savage in Durham because I remember that on December 7, 1941—Pearl Harbor Day—I drove with her to Wilmington, enjoyed the morning and afternoon, and then drove her back to Durham. As I stopped at a service station I was told about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It hardly seemed real nor did I even think of the implications.
I got an invitation a few days later from Grace to her house to help decorate Christmas trees. She had a sweater on which was attractive and enticing and I remember enjoying her lively spirit, lively conversation, her enthusiasm during the afternoon and evening. We probably had a few more dates. I then asked her if she would respond favorably if I gave her a ring. She said she would be glad to accompany me to look at some. We spent an afternoon together during the Christmas vacation, and she picked out three rings, all in different places. She said she liked each of these rings. I later bought the one I thought would be more practical and beautiful and kept it for the right occasion to give it to her.
I went with her to midnight mass at the Roman Catholic cathedral in Raleigh. While the. choir in the balcony was singing “Oh Holy Night” I took her hand and slipped the ring on her finger and held my hand over hers until they finished singing the song and then she looked at me and kissed me.
So we were engaged some four months after I met her. We went together steadily throughout 1942. During the summer of ’42 I worked in Lilesville, North Carolina as a cotton acreage counter and received some letters from her. After I returned we were heavily involved in the war and I decided out of patriotism that I wanted to quit my job as professor and volunteer for one of the armed services. I then volunteered for the Navy and took all the tests, but was not accepted because I was too short. They required that a person measure 5’6″ and I couldn’t quite do it. I then went to the Army Air Force and volunteered but was turned down because I had had asthma. I then went to the Marine Corp and volunteered and was turned down again because of shortness. Whatever I was going to do, I was not going to volunteer for the Army, so I applied for work with a war agency, the North Carolina Office of Price Control. I was employed as an economic analyst and worked there during the fall of 1942 and spring ‘of ’43. In March I learned that I had been declared exempt from the draft because I was serving as branch president of the Raleigh LDS Branch. I did not think this was a proper exemption so I wrote to the Selective Service Board and told them to remove that exemption. By return mail they replied with an induction notice to report to Ft. Bragg Induction Center on March 17. I then resigned from the OPA and was inducted into the Army at Ft. Bragg.
I remained at Ft. Bragg one full month while they were trying to place me with the proper kind of Army assignment. They finally decided to assign me to the MP’s to go to a prisoner of war processing platoon, and I was instructed to go to Ft. Custer, Michigan for basic training. With this notice came word from the commanding officer that I might have a weekend pass. Grace had visited me two or three times on Sunday at Ft. Bragg, but I could not obtain a pass. The lieutenant told me Friday afternoon that I could get a pass. I phoned up Grace Friday evening and asked her if we could get married the next day. She said “I’ll try; I’m willing.” That is the first time she said she was willing to marry me immediately. I got my blood test from the Army infirmary and Grace had to get everything arranged in Raleigh. She contacted her preacher (she was a Baptist now), Carl Townsend. He agreed to marry us in his Hayes-Barton Baptist Church. She arranged with the county clerk who did not keep office hours on Saturday to take time out to go open the office and provide us a marriage license Saturday morning after I got to Raleigh. She also telephoned Cloe Hodges to sing “Because.” She arranged for a woman to play the organ and ushers from my fellow workers at the OPA. Somehow she managed to notify many of her friends. She also managed to arrange with a barber to cut my hair and for a tailor to press my pants.
I arrived at Raleigh on the bus about 9:00 in the morning. Grace whisked me to the county clerk, to the barber, to the pants presser, to a store which would sell me a military cap suitable for marriage, and perhaps other things I don’t recall. At 2:00 we went into the Hayes-Barton Church where approximately two hundred people were assembled for the marriage. It was a very nice affair. I don’t recall how we got the wedding ring for her and the wedding band for me. Maybe Grace did that. As we walked down the aisle after the ceremony, I suppose I looked a little tired from all the excitement. Anyway Grace looked up at me, smiled her prettiest and said, “Smile big for my friends,” and so I did. As we walked out there was a hail of rice. We walked over to her nearby apartment and apparently had a reception for friends and close members of the family, but frankly I don’t remember anything. Sometime that evening we went to Fayetteville, where we spent Sunday together. Monday morning I was back at Ft. Bragg at 6:00 a.m. for bugle call. We took off immediately for Ft. Custer, Michigan.
[LJA Diary, 30 Aug., 1974]
WelI, here’s the rundown on Mamma, who visited the doctor this week. She has five identifiable pains, and she is now able to identify which is when, when it occurs, and she has a different medicine for each. Here they are:
1. Fibrositis. Inflammation of the joints, shifts here and there, and occurs from cold, dampness, tension, etc. She has had for a year or two. Medicine: aspirin.
2. Muscle spasms. Contraction of the muscle due to tension and anxiety. Has had since early 1950s. Comes spasmodically. Takes norgesis, a relaxant.
3. Misplaced disc in the neck. Since last October. Causes sharp pains in the arms and hands and down the back. Relieved and prevented by lying in traction once or twice a day. When the pain is excruciating, takes Tabloid 3.
4. Angina. Enlarged heart. Thru improper heart functioning, gets lack of oxygen when there is overexertion or overanxiety (can even happen when she’s asleep and dreaming.) Takes digitalis once a day, a small dose. Her heart is not deteriorating; is as good as last spring and fall. Some of her problem last week caused by too much digitalis previously taken.
5. Her heart doesn’t pump fast enough to peep her kidneys working fast enough to keep water out of her system. So she must regularly take water pills to flush the water out, and a potassium pill to replace the potassium that is flushed out when she takes the pill that makes the water flush. Takes a water pill and a potassium pill every day.
With all of this clear, both to the doctor and to Mamma, and with her now recognizing and able to recognize each of the different pains, the doc thinks he will have 20 more good years. This not only helps her with proper medicines (half her problems have been due to medicine, says I), but solves much of her anxiety (she has always felt that her situation was worse than it really was). There is no doubt that she will be back to normal shortly–and happily. And so she is happy, and I am happy. She no longer thinks she is going to die before Nana!! We are all very pleased about finally having a “solution.” She’s going to be our real Mamma once again. Already is. She has felt wonderful yesterday and today.
[LJA to Children, 8 Jan., 1976; LJA Diary]
Yesterday was Grace’s 62nd birthday. She awoke yesterday morning with no pain in her arm, none in her back, none in her leg, none in her stomach–feeling good, she says, for the first time in many months. Indeed, she felt good all day. She went to see the doctor late in the morning, who gave her the results of her colon X-ray. He said that there was no obstruction and no growth. Gave her a pill to take and advised her not to eat any food with little seeds in it; such as, for example, raspberries, strawberries, sesame seed buns, etc.
[LJA Diary, 10 Feb., 1976]
Responses to Questions of Scott Kenney
How My Personal life has been Affected by My Appointment as Church Historian
There is also the problem of our mother-in-law who was 78 at the time of the move. By that time she was too old to make new friends in Salt Lake City. Whereas she had more or less had an independent social life and personal life in Logan living in an apartment in our house in the basement and just occasionally eating and visiting with us, she now insisted on a room on the main floor and being with us in an intimate way in our lives. That affected the quality of the intimacy between Grace and myself, made privacy impossible, and created a number of psychological problems. They might have happened in Logan as well, although it might have occurred gradually.
Another important consideration was that Grace has not been physically well since we have been in Salt Lake City. She has had to have a hysterectomy, she also fell down the stairs and had a shoulder separation–a very painful thing, her arthritis is more advanced, she has had some stomach troubles; she really has not felt well even half the time. She has felt poorly day after day, week after week to the extent that she could do things she desired to do only perhaps two or three days a week. This might just as well have happened in Logan but it didn’t, which contributed to her depression and sense of hopelessness here, cut down her social and intellectual life, and also made it necessary for me to be home with her more of the time.
Grace describes the move to Salt Lake City from Logan as traumatic for her. We had been in Logan 26 years except for sabbatical and other leaves. Essentially, we had begun our marriage there. All of our children were born there. Over the years we had made friends in the ward, at the university, and in the community. We belonged to three husband-and-wife study groups, all three built around the Church. We had belonged to one of these groups for 25 years and were close intimate friends of all 15 couples who belonged. We were members of two other groups, one of which was 15 years in existence and the other five years, and we were of course intimate friends of them. Grace had been an officer or teacher of the Relief Society of the Tenth Ward for 26 years and had a lot of friends from that relationship. We had always lived in the same ward in Logan. I belonged to the Faculty Men’s Dinner Club for 26 years and had been a member of Logan Rotary for seven years. Grace was a member of Les Amis Women’s Club and also Logan Women’s Study Club; I think also a member of a literary club. Those were all long-standing memberships. I think Les Amis started about 1948.
[LJA Diary, 31 Mar., 1976]
Easter of 1942 – April 5
I proposed to Grace in January 1942. She did not accept at that time; said she wanted to see if she thought she was the best person for me to marry. But I was prepared to marry her at any time. During the spring of 1942 I talked with Kenneth W. Cameron, a graduate of Princeton and professor of English at N. C. State College. He was an ordained Episcopal minister. I asked him if he could marry a Mormon fellow to a Baptist girl. He said he would ask his bishop. He later told me his bishop had turned him down. So I then thought that if we were to marry we would ask the Baptist minister, Carl Townsend, to marry us. We were sure he would consent to do so.
[LJA Diary, 6 May, 1976]
Here’s the report for the week. Mamma went to see the doctor Tuesday. He said she must do two things: Lose weight, so as to diminish the effort her heart has to make pumping blood; and not climb stairs. She is actively working on the former, and succeeding to some extent. As for the latter, she is telling us what to do downstairs. Eventually, we may have to do one of the following: Buy or trade for another house that has the freezer and washer and dryer on the main floor, put in an elevator, or always keep a girl in the house that would do errands going up and down the stairs. For the present, we’ll see what happens as we do the errands. We have Masako, Nana, James, his friend Paul Nielson, and myself.
Mamma has felt so-so during the week. With James and Paul here, there is far more tension and worry about meals, what they are doing, telephone calls, getting food for them, things strung around the house, etc. On the other hand, they create a lot of excitement and busy work that takes Mamma’s thoughts off herself. Mamma is a little more snappish and “on edge.” However, she really seems better than she might have been with a calmer household. She felt the need to go downstairs twice yesterday. The first time, Paul and I carried her up via Boy Scout procedures. The second time, I walked up with her leaning on me. No harmful results.
[LJA to Children, 5 Jun., 1976; LJA Diary]
Mamma, while basically better, and feels she is going to be better still, has had some bad days, or nights. But none of the deep depression she was having months ago. She went with me and James to Provo Wednesday…
[LJA to Children, 4 Sep., 1976; LJA Diary]
Grace had some problems with her health. It appeared that she could not become pregnant. Finally, the doctor (Francis of Wellsville) removed a cyst from her ovary. Then he gave me vitamins. Then she conceived. But after some four months she had a miscarriage. Then more vitamins. Finally, in the spring of 1948, she conceived again. James, born in December, was the result.
[Reminiscences of Logan, 1946-1949; LJA Diary, 6 Sep., 1976]
Grace did not feel well and spent most of the morning in bed. She got up in the afternoon and seemed to feel worse. Finally, about the time that Carl and Chris returned, she felt such a pain in her chest and the upper part of her body that she thought she might be having a heart attack, so she asked me to make an appointment with her heart doctor, Dr. Preece; and Carl and Chris and I took her to the Salt Lake Clinic for him to examine her. He gave her an EKG and although she was almost collapsed and pretty helpless, he felt she had not had a heart attack. For precautionary reasons, however, he thought we ought to put her in the hospital for a couple of days to monitor her very closely to be certain nothing serious was wrong. She agreed to this and so we took her right over to the emergency room of the hospital and they prepared her and then took her up to the cardiac arrest section of the LDS hospital, which is on the 4th floor west. There she was in a room with Mrs. Ivadna Francis–Mrs. Joseph Francis of Morgan. We could only visit a few minutes at a time. We therefore returned home. We visited that evening and the next morning with Carl and Chris, and then Carl and Chris went by the hospital around noon to visit with Mamma and do some shopping in the early afternoon, then went to Logan by dinner time to be with her folks for a few days. James and I went to visit Mamma in the afternoon, then ate out at the Ristorante della Fontana, and then back to the hospital for another visit. Mama was much better, but still no idea as to what had caused her difficulty.
Grace telephoned Christmas morning to say that she would be released by 9:30, so James and I picked her up it the hospital and carried her home. She spent most of the day, of coarse, in bed. James cooked a nice dinner, a beef roast, which we had at 3:00 p.m. with Grace joining us. Also joining us was her friend Pat Rosenbury. The doctor had concluded that she definitely did not have a heart attack and he had no idea what had caused her problem on December 23. He cautioned her to take it easy for a few days and gave her a new medicine to take the place of Minipress. We watched TV Christmas evening.
[LJA Diary, 29 Dec., 1980]
Dear Children:
Mamma has not felt particularly well the past few days, so she went back to the doctor yesterday. He examined her again and gave a discouraging diagnosis. He said she must decline all social engagements for at least ten days, continue walking a half-hour each day, rest nearly all of each day, and he gave her some changes in medicine. We know of her continuing arthritis pain and occasional headaches. The polymyalgia rheumatic continues to be active and painful. Her heart does not pump with sufficient force to get blood to the kidneys and so she accumulates water in her lungs. And because of these various symptoms she continues to have some depression. She takes medicine for pain when the arthritis and polymyalgia become unbearable; she takes two different types of heart medicine, together with a medicine to dewater her every other day; and she takes an anti-depression pill daily, plus one for anxiety caused by occasional unnatural heart beats.
She asked the doctor whether she would likely be under a “rest” diagnosis the rest of her life. “I do not know. Depends on how you respond to the treatment.” He consults regularly with her old heart specialist, Dr. Preece. Mamma likes Dr. Cannon. He is patient and honest with her and takes a personal interest. But she is quite discouraged. So am I. Since Christmas I have gone to most things alone, and it looks like I’ll have to continue to go alone or not go at all. And one doesn’t hear Mamma’s usual laughter and enthusiastic talk around the house. Things are more solemn, grave, long-faced, sad, words of concern, some moaning and occasional crying. I still am hopeful; I still have faith she’ll get better, but it’s more faith and less reasonable expectation than it used to be. I point out that Linda Newell’s grandmother had an enlarged heart and lived to be 89; Aunt Beulah was fully as bad as Mamma when she was 45 and moaned and complained all the rest of her life, but lived to be 87. I hope and pray.
[LJA to Children, 15 Apr., 1981]
Dear Children:
The first thing to report is the visit of Mamma to the doctor Monday. I went with her, partly because she can hardly drive yet, and partly to ask the doctor a number of questions. Briefly, what we learned is as follows:
1. Mamma will never get over her heart condition. She will never get well, in the sense of being restored to where she was 20 years ago. Her heart will forever be inadequate to a full, busy life.
2. Her heart’s performance will vary, between “good” and “bad.” That is, there will be weeks and months when the heart will enable her to function reasonably well; other times when she will have to spend much of every day in bed.
3. Mamma herself (with my help) will have to be her own doctor, in the sense of controlling herself to adjust to her heart’s performance.
4. The medicine she is taking now is probably what she will always have to take. There isn’t anything Br. Cannon foresees she could dispense with, and he cannot think of others she can take. She will not be able to take the Bristol-Meyers anti-depressant, and the Bristol-Meyers people agree with that after having her condition described.
5. Mamma will never die from a stroke; her blood pressure is low.
6. Mamma’s condition has improved considerably over two weeks ago, so she seems to be on the up right now.
7. Although the pressurized cabin in the airplane may cause some problems, she can always get oxygen on the plane. Her condition in N. C. with its low altitude will be helpful. The doctor sees no reason she should not take her N. C.-New York trip. Mamma agrees–she definitely plans to go.
8. Mamma, as a minimum, should walk a half-hour per day; and she should rest an hour to an hour and a half every morning, and the same every afternoon. And when she feels her breathing getting short and feels exhausted, she should rest and “take it easy.”
9. Mamma feels pretty good about this diagnosis, and has a good positive frame of mind. She is contented in facing this picture. It did not depress her, but buoyed up her spirits a little. She is, above all, happy about the prospect of the N.C. trip.
[LJA to Children, 29 Apr., 1981]
We had a wonderful turkey dinner in the afternoon. Susan had prepared for our descent and had lots of good things to eat and munch on, and Mamma had taken up the turkey and a pecan pie. So we were well fed.
Mamma had some health problems, which we finally decided were filling up with water, and she decided to come back with me in order to see the doctor and get taken care of. It had snowed Christmas night, but we decided to chance it and drive back Saturday in the middle of the day. The roads turned out to be in very good shape except a few blocks in Hyde Park, and above 13th East in SLC. So we had a nice trip returning.
The next morning, Sunday, I drove the Olds to the airport and took off for L.A. for the annual convention of the American Historical Association. I stayed at the Mayflower and had a pleasant accommodation. Met all the meetings I had to go to, saw all the people I had to see, and decided to return home early, getting here last night. Mamma was surprised. She had been to see the doctor who said her trouble was too much salt and filling up with water. So she will be back in good shape in a few days. Easily taken care of. She will be tired for a few days while recuperating. I’m glad I returned early so she can relax a little better.
[LJA to Children, 29 Dec., 1981]
I don’t know if I will get this finished today, but I’ll start it. Mamma didn’t feel at all well last weekend, although she went with me to Sunday School and Relief Society-Priesthood on Sunday. She did not do much last week; kept feeling exhausted and felt pain. She telephoned Doctor Cannon for an immediate appointment and saw him Monday morning. He said she still had water on her lungs and told her to take two pills per day instead of one. He also found that she had more than normal sugar in her blood–a borderline diabetic. He thought this would go back to normal if she got the water regulated properly and could go back to walking. He said he would come by the house to see her Thursday evening to see if she was back to normal on the water business. He did not seen to be concerned on the diabetes possibility–thought it was just an aberration which was temporary in nature and no permanent worry. Mamma has been a little better yesterday and today, so that’s a good sign.
[LJA to Children, 20 Jan., 1982]
The big news of the week is that Mamma seemed to be getting worse, not better. She spent all day (and night) Sunday in bed; the same Monday; the same Tuesday; the same Wednesday. She had aches, trouble with her heart, and general exhaustion. The doctor had come by to see her, I think a week ago, and found her still with much water on the lungs. He told her to double her pills for getting rid of the water. So she took 4 pills (instead of the regular two) on Saturday, three on Sunday, and two from then on. But she still felt exhausted, cold on the extremities–hands, feet–and miserable. She was beginning to get depressed. Then she had the worry, agitated by Ethel, that she was a diabetic, or nearly so, and very preoccupied with not eating salt or sugar. She did not eat much of anything. No appetite.
Well, the doctor came by to see her yesterday about noon and did much for her. He answered her many questions, and spent a relaxed time talking with her. He told her he wasn’t worried in the least about her tendency toward diabetes. If she wanted to watch her diet on that, fine, but not to worry. The big problem was the heart. She had gotten rid of the water in her lungs and so would gradually get stronger and better. He prescribed rest every other hour of the day and all night. The heart had been overworked by the extra water and it will take her a while to get back her strength, but it will come, and she has many years left if she watches herself. Sustained activity she cannot do. She must simply work, or exercise, or “fuss around,” for a while, and then rest for a while–all through each day. Mamma was very encouraged, and has determined to do just as he recommends. She has confidence in him and so do I. He is a very bright young doctor and personally interested in her. (They live just four or five blocks away and used to live in Parley’s First.) So we’ve made some progress.
[LJA to Children, 29 Jan., 1982]
According to previous plan, Susan, Dean, James, and Lisa were here today to see Grace and have a family get-together. We had a pretty serious family meeting that evening. Grace told them she didn’t think she had much longer to live, that she was fully reconciled to it, that she had accomplished all her important goals, that she had received a manifestation in the temple that caused her to feel at peace and fully reconciled.
[LJA Diary, 13 Feb., 1982]
Mamma was not well the past week. She did not feel well over the weekend, although she went with me to all three sessions of Church Sunday. She felt even worse Monday and Tuesday, so I took her to the doctor on Wednesday. He said she still had water on her lungs. He looked pretty grave, more solemn and concerned than usual. He gave her additional medicine to clear out the water. He is fearful she might get pneumonia and not be able to fight it. She was a little better Thursday and seemed to rest better last night, although she is not yet up this morning. She very much hopes she will get well enough to go with me several places this weekend and next week. Her spirit is good, and she seems to be eating well. She has written several letters the past week. As usual, she looks lovely as usual.
[LJA to Children, 5 Mar., 1982]
Grace Fort Arrington, 68, of Logan and Salt Lake City, died March 10, 1982, in Salt Lake City after a short illness.
[Logan Herald Obituaries; LJA Diary, 10 Mar., 1982]
It is now 4:15 am the morning of Tuesday, and I am at Susan & Dean’s in Susan’s study, where I spent the night. I went to bed early-before 9 pm. This explains why I am up so early. Six to seven hours of sleep is apparently all I can take.
I need to go back to last week. Mamma had a bad day Sunday (March 7). She hardly got out of bed. She was pleasant and cheerful, but said she did not feel well; could not get out of bed to go to Church as she had expected to do. Monday I went to work, but she spent most of the day in bed. I came home early from work; in fact I had asked her to telephone me during the day, which she did. She did not sound good. I spent the late afternoon and evening trying to help her-cheer her up, help her to feel good. That night she spent a very bad night. The worst night she had ever spent. She could sleep only in five minute intervals. She was very pale and cold all over. She talked often, very incoherently. She was not getting oxygen to her brain.
I called the doctor the next morning (March 9) and he said we better get her into the hospital. He said we ought to have the ambulance pick her up. So the ambulance came to get her a little before noon. Ethel Saunders helped get her washed and dressed properly to go. She looked lovely, but very weak and pale. She was aware of what was going on. I followed the ambulance to the hospital. She remained in emergency for an hour or two, while they gave her some water, some steroids, and perhaps other medication. They then moved her to intensive care. I remained with her until she was stable and very sleepy. Around 6 pm or so I left her and went home. After an hour or two I called back to the nurse, who asked her if she wished me to return. She said she was very sleepy and thought it would be best if I not go.
I telephoned each of the children to explain the situation-the condition of Mamma. Told them I would report every day.
Wednesday morning (March 10) Grace called me early-6:30 am. Said she was feeling a little better. Wanted me to be sure to bring her glasses, and also some of the medicine she had taken for muscle pain-norgesic forte. The intensive care nurse had suggested I should not go to her until 10 am, which I did. I asked Grace whether I should go ahead and accept my appointment to speak to the Ogden Rotary that noon. She said yes. I couldn’t remain there during the noon period in any case. I told the staff that morning by telephone that she was not in good shape and I didn’t know when I would get back to the office. Ron Walker later telephoned to volunteer to go to Ogden to speak in my place. I thanked him and told him I did not think there was any problem in me being absent for a while to go.
I talked to Grace for a half hour or so. Dr. Cannon had been there, and gave various directions. Grace was both conscious and coherent and seemed to be stabilized. About 10:45 or 11:00 am I went to Ogden. I arrived about 12 and gave my talk, then returned directly home. At 3 pm I went to the hospital. I learned that Grace had had something happen around 2 pm which had caused her to deteriorate. Dr. Cannon later told me he was not sure whether this was a blood clot in her lungs or whether her heart had just given up-failed to function adequately. In any case, the heart was not clearing the water out of her lungs, her breathing was very hard, she was not getting enough oxygen. She was incoherent. They gave her oxygen, they stimulated the heart, they gave her a diuretic to clear out the water. She had a few rational moments during which I told her I had talked with the children, that I had received a letter from Stan Cazier notifying me that I would receive the honorary doctorate from USU. A little smile came on her lips as if she understood.
She seemed to be getting worse, not better. She did not seem to respond to medication. Dr. Cannon came and remained for three or four hours. Other doctors came and they attempted some “last minute” measures to try to get things going. But the response wasn’t there. Finally, about 7 pm, Dr. Cannon said that she was not responding and the cause seemed hopeless. He told me to telephone the children and tell them to come. It was that bad. I did not have their numbers and could not remember them. So Dr. Cannon telephoned information to get the numbers of each. Also Ethel Saunders and Esther Apgood. I called each of the children. Susan and Dean said they would come as soon as they could pack. James and Lisa, who had an appointment, said they would come immediately. Carl and Chris were out, but I talked into their telephone recorder and told them the news. Dr. Cannon telephoned the bishop and told him to be prepared for the eventual outcome. Dr. Cannon told me she would die soon. He asked me how she and I felt about heroic means to keep her alive on a machine. He said if we put her on the machine we would never get her off, and that she would live as a vegetable. That she was too far gone. I toll him about Grace signing a statement that she did not wish this to happen. Nor did I.
We stood around her bed. She was far gone. At 8 pm, or two or three minutes after, her spirit left her. I verified that she had died with the nurses and doctors and then telephoned the message into Carl’s telephone recorder. James and Lisa arrived about 10 minutes after she had died. Susan and Dean and children arrived in about an hour. About an hour after, I received a telephone call at the intensive care unit from Carl, who said he and Chris would both come and would arrive about 2 pm the next afternoon and would be prepared to stay a few days.
I telephoned Bishop Christenson, Esther, Ethel. I talked with James about funeral arrangements. I telephoned Spence Cranney of Cranney Mortuary in Logan, who said he would pick her up that night. He arrived shortly after Susan. We talked for a half hour or so about arrangements. He said he would take care of things at the Logan end. We agreed on a service in SLC and at Logan 10th Ward.
About midnight or so James and Lisa and Susan and Dean returned to the house, talked about funeral arrangements for an hour or two and then went to bed.
I did get some sleep, as did they. I was up about 6:30 on Thursday morning, Mar. 11, making telephone calls. I started calling North Carolina-Annie & J.W. Daniel, Ruth Partridge, Chloe Hodge, Lilian Sasser, Mary Dare Haithcock Burkhardt, Ruby Perry Anderson, and perhaps others. I then called Bishop Christenson about the funeral services. The children and I had agreed on the program for the two services, so I began calling all of those to be listed. Becky Cornwall. Anna Jean Skidmore. All the Arrington family. Shirley Cazier. James called the two music singers from BYU. We had everybody called and everybody agreed by noon.
In the afternoon we went to the airport and met Carl and Chris, and then drove to Logan. (Susan and Dean had gone ahead to Logan.) We stayed for a few moments with Susan and Dean and then went to Cranney’s to pick out the coffin and to make out final arrangements. We had a bite to eat and then drove back to SLC.
The next morning (Friday, March 12) we spent most of the morning answering telephone calls. Picked up Wayne at the airport. Also called a few that we had failed to get the previous morning. James and Lisa went to Orem, Carl and Chris and I remained in SLC. (Susan and Dean had stayed in Hyde Park.)
James had a performance in Bountiful Friday night and came back to spend the night. LeRoy and Mary came by; also others.
Saturday morning (March 13) we went to the Parley’s First Ward chapel at 10 am, where we found a long line. Perhaps three hundred people in the line, which we greeted. There was, of course, a viewing. Many wonderful friends from Provo and Orem and BYU, from the history community, from Idaho, and from church headquarters. There were several distinguished visitors: Elder and Sister Ezra T. Benson, President and Sister Gordon B. Hinckley, Elder and Sister Homer Durham, Elder Joseph Anderson, President Jeff Holland of BYU, Chase and Grethe Peterson, and many others. They were all very supportive.
Services began at 10 am, and the program will indicate it. President Hinckley, Benson, and Elders Durham and Anderson and President Holland on the stand. About 400 in the audience. Susan and Dean had left the girls in Logan with friendly families. Becky Cornwall and Dean Madsen gave marvelous talks, well prepared, well delivered. The BYU friends of James sang beautifully. It was a splendid service. Many people told me afterward that it was one of the most spiritual services they had ever attended. Elder Benson said this, as did President Hinckley and Elder Durham and Jeff Holland. It WAS wonderful. Grace would have been so pleased!
After the service we went to our home where the Parley’s First Ward Relief Society served buffet dinner to about fifty or so. We had about thirty relatives, and perhaps another twenty or so friends. Most of them had gone by 5 pm. Susan and Dean returned to Logan. The rest of us talked and went to bed early.
Sunday morning (March 14) we answered telephone calls all morning and talked. In the afternoon we napped and responded to the telephone. We had some visitors.
Marie and Bud came and we had lunch together and talked. Then Marie and Bud took Wayne to the airport, while the rest of us drove to Logan. We arrived at Susan and Dean’s about 5 pm. We had a dinner provided by the Hyde Park Relief Society. Then went to the mortuary for the viewing. A long line of people there as well. Perhaps four hundred came between 7 and 10 pm. Many old Tenth Warders, friends of James, of Carl, of Susan. University people. City officials. Church people. Friends of many years.
Returned to Susan’s and spent the night.
Monday morning (March 15) Susan, Carl, and James worked on their talks, while I took Chris and Lisa to the Monument Company to arrange for a headstone. Carl had a bad cold and sinus infection and took medication. It snowed most of the morning. Dangerous to drive.
People began showing up. Marie and Bud, LeRoy & Mary, Ken and Stephen. We went to the Logan Tenth Ward Chapel at 1 pm and found a long line there. Perhaps two hundred people. We met them as they filed by and at 2 pm had the service. About 300 there, I would estimate. Some from SLC- my staff, Esther, perhaps others.. Some from Idaho. Some old Tenth Warders. Some friends of each member of the family.
Again, it was a splendid service. Different from the one in SLC, but just as fine. Marvelous talks by the three children, and all well-delivered. Everything just as Grace would have wanted it. A feeling of satisfaction about all of it. Many compliments and expressions of goodwill.
After the service we drove to the cemetery where we had the dedication of the grave.
Then we returned to the Tenth Ward for dinner by the Tenth Ward Relief Society. There were only family members there-about 20 or 25. There had been snow and I suppose the others all wanted to get back to their homes. Fortunately, the snow halted during the period of the grave dedication, so it was nice when we were outside.
There were lots of flowers-delivered to our home, delivered to the Parley’s 1st Ward Chapel, to Susan’s home, to the Logan Tenth Ward Chapel. Lots of lovely flowers.
There were only two occasions when I broke down and sobbed. When James’s friend was singing “O Holy Night” in the SLC service. And when we were about to close the coffin and Susan and I kissed Mamma. Other than that, I stood the experience well. I realize the lonely moments ahead, but am trying to be sensible about the adjustments I have to make.
[LJA Diary, 16 Mar., 1982]
Dear Leonard,
Because of my inadequacy with the spoken word–a handicap that seems to grow every year–I wanted to tell you in writing how I felt about Grace and how I feel about you. I’m afraid I grow more and more like my father in my inability to show affection very well. But I feel it intensely.
Grace was always so sweet to me. When I first met Carl and fell in love with your family, in that order, Susan was a very tomboyish young teen. While Grace and I didn’t share a lot of interests (besides Carl) those first few years, we did share an interest in feminine things, clothes and makeup and fine perfume. And I think maybe those things we shared helped Grace hold out hope that she and Susan would share womanly things one day, which of course they did–home and children and husbands.
At first I underestimated Grace. She seemed so sweet and innocent and uncritical that I wondered how discerning she was. But then one night I sat in the kitchen with Susan and Grace talking late at night, and she told me some of the things she had discerned–her children’s strengths and weaknesses, the nature of their relationship to you and some things about politics in the church hierarchy. Her insights were keen and pointed, even while they were still loving. She could really read people, and I soon learned that she didn’t tell all she read in them. I never underestimated her after that.
Not only was she discerning, she was strong, physically and emotionally. When she was healthy, she could work beside the best of them. I remember her visiting us in Michigan and walking me into the ground at the Ann Arbor art fair. She was also strong in her devotion to her family. Being married myself now, I see what that must have taken. It doesn’t happen automatically. In her love for her family she never faltered.
I’ve been thinking a lot about you, too, lately, and the impact you’ve had on my life. You must know that you changed it dramatically. Before I met you, I was just a bookish farm girl. And emotionally hungry at that. You really opened up the world of the intellect for me in a way that no one else did. I think of how frightened I was when I first went to work for you, so afraid I wouldn’t measure up, how I typed until I sweated, how you finally started sending me out for ice cream occasionally–to slow me down a little, I think. You would give me money for ice cream and say, “Now, walk, don’t run to the dairy.”
You know, I lost my mother as a small child, and there have been ways in which my father and I never connected, but I haven’t had to search for a father, because I found one in you. You had the warm qualities that I never found in my own father, who often reminded me of stories I heard about Noah. Yes, I sometimes felt guilty about the way I adopted you and Grace over my own parents, and only growing older has helped me to reconcile that in my mind.
I think two of your children, and me, went through a stage where we were so fascinated with your world, the life of the mind, that we undervalued Grace’s world. But we all three grew past that. I have been particularly pleased at the warm love Carl and Grace shared for the past few years. They were really close in a way they hadn’t been before. I know he will cherish the memories of that warm association for the rest of his life. You know, Grace recognized that earlier stage in the three of us, and she waited patiently and hopefully for us to see who she really was.
I love you, and I love Grace, too. You are two remarkable people who enlarged your sphere in a way that has affected so many lives. You are the author of the intellectual community in Utah, and she was its mother. I feel so rich to have known you both. And I’m grateful for the years I have left to know and love you.
This only begins to tell the story of my feelings for you and Grace. I know I will write about it again, and I will feel it always.
Affectionately,
Chris
[Chris Arrington to LJA; LJA Diary, 21 Mar., 1982]
Dear Children:
When my mother died, in 1960, my father, who had never written a single letter to anyone since his mission in 1926, decided to write his children a monthly letter. I have four or five which he wrote to me (and Mamma). This must have been the most difficult thing he ever did. He had gone only a few winters to school and had depended on Morn all of their married life to do his writing for him. She enjoyed it, knew how to spell, liked to write, and composed very readily. Now he felt a responsibility to inform his children.
Consider the problem he had. He could not type, as I am able to do; had no idea of making spirit gum duplicates or carbons. So he wrote separate letters to Ross in San Francisco; Wayne in Sacramento; Ralph, in Oregon at the time; and us in Logan. It must have been painful to write, let alone so many letters. And yet he did it-for a while. Ultimately, he made up for it in visits, telephone calls, and calling one and having that one call others-Kenneth, for example, or Grace.
Dad lived another eight and one-half years after Mom’s death. During much of this time he lived with Dodie. It must have been a lonely time for him. Dodie and he did not have a particularly good relationship, and his children did not encourage him to associate with friendly women, with a goal toward a second marriage. He asked me about it several times, and I encouraged him. But others did not, and although one woman proposed to him, and he was inclined to accept, he ultimately did not because of opposition from some of the children. And maybe that was the best thing. As I say, he must have been lonely, since he and Mom had been a team (a team in which he was the patriarch) for all their married life. They were married for forty-seven years before Mom’s death.
I was thinking of all this when sitting down to write this afternoon.
After we returned from Susan and Dean’s on Tuesday, March 16, Carl remained with me an extra week. He stayed with me until the morning of Monday, March 22, when I took him to the airport. During this time, he taught me how to cook several things, he made a chocolate bread pudding, he helped me go through and sort out things that we could put in the garbage-some 28 garbage bags. And he helped me to buy three very nice bookcases to put in Mamma’s study. They are there now and the room is nicely decorated to resemble a working place for me-as well as holding all of Mamma’s papers that I want to keep.
The things which Carl and I disposed of consisted primarily of boxes of clippings of Mammas, which included clippings about house decorations, recipes, nice pictures which she enjoyed looking at, and old Christmas cards. And many boxes of old magazines: HOUSE BEAUTIFUL, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS, SUNSET, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, WOMAN’S DAY, FAMILY CIRCLE, LIFE, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, AND DELINEATOR. Perhaps others as well, Mamma did take several magazines during our marriage, and she usually read things in them, so that they were helpful to her, both emotionally and practically. I was surprised at the large number of unorganized clippings. Box after box. There were even clippings of recipes and of mental health helps as recently as three days before her death. Mamma was very intense; i.e. felt intensely about things.
In the process of going through her things I am finding diaries she kept at various times. I am taking these to the office to Xerox and hope to compile two sets-one for me to keep in her study and one for Susan to keep. Her diary reflects her innermost thoughts and it is sometimes painful for me to read, since she did not always feel that I understood her (though she had no doubt that I always loved her deeply).
While Carl was here, on Friday, 19th as I recall, we had a television crew to show him teaching me to make spaghetti. And they ate the spaghetti, or some of it, that evening. One night we had Peggy Fletcher to chat with us. We also had some brief visits from neighbors and friends. Carl and I enjoyed being together. I went to the office a time or two.
On Tuesday, the day after Carl left, I drove to Provo for a conference with Dean Hickman. Then had lunch with James. Then gave an address on International Mormonism at the BYU History Week, which was well received. Had a conference with a reporter afterward who will do some kind of article on the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute.
On Wednesday I stayed home all day and went through various things here to get things in order. Jan Quinn came over and gave me a haircut, which I needed very much. That evening the bishopric of Parley’s First came over to talk with me and offered a nice prayer for me.
In essence I told the bishopric: (1) I am staying here in this house. (2) I am going to continue to accept invitations to speak in wards and stakes-in Sacrament meetings, Sunday School and Priesthood classes, firesides, and study groups-and will therefore try to magnify the calling which came to me in 1972 to be Church Historian. This means no job in the ward except home teacher. (3) I know that Grace felt fulfilled in life. She told me that several times after James and Lisa’s wedding. She had wanted to live to take care of Nana until her death and see her buried respectfully. She had done this tenderly, dutifully, and lovingly. And it was such a source of pride that she was able to pay for all of this out of her (Grace’s) own savings—social security benefits. She had also wanted to see James happily married. She very much approved of Lisa and loved her and was pleased to be able to participate in that lovely wedding and reception. After that she felt she had fulfilled her goals and was prepared for whatever the Lord had in mind for her. Her diary entries for the last few days showed a true reconciliation–a true surrender, and her words for me manifested her love for me and her appreciation of me, and that makes me feel, as she would have wanted me to feel, reconciled. (4) I am going to try to live in a way that would make Grace (and all of you) proud of me. I am determined to do some cooking–this will delight all of you, and especially Grace. I am also determined to go about my work with a minimum of feeling sorry for myself. I know that will be hard, but I am determined to minimize it.
(5) I am going to try to live worthy to receive special blessings from the Lord. I do believe He will bless me if I live for it. I am a believer; I do have faith and hope.
[LJA to Children, 28 Mar., 1982]
Dear Morris and Frances:
I thought I would write to tell you about the last days of Grace.
You know that she has had carious problems for several years. They seemed to get worse last fall. The doctor put her on some pretty heavy medicine, and hoped that would help. At first, it seemed to do so. To her delight and satisfaction she was able to participate fully in James’s wedding on December 3. She looked lovely, and she was very excited and thrilled. She was able to stand in the receiving line at the reception without much strain, and of course she attended the wedding in the temple and the breakfast in the nearby Hotel Utah. She assisted in the planning of all of these, though she took care that she didn’t overdo.
After the wedding she had a few good days, which seemed to suggest that she hadn’t overdone. Then came a few Christmas parties-fewer than usual-and preparations for our own family get-together. She was careful and didn’t overdo. James and Lisa had gone to New York and Boston and Michigan on their honeymoon. Carl and Chris, who had come out for James’s wedding, were not able to come again at Christmas and spent some of the vacation with James and Lisa when they were in New York City.
Grace and I went to Cache Valley to be with Susan and Dean and children. It was an entirely pleasant affair and again, Grace didn’t overdo and she enjoyed the Christmas very much. She wrote in her diary Christmas night that this was one of the happiest days she had ever spent. And it was.
Two days later she was not feeling well and it was not from overdoing or excitement-it was that bad flu that was going around. (She had taken a flu shot in October, but it didn’t prevent her from getting this one, which must have been a different variety.) We came back to Salt Lake City where she could be close to her doctor. She was with that flu for almost three weeks. She wasn’t able to throw it off as easily.
She did recover from the flu, but in weakened condition. She had to remain in bed much of the day. She began to feel discouraged. She was always weak and exhausted. The children came often to see her and to encourage her. She appreciated this. And of course I tried to be encouraging as well. We had a family get-together in February, which was very pleasant and which she very much enjoyed and appreciated. At that time, however, she thought it desirable to talk about the future.
Grace told the children that she wanted them to know that she had fulfilled her major life goals. She had had wonderful children who were doing well, she had seen all of them happily married and on the road to having families, she had felt satisfaction in looking after her mother until she was old and had buried her respectably. She had felt a reconciliation with the Lord and had had wonderful spiritual experiences. And she felt that we had had thirty-nine years of happy married life. She knew she might go at any time, and she wanted me and the children to know that she was reconciled to this and felt her life fulfilled. She suggested that when that time comes, she would like to have funerals in both Salt Lake and Cache Valley, and she even asked that the children talk at the funeral. They all agreed to do so. She mentioned the names of people she wanted to pray, sing, etc. She said she wanted me to dedicate her grave.
I noted all of this down, but did not truly believe it would be so soon. Neither did the children.
Grace continued to feel weak and exhausted, a little depressed. She went out with me one night to dinner, another night with me to a convention that I addressed. But most of the time she was in bed. The doctor came by to see her often and tried to help with various medicines, etc. She was not good at all on Sunday, March 7. I stayed with her all day. She was not good Monday either, and I stayed home to be with her. She had a very bad night and we put her in the hospital Tuesday morning. The doctor put her on various medication and she seemed to improve. I had to give a talk in Ogden Wednesday at noon and she urged me to go. She would simply sleep while I was gone, which would be good for her. So I did.
I returned back about 2:30 or 3:00, and found she had gotten much worse at about 2 o’clock. Either her heart had decided to function inadequately or, as the doctor said, she might have gotten a blood clot in the lung. The result was the same-her heart could not give her the oxygen she needed, nor clear the water out of her lungs. This continued for several hours and the doctor said she would not survive. I called the children and suggested they all come as quickly as possible. James and Lisa were here in an hour, Susan and Dean in two hours, and Carl and Chris from New York the next day. But Gracie was gone before any of them arrived. She died at 8 pm on March 10, Wednesday. During the last hours there were three doctors at her bedside, and two nurses, giving her what help they could. But to no avail.
The children helped me to get things arranged. One funeral for Salt Lake City on Saturday, March 13; one for Logan on Monday, March 15. Speakers for the Salt lake service were Becky Cornwall, Grace’s close friend who had helped her with her personal history, and Dean Madsen, Susan’s husband. Both were splendid talks. And nice music, prayers. About four hundred persons in attendance. There was an open casket viewing that nearly all of those attended.
There was a viewing in Logan Sunday night, with about 300 coming, and another viewing just before the service Monday with about 200 in the line. There were about 300 or 400 at the services in Logan. The three children spoke and gave their tributes, which were wonderful. Grace would have been so proud. We buried her next to her mother in the plot at Logan, which is where she wanted to be. I dedicated the grave.
The children all know that I have never cooked or kept house, so Carl stayed here an additional week to teach me how to cook for myself. That was helpful. I plan to stay in this house. Grace had employed a woman to come in three hours a week to clean house, etc. She will continue to do this and will do the laundry, ironing, water the plants, keep things in shape. I also have a boy who will help me with the yard. I think I’ll be able to make out all right. I’m going to try to make Grace proud of me.
Susan and I have been working on a book on the girls and young women of pioneer Utah, and we have decided to dedicate it to Grace.
Many persons have demonstrated their love for Grace. There were many visits to the house, many telephone calls, many flowers at the two funerals, many donations to worthy causes in Grace’s name. So many have told us how much they loved Grace.
Morris and Frances, you know that she loved you and always appreciated the things you did for her. You were very important people in her life. More important than anyone but her mother in the days before she met me and more important than anyone but her mother and me and the children in the days since. You were, in a real sense, her family, since she had no one but her mother. She ultimately had enormous satisfaction in her own family. But she remembered you and all that you did for her in the fondest and most grateful way. You did something great for one of God’s noble creatures, and that has to be satisfying to you.
May the Lord bless you in your own difficulties. And may I express the thoughts of a husband who is grateful for what you did for his beloved Grace.
[LJA to Morris and Frances; LJA Diary, 31 Mar., 1982]
The adjustment is proceeding, but slowly. Mamma’s condition since last fall was such that she was not available for many activities. I went many places without her, and she was usually in bed. As I follow a similar pattern now, I automatically think that she must be in the bedroom resting. It is hard for me to realize that she is really gone. I keep wanting to believe that she will be back, that I will soon have her company. Maybe I will!
My activities vary between doing what I have to do for the office and working on things related to Mamma. I have compiled some albums of photos. James and Lisa helped me over the weekend, but I did others before and have done some since. I’m trying to get everything in order, including the pictures. I have also been working on compiling Mamma’s diaries. I have made Xeroxes of all that I have found and compiled them into one notebook in chronological order. I have also made an extra Xerox to give to Susan for her to keep. I have read some in the diaries and I have been surprised at the large amount of space given to “I don’t feel well today;” “I wonder if I can go on like this.” Clearly, she suffered a long time. And yet she was able to accomplish her major goals.
One satisfaction is seeing her pleasure in doing things she wanted to accomplish. She was able to show each of you around in her N.C. haunts–Wake Forest and Raleigh and her friends and “precious places” there. She was able to take care of Nana in a way that she wanted to do. She was able to do all the traveling she wanted to do. She was able to enjoy grandchildren. She was able to visit each of you in your homes. She was on a very good relationship with each of you-a satisfying relationship. She knew each of you loved her and admired her. She left a book which had special letters you had written her at Christmas, on Mother’s Day, on her birthday, or on Valentine’s Day, which she called her Book of Precious Things. So you each contributed toward her happiness and pleasure in that way. She even saved little sheets which I used to leave on the kitchen counter as I went to work before she got up–sheets which said things like, “Have a good day, I love you.” Those must have meant a lot to her.
So I cannot feel any regret about her last weeks and months; she knew we thought of her often; she knew we loved her; and she felt fulfilled.
I heard her refer in testimony meeting to three spiritual experiences she had had in the temple. One of them occurred in 1978, I think, when she was told that she would live longer–until well after her mother died. This gave her a sense of satisfaction and assurance. Another was recently–say last fall–when she was told that she would live to see James married. This also gave her a feeling of satisfaction. The third was an experience which she and I had together which I will tell you all about when we are together–possibly in June at the time of the Commencement at USU. I have thought that perhaps she would have described each of these in some detail, but I have not found more than a sentence on each. Perhaps I’ll find a little book of “Sacred Experiences” as I go through her things. Of the experience she and I had together she wrote only, “Leonard and I had a sacred experience in the temple today. Too sacred to write about but it will change my life.” And I am sure it meant a lot to her, as it did to me.
[LJA to Children, 7 Apr., 1982]
Dear Children:
It is now more than seven weeks since Mamma died. I thought I would reflect for a few minutes on the experience of living without her. Normally, I suppose, I would put this in my diary. But I thought I would share this with you. And it will help me in evaluating it to know that I am talking to you.
I think it is important, in evaluating our marriage, to know that we each had an independent adult life before we were married. Mamma had a wide circle of friends, mostly female, of course, in Raleigh and elsewhere; mostly connected with the beauty shop and her church, but not exclusively. I also had a wide circle of friends–in Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh; mostly connected with Univ. of North Carolina, N. C. State College, and the church in Raleigh and Durham. Although we were engaged for some sixteen months, we also kept up our own individual friendships and associations. When we married, we retained our individualities to a certain extent–Grace did not give up her “circle,” I did not give up my “circle;” we simply created a new “our circle.”
Remember that I went overseas for three years and so had to live my own life quite independently, and Mamma the same on the homefront. No “our circle” those years. This really started when we moved to Logan in July 1946. The “our circle” was pretty big, and we developed it together: university life, which featured women as well as men; neighborhood life, which featured both; church life, which involved both; and so on. It was important that I had never been in Logan and knew no one there; neither had Mamma. So she was not surrendering to my circle, nor was I surrendering to hers. It really was ours.
There were occasional visits to Twin Falls-my home base. But we also went back to N.C. for a year in 1949-50 and a half-year in 1952–Grace’s home base. Just as there was the excitement of creating a life for us in Logan and Cache Valley and Utah, there were also the periodic excitements of a year in Pasadena-Altadena, a year in Italy, and a year in Pacific Palisades. There continued to be periodic visits to my home grounds in Idaho and Mamma’s home grounds in N.C. And of course lots of letters and phone calls back and forth. Mamma knew that she had an independent status separate and apart from “ours” and the same was true of me. We recognized this and sought to preserve it or maintain it. I think this was one reason we had a successful marriage. And I’ve been made poignantly aware of it as I have received letters as the result of Mamma’s death. You would not believe the wide circle of friends of one or the other or both of us that existed, and took the trouble to write. And I truly get as much pleasure from hearing from Grace’s friends as from mine or ours.
This is a long roundabout way of saying that I am not as grief-stricken as a surviving spouse would be if he or she had put all his (her) eggs in the other’s basket. If I had died first, Mamma would have had all of you, her friends in SLC, her friends in Logan, her friends in N.C. And so on. And now that she has died, I have the portion of my own life which I have retained to strengthen and expand upon. My basket is not empty but already partially full. I am diminished but not desolate. I once lived alone and I can do it again. I once lived three years away from Mamma (the Army) and had the promise of returning to her sometime. I have that same promise now, although it could conceivably last much more than three years. I hope so, because I have many things to do that she would want me to do which I want to be able to report to her, “Task completed.”
Some of you have told me, or written me, that you want me to know that you have no objection if I should decide to remarry sometime. I thank you for that. My present thoughts are that I could not even consider it until I feel really single. And I do not anticipate being able to feel that way for at least two or three years. As I told Mamma last February, I do not plan to remarry, but if I should ever consider it, it would have to be at least two or three years away.
There are certain things that bring home to me the necessity of forging a new pattern of life. I always left the management of the yard up to Mamma. Now I have to make decisions on it. I always left the management of the house up to Mamma. Now I must do that, without reference to Mamma’s wishes and presence. With the encouragement I have received from you, I am gradually making things functional for me. I feel selfish and a little guilty, since I’ve shared all this with Mamma, but I know I must adjust myself to it–or adjust it to me.
Which reminds me of the problem of pronouns. It used to be we, us, our. And somehow it seems self-centered to talk of I, me, mine. Are you our family or my family? Are the things in this house ours or mine? Is the collection of photographs mine or ours? Mamma and I had been attending the marriage class in Sunday School, not the Gospel Doctrine class. What happens if I move out of it into the dry-old Gospel Doctrine class? On the one hand I’ll get plenty of sleep. On the other hand, if I stay in the marriage class, how can I put into practice all the things they suggest each week?
One other perplexity–blessings on the food. When I was single I always ate out–never prepared a meal in my life; never had a kitchen. I only had blessing when I ate at someone’s house. Mamma and I always blessed the food when we ate together. When I ate alone I never did; don’t know what she did when she ate alone. Now I am ambiguous: on the one hand, ask a blessing as if she were here; on the other hand, pretend you are eating out, which in a sense I am. Mamma and I always prayed separately as we went to bed–privately. Only very rarely, in times of real difficulty, did we pray together, aloud. And so that is no concern or change. But the blessing on the food, yes. Something similar–going to shows, concerts, etc. I never went without Mamma or one of you or some friends to any of these–for some 35 years. I would feel quite silly going to a show by myself. I’ll have to learn to overcome that feeling, I know.
I have discovered, if I did not know it before, that I am a gradualist. I can change some things in the house this week, changed some last week, and will no doubt change some things next week. Over time, I will gradually make the house serve me better. But I could not do it abruptly. I am not a revolutionary. I have heard of people who, when a spouse died, had to remove all the spouse’s clothing and reorganize everything in the house so as not to remind them of the dead one. That is not me. I want to leave things as they are until I have to change them, and then I can do it only a step-at-a-time. Is that a good quality or a bad one? At least, that is my tactic, my nature.
Compiling all our photographs, I think, has been a good therapy. At every moment I have seen how beautiful, smiling, and vibrant Mamma was, and it was painful to realize she is gone. But on the other hand, I have been reminded of all the wonderful things we did together. I cannot have guilty feelings for any of that, and I can feel grateful for our pleasant, productive life together. It was a miracle that I even met her. Thirty-nine years of marriage is not a small gift from Heaven. It is a major endowment, by any standard. And so I have that memory to build upon. Finally, Mamma has taught me the importance of making and maintaining friendships, and that I can still do, and must do. Our many friends, my many friends, will keep me from being lonely. Not counting my writing and speaking, which automatically brings many letters, phone calls, and visits. Oh yes, and one other thing that Mamma helped me with. People respond pretty much the way you respond. If I see this experience as an opportunity for growth, friends will see it in that light also and help me grow and magnify my new calling.
Love, Dad
[LJA to Children, 30 Apr., 1982]
Last Friday, as I recall, the women’s issue of Dialogue came, and I spent much of Friday and Saturday reading it. A really great issue—lots of fine essays. Also came Exponent II and I read many articles there. Judy Dushku has a prize-winning essay, as well as good essays (in Dialogue) by Maureen Beecher, Laurel Ulrich, Lavina Anderson, Carol Madsen, many other friends. There was one essay by a Sister Laney on the death of her husband which hit my tender spot and I sobbed the whole way through, thinking of Mamma and her last hours. First time I’ve sobbed since the funeral. Maybe good for me.
[LJA to Children, 5 May, 1982]
Probably I should mention one other person who talked with me at Ogden—Russ Mortensen, now retired and former director of Utah Historical Society, nationally known editor and historian. He is LDS, more or less, and lost his first wife and had a family of five to raise. He grieved for years and rebelled for years. He was angry and could not become reconciled. Finally, after 18 years I think, he remarried. He confessed to me that it was the best thing he had done. He should have remarried earlier, he said. His grieving stopped and he was able to look at things in a better perspective. His parting word to me was Leonard don’t wait too long to remarry!
[LJA to Children, 11 May, 1982]
Living alone is an interesting experience in self-discovery. I’m learning things about myself that I hadn’t realized before. For instance, during all of our married years together I was primarily preoccupied (a) with Mamma’s desires, attitudes, health, etc.; and (b) with my work–my professional achievement. The loss of Mamma, plus the loss of my Church Historian status takes both away. So I have to reorient. None of you are in a dependent status, so I am beginning to think about myself and my work. It’s the introspection that is new. Preoccupation with my own needs and desires. I do not believe that is healthy, but it seems to be inevitable. I proceed with the preparation of papers and talks and essays. But what does one do in between? I run in to the television set and turn it on and there is nothing worth listening to. Really horrible. I go back and work on another paper and when I need a break, what do I do? I’ve got to work something out. Go for a walk-alone? What if someone calls while you’re out? Why not work on preparing meals? The last thing I need is to gain weight. Work in the yard? I can’t get over the feeling that I am not doing things the way Mamma would do them. I lack self-confidence in that area. Never had experience with it on the farm, nor during any part of my life. When on the farm, I just did what Dad told me. During our marriage I just did what Mamma told me. How to develop initiative and to acquire know-how?
These are not serious worries or preoccupations, but I am discovering that I have to make some adjustments in my thought pattern as well as my life-and work pattern. I do not feel sorry for myself, but I am not yet at the stage where I can exult by thinking, “I am my own master now.” I’m just not intellectually or emotionally prepared for that. I should be very grateful that I have so many deadlines to meet for articles, talks, books, meetings, that I get wound up in doing things that have to be done.
[LJA to Children, 22 May, 1982]
I have Xeroxed Mamma’s letters to me during World War II. Two copies–one to give to Becky to write an account of Mamma’s experiences and feelings during World War II, and one to give to Susan eventually, but now lodged with my things at my office in the Church Office Building.
Mamma’s letters are impressive. Here are some of my impressions.
1. Mamma was a realist. She faced life’s difficulties, problems and opportunities directly. She did not allow herself to get carried away with idealism, pessimism, cynicism, fanaticism.
2. Mamma was ever-cheerful. Tended to look on the good side of everything. Was not bogged down with despair or hatred or anger.
3. Mamma had lots of friends, and kept them. She knew how to treat people justly and kindly and fairly and they respected and loved her for it.
4. Mamma really loved her “Jimmie” and took pleasure in saying so.
5. Mamma felt a strong obligation to help Nana–with company, with the shop, with life. While she would do anything for “Jimmie”, this was always within a setting of assuring that Nana was properly taken care of. She expected not to work any more after Jimmie came home, but in fact she worked quite a number of days for Nana–because she needed the help, because certain customers needed taken care of and would quit patronizing the shop without Grace, etc. She went with Jimmie to New York and Washington, and on a number of other trips. But in between she worked. If Jimmie didn’t specifically plan something on a given day, she was back at the shop. This tension of doing what Jimmie wanted and doing what Nana wanted continued all her subsequent life, or at least until Nana died. It was a tension which became more and more noticeable as Nana became older and more helpless. Not that I fought Nana’s influence in any way. It’s just that she felt an internal tension between doing what she wanted to do for me and doing what she wanted to do for Nana.
6. During the period of the war Grace usually went with her mother to the Hayes-Barton Baptist Church on Sunday, and usually went to the LDS mutual on Tuesday evening. She usually went to the LDS socials, but she also had some social life within her family, neighborhood, and church groups.
7. Grace worked hard during the war. Doing what she wanted to do for me, doing what was in the best interest of her mother’s shop, doing church work, doing what I asked her to do, and so on.
8. Grace was a true Christian. By that I mean that religion was very important to her; Christ’s message was a central force in her life. She was a devout and ardent Christian.
9. There is no question that Grace had a sexual as well as platonic longing for Jimmie.
10. Grace often had health problems–headaches, colds, sinusitis, etc., exacerbated by unremitting work and responsibility.
[LJA Diary, 28 May, 1982]
I have just one more week of my class at BYU. Give the final next Wednesday. We have moved most of our things to BYU now. Not many books left, and not many files. Some of the staff are entirely moved. It’s sad that we have to do it. Incidentally, I had a person from USU in my office this week to make a definite offer about returning there. (Not for public knowledge, you hear!) I told him I couldn’t consider if for at least a year, then I’d see how things were going. I don’t plan to do it, but might consider it if they treat me abominably. Which I don’t expect.
I’m back at a normal pace of eating Stouffer’s for dinner, watching the news, reading the paper, and doing my work. Getting along fine. But I’ll not deny that I do miss Mamma.
[LJA Diary, 18 Jun., 1982]
My reading of Joseph Smith has convinced me that he possessed and exercised this second level of consciousness–he did have visions and other spiritual experiences and gifts. I have been somewhat surprised to find the same about Brigham Young. He didn’t say much about it, publicly or otherwise, but his diaries, his remarks in meetings of the Twelve and in prayer circles, all reveal he had spiritual experiences of an intense nature and that these influenced his teachings and policies. Ron Walker says the same about Heber J. Grant. Grace and I shared a spiritual experience shortly before her death that was about as close to Heaven as I have ever come, and that will always be a precious memory.
[Remarks of LJA; LJA Diary, 16 Jul., 1982]
From time to time I have referred to various problems which confront me. Let me mention the biggest in recent months. And that is the indefiniteness of instructions that I am supposed to follow in keeping house.
My Stouffer’s instructions say: Place chicken pouch on non-metallic plate and puncture top three to four times with fork to vent. Well, is it three or four? If I puncture it three, what might happen? What if I puncture it four? Would it get too much air on four? Would it explode if only three? Why don’t they say what they mean? Then it says heat three to four minutes. O.K., should it be three or should it be four? Will it be undercooked if three? Or overcooked if four? Or does it depend on the altitude? And if I’m at 4,000 feet, should it be three or four? I simply can’t stand this indefiniteness; it’s driving me crazy, making these decisions when I am so ignorant and inexperienced. I wish somebody would tell me what to do.
I employ a piano tuner and he does the job. Then I ask him when it should be tuned next. “Oh, anytime within the next year or two or three.” So do I do it next year, or the year after, or the year after that? What does it depend on–the weather, the frequency of use, the availability of the tuner, my preoccupations with correct sound, or what?
I get a note left by the garbage man which says that they are not required to take more than six cans of garbage. What does that mean? Can I put out six cans plus two boxes? Or do the boxes count as cans? Can I put out six cans and two garbage disposal bags? Or do the latter count as cans? If I leave more than the instructions indicate, will he simply leave the extra ones? Or will he assess a fine? What happens? If I leave seven cans and one bag, will the fine be less than if I left eight cans and two bags? It’s all so indefinite.
Perhaps the worst are the instructions I receive on talks I have agreed to give. How long do you want me to speak? “Oh, from twenty to thirty minutes, depending on how things go.” Well, how are things going to go? Thirty minutes is a half again period of time over twenty. Which do I prepare for–a twenty minute talk and than take a chance of letting them out early? (I did this once and after I finished, there being time left the bishop asked me to give my testimony in Italian!) Or do I prepare for a thirty minute talk and then find that I have to leave out the build-up, the climax, and the anti-climax and concluding remarks, having finished only the introduction? Life is just one succession of decisions on earth shattering problems! Now when I was in the Army there was none of this. And I presume there will be none of this in the United Order, or even in Heaven. When you give the blessing on the food it has to be said precisely–not one extra word and not one word omitted. And in the temple everything is precise Why can’t ordinary life be like that?
[LJA to Children, 30 Jul., 1982]
This is the six month anniversary of Mamma’s death, so I thought I would mark the day by mentioning some memories and thoughts. I haven’t done this systematically, so will just mention comments as they occur.
1. I still miss Mamma as much as earlier. But I feel more satisfaction, now that I have done all the things I felt I should do after her death. That is, I have had her history during the past five years done by Becky (now at bindery); her history during World War II years (ditto); all her photos compiled into albums are now here; most of her clothes given to people who loved her, etc.
2. Having done all of the above I have now started back to work on my own things and have made substantial inroads on the BY biography, the history of my work as Church Historian, and some professional lectures and papers.
3. I was accustomed, during the past few months of her life, to doing a certain amount of things alone, so that is not so different. What I do miss is her many services for me around the house—fixing breakfast on the days I worked home, fixing dinner, greeting me, listening to me tell her things I heard during the day—jokes, stories, experiences, watching good television programs with her, etc. And, of course, I miss our love life, which was always pleasure. There was also her work in the yard when she felt like it—enough to do certain basic things.
4. The girl who has been coming once a week to water the plants, do the laundry and ironing, and vacuum the house has told me she must quit after this month. So I may end up doing this myself—no good replacement discovered yet. But I think I can do it if I must, just as I’ve learned to do a little cooking.
5. I’ve not yet had a date with anyone (except Lisa to go to a reception in Provo). I want to have the first one with Becky Cornwall, but we have not been able to get together yet. Part of the problem is that she looks after her two boys, ages 10 and 12, and seldom has the opportunity of being free–she works full-time during the day when they are at school.
6. There are many people who are good to me, and who show their love and concern. Most of all, you children.
7. The house has gradually been transformed into a residence designed to serve my research and writing needs. In a way it is fortunate that Mamma died before they took away our offices at the Church Office Building. I doubt she would have been able to accept that physical move of my office to BYU. But we’re doing fine, so far. I’m especially glad that I was able to retain my secretary Kathleen here. (She works in her home full-time on typing jobs for me, and I’m able to keep her busy.)
8. Mamma always used to say that it was a compliment to a woman whose husband, after her death, remarried quickly. I do not see myself as doing so, at least in the near future. Maybe I shall when I get the BY manuscript off and feel freer than I do now. Certainly, I’m not looking for someone now. Women my age look too old, and women that look good are too young & cannot be happy marrying someone who has no more years ahead than I am likely to have.
9. I thank the Lord that I married Mamma, that we had such a good life, that she held on until she felt fully fulfilled and fully reconciled. No one could possibly have loved me as much as she, and no one could have elicited as much love from me as she. She was a Special Blessing that I shall ever be grateful for.
[LJA to Children, 10 Sept., 1982]
I had my first evening out with Becky yesterday and enjoyed it! I had tried to reach her all morning and finally made contact about noon. She said she’d be glad to and would like to go to the state fair. So I picked her up at 5 pm. We had trouble parking–there must have been twenty thousand people there. We saw the cattle and hogs, pigeons and goats, sheep and rabbits. We saw the handicrafts and paintings. And many other things. (No chickens; they won’t come in until this Wednesday, when the pigeons go out.) Didn’t see any horses either; maybe the goats go out and the horses in. Also saw a hog sale auction.
After about three hours of walking around we went to the On Chinese restaurant and had a delicious and drawn out meal, and talked and talked. Got home around 9:30 or so and after there a few minutes James and Lisa came by. They had gone to the reception of Lorie Winder and Tom Stromberg who were married on Friday. Had a little chat with them before they drove back to Provo. Lisa looked lovely, as usual. Confessed to them that I kissed Becky goodbye. But let me make it clear that we have no goal in mind except each having a little social life. She expects to remarry Ken as soon as he is well, and he is making good progress; and of course I’m not ready to consider anything yet, and she knows it. So without being any threat to each other, and because we have so much in common, we expect to enjoy doing a few things together occasionally during the next few months. I expect to take her to Cannon-Hinckley Church History Club a time or two, and expect to have her to dinner when Carl comes, and perhaps other occasions that would be pleasant. I like her very much, but do not suppose that I would ever propose to someone so much younger–she can’t be over forty, perhaps still in her thirties.
[LJA to Children, 12 Sept., 1982]
Had my first date with Harriet (she sometimes spells it Harriett) Moody. Her daughter Annette Rogers, the new managing editor of Utah Holiday, had been a friend for several years. She was on the planning committee for Dialogue, and she had published some articles here and there. As I recall, she was one of the judges in the Dialogue contest for personal essays by women, which judged Judy Dushku’s essay to be the best. Anyway, Annette was in the Dialogue group that I went to lunch with in the Crossroads Mall on Saturday at the Sunstone Symposium. We happened to sit next to each other, and walked together at least part of the way back to Hotel Utah. Annette asked me about my social life. I mentioned it briefly and my desire to have suggestions of others. Annette suggested her “cute little mother.” She told me a little about her. That she had lived in Twin Falls for a while, had served as Relief Society president under my Dad as bishop, that she (Harriet) greatly admired him and had written an appreciation of him which she wanted to give me but hesitated because she feared it was not well enough written, Annette said her mother might respond favorably if I asked her for a date. She had not dated for years, but had done so to some extent in the last year or two.
I called her up about Tuesday, August 30, and asked if she would go out to dinner. She replied affirmatively and said Annette had told her that she (Annette) had urged me to call her. She was fearful that Annette had been a little too bold.
I called at her home at about 6 p.m. this evening. We spent a half hour or more in her apt. We went to On’s Chinese Restaurant and had a wonderful dinner. Then I swung around by my house and showed her the upstairs. We spent an hour or two here, then I took her home and left around 10 p.m. I enjoyed the evening.
[LJA Diary, 1 Sept., 1983]
Thursday I spent most of the day with persons involved in the private project. In the evening I took Harriet Moody out to dinner at On’s Chinese Restaurant. What great food! I haven’t introduced Harriet to you before. She’s the mother of Annette Rogers who is an editor of Utah Holiday, and friend of Dialogue and Sunstone. Harriet was my Dad’s Relief Society president in Twin Falls Third Ward in the early 1950’s, and greatly admired Dad. Soon after she moved to Alaska; then she and her husband were divorced and she and three children came back to SLC. She later married another man, had one child, lived a while in Atlanta, and was divorced from him. That was maybe fifteen years ago. Basically, she has reared a family of four and the youngest, I think, is twenty-three. She is 59, I think, a U of U graduate, granddaughter of Alice Merrill Horne, a famous Utah artist, feminist, and philanthropist about whom Jill Mulvay Derr has written. Anyway, she and I had a pleasant evening; we have many things of common interest and she is a delightful conversationalist. Her father, 87, an important MD, lives with her (his wife dead), in a condominium near State and Second Avenue, where many of the older general authorities live, including Elder Benson. I’ll have more dates with her and like her. She seems to be very affectionate.
[LJA to Children, 2 Sept., 1983]
Harriet had telephoned to ask me to dinner Monday evening. I later telephoned to ask her about spending Sunday afternoon with her. She didn’t get out of church until 2:30. I went to her apartment at 3:30, planning to go to the U of U Art Museum. But her daughter Annette and Bob Rogers came by and spent about an hour, so we did not have time to go to the museum before it closed at 4:45. So we went over to “Confetti” on South Temple Street and had some Italian noodles. Really good. Went back to her apartment and had a chat. Then some banana cream pie that her daughter Heidi had brought over. Then sat and watched a Video tape cassette show on “Evil Under the Sun,” an Agatha Christie detective story with Peter Ustinov and other actors. Filmed, at least partly, in Yugoslavia. We enjoyed it. Kissed a little, then I came home at 10 pm again.
[LJA Diary, 4 Sept., 1983]
Went to Harriet’s at 6 pm for dinner. Her father, who lives with her, had been taken out for the evening by her son Rick, who also lives with her. So we had dinner by ourselves. She had fixed a fine dinner, including tossed green salad, Greek-style spinach pastry, and roast beef. Afterward, a frozen chocolate pie. We talked for a good while, and entertained a cousin of hers from American Fork who had need of car repair, and also her brother David Horne, whom I had known earlier, who came by to fix the car. I left again around 10 or 10:30 pm.
[LJA Diary, 5 Sept., 1983]
Dear Children:
The most important news of the past week are my dates with Harriet Moody, who I introduced to you in my last letter. We have enjoyed each other and are beginning to get a little serious. I have not seen Brook at all this past week, although I talked to her on Friday of last week and she said she would call me later. But she has not done so. I tried once to get her but didn’t succeed. Looks like the beginning of the lapse of that relationship. She is very preoccupied with her job.
Sunday I visited with Harriet in the afternoon, after spending all morning in church. We talked, went out to dinner, saw a movie in her apartment on her Video Cassette Recorder machine. The movie was an Agatha Christie detective story set in Yugoslavia called something like “Evil Under the Sun.” Peter Ustinov was the detective. Enjoyed the evening.
Monday was, of course, Labor Day. I spent the day compiling a book on Noah and Edna, my parents. I didn’t even shave or take off my pajamas or stop to eat. I was very excited and got it finished. In the evening I went to Harriet’s for dinner. She cooked a delicious meal. Her unmarried son, who lives with her temporarily, took out her eighty-seven-year-old father to dinner, etc. and so we had dinner alone and spent the evening pleasantly talking and admiring some of her art.
Tuesday I worked on some of my projects during the day and took Harriet out to dinner in the evening. This time to Koyo’s, a Japanese Restaurant. Very good meal and enjoyable evening. We came back by my house and I showed her around.
[LJA to Children, 8 Sept., 1983]
I went by to see Brook Bowman today. She poured out a long story of the problems of the new building. Then she mellowed and I told her of Harriet and our plans. She seemed pleased, and encouraged me. Said she was in no position to marry and thought I deserved someone who could be available to me and fuss over me. She wanted us to remain friends, more than friends. She knew I liked her and she appreciated it. She would come by sometime and pick up her typewriter. I am to deliver her file and dresses Wednesday morning, about 11 or 11:30. She said she had met Harriet.
[LJA Diary, 3 Oct., 1983]
Harriet and I continue to like each other, she is anxious to marry, and we are talking about the possibility. We are thinking possibly of the last of November when Carl & Chris come through—thinking of combining that to make a Thanksgiving Dinner here. As soon as you know precisely when you’ll be coming (and if you can stop here), Carl & Chris, then let me know so we can work out some plans. According to what I hear, none of you would object to our marriage. We haven’t worked out any details except we expect to stay in this house for the present. Any comments or suggestions any of you have would be welcomed.
[LJA to Children, 10 Oct., 1983]
Harriet and I are talking about marriage possibilities, sometime between Thanksgiving or Dec. 1. We are even talking about marriage ourselves alone, with no children, and then having some receptions, etc. for children, friends, etc. In any case, on the assumption that some of you will be here for Thanksgiving, we are planning a sharing of dessert or something like that between her children and those of you who are here. She has four children, all living here: Annette Sorensen Rogers (Bob); Heidi Sorensen Swinton (Jeff); Rick (for Frederick) Sorensen, unmarried; and Stephen Moody (Wendy). Her father would also presumably be invited, tho he may be with one of his other children. We are thinking of a honeymoon at a condominium in San Diego which the family has the privilege of using. Early December. We are also thinking possibly of an overseas trip next April. Possibly Scandinavia. Or Italy. Nothing definite yet about any of these things, but I thought I would let you know what we’re thinking.
[LJA to Children, 15 Oct., 1983]
I was thinking last night about proposing to Harriet after she returns from her trip to the Mediterranean and “the Holy Land.” I have only one reservation. I have no doubt that we would have a pleasant and satisfying sexual relationship. I think we would make a good pair socially. Intellectually we have much in common. We seem to be harmonious intellectually. We have similar views about our relationship with the Church, the temple, our religious beliefs. We like each other’s children and would seem to have no problems there.
The one reservation I have is whether we could agree on certain living goals. We are both stubborn, determined people. We could not have achieved what we have without being so. We have also established certain patterns in our lives that will surely persist. We have already discovered some of this persistence in each other. I have contended that we ought to go slow in deciding to marry and I have held out for this as being wise. Harriet has thought we ought to marry as soon as possible and has continually given arguments in favor of doing so. I have insisted that we ought to remain in my house, at least for a few years–say, till I am seventy and must retire. She continues to give reasons why we might be better going to her condominium. She does not yet feel comfortable in my house. I do not see how we could make an adjustment to live in her condominium. She might continue to lobby to move there; I might just as resolutely be opposed. This might be a source of difficulty between us–a disagreement so strong as to cause unpleasantness.
[LJA Diary, 17 Oct., 1983]
While I still have a vivid memory, let me set down the events of the past few days. Harriet is away at her brother John’s office working today, otherwise she would be giving her own reflections on her own typewriter.
Harriet and I became engaged during the first week of November. I was under pressure to finish the BY volume and she thought I might be able to get just as much done, if not more, if married than if single. We agreed upon Elder Duff Hanks as first choice to perform the sealing. (Our second choice was Elder Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve.) The Hornes had known Elder Hanks for many years and he had known them; and of course he and I had known each other since my days as a high councilor at USU Stake. And we had had many pleasant associations in Rotary. We telephoned to see when in November he might be available. We specified that it had to be done on a weekend so that Susan and Dean could be here, and so that James and Lisa could come. It had to be a Saturday. He was available on the 19th so we agreed on that time. I telephoned him and he was pleased to accept; the temple marriage desk gave us an 8:20 an a.m. appointment. Told us to be there at 7:20, and said for our guests to be there by 7:50 Harriet and I would wear temple clothing; our guests just street clothing.
Harriet and I agreed not to invite anyone to the wedding but our children and their spouses. We were very firm on this. We knew problems would be created if we invited some and not others. Despite everything, Harriet’s sister Alice, who lives in San Jose, telephoned Thursday night at midnight that she was on her way, so she was present. Similarly, Harriet’s brother John showed up, even though he knew he was not invited. Learning that Alice would be there, on Friday I invited Davis Bitton. He could not be present for the temple ceremony, but came to the wedding breakfast with his friend Joan Morris. John’s new wife Colleen was in Boston and was not there, nor did Alice bring her husband Cloyd Chamberlain. Harriet’s father Lyman was also there; we had invited him, of course. A total of seventeen at the breakfast, a total of fifteen in the temple.
Susan and Dean and family came Friday afternoon about 4:30 and James provided supper. Lisa didn’t come until about eight p.m. James had come early in the morning, went to the marriage ceremony of David Arrington (Kenneth’s David) in the temple, then his breakfast. Spent the afternoon here. We waited until Lisa arrived and then drove to Layton Ward House to attend the reception of David and Ann. We were glad we went. Spent about a half hour with them, then got in our car and the battery was dead. Ken attached a battery cable to start it and we got back all right. I then contacted the service station the next morning and they put in a new battery while we were in the temple.
While waiting on Lisa to arrive, Susan and James went through Mamma’s closet and took out all the clothes. Susan took a few, James a few for Lisa, the rest were put in boxes to go to Deseret Industries or to the collection of clothes for James’s theater group.
On the way back from Layton we left Harriet at her condominium to spend her last night there. Her son Rick was there to sort of look after her father Lyman.
In anticipation of the wedding Harriet’s daughters Annette and Heidi had a bridal shower on Tuesday (Nov. 15) for Harriet at the Alta Club to which perhaps fifteen people were invited. On Thursday, primarily through Annette, a bridal party was held for Harriet at the home of Leslie Teerlink up in Annette’s ward area. About a dozen women there. Annette had told them that Harriet and Leonard were “into chickens,” so most of the presents consisted of chicken napkins and napkin rings, chicken towels, sheets, and so on. Very clever.
I arranged for Elizabeth Cowley to look after Emily, Rebecca, and Sarah Saturday morning 7 to 11. Susan and Dean had to return to Logan at 11 in order to be there by 1 pm for something Dean had (judging something) and Susan had (putting on her Reader’s Theatre on Young Women).
Bob and Annette Rogers had arranged, as their marriage gift to us, for a limousine and chauffeur. He showed up at my house at about 10 minutes to 7 am. James and Lisa went down with me. Susan & Dean had to take their car so they could get away in time to return to Cache Valley at 11. Just before we left Carl called to wish us the best and to see how Dad was holding up. Very exciting. We drove to Harriet’s condominium, picked her up, and got to the temple about 7:30. As I got to the desk to present my recommend, I remembered that I had forgotten to bring the marriage license. So James contacted the chauffeur and drove 90 miles an hour up 7th East to return home and get the license. He returned just three or four minutes before the wedding was to start. Meanwhile, they went off with the suitcase with the temple garments I planned to wear. So I had to rent an outfit. It looked fine and cost only $2.70. So I might as well not have worried. Harriet also rented her dress and robe rather than buy one. She was beautiful. I also forgot the handkerchief Harriet wanted to have during the ceremony. She forgot it too, so no regrets until several hours after.
Dean went with me to help me dress and Susan and Wendy went with Harriet; Annette and Heidi didn’t show up till later. But there ready to help me dress was James’s mission president in Brazil, President Jensen. He got me all fixed up, then I went through to get all the documents made out, etc. We agreed on Harriet’s father, Lyman, and James A. to be the two witnesses. We were then ushered in to Room 7 for the sealing or marriage, with President Hanks in charge. He talked for about twenty minutes, explaining the importance of the temple ceremony, and some advice to us (be patient). Very appropriate. Among other things, he looked at me to say that he hoped I would continue to be a productive scholar, and continue to insist upon honesty and integrity in my work. I appreciated that.
After he performed the ceremony, with us facing each other at the altar, we then put on rings–Harriet placing on my finger the one she had bought in Greece, and I putting on her finger the one she had previously worn as an engagement ring which I had purchased from the estate through Norm Berrens. Elder Hanks then told us we could stay in the room for another twenty minutes or so, but not be too boisterous. Everybody kissed and hugged us and there was a happy spirit.
Harriet and I then went to the dressing rooms, dressed, and met the party at the East Gate. There Stephen took many photos. As we went out the gate, floats, etc. were assembling for the regular Saturday morning Christmas Parade. We saw a large float with a big wedding cake, decided the city had made up a giant wedding cake for us. We then saw a reindeer; in fact, two. As we came up, flash bulbs going off, the man handed the rope for the deer to me and said “Have a picture with the reindeer.” Harriet joined me and several took photos of us holding the reindeer, whose name was Prancer. (The other, obviously, was named Rudolph.) He almost horned Harriet. Then got in the limousine and went to Annabelle’s Restaurant.
Annabelle’s is on Sixth South and West Temple; part of Heritage Square. They served us small steaks and a variety of other things, including different kinds of desserts. I had pecan pie; Harriet had hot apple pie and cheese. They were very friendly; we were the only ones in the restaurant at the time. I asked James to be master of ceremonies. He asked Dean M. to give the blessing on the food. Then began by going around asking each to tell some story about me or Harriet. Susan, James, Davis, Dean told stories about me. The others, stories about Harriet or Harriet and me. Mostly funny.
After dinner we took off in the limousine with James and Lisa to leave them at our home. Lisa, not feeling well, went to bed. James listened to the BYU-U of U football game and they later came to the reception at Heidi’s place. Harriet and I then went in the limo to her condominium to get her clothes, etc. Took them back to our place. Then to Heidi’s home at 1211 East 1st South for the 2 to 5 pm reception. Only Harriet’s friends had been invited to the reception. She expected from 100 to 125. A total of 285 came. Friends of East Mill Creek 14th ward, of Monument Park, of Salt Lake 18th, and some relatives. Catered by LaRae Carter. Good food, good spirit. Very enjoyable. Stephen took a lot of photos. Very friendly people, all having admiration and love for Harriet, and all telling me how lucky I was. (Not anybody telling Harriet how lucky she was!)
At 5 o’clock the limo came back to pick us up and we left. As we exited from the home of Heidi and Jeff a large group came out with rice and threw it on us. (We still had rice in our hair yesterday evening.) We then drove to our home. James and Lisa came shortly thereafter and picked up some things and drove back to Orem. Susan, of course, had left Annabelle’s at 11 am. Dean had gone at 10 am without eating breakfast to pick up the girls. He was back by 11 to pick up Susan. Alone, Harriet and I watched the news, a couple of nature shows on television, then opened presents, and then to bed about 10 pm, both quite tired.
We arose early yesterday–about 4 am–and read a while and talked. About 11 am we went to the condominium to pick up some more things of Harriet’s. Rick was there looking after things. He had telephoned Heidi and Annette to come down with their big car to pick up some furniture, etc., which they did later. We came home with some lamps, Harriet’s typewriter, a small oriental rug, and some other things. (Harriet & Heidi had previously got all of the paintings and took them to Heidi’s to keep until we were ready for them.)
In the afternoon we napped a while, ate dinner at Hung Bo Shek Restaurant down the street, watched two hour-long shows on public television, then headed for bed,
Harriet and I arose this morning about 4 or so, read a while, had breakfast, then Harriet went to work in my car. She left her Buick with her father, and is apparently giving it to him.
Especially pleasing presents: A large, framed, textile painting of a swan, from James & Lisa, Carl & Chris, Susan & Dean. Annette’s semi-humorous gift of a book: “Love and Sex After Sixty.”
[LJA Diary, 21 Nov., 1983]
Today is the anniversary of Mamma’s birth. I told Harriet I would observe it by writing you a letter-instead of waiting until tomorrow, as I normally would have done.
As I think of Mamma today, several things come to mind. She was a real believer, a real Christian. At no time in her life did she ever have doubts about the reality of the Savior, the Atonement, His message. Mamma also had strong beliefs about what was proper and improper. These were not necessarily matters of morals, because they also had to do with manners, dress, customs. There are certain things that you do and other things that you do not do. When it came to people, her basic standard was “What would the Savior do?” She was always fair to people, always tried to show love.
Mamma was profoundly affected by the struggle she and Nana had to go through to make a living. This was exacerbated by the depression of the 1930s. Despite the security of my status, and my regular and adequate income, she felt it necessary to be frugal and to do the work herself. During our last years together I tried to get her to get some help in putting on dinners; she couldn’t bring herself to do it. I tried to get her to indulge herself with nice clothes and furniture and art works, etc. She loved to have beautiful things, but she couldn’t bring herself to spend the money necessary to have them. So she went to garage sales, estate sales, to Deseret Industries, and adopted other means of getting nice things but not having to pay so much. You cannot imagine what it meant to her when I announced that I had paid off our house loan and had the deed clear. Throughout much of our early married life she took in boarders—Alden, Jay, Wayne, Ralph, Don, and other devices of making some money. When she quit work she still felt under obligation to make some contribution toward the family finances.
She was also very affectionate, and that meant so much to me. The family I grew up in were not particularly affectionate or warm, and it took Mamma a while to warm me up. I’m so grateful she did; it has meant so much to me over the years. And I’m glad all of you were influenced by her warmness and affection.
I think Mamma would very much approve of Harriet. Mamma truly loved me, and would not be satisfied with someone who was not fully committed to me. Harriet truly loves me, tries to do for me, struggles to please me. This would please Mamma as well.
[LJA to Children, 9 Feb., 1984]
Actually I’m writing this a few days before the above date, but I wanted the letter to be a kind of remembrance of Mamma’s birthday, so I dated it this way. Let me report first that we’ve been doing fine. Harriet has had a bad cold, and perhaps some flu during the past two days and has spent most of her days (and nights) in bed. Since writing you last Harriet gave her monthly lesson to the Relief Society (27 Jan), she and I attended the Bennion Study Group at Maureen and Dale Beecher’ s, we went to the Utah Opera Production of “Il Trovatore,” Harriet had a conference with Avard Fairbanks, the sculptor, about her grandmother, and we spent a day at the University of Utah Library, where Harriet worked on her grandmother and I worked on my personal history. I spent all week working on my Miller Lecture, which deals with the drought of 1934.
I wanted you all to know just how much my marriage to Mamma meant to me in terms of professional advancement. Remember that I had grown up in a house without any of the amenities. We used an outside toilet, our culinary water game from a pump to a cistern that was filled with water from an irrigation ditch, we ate essentially what we grew–fruits, vegetables, grains, milk, and cream. Our home was very plain, and we devoted nearly all of our attention to our work and our school. We wore plain clothes, one change each year as we started to school in the fall.
Then I was a poor student at the U of I, wearing my ROTC uniform every day during the first two years to avoid buying clothes, hashing in our cooperative eating place to save on meals, washing my socks and underwear each Saturday morning whether they needed it or not, and so on. Then to the University of North Carolina, where I had to be equally frugal.
When I went to Raleigh in 1941 and met Mamma, she also was very frugal, but she had given permanents to wealthy women in Raleigh-important women. They talked and Mamma listened. Mamma was very bright and picked up things quickly. How to talk, how to dress, how to furnish homes, has to entertain, how to behave at parties, and so on. Her enthusiasm was contagious and the women liked her. Unusual for that kind of person, they made her a part of their social set. She did favors for them and they were rewarding that with friendship and invitations. So she was in their homes often, knew their children, knew their business, knew their problems. The persons included a member of Wilson’s cabinet, Josephus Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, Jonathan Daniels, governors, senators, owners of large department stores, and so on.
Mamma liked my mind, my training, my status as a professor, and she saw that I had potential. So she helped me learn to dress, to eat, to make small talk, and so on. Then when we moved to Logan at the end of the war, we had our first home. It was her first home and mine, but she knew just what to do to make it comfortable and “classy.” And she gave our life class., We had many colleagues to dinner, we circulated socially. She knew furniture to buy that was both good and economical, she decorated the house well, she entertained well. So we quickly made our way into Logan and Cache Valley and University society. We became members of the best and most prestigious study group in Logan during our first year (Solero), Mamma became advisor to the best sorority on campus (Sigma Kappa), and so on. Our progress socially and religiously and my progress intellectually and professionally were all results of her influence. I am so grateful that she was my wife, and that she was your mother.
I just want you to know, on this anniversary of her birthday, that I loved her personally, but that I also appreciated what she did for me personally and professionally.
[LJA to Children, 9 Feb., 1985]
Dear Dad,
Thanks so much for your letter of last week which included many interesting insights into Mom and her contributions to your professional career. I’m sure we all noticed Mother’s birthday approaching and our thoughts, more than ever, centered around her. There is something very satisfying for me in having you write about Mom. I appreciate it when you do. Carl and James and I frequently talk about her when we are together, but I guess we don’t much with you because Harriett is usually around and we don’t want to offend her or make her feel uneasy in any way. In any case, when we’re together, or when we communicate, it is soul-satisfying to share our memories of her, our perceptions of various events and feelings. Chris told me, at Christmastime, about a rather remarkable dream she had about Mom. It is apparent that all of us are still very much aware of what she meant to us, and the influence she’s been on our lives.
One additional contribution that Mom made to your professional career that you didn’t mention (probably because it was so obvious) was the way that Mother went out of her way to take almost complete responsibility for the house, yard and especially the children, to free you more to write, speak and do research. I think you’re very lucky to have had a wife who was as willing as Mother was, to relieve you of home-responsibilities to pursue your career. I think wives and mothers expect more help these days from their husbands in keeping up the yard, the house, and caring for the children. This is not to say which way is right or wrong or more fair, it is only to say this is the way more people are doing it now.
In connection with this, I have been reading a lot in Nana’s diaries lately and I’m amazed at how frequently she mentions helping you and Mom out in some way or another: “Did Grace’s ironing today,” “helped Grace bottle a bushel of tomatoes,” “took Sue to her piano lesson,” “took care of Carl and Sue while Leonard and Grace went to Salt Lake City,” and so on. In spite of whatever problems Nana may have caused in living with us, I have a greater appreciation now for the many ways she helped Mom, either with housework or in tending us. I must admit it has made me a bit envious. How wonderful it would be to have someone here to occasionally fold laundry for me, take Emily to her piano lesson, or watch the kids while Dean and I went away for a weekend, or even an evening. Of course we occasionally hire sitters, but I really treasure my experiences with Nana. I remember staying with her at the sorority house, and at the home she briefly stayed in down by the Presbyterian Church. And I remember going down to her apartment in our home many times just to see her and visit. She remains today, the best possible example of a true Christian that I have ever known. So, you and Mom were fortunate to have that kind of help. It is something Carl, James and I will likely never have in raising our families.
But anyway, thanks again for your letter about Mom. I hope it is something you will continue to do.
Susie
[Susan Arrington Madsen to LJA; LJA Diary, 10 Feb., 1985]
After the reception we went to Susan’s and had dinner and then gathered in her living room for a family meeting. My impressions were: You are quite content with me making whatever arrangements I wish on my papers. You are also quite content with whatever I wish to do on the will. You are also glad that I married Harriet and that she looks after me so well. So maybe those aspects of family meetings can be shelved in the future and we can talk about other matters that we have a common interest in: Religion, politics, economics, gossip, food, entertainment, whatever.
[LJA to Children, 24 Nov., 1987]
On January 5, 1996, Harriet was angry with me, and angrily accused me of many bad things.
1. She accused me of being deceitful. I was not honest, told lies.
2. She accused me of thievery. I took Alice Merrill Horne Papers from her file and gave them to others—to Susan, to Lisa, to Susan Howe, and to others.
3. I wanted to do the biography of Alice Merrill Horne but had not the slightest idea what she was like or what she did.
Leonard A.
[LJA Diary, 5 Jan., 1996]
Questions from Becky Cornwall to LJA about Utah State University chapter of his biography.
5. When did Mrs. Fort come to live with you? How did Grace’s separation fromher mother and her home place work out? initially-later.
Mrs. Fort (“Nana”) visited us two or three times in Logan, and then took theyear with us in Italy. After one year back in N. C. she moved to Logan tobe with us. That would have been 1960. The first year, as I recall, shestayed with the Sigma Kappa Sorority as house mother. The second year withAlpha Omega Pi as their house mother, then a third year on a substitutehouse mother basis, having an apartment with Mrs. Henry Cooper. When wemoved into our new house in January 1963, she came to live with us in a specialapartment we built for her in our basement. She was very happy there. Shehas remained with us since 1963, but did not go with us toCalifornia in 1966-67. We arranged for her to stay in her apartment in thehouse even though we rented it to another family.
There was absolutely no problem that I am aware of about Grace’s going with me to Logan. Her mother ran the beauty shop in Raleigh and seemed to getalong all right. She had lots of friends there and some relatives. Gracedid not seem homesick. Grace seemed very happy in Logan. She was veryloyal to me; never once complained about the move. I cannot see that therewere any problems initially or later. The Logan 10th Ward received herwarmly and continued to do so. As you have noted, she was put in the ReliefSociety presidency almost immediately after her baptism and so she was activeand happy. She had occasional migraines, but she had had those all her life.
[LJA Diary, 2 Oct., 1976]
I have just been reading the biography of C. S. Lewis, and it has struck me as ridiculous that this full biography should omit any description or appraisalof Mrs. Moore. Whether Lewis lived with her as husband-lover or as doting sonis not clear, but he did live with her for a long, long time-perhaps 30 years.He mentions her regularly in his diary and in his letters to his brother; obviouslyshe had influence on him; obviously she was a part of his life. And yet the biographers almost treat her in the sense of his car, or his dog, or his horse.Or the chair he sat in or bed he slept in. What was she like? Can’t we get her characterized?
This impresses me to say a few words about Grace so that my biographer will have the basis for saying things about her. Let me begin by saying thatat every stage of our marriage she has been an integral part of it. Nothing ofthe double life, in which I go about my work and she is the person in my privatelife. We have always held out ourselves as a couple. We have done nearlyeverything together. We have belonged to study groups in which we both playeda part. We have gone to lectures together, to musical concerts, to church,to outings. I have refrained from “nights out with the boys”–going hunting,fishing; she has refrained from “nights out with the girls”—playing cards,going to teas. She has belonged to Faculty Women’s League and to a study groupor two, and I have belonged to Faculty Men’s Dinner Club. But basically, we havebeen “a couple.” We have taken all our vacations together, have made allour decisions as a team; have talked over every important matter that pertainsto either or both of us. I do not think it could be said that ours was anythingbut a cooperative family in which each of us played an equal role in thedecision-making process. Neither dominated the other.
A second comment is that Grace has and has had a strong personality andcharacter. She has not allowed me to dominate things; she has not “given in;” she has not been submissive. She stands up for what she believes and has not been hesitant to make decisions in my absence or acquiescence.
Once she decided to love me, she has been completely loyal, just as, I hope,I have been completely loyal to her. Because we are both sure of the respectand love and admiration of the other, we have not feared to tease, to jest, tospeak up, to speak down. We have felt perfectly secure in our position.
Now for the difficult task of appraising Grace. Difficult becauseit is difficult to appraise every person–people are complex and it is difficultto sum them up in a few sentences.
1. When she feels good Grace can be very charming, happy, pleasant to bearound. When she feels bad, she is ready to go to bed and she looks horrible;as if her eyes and face mirror precisely how she feels. As with all of us,she can also be unpleasant, and this is when she feels bad, or thinks she hasbeen deceived, or thinks one has done something stupid or silly. Sometimesshe stares a mean stare (as when she catches one of us humming at the dinnertable), or slams a door (as when one of us doesn’t do what she has told us to do),or goes to bed for a cry (as when one of us won’t do something she thinks isvery important, such as quit talking about a certain subject at the dinner table).
2. Grace is natively a remarkably intelligent person. But her educationis lacking, particularly on matters she could not acquire except/during a prolongedperiod of study. Thus, she is very knowledgeable on things she might havelearned from conversations in the beauty shop, or from lectures, or from readingfrom what might be called light literature, or from personal conversations.(She loves to talk, to converse.) But she has been unable to master theintricacies of economic rationalization or historical analysis.
3. Grace was a remarkably good mother. She knew when to be firm andwhen to be indulgent with the children; she did not allow them to dominate her, just as she did net try to dominate them. She was interested in theirdoings, did not mind carrying them to school, tending them, nursing them whensick, helping then practice or exercise, or whatever else they were interestedin.
4. Grace was also a good wife. She learned to be a good cook-one of thebest in Logan. She kept a clean and neat house, and worked hard to do so. Sheknew how to tastefully decorate a house. She did not mind the work involved in having a nice house. She enjoyed entertaining and saw to it that the eveningswhich guests spent in our home were memorable.
5. Grace was not a secretary type; she did not feel at home at a desk. She could not type, she was not a good speller, she did not write good prose, her literary tastes were not well cultivated; she made a horrible secretary ofan organization, and was not successful in keeping our family financial accounts. She felt at home with people, not with papers and records and books. Her idea of a pleasant evening was to sit in the living room and talk. That was preferable to reading, or listening to the radio or watching TV, or writing, or sewing, or playing games. Although when the children were with us we used to enjoy playing games with them–many, many evenings, many types of games.
6. Grace enjoyed people, was a good judge of people, understood how to react tothem. Liked some and disliked some others. And her judgment was nearlyalways correct. She did not like people who cheated her, or tried tocheat her. Nor did she like stuffy people.
[Recollections, Grace; LJA Diary, 31 Oct., 1976]
3. Background on Grace to add to the section where we meet, court, marry.
Grace was the product of small-town North Carolina. Born in Wake Forest,she remained there until the age of twelve (she was in 5th grade), when hermother moved to Raleigh, some 17 miles southwest of Wake Forest. The WillFort home had burned when Grace was seven; the family moved into the home of aMrs. Lloyd in Forestville, about five miles southwest of Wake Forest. Aftertwo years they moved into the Fort plantation home, about three miles southof Forestville, to live with Sally Taylor Fort, whose daughter, Geneva FortEdwards, had died (her husband, Simon Fort, had died earlier). Sally (“GrandmaFort”) was old, possessive, ignorant, mean (according to Grace’s recollection),unstable mentally, and a person “impossible to get along with.” After two yearsof this, Grace’s mother determined to get out from under her. With the agreementof her husband, Nina and Grace moved to Raleigh to stay with Nina’s abandonedsister, Beulah Brown, and their father, Edwin Haithcock. Within a few monthsBeulah married W.J. “Pop” Horton. Mr. Fort was delivering milk in Raleigh dailyand he promised to come by to spend time with them each day. For a year ormore he did this. Both Will and Nina expected his mother to die shortly,after which Nina and Grace would return to live with Will in Wake Forest.But she lived another ten years or more. Will’s visits became less and lessfrequent, and he gave his wife and child less and less support. Finally, the visits ceased, and three years after they moved to Raleigh, Nina divorced him.Grace’s mother, who had supported herself and daughter by working at a wholesaledrug establishment, earned only $12.00 per week, which was hardly enough to pay the rent. So they moved back to live with the Hortons and she took a beauty course and soon set up a beauty shop in the Horton home on GlenwoodAvenue. At the same time, Grace left high school (she was just starting theninth grade) at age 14 and began working for the telephone company. After twoyears she took a beauty course and worked with Baxter Woodlie in the Kozy KatBeauty Shop. By the time Leonard met her, Grace and her mother operated theHayes Barton Beauty Shop, and had a fine clientele among some of the leadingwomen of Raleigh.
What was there to attract Leonard to Grace and Grace to Leonard? Gracewas an only child; Leonard one of eleven, of whom nine were living. Grace wasa firm Protestant–reared a Baptist and at the time of their meeting a Presbyterian,while Leonard was a “Mormon.” Grace had completed less than one year of highschool, while Leonard was well along toward the Ph.D. and was an instructorat N.C. State College. What was there to attract them to each other?
There were, first of all, the physical things. Grace was lovely–hadlovely greenish eyes, a lovely fair skin, lovely light brown hair, dressednicely, and had a “nice shape.” She was just the right size for Leonard–some three inches shorter than he. Grace was intelligent, energetic, self-assured, experienced, had a going business and a car, had a wide friendship, anda captivating personality. Leonard was also energetic, ambitious, charming,and intelligent. He was short enough to be non-threatening, but not shortenough to be comical. He had responsive, friendly eyes, and a soft and friendlyvoice. Not too rich and not too poor, not so educated as to be intimidating,nor so impressed with his training as to be haughty or disdainful. Grace beingvery intelligent and curious, and more educated than her formal training suggests,and trained by conversations and experiences with some of Raleigh’s brightest andmost experienced women, was attractive to Leonard, who was not looking for abookish person. And Leonard’s knowledge and willingness to articulate ideas wereattractive to Grace. They both had outgoing personalities, and enjoyed “doingthings”–dancing, going to shows, athletic events, lectures, concerts, meetings, and so on.
More important than the above, however, was their religious affinity. For Leonard, religion was central to life and living, and this was true also ofGrace. She had been a Sunday School teacher, she was currently taking a classin the Bible at Peace College (Presbyterian) in Raleigh, from Miss Lucy Steele,one of the college instructors. Leonard, at the time, was active in the MIAand Sunday School of the Raleigh LDS. In their early dates they spent hoursdiscussing religion–the theology, the practical application, the Bible,the Book of Mormon, religious writings and poetry, and the customs and habits ofreligious persons. They enjoyed conversing, enjoyed being together, enjoyed probing each other’s character and personality.
Grace says that Leonard was so different from any man she had known before.He didn’t smoke and drink, he was kind and respectful; he was dignified and hada good character. He was fun, had a good sense of humor, and enjoyed doingthe things she enjoyed. And she was fascinated by being with a person who couldrespond to any question she might ask; almost never would she ask anything thathe would have to answer “I don’t know.” They took long walks together and talkedand talked.
Part of their attractiveness to each other were probably the differences.Grace was excited to hear about the West; Leonard wanted to learn more about theSouth. Grace was envious of Leonard’s many brothers and sisters and wanted toknow more; Leonard was interested in exploring the psychology and sociologyof being an only child. Having not received all the education she could havewished, Grace was anxious to probe someone who was better trained; Leonard, on the other hand, a “natural” teacher, was glad to respond to her questions with lengthy explanations and answers. Grace’s reading of the Reader’s Digest condensation of Vardis Fisher’s Children of God had aroused a sincere interestin Mormonism; Leonard was just as eager to have conversations about religionwith a sincerely devout and knowledgeable Protestant who was more interestedin Christianity than in a particular denominational belief.
4. Furlough to Twin Falls
Mom and Dad met us at the depot with open armsand enthusiastic hugs and kisses. They were affectionate, kind, enthusiastic,and showed Grace a good deal of attention, and made her feel a member of thefamily as if she had been a member of the Church. She was made to feel thatthey felt Leonard had really got himself a prize. This was not only true ofMom and Dad, but the rest of the family as well. They were eager to takeGrace around to meet all the aunts and uncles and cousins, and introduce her to everyone at church. It was wonderful for Grace because she had never knownbefore the closeness of a large family; it was wonderful for her to feel shehad all these brothers and sisters and was part of a large, close-knit family.Grace’s friendships with the family have lasted. And she grew to feel closerto Mom than to her own mother.
5. Leonard’s return home from overseas
When Leonard arrived at FortPatrick Henry at Newport News, Virginia, he immediately telephoned Grace.He had to go through a certain amount of processing there, so was uncertain justwhen he could get away. The Amy said they would send him by train to Raleighif he wished to remain there a day or two before going to Fort Bragg for hisdischarge. Leonard suggested to Grace that his getting away was too uncertainfor her to try to meet him, and so he said he would call her when he arrivedin Raleigh, and she could cone to get him. Leonard took the Seabord, as he recalls it, and arrived in Raleigh about January 2, in the afternoon. Inanticipation of his coming, Grace had stayed home from work that day so shecould be by the telephone. When Leonard arrived at the station, there was a cab,and he thought it was silly to telephone Grace to come for him at the trainstation. So he took a cab to her home on 1906 1/2 Fairview Road, and thusknocked on her door and had a long hug in private.
Grace had “saved” Christmas in the apartment. The apartment had a nicelarge and fully decorated tree, and a large stack of Christmas packages, whichincluded all of hers and her mother’s as well as some for Leonard. So that evening,they gathered around and opened all the presents arid played some Christmasrecords, and read some verses from the Bible. It was a marvelous homecoming.
Grace worked a little in the months that followed, but not full-time, andarranged things so she could take off whenever I wished her to. First thing, I went to State College, and they put me on immediately as an instructor, andI taught a half-load there. At the sane time, they said that Meredith Collegewas looking for a part-time instructor in economics, and so I taught therehalf-time as well. I think two classes at each place. All general economics,as I recall. This brought in good money and furnished something worthwhile todo. During spring vacation we went to New York City where we saw two operasand other shows and “sights.” In the meantime, I talked with the people atUNC about resuming my graduate work toward the Ph.D., and applied for teachingpositions in the West. By April I had agreed to go to USAC. I do not recallany problem of adjustment, either for her or for me. Since I knew the Raleighstay was temporary, I did not have any hang-up about sharing the apartment ofGrace’s mother. Grace had a car, so we didn’t have to buy one. And Graceenjoyed going to the Raleigh LDS Branch so much that she was glad to go with meto all the meetings, which we enjoyed. As Grace recalls, they went a timeor two to the Hayes Barton Baptist Church. There was no problem about Graceworking; she was simply trying to make some money that would help us make adown payment on a house when we reached Logan. She did not become pregnantimmediately, but we both felt that would come in good time and it did notconcern us. Our daily letters while I was overseas had kept us so close thatthere were no problems of adjustment after my return.
[Recollections, Response to Suggestions of Carl; LJA Diary, 14 Nov., 1976]