“A Great Amount of Good,” chapter 4 of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 3, Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893–1955 (2022)
Chapter 4: “A Great Amount of Good”
Chapter 4
A Great Amount of Good
On May 31, 1896, Susa Gates spoke in Salt Lake City at the first combined conference of the general Young Ladies’ and Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations. The two organizations had long held annual and quarterly conferences of their own. But in recent years, many young men had stopped attending their meetings regularly, leading some YMMIA leaders to propose breathing new life into their organization by merging with the YLMIA.1
YLMIA general president Elmina Taylor and her officers disliked the idea. While some Mutual Improvement Associations had already combined successfully at the ward level, the general YLMIA was thriving, and its leaders wondered if combining was in the best interest of the young women. They ultimately decided against merging, but they agreed that more combined activities with the YMMIA, including this new annual conference, could be beneficial.2
For the first conference, MIA leaders divided the program equally between speakers from their organizations. Susa, the second to last on the program, encouraged her listeners to have good character and live righteously. The experience was somewhat new for Susa, since women in the Church at this time did not usually speak to mixed audiences except to bear testimony. Now she and other leading women had the opportunity to preach to both men and women in the same setting.3
After the conference, Susa talked with her friend and former classmate Joseph Tanner, who was the president of the Agricultural College in Logan. As they chatted, Joseph asked if Leah, who had just graduated from the University of Utah, was still in love with John Widtsoe. John had recently finished his degree in chemistry at Harvard and was now a member of Joseph’s faculty.
Susa did not know how to answer Joseph’s question. John had been avoiding her daughter ever since he returned home. When Leah recently wrote him to get his advice on whether she should return east to study home economics at Pratt Institute, an esteemed college in New York City, John had replied with a curt, indifferent letter.4
“Do what will be for your own good in the long run,” he had told her. He then expressed regret that they had fallen in love so young. As much as he wanted to marry Leah, he did not want her to be a poor man’s wife. His education had left him about $2,000 in debt, and most of his small teaching salary went to support his mother and younger brother.5
Leah had written back immediately. “We can’t live without money, I am aware, but for heaven’s sake don’t let it figure in your love,” she responded. “If I love you, then I love you whether you own thousands or whether you owe thousands.”6
John did not change his mind, and Leah departed for the Pratt Institute in September 1896. She traveled with her friend Donnette Smith, who was studying at Pratt to become a kindergarten teacher. Before the young women left, Donnette’s father, President Joseph F. Smith, blessed Leah to hold on to her faith in the face of temptation, promising that her testimony would grow stronger than ever before.7
In New York City, Leah and Donnette had experiences their mothers’ generation could hardly have imagined. Latter-day Saint women from that older generation, like other American women at the time, had usually received only a grade-school education. Some did go east to study medicine and midwifery, but most married young, had children, and helped establish homes and family businesses in their settlements. Many had never traveled outside Utah Territory.8
Leah and Donnette, by contrast, were single young women living in a large boardinghouse in a bustling city more than two thousand miles from home. On weekdays, they attended classes at Pratt and socialized with people from different backgrounds and faiths. And on Sundays they attended church in a tiny branch of about a dozen Saints.9
Leah and Donnette resolved to live their religion faithfully. They prayed together on Sunday and read the Book of Mormon every night before bed. “My testimony of the truth of our gospel grows stronger every day,” Leah wrote her mother. “I can see the force of Brother Smith’s blessing.”10
Unlike at home, they also had opportunities to talk about their faith with people who knew little about Latter-day Saints. They befriended two art students, Cora Stebbins and Catherine Couch, who showed some interest in the Church. One day, Leah and Donnette had a chance to talk with them about the temple and the Book of Mormon. Leah explained how Joseph Smith found and translated the gold plates. She also spoke about the Book of Mormon witnesses, continuing revelation, and the organization of the Church.
“You never saw such interested girls in your life,” Leah later wrote to her mother. “They sat here for two solid hours before we realized how time was passing.”11
On October 13, 1896, Māori Latter-day Saint Mere Whaanga went to the Salt Lake Temple to perform baptisms for ten deceased friends from New Zealand, her homeland. Since moving to Salt Lake City earlier that year, she and her husband, Hirini, had become known for their diligent temple attendance. Like many Saints from outside the United States, the Whaanga family had immigrated to Utah to be closer to the temple and its ordinances. And as the only endowed Māori, they served as a link between their people and the house of the Lord.12
There were only four temples in the world, so Saints who lived outside the United States could send the names of deceased loved ones to relatives in Utah to perform the temple work for them. When Mere and Hirini were baptized in 1884, however, they had no relatives in Utah. Soon they felt a deep, powerful desire to come to Zion and attend the temple.13
From the beginning, their children and grandchildren had opposed their plan to move. Utah was seven thousand miles away from Nuhaka, their village on the eastern coast of New Zealand’s North Island. Hirini had important responsibilities as a branch president and a leader of the Ngāti Kahungunu tribe of Māori. And Mere was her parents’ only living daughter. Yet the Whaangas’ longing for Zion had grown stronger every day.14
In prior decades, Saints from the Pacific Islands had not been strongly encouraged to migrate to Zion. And by the time Mere and Hirini were contemplating the move, Church leaders had already begun discouraging all Saints outside the United States from gathering to Utah, where jobs were scarce and immigrants could become disillusioned. The First Presidency granted permission for a small number of Māori to come, though, after the mission president in New Zealand vouched for their industry and capability.15
Mere and Hirini came to Utah in July 1894 with a few members of their extended family. They settled in Kanab, a remote town in southern Utah, where Hirini’s young nephew Pirika Whaanga had moved a few years after Hirini and Mere’s baptism. The family expected to adapt well to southern Utah’s warm climate, but when Mere saw the dry, stark landscape, she broke down and cried. A short time later, she received word from New Zealand that her mother had passed away.16
As time went on, the family’s situation did not improve. A missionary they had known in New Zealand persuaded Hirini to invest money in a poor business venture. After hearing rumors of the scheme, the First Presidency sent William Paxman, a former mission president in New Zealand, to help Mere and Hirini move to an area where their neighbors would not take advantage of them.17
The Whaangas were now settled in their home in Salt Lake City. They attended reunions of the Zion’s Māori Association, an organization of returned elders from the New Zealand Mission, and met every Friday evening with a few members of the group. The First Presidency also authorized them to perform temple work for the deceased relatives of all Māori Saints in New Zealand.18
Though she was illiterate when she came to Utah, Mere taught herself to read and write so she could study her scriptures and write letters to her family. Hirini also wrote encouraging letters to relatives and friends, doing what he could to strengthen the Saints back home. In New Zealand, the Church was growing among European inhabitants and Māori alike. Dozens of branches were spread throughout the country, with priesthood quorums, Relief Societies, Sunday Schools, and Mutual Improvement Associations.19
Yet many New Zealanders were still new to the faith. Some missionaries, after hearing the rumors of the Whaanga family’s ill treatment in Kanab, worried the news might shake Māori Saints’ faith in the Church. Already, exaggerated accounts of what happened were spreading to New Zealand. If such rumors went unchecked, the mission could face a crisis.20
The following year, Elizabeth McCune, a wealthy Latter-day Saint from Salt Lake City, took a trip to Europe with her family. While visiting the United Kingdom, where her son Raymond was serving a mission, she and her daughter Fay often helped the elders share the restored gospel.
One day, in late June 1897, she and Fay went to London’s Hyde Park to sing with a choir of missionaries. Queen Victoria was celebrating sixty years on the throne, and preachers from all over Britain had come to the park to hold open-air meetings and compete for the souls of those celebrating in the city.
Elizabeth and Fay took their place among the missionaries, and Elizabeth quietly congratulated herself and the choir as more and more people gathered around them. Then a well-dressed man with an eyeglass approached and peered at them.
“Oh dear! Oh dear!” he exclaimed. “What a horrible noise they do make in our park!”21
His words made Elizabeth check her pride in the choir’s performance. Yet it did not stifle her desire to share the gospel. Before leaving Utah, Elizabeth had received a blessing from Lorenzo Snow, promising her she would be an instrument of the Lord during her travels.
“Thy mind shall be as clear as an angel’s when explaining the principles of the gospel,” he had blessed her.22
Elizabeth wanted to do all she could to help with missionary work. Her son had begun his mission holding meetings in parks and streets in central England. By then, William Jarman had resumed lecturing against the Saints. Though he was no longer telling the crowds that his son Albert had been murdered, he continued to provoke attacks on missionaries, forcing elders to turn to the police for protection. Some of the missionaries in Raymond’s area were injured by mobs.23
Elizabeth often accompanied the missionaries in London, holding their hats and books during meetings. She also felt a burning desire to preach. Although she could not be called on a mission, she could imagine herself being commissioned of God and having quiet religious chats with people in their homes. In fact, she thought female missionaries might attract more attention than the young elders and therefore help the work move forward.24
A few months after singing in Hyde Park, Elizabeth attended the semiannual Church conference in London. During the morning session, Joseph McMurrin, a counselor in the mission presidency, denounced William Jarman’s criticism of the Saints. He took particular issue with William’s habit of making unflattering statements about Latter-day Saint women.
“We have with us just now a lady from Utah,” he announced. “We are going to ask Sister McCune to speak this evening and tell you of her experience in Utah.” He then encouraged everyone at the conference to bring their friends to hear her speak.25
The announcement startled Elizabeth. As much as she wanted to preach, she worried about her inexperience. “If we only had one of our good woman speakers from Utah,” she thought, “what good she might do!” The missionaries promised to pray for her, and she resolved to ask her Father in Heaven for help as well.26
Word quickly spread that Elizabeth was going to speak that evening. Anticipating a large crowd, the elders set up extra seats in the hall and opened the gallery. As the hour of the meeting neared, people filled the room to capacity.27
Elizabeth said a silent prayer and took the stand. She spoke to the crowd about her family. She had been born in England in 1852 and emigrated to Utah after her parents joined the Church. She had traveled throughout the United States and Europe. “Nowhere,” she testified, “have I found women held in such esteem as among the Mormons of Utah.”
“Our husbands are proud of their wives and daughters,” she continued. “They give them every opportunity to attend meetings and lectures and to take up everything which will educate and develop them. Our religion teaches us that the wife stands shoulder to shoulder with the husband.”28
When the meeting ended, strangers shook Elizabeth’s hand. “If more of your women would come out here,” someone said, “a great amount of good would be done.”
“Madam,” said another man, “you carry truth in your voice and words.”29
On September 7, 1897, John Widtsoe waited outside a faculty meeting at Brigham Young Academy in Provo. Earlier that day, Leah Dunford had reluctantly agreed to see him after the meeting. She was now a domestic science instructor at the academy, teaching what she had learned from her year at Pratt Institute. John was on his way home after a work trip through the deserts of southern Utah, and he had stopped in Provo to mend his relationship with Leah.30
John was still worried about his debts, but he loved Leah and wanted to marry her. They had all but stopped writing each other, though. In fact, a young, unmarried mission president Leah met in New York was about to propose to her.31
The faculty meeting was supposed to end at 8:30 that evening, but it did not conclude until an hour later. Leah then kept John waiting another hour while she attended a committee meeting for a student event. When that meeting finally ended, John walked Leah home.
As they walked, he asked her if he could see her the next day. “You can’t see me at all,” Leah replied. “I will be busy until five o’clock.”
“Well,” John said, “I might just as well go home in the morning then.”
“Why, certainly,” Leah said.
“I guess I will stay over,” John said, “if I might see you in the evening.”32
The next evening, John picked Leah up at the academy in a horse-drawn buggy, and they drove out to a spot north of town. He told her he was ready for a serious relationship, but she was not as ready as he was. She told him he had a year to prove his love. She didn’t care how he did it. But she would not make up with him before then.
The night was clear, and John parked the buggy at a place overlooking the valley. Gazing at the bright moon, they talked frankly about the many times they had offended each other over the last four years. They tried to understand why their relationship had taken such a sour turn. Before they knew it, they were no longer gazing at the moon but at each other.
At last, John put his arm around Leah and asked her to marry him. Her determination to make him prove himself melted away, and she promised to marry him once their school terms ended—as long as her parents agreed to the union.33
Since Leah’s mother was traveling through Idaho on YLMIA business, John spoke to Leah’s father first. A Salt Lake City dentist, Alma Dunford at first thought John had come to see him about his teeth. But once John explained his purpose, Alma’s eyes teared up and he spoke of his love and admiration for Leah. He gave his consent to the marriage, expressing trust in his daughter’s decision.34
Leah, meanwhile, wrote to her mother about the engagement and received an unhappy response. “The man you have chosen has plenty of ambition,” Susa told Leah. “Not to do good and build up Zion—but to acquire fame, add new laurels to his own brow, and make you follow in his wake, your own future usefulness narrowed down to him and his selfish wants.”35
Unsettled, John also wrote to Susa. She responded one month later, granting her consent to the marriage but also repeating her criticism of his apparent lack of devotion to the Church.36
The letter stung John. As a scientist, he did yearn for honor and recognition in his field. And he had dedicated much of his time and talents to advancing his career. Yet even while wrestling with his faith at Harvard, he had never shirked his responsibilities in the Church. He knew he had a duty to use his knowledge and training to benefit Zion.37
Susa seemed to expect more from him. Her generation of Saints—and her parents’ generation—believed that personal ambition was incompatible with building up the kingdom. John had managed so far to balance his scientific career with his calling as a counselor and teacher in his elders quorum. But his dedicated Church service was not widely known outside his local congregation in Logan.38
“I have not been called to be a bishop,” he acknowledged to Leah, “or a president of a stake, or any stake officer, or a president of seventies, or an apostle, or any of the high offices in the Church which occupy a man’s whole time.”
“This I can say, honestly,” he declared, “that I stand today ready to do anything the Church will ask of me. Let the work assigned to me be ever so humble, I will do it cheerfully.”39
Leah did not need convincing. It had been John’s simple prayer, offered that first day at Harvard, that first attracted her to him. But Susa needed more time with John to know his heart and his faith.40
That December, the Gates family invited John to spend Christmas with them. During that time, something in John’s everyday words and actions impressed Susa, reminding her why she had brought him and Leah together in the first place. “I have always fancied you were narrow and selfish,” she told John after the visit, “but some of your expressions while with us have dispelled that notion.”
She had no more fears about the wedding. “I feel in my spirit the testimony that all is well,” she wrote.41