“Spared for Each Other,” chapter 17 of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 3, Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893–1955 (2022)
Chapter 17: “Spared for Each Other”
Chapter 17
Spared for Each Other
As the Church continued to spread throughout the world, President Heber J. Grant wrestled with the future of Church education. The cost of operating Church schools had risen tenfold over the last twenty-five years. Some efforts, like replacing the expensive stake academy system with the seminary program, had saved money. But Brigham Young University, Latter-day Saints’ University, and other Church colleges were growing. If these institutions wanted to offer the same quality of education as the University of Utah and other local state-sponsored schools, they would need more money than tithing funds could provide.1
The expense troubled the prophet constantly. “Nothing has worried me more since I became president,” he told the General Church Board of Education in February 1926. Brigham Young University alone wanted to spend more than a million dollars to expand its campus. “We can’t do it,” President Grant declared. “That’s all.”2
Some board members, sharing the prophet’s concern, wanted the Church to close all its colleges and universities, including BYU. But apostles David O. McKay and John Widtsoe, who had both attended Church schools and served as commissioner of Church education, countered that young adults needed Church schools for the important religious education they provided.
“The schools were established for the influence they would have upon our children,” Elder McKay said at a board meeting in March. He believed Church colleges and universities were crucial for molding young people into faithful Latter-day Saints.
Elder Widtsoe agreed. “I know the value in Church schools in making a man,” he said. “I think the Church would make a great mistake if it did not maintain an institution of higher learning.”3
Around this time, President Grant’s counselor Charles W. Nibley met with William Geddes, a Church member from Idaho, just north of Utah. William’s daughters Norma and Zola were among a handful of Latter-day Saints attending the University of Idaho. Their small branch met in a shabby, rented hall where locals sometimes held dances on Saturday nights. When Norma and Zola would show up for Church the next morning, the place reeked of cigarette smoke, with trash and empty liquor bottles littering the floor.4
William wished there were a better meetinghouse for his daughters near the school. “The university can never attract Latter-day Saint students,” he told President Nibley, “unless there are better facilities.”5
President Grant and the board of education considered the situation in Idaho as they discussed the future of Church education. They decided to continue to fund Brigham Young University while gradually withdrawing support from most of the Church’s other colleges. The Church would also start providing religious education to students by extending seminary to the university level. The board saw the University of Idaho as a testing ground for the new program. All they needed was someone who could move to Moscow, the small town where the university was located.6
In October, the First Presidency met with Wyley Sessions, a former agricultural agent for the University of Idaho who had just returned from serving as president of the South African Mission. They had recommended him for a position at a local sugar company, but as they spoke with him about the job, President Nibley stopped midsentence and turned to the prophet.
“We’re making a mistake,” he said.
“I’m afraid we are,” President Grant agreed. “I haven’t felt just right about assigning Brother Sessions to the sugar company.”
The room went silent for a minute. Then President Nibley said, “Brother Sessions, you’re the man for us to send to the University of Idaho to take care of our boys and girls who are attending the university there, and to study the situation and tell us what the Church should do for Latter-day Saint students attending state universities.”
“Oh no, brethren,” Wyley said. “Are you calling me on another mission?” His assignment in South Africa had lasted seven years and left him and his wife, Magdalen, almost penniless.
“No, Brother Sessions, we’re not calling you on another mission,” the prophet chuckled. “We’re giving you a fine opportunity to render a splendid service to the Church.” He added that it would be a professional opportunity—a paid position.
Wyley stood up sadly. President Nibley moved toward him and took him by the arm.
“Don’t be disappointed,” he said. “This is what the Lord wants you to do.”7
Snow blanketed Salt Lake City on New Year’s Day 1927, but brilliant sunshine flooded the Widtsoe home, keeping the cold at bay.8 Normally, fourteen-year-old Eudora was the only child living at home, but the whole family had gathered for the holidays, and Leah was delighted to have her children near her.
Marsel, now twenty-four, was engaged to be married and only months away from graduating from the University of Utah. Soon he hoped to attend Harvard University, like his father, and probably study business administration.9 His older sister, Ann, meanwhile, had recently married Lewis Wallace, a young Latter-day Saint lawyer, and moved with him to Washington, DC. A bout of homesickness had brought her back to Utah, however, and Leah was worried about her. Still, both Leah and John were grateful for the Lord’s kindness and mercy to their family.10
As the new year progressed, John returned to his duties in the Twelve, and Leah spent her spare time helping her mother with a new writing project.11 For years, Leah had watched Susa gather information and jot down stories about her father, Brigham Young, with the goal of one day publishing his biography. But some time ago, Leah had noticed that while her mother was still making progress on other writing projects, like her history of Latter-day Saint women, she was no longer working on the biography.
“Mother, what about the book about your father?” Leah asked her one day. “Aren’t you writing it anymore?”
“No, he is too big for me,” Susa had replied. “If you are standing beside a mountain, you can’t really describe the mountain, for you’re too near to see it.”
“Nevertheless, you have it to do,” Leah had insisted. “Someday you must write that book about your father, and I’ll be glad to help you with it.”12
Since then, Susa had written two hulking manuscripts on Brigham Young and recruited Leah to help her shape them into a single, coherent biography. Leah found the work hard and sometimes tediously slow, but she knew her mother needed her help. Susa was a natural writer, with a strong mind and determined voice. Yet Leah added polish and structure to her prose. Working together at Susa’s house, they made a good team.13
On the morning of May 23, 1927, Leah’s routine came to a sudden halt when a letter arrived from Preston, Idaho, where Marsel was teaching seminary. Recently, after helping a stranded motorist on the side of the road, Marsel had caught a severe cold. Although his friends believed he was getting better, his temperature was running high. Pneumonia could settle into his lungs and put his life at risk.14
Leah caught a train to Preston within the hour and was soon at Marsel’s side. The next day, his temperature dropped a few degrees, giving Leah hope he would recover. But after he improved no further, her fears returned. John joined her in Preston, pleading with the Lord to spare Marsel’s life. He called one of his friends, a doctor, to attend the young man. Other friends gave Marsel priesthood blessings or sat up with him at night.
Exhausted, Leah collapsed on May 27. That night, however, Marsel showed signs of recovery. His fiancée, Marion Hill, arrived the next morning. Marsel’s lungs seemed to clear, and his temperature dropped again. But later that day, his breathing grew heavy and his body swelled. Leah remained at his side with John and Marion all afternoon. Hour after hour passed, but he did not get better. He died later that evening.15
Leah was inconsolable. Death had taken four of her children already. Now her only surviving son, whose future had seemed so bright and certain at the start of the new year, was gone.16
That spring, some sixteen hundred miles east of Salt Lake City, eight-year-old Paul Bang was preparing for baptism. He was the sixth of ten children—four girls and six boys. They lived in an L-shaped room behind a grocery store their parents owned and operated in Cincinnati, Ohio, a bustling city of more than four hundred thousand people in the midwestern United States. To maintain some privacy, the family had divided the room into quarters with the aid of curtains. But no one really had any privacy. At night, they would sleep on foldout beds that took up so much space a person could hardly move around the room.17
Paul’s father, Christian Bang Sr., was from Germany. When he was a small boy, his family had moved to Cincinnati, where many German immigrants had settled during the nineteenth century. In 1908, Christian married Rosa Kiefer, whose parents were also German immigrants. Three years later, Rosa’s friend Elise Harbrecht gave Rosa a Book of Mormon, and she and Christian read it with interest. After a year of meeting with missionaries, they were baptized in a Jewish bathhouse because the nearby Ohio River was frozen.18
The branch in Cincinnati was like many branches of the Church in the eastern United States. The city had once been home to a thriving congregation of Saints, but it had shrunk over the years as more and more Church members gathered to Utah. By the time Paul’s parents joined the Church, Latter-day Saints were a curiosity in the area. When missionaries baptized a boy in 1912, hundreds of people came down to the river to gawk at him. The newspaper printed an article about the baptism the following day, advising readers that missionaries were in the area.
“A strong attempt will be made to secure many converts openly,” it read.19
After joining the Church, Paul’s parents attended services with the missionaries and a few other Saints in a small, rented hall. One Church member soon moved to Utah, another died, and two quit coming to meetings. Christian and Rosa thought about gathering to Utah as well, but they decided to stay in Ohio since their families and business were there.20
Like other branches far from Salt Lake City, the Cincinnati Branch benefited when more seasoned Church members moved into its boundaries. Soon after the Bangs joined the Church, a Latter-day Saint couple from Utah, Charles and Christine Anderson, moved to Cincinnati and began going to church with them.
The Andersons had been endowed and sealed in the temple and had spent many years serving in wards and stakes in the American West. They were among the many Saints who had left Utah to seek opportunities elsewhere. Born in Sweden, Charles had invented a new kind of mop and had come east to manufacture it. He knew nothing about Cincinnati except that it was a large city and a prosperous business center. Nonetheless, the president of the Southern States Mission immediately called him to reorganize and lead the branch. Paul’s father became his first counselor.21
It was not an easy time to be a Latter-day Saint in Cincinnati. News articles and demonstrators had railed against the Church in the area for years. Once, the local paper had even called Cincinnati a “battleground of the war against the spread of Mormonism in America” when Frank Cannon, the apostate son of George Q. Cannon, had held a rally in the city.22
Still, despite the opposition, Paul’s parents worked hard to raise their children in the gospel. They attended their weekly church meetings and served faithfully in the small branch. Each morning, his father would call everyone together for family prayer and a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, a common practice among German Christians. On Mondays, his mother would often have the missionaries over for dinner. The family and missionaries would sit at a large table in a kitchen connected to the back of the store. Since Paul’s mother never threw anything usable away, she would cook up the store’s old food, being careful to trim away the rotten parts of any fruit, vegetable, or meat before she served it. His father would then insist that the missionaries eat to bursting.23
The Bangs also made sure each of their children was baptized at age eight.24 On June 5, 1927, Paul and four other people were baptized at a place called Anderson’s Ferry along the Ohio River. His parents, President Anderson, and some of his friends were there to celebrate the occasion.
There were no gawking crowds there to witness the event, and no newspaper articles. But an account of the baptism did appear in the Liahona, the Elders’ Journal, the official magazine of the Church’s North American missions. Paul’s name even appeared in print.25
Wyley and Magdalen Sessions did not receive a warm welcome when they got to the University of Idaho. Moscow was in the northern part of the state, where few Church members lived. Many people had come to the region to farm its rich soil or to seek their fortune in the mining and lumber industries. These residents were suspicious of the Church, and Wyley’s presence set them on edge.
“Who is this fellow, this man Sessions?” some people asked. “What’s his duty up here? What’s he want to do?”26
Had Wyley been asked the last two questions directly, he would have had no clear answers. The First Presidency had instructed him to help the Latter-day Saint students at the school, but how he would do that was entirely up to him. He knew the students needed regular religious instruction and a new place to meet. But aside from his work as a mission president, Wyley had no experience with religious education. He had studied agriculture in college. If the students wanted to learn about fertilizer, he could teach them. But he was no Bible scholar.27
Soon after arriving in Moscow, Wyley and Magdalen enrolled in the university’s graduate school to further their education and become more acquainted with the school and its faculty. Wyley studied philosophy and education, took some classes in religion and the Bible, and began writing a thesis on religion at state universities in the United States. Magdalen, meanwhile, took classes in social work and English.
Wyley and Magdalen found an ally in C. W. Chenoweth, the head of the philosophy department, who was concerned about the absence of religious education in state universities. He had been a chaplain in the world war and now served as a pastor at a church near Moscow. “If you’re coming onto this campus with a religious program,” he told Wyley and Magdalen, “you had better be prepared to meet the competition of the university.”
With Dr. Chenoweth’s encouragement, the Sessionses drew up plans for a seminary-like program for Latter-day Saint students at public universities. They based the program on religious education programs at other universities and were careful to honor the separation of church and state. Their religion classes needed to meet the state’s standards for university-level courses, but the program also had to be completely independent of the school itself. When the Church constructed a building for classes, it had to be off campus.28
Knowing the university would not support the new program as long as local leaders remained suspicious of him and the Church, Wyley joined the chamber of commerce and a civic group so he could meet important community members. He found that local business leaders, ministers, and faculty had formed a committee to keep an eye on him and make sure he was not trying to assert the Church’s influence over the university. Fred Fulton, an insurance agent, led the committee. Whenever Wyley attended chamber of commerce events, he would sit beside Fred and try to make friends with him.
At one meeting, Fred said to Wyley, “You son of a gun, you’re the darndest fellow.” He then confessed to his role in the committee. “Every time I see you,” he said, “you come in here so darn friendly that I like you better all the time.”29
The town soon warmed to the Sessions family. With Wyley’s help, the Church found property near the campus and purchased it for the Saints’ student center. Wyley and a Church architect then worked with the university and chamber of commerce to design the building and approve and oversee its construction. In the fall of 1927, Wyley began teaching religion classes, and the university agreed to grant college credits to students who took them. Magdalen, meanwhile, organized a series of social activities for Latter-day Saint students like Norma and Zola Geddes.30
One day, while Wyley was walking with Jay Eldridge, the faculty dean, they passed the property for the Church’s new student center. “You were pretty smart to get that land,” Dr. Eldridge told Wyley. He asked what the Church intended to name its new program. “You can’t call it the seminary,” he said. “You’ve spoiled that, anyway, with your high school seminaries.”
“I don’t know,” said Wyley. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
Dr. Eldridge stopped. “I’ll tell you what the name is,” he said. “What you see up there is the Latter-day Saint Institute of Religion.”
Wyley liked the recommendation, and so did the General Church Board of Education.31
In September 1927, Leah Widtsoe felt spiritually, mentally, and physically exhausted. The sudden death of her son Marsel had plunged her into a dark depression. “I really wonder if life is worthwhile,” she told John one day. “If it were not for your love I know it would not be.”32
Marsel had been buried on May 31 in the Salt Lake Cemetery. The next day was Leah and John’s twenty-ninth wedding anniversary, and they had spent it trying to clean up after the funeral. Friends and family visited often in the weeks and months that followed, but even with their support and love, healing was slow to come.33 They could take joy in the news that their daughter Ann was expecting a child. Yet Ann was also unhappy in her marriage, so she decided to stay in Utah with her parents rather than return to her husband in Washington, DC.
Leah’s depression turned most days into a struggle. John’s Church assignments kept him traveling as much as ever, but when he was home, he was frequently at her side, making her life bearable. “I pray that we may be spared for each other,” she told him that summer. “With you I can fight any battle!”34
Ann’s baby, John Widtsoe Wallace, arrived on August 8, 1927, making Leah and John grandparents.35 One month later, Harold Shepstone, an English newspaperman, met Leah’s mother during a visit to Salt Lake City. Susa told him all about the biography she and Leah were writing about Brigham Young, and he asked to look at it. Susa gave him a copy of the manuscript, and he agreed to help her find a publisher.
“It will make a most interesting reading,” he said, “but, of course, it will have to be greatly condensed.”36
All this good news was not enough to lift Leah’s spirits. Susa invited Leah to join her on a trip to California, perhaps hoping a visit to the coast would cheer her up.37 But almost as soon as they purchased tickets, President Grant called John to be the new president of the European Mission. John was in a daze for the rest of the day, and he hardly slept that night. The European Mission was one of the oldest and largest missions in the Church, and the president had responsibility for managing nine other mission presidents who were stationed in countries spreading across thousands of miles—from Norway to South Africa. Normally an apostle with more experience was called to lead it.38
Leah welcomed the new call, even though it would pull her away from her home and loved ones in Utah. The last year had been a nightmare, and she could use a change in her life. Reminders of Marsel were everywhere, and moving to Europe would give her space to grieve. John, in fact, believed that President Grant had been inspired to call them on a mission to help them cope with the loss of their son.39
Preparation consumed the next two months.40 As Leah packed, she thought about Harold Shepstone and the Brigham Young biography. Determined to hold Harold to his word to help her find a publisher, she packed the manuscript.41
On November 21, Leah and John were set apart for their missions. They then returned home to say goodbye to John’s aunt Petroline, who was now seventy-four years old. Leah and John had offered to take her to Europe with them, but she did not think she was strong enough to go. Yet she was happy that John had a chance to return to Europe and teach the gospel, as she and his mother had done twenty years earlier.
Later that day, a crowd saw Leah, John, and their daughter Eudora off at the railroad station. Susa gave them a letter to open on the train. “I shall follow you in your journey, and in the great work you will both accomplish,” she wrote. “Auntie and I will both be on the depot platform when you come home, serene, smiling, rejoiced in the return of our best beloved children.”
She also urged Leah to prepare herself for the many difficulties sure to surround her on the mission. “Our Father must Himself be ruthless at times,” she wrote, “when experience is to be gained by His children through sorrow, poverty, and struggle.”42