“Contents,” Ensign, July 1997, 1
Ensign
July 1997
Volume 27 Number 7
On the cover: This Is the Place Monument photo by Derek Israelson; Brigham Young photo courtesy of LDS Church Archives.
Inside front cover: The Pioneer Camp of Israel, 1847, by Glen S. Hopkinson, oil on canvas, 24″ x 36″, 1995. Courtesy of Arlen Crouch. With determination and faith, the advance, exploratory company of Latter-day Saint pioneers forded swift streams and crossed mountain ranges en route to the Salt Lake Valley. Despite the arduous, 1,032-mile journey, early Saints arrived optimistic and ready to plant their first crops.
Inside back cover: Not Alone, by Minerva K. Teichert, oil on canvas, 8′ x 10′, 1920. Painting is displayed in the Pocatello Idaho Stake Center. This painting of Mary Fielding Smith and her young son, Joseph F., is based on their story of relying upon courage, prayer, and divine help to overcome obstacles while crossing the plains. Twenty-eight-year-old Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert offered to create a painting for the Pocatello Idaho Stake. Her stake president, William A. Hyde, suggested in a letter that she show “the heroism, and the faith of the Mormon woman,” portraying Mary Fielding Smith at a time “when she is left alone and sets her face amid the howling of the wolves and the fear of savages, to overtake the train in advance.” Yet “they are not alone,” wrote President Hyde, for to the side is a “shadowy form mounted” on a “classical charger,” representing “the captain of the Lord’s host” and his men protecting the Saints.