Hwang Keun Ok—South Korea

A woman in South Korea shares the gift of music and the restored gospel with orphaned girls

Daddy Big Boots and the Songjuk Girls

Portrait of Hwang Keun Ok looking off camera.

Hwang Keun Ok, 1970. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

In 1967, Hwang Keun Ok was caring for about eighty girls at the Songjuk Orphanage in Seoul, South Korea. When the all-girls’ orphanage hired her as superintendent in 1964, she did not tell its Protestant sponsors that she was a Latter-day Saint. The Church was not well understood in South Korea. In fact, when Keun Ok was baptized in 1962, the Christian school where she was teaching fired her.

There were now around thirty-three hundred South Korean Saints. Kim Ho Jik, the first Korean Latter-day Saint, had joined the Church in 1951 while studying in the United States. Before his death in 1959, Ho Jik had returned to South Korea, become a university professor and administrator, and introduced the restored gospel to some of his students. These students, together with American servicemen, helped the Church grow in the country. A Korean translation of the Book of Mormon was published in 1967.

Despite not telling her sponsors about her Church membership, Keun Ok was not ashamed of being a Latter-day Saint. She served as her branch Relief Society president and taught a junior Sunday School class. She also welcomed visits from Church members who wanted to help at the orphanage. One day, an American serviceman named Stanley Bronson called Keun Ok on the telephone. He was a Latter-day Saint stationed in Seoul, and he wanted to visit the orphanage and sing some songs to cheer up the children.

Stan came a few days later. He was nearly six and a half feet tall and towered over everyone. The girls were excited to hear him sing. He had recorded an album of folk songs before being drafted into the army, and he hoped to record another album while in South Korea.

“Before you play your guitar,” Keun Ok said to Stan after everyone gathered, “the children have prepared something for you.”

She often had the girls sing for guests, and they were well practiced. As they sang a few songs for Stan, his jaw dropped. Their voices blended in perfect harmony.

Stan began visiting the orphanage regularly to sing with the girls. Before long, he suggested they record an album together, with the record sales benefiting the orphanage.

Keun Ok loved the idea. She had vowed as a young woman to devote herself to improving the world. A war refugee from North Korea, she had lost her father at a young age and knew how difficult it was for girls to succeed in Korea without strong family and community support. Many people in the country looked down on orphan girls and did not expect them to amount to much. To get her education, Keun Ok had struggled against poverty and the loss of a parent and a home. She hoped that performing with Stan would help the girls in her care realize their value—and help other Koreans realize it too.

Stan found a recording studio, and for the next few months, Keun Ok helped him and the girls rehearse and record songs. When the army gave Stan a thirty-day leave, he went home to the United States and had the recordings made into vinyl records. He then returned to Korea and arranged to perform with the girls on a popular American television special being filmed there.

The album, Daddy Big Boots: Stan Bronson and the Song Jook Won Girls, arrived in Seoul in the early months of 1968. Keun Ok wanted to make the album release a major event in Korea, so she invited the South Korean president, the United States ambassador, and the commander of the United Nations forces in Korea to attend a release party at a local girls’ high school. While only the ambassador could attend, the other dignitaries sent representatives in their place, and the release was a success.

Before long, the singers from the Songjuk Orphanage were in high demand.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Choosing Faith

After releasing their album with Stan Bronson, the singers of the Songjuk Orphanage soon found themselves performing regularly at military bases and on American and Korean television shows. Everyone, including the president of South Korea and the U.S. ambassador, seemed to love the choir of little girls.

Hwang Keun Ok enjoyed working with Stan and the singers. The group had a positive effect on the girls. For one thing, participating required that they complete their homework on time. But more than that, Keun Ok was pleased to see the girls gain a sense of self-worth from their singing. As the group’s fame increased, she and Stan remained encouraging, gently guiding the singers through each practice, performance, and recording.

Stan Bronson, in uniform, sits and strums a guitar while a crowd girls looks on.

Stan Bronson plays his guitar for girls from the Songjuk Orphanage, Seoul, South Korea. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

They wanted to help the girls at the orphanage both now and in the future. While on leave the previous year, Stan had talked to people in his hometown about buying each girl a new coat or doll for Christmas. He then asked a Korean-speaking friend to dress as Santa Claus to deliver the gifts. Later, he and Keun Ok considered asking people in the United States to provide monthly financial support for the girls.

Once Stan was discharged from the army, he set up a nonprofit organization in Utah. He also spoke at firesides, gave concerts, and sold albums to raise awareness of the girls and their financial needs. Before the organization could operate in South Korea, though, it needed a license from the government. The South Korean government had restricted foreign organizations from doing social work within the country. Fortunately, Keun Ok was able to use the popularity of the singing group and her connections in the government to secure a license for Stan’s organization.

While setting up the nonprofit, Stan read an inspiring book titled Tender Apples about a Latter-day Saint woman who helped at-risk children. He and Keun Ok liked the title, so he contacted the author, who agreed to let them call their organization the Tender Apples Foundation. Keun Ok converted a room in her two-story home in Seoul into the Korean office for the nonprofit organization, and Stan worked there when he was in Korea. Before long, the singing group took the name Tender Apples as well.

One day, a few of the girls giggled as they brought a dictionary to Stan. Having sung at Latter-day Saint meetings on an American military base, they knew Stan was a member of the Church. But like most Koreans, they still did not know much about the Church or what it taught. When they looked up “Mormon” in the dictionary, it defined the word as a “strange-behaving people.”

“Well,” Stan asked the girls, “do you think I’m strange?”

“Oh no,” they said.

“Do you think Miss Hwang is strange?”

The girls gasped. None of them knew that their superintendent was a “Mormon” too.

Stan told Keun Ok what had happened. She knew it was only a matter of time before the orphanage’s Protestant sponsors learned about her Church membership, and she braced herself for their response.

She didn’t have to wait long. Once the sponsors found out that Keun Ok was a Latter-day Saint—and that some of the girls at the orphanage had become interested in the Church—they gave her a choice. She could either leave the Church or resign her position. For Keun Ok, that was no choice at all.

She gathered her things and left the orphanage. Several of the older girls who had come to love Keun Ok soon followed after her, carrying their few possessions with them. When they showed up at her door, she knew she would have to find some way to care for them.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Spreading the Gospel One Song at a Time

In 1974, five years after resigning as superintendent of the Songjuk Orphanage, Hwang Keun Ok had opened a new home for girls in Seoul, South Korea. She now cared for seventeen girls, several of whom were Latter-day Saints, and helped others find adoptive families through the Tender Apples Foundation. The foundation supported other groups of children as well, including a boys’ orphanage. Keun Ok also opened a preschool to educate the youngest of Korea’s children who were in need.

Though smaller than the singing group had been at the orphanage, the Tender Apples still performed on television and gave concerts. The girls led busy lives, and Keun Ok made sure they felt at home with her. Every Monday night she gathered them for a home evening.

When she wasn’t caring for her girls, Keun Ok ministered to the women of her district as Relief Society president. Her calling put her in contact with Eugene Till, the newly called president of the Korea Mission. President Till was concerned that many Koreans still knew nothing about the Church, despite there being a thriving stake and institute of religion in Seoul. In fact, he had learned that fewer than 10 percent of Koreans recognized the full name of the Church. And those who knew of the Church did not often have a good opinion of it. The government, moreover, was limiting the number of American missionaries allowed in the country.

But if President Till could show Korean officials that the Church was centered on families, the government might be willing to loosen its restriction on missionary work.

One day, he reached out to Keun Ok for help. A few elders in the mission were incorporating music into their teaching. The group’s leader, Elder Randy Davenport, wrote most of the group’s original songs, and Elder Mack Wilberg arranged the music. They called themselves New Horizon.

Recognizing the group’s potential, President Till asked Keun Ok if the Tender Apples would perform alongside New Horizon at a Christmas concert. Keun Ok saw the value in having the Tender Apples share the restored gospel and, after consulting with Stan Bronson, the group’s cofounder, she agreed.

The Christmas concert was a huge success, and everyone agreed that New Horizon and the Tender Apples were a good match. They began touring the country together and found a wide audience on television and radio programs. The Tender Apples were particularly popular at military bases, where many members of the audience were reminded of their own children back in the United States. The elders in New Horizon, on the other hand, were popular among Korean audiences, who loved seeing American performers speaking and singing in Korean. The groups went on to record albums together.

A crowd of hundreds surrounds a traditional Chinese stage where young men stand with guitars, a keyboard, and two clowns. A sign behind them reads “New Horizon” and “Tender Apples.”

A performance by the Tender Apples and New Horizon in Seoul, South Korea, circa 1975. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Keun Ok had once had to conceal her faith. Now the Tender Apples and New Horizon included the name of the Church in every performance and interview. At concerts, full-time missionaries were there to tell people more about the Church. Missionaries knocking on doors were more frequently welcomed in, with investigators saying they recognized the Church’s name from a concert or album. In some places, missionaries would arrange for a concert to be given in a public venue to increase the number of people who might be willing to listen to them.

As the Tender Apples and New Horizon became more popular, President Till conducted a survey and learned that the number of residents in and around Seoul who had heard of the Church was now eight out of ten. More important, the impression most of them had of the Church was very positive.

Although they had come from very different backgrounds and cultures, New Horizon and the Tender Apples had helped spread the gospel together, one song at a time.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.