Chapter 20
Hard Times
Shortly after graduating from Utah State Agricultural College, twenty-two-year-old Evelyn Hodges turned down a paid position as a schoolteacher to volunteer as a social worker for the Relief Society Social Service Department in Salt Lake City.1
Her parents were not pleased. Although very active in the Relief Society, her mother did not think social work was the sort of thing her daughter should do. And her father simply wanted her to remain on the family farm in Logan.
“I have one living daughter, and I ought to be able to support her,” he said. “Stay at home. Get a master’s degree, get a doctor’s degree—anything you want to. But stay home.”2
Evelyn finally struck a deal with her parents. She would volunteer for nine weeks as a social worker. If the Relief Society did not offer her paid work by then, she would come back home.
On her first Saturday in Salt Lake City, Evelyn reported at the home of Amy Brown Lyman, the first counselor in the Relief Society general presidency and the director of Relief Society Social Service. Amy did not meet her at the door. Instead, Evelyn found her on the second floor of the house, sitting cross-legged in the middle of a bed, absorbed in a sewing project. She wore a rumpled dress and had sewing supplies strewn all about her.
Amy’s appearance and aloofness unsettled Evelyn. She wondered if she had made the right decision in coming to Salt Lake City. Did she really want to work for this woman?3
Over the next nine weeks, Evelyn discovered that she did. Her job as a caseworker for about eighty families took her all over the city, and she came to know its streets and alleyways well. At first, she was timid about speaking with strangers, but she soon found joy and satisfaction in helping people in need. When her parents came to take her home after her nine weeks were over, she despaired. The Relief Society still had not offered her a job.
Evelyn had been back in Logan for three days when she received a call from Amy. A Relief Society social worker had just accepted a job at a nearby hospital, and Amy wanted to know if Evelyn could take her place.
“Oh yes,” Evelyn said. She did not even ask how much Amy would pay her.
Evelyn’s father was away at the time, and he was disappointed when he found out she had accepted the job in his absence. She did not want to upset him, but she was committed to her new career.4
Back in Salt Lake City, Evelyn worked directly with local bishops who referred widows, disabled people, unemployed families, and others in desperate circumstances to the Relief Society.5 Under the bishop’s supervision, she would help develop a relief plan for each situation. She would also coordinate with wards and the local government to provide money for the needy from fast offerings, Relief Society funds, and county-run charities.
According to Church guidelines at the time, people were encouraged to get help from the government before turning to the Church, so many of the families Evelyn worked with received help from both sources. The assistance was usually small, however, and she always asked her clients what additional help relatives, friends, or neighbors could provide.6
In October 1929, a few months after Evelyn returned to Salt Lake City, the stock market in the United States crashed. At first, plummeting stock prices in far-off New York City did not seem to affect Evelyn’s caseload. By the spring of 1930, in fact, the economy seemed to be recovering from the crash.7
But the recovery was short-lived. Individuals and businesses with large debts could not repay them. People began spending less money, reducing the demand for goods and services.8 Utah was hit especially hard. Its economy, which depended heavily on mining and farm exports, was already struggling when the stock market crashed. Once prices dropped on all basic commodities, producers could not turn a profit or pay workers, and many people quickly found themselves out of a job. To make matters worse, fewer people had money to give to charitable organizations to help the needy. Tithing and other Church donations also declined.
Not long after the Church’s centennial celebration, Evelyn began seeing more families who could not make ends meet. Fear was taking root in their hearts.9
On the evening of May 19, 1930, William and Clara Daniels welcomed South African Mission president Don Dalton into their home in Cape Town. The Daniels family was hosting a “cottage meeting” to discuss a chapter from James E. Talmage’s Jesus the Christ. William and Clara’s adult daughter, Alice, was there too.10
The Danielses had been holding Monday night meetings in their home since 1921. The gatherings offered a refuge from the racial tension they experienced all around them. In Cape Town, churches and schools were segregated, with Blacks and “Coloureds,” or people of mixed race, attending one place and whites another. But skin color did not bar worshippers from the Danielses’ cottage meetings. William and Clara, who had Black and southeast Asian ancestry, welcomed anyone who wanted to attend. President Dalton and the missionaries who often attended the meetings were white.11
William had first learned about the restored gospel from his sister Phyllis, who had joined the Church with her husband and moved to Utah in the early 1900s. A few years later, in 1915, William had met a Latter-day Saint missionary whose sincerity and selfless devotion to the gospel caught his attention.12
Not long after taking an interest in the Church, William had visited Utah to learn more about the Latter-day Saints. What he saw impressed him. He admired the faith of Church members and appreciated their devotion to Jesus Christ and the New Testament. He also met twice with President Joseph F. Smith, who told him that the time had not yet come for men of African descent to receive the priesthood.
The prophet’s words troubled William. Although the Protestant church he attended in South Africa was segregated, it did not bar him from serving as an elder in his congregation. If he joined the Latter-day Saints, he would not be able to hold a similar office. President Smith, however, gave William a blessing promising that he would hold the priesthood one day, even if it was in the next life. The blessing touched William and gave him hope. He was baptized in Utah and soon returned home to South Africa.13
Since then, William had worshipped in Cape Town’s Mowbray Branch alongside white members. At the branch, he bore his testimony and offered prayers. He also helped raise money for a new organ at the meetinghouse.14 He and Clara, who had joined the Church a few years after his baptism, also took a special interest in the missionaries. The couple often hosted meals to welcome new missionaries, bid farewell to departing elders, and celebrated birthdays and holidays. To help the young men feel welcome at his home, William would sometimes play the United States national anthem on his record player or organize games of baseball.15
But not everyone in the branch was welcoming. William had recently learned that some members would not accept his family in full fellowship. And President Dalton had been told of visitors who stopped showing interest in the Church when they observed the mixed-race congregation in Mowbray.16
Once, William told Clara that he was thinking about leaving the Church. “Listen,” she had replied, “you’ve been over to Salt Lake City and been baptized.” Why give it up now?17
Clara’s words, along with the Monday night cottage meetings, had given him strength to keep the faith, despite his concerns. On this evening in the spring of 1930, after the Danielses and their guests took turns reading from Jesus the Christ, they discussed the Savior calming the storm-tossed sea.
The passage reminded them to turn to Christ in moments of trial. Human power was often limited. But Christ could deliver all with a simple command: “Peace, be still.”18
Hailstones the size of pigeon eggs pelted the Swiss-German Mission home in Basel, Switzerland, on the afternoon of June 24, 1930. For the last week, John and Leah Widtsoe had been lodging in the house, training mission presidents and their wives on the needs and responsibilities of missionaries. Every day had been marked by long meetings and engaging discussions about the Church in Europe. The heavy rattle of the hail was a rare intrusion on the conference.19
Leah had never been busier on her mission. She was in charge of training the mission presidents’ wives to help the European Saints organize Relief Societies, Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Associations, and Primaries in their districts and branches. Since Church leaders were advising Saints to remain in their homelands to build up Zion around the world, Leah believed that local Saints needed to take a leading role in these organizations.20 In some branches, missionaries were serving as presidents of combined Mutual Improvement Associations. But Leah asked that every branch have a YLMIA with a local president, two counselors, a secretary, and as many aides as were necessary.
Furthermore, a mission president’s wife was not expected to supervise every organization personally. She was only one woman and could not do all the work effectively. In fact, if she did not delegate responsibilities to local leaders, she would greatly hamper the organizations. Leah wanted mission leaders to inspire and train the European Saints to be leaders in their own right.21
On June 27, Leah spoke to the women about the need for stronger YLMIAs in Europe. The YLMIA was divided into two programs, the Bee-Hive Girls and Gleaner Girls. The Bee-Hive Girls was now a three-year program for any young woman fourteen and older. Once she completed her Bee-Hive work, a young woman joined the Gleaner Girls, a less-structured program designed to prepare her for adulthood. The Bee-Hive Girls already had two thousand girls participating in Europe, and Leah urged the women to promote the program throughout the missions.22
She also announced that YLMIA general president Ruth May Fox had recently authorized her to create a European edition of the Bee-Hive Girls handbook. The current manual was designed to strengthen young women through various indoor and outdoor activities. Yet some of the content in the book was tailored too specifically to young women in the United States, making it unsuitable for other parts of the world. Leah presented her ideas for the new handbook to the mission presidents’ wives, and they offered advice on how to adapt the manual to meet the needs of young women in Europe.23
After the conference, Leah wrote to the First Presidency about her work. “I feel that some measure of success may fairly be reported,” she noted. “The women in each mission are sensing more and more their need for growth and their responsibility for carrying forward their share of Church activity.”
She understood that there was still room for improvement. “The people haven’t yet learned to support each other in office,” she wrote. “They must learn it here as at home.” Over the next year, she planned to emphasize the importance of supporting the local officers and leaders of the Church.
“Every day this past year I have put in a full working day with scarcely an hour’s letup,” she added. But she had never felt better. “I feel much younger and am a far happier woman than when I came,” she wrote. “For this I am grateful to Heavenly Father first, then to you, our leaders and friends.”24
That fall, in Tilsit, Germany, ten-year-old Helga Meiszus was baptized in the River Memel. It was cold, but the sky overhead was beautiful, all lit up with stars. As Helga came out of the water, she could hardly contain the joy she felt to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.25
It was an eventful time in her life. She had decided to attend a new school, and at first she was excited for the change. The school was close to home, and many of her friends and neighbors would be there. But she soon regretted her decision. Her teacher, Miss Maul, did not seem to like her.
One day, Helga was asked to submit a form providing the school with her personal information. When Miss Maul reviewed the form, she scoffed when she saw that Helga was a Latter-day Saint. Although more Church members lived in Germany than any other country outside the United States, they were not well known or highly regarded.
“This is not a religion,” Miss Maul told Helga. “This is a sect, and a bad one!”26
The word “sect” stung Helga. She was not used to being treated badly because of her religion, so she went home and told her mother what Miss Maul had said. Her mother simply took out a piece of paper and wrote a letter to the teacher, reminding her that it was none of her business what church Helga and her family attended.
A short time later, Miss Maul came to class with the principal. All the girls stood up, and Miss Maul approached Helga, who was near the front of the classroom.
“There she is,” she said, pointing a finger at Helga. “She belongs to that awful sect.”
The principal stood there for a while, staring at Helga as if she were a monster. Helga held her head high. She loved her religion and was not ashamed of it.27
After that, many of Helga’s friends quit playing with her. When she walked to or from school, students sometimes threw rocks or spat at her. Once, after returning home from class, Helga realized she had forgotten her coat. She hurried back to school and found her coat right where she had left it. But when she picked it up, she saw that someone had blown their nose in it.28
Helga’s classmates continued to bully her, but whenever they did, she would silently sing a song she had learned at church, and it would give her strength. In English, its title was “I Am a Mormon Boy,” but in the German translation it applied to all Latter-day Saint children:
A Mormon child, a Mormon child,
I am a Mormon child;
I might be envied by a king,
For I am a Mormon child.29
On January 30, 1931, Evelyn Hodges and other Relief Society social workers in Salt Lake City stood at the second-story windows of the Presiding Bishop’s Building, where Relief Society Social Service had its offices. On the street below, nearly fifteen hundred demonstrators were marching north toward the Utah capitol to ask the legislature to help the state’s rising number of unemployed people.30
Gazing down at the demonstrators, Evelyn was surprised that they did not look angry or militant. They carried two American flags along with signs and banners urging other workers to join them. Many of the demonstrators were dragging their feet and hanging their heads in resignation. If anything, they looked sad.31
Before the hard times began, Evelyn had worked mainly with people who were unemployed because of poor health or disability. Now she was seeing more and more willing workers who simply could not find jobs. Some of them were skilled laborers. Others were college students or university graduates. Many of them had lost a sense of self-worth and did not want to ask for help.32
One man she spoke to had provided for his wife and children for years. They lived in a comfortable home in a good neighborhood. But now he could not find a job, and his family was growing desperate. Weeping, he admitted to Evelyn that the only food left in the house was flour and salt. It clearly pained him to ask for money to help support his family, but what choice did he have?33
Evelyn dealt with cases like this regularly. And as the economy worsened, the Relief Society could not afford to employ more than five social workers at a time, leaving Evelyn swamped with work. Often, she could do little more than quickly assess a person’s situation before filling out a form to provide basic food items, assistance with a month’s rent, or a little bit of coal in the winter.34
Relief Society general president Louise Y. Robison and her counselors met regularly with the Presiding Bishopric to organize welfare efforts among the Saints. Similarly, bishops and Relief Society leaders worked together to identify struggling people in their wards and provide for their basic needs. Local governments and some businesses also sought creative ways to keep workers fed and employed. A county-run warehouse dispensed free food in Salt Lake City. The city government created temporary jobs, like shoveling snow or chopping wood, to make work for more than ten thousand unemployed men.
Still, Church and community leaders were quickly realizing that their combined efforts and resources were not enough to deal with the economic crisis.35
Evelyn soon found herself putting in even longer hours with Amy Brown Lyman and the other Relief Society social workers. Sometimes the days never seemed to end. Weekdays and weekends often blended together. Since social work records were confidential, Evelyn tried to work on cases only in the office. But as her responsibilities increased, she carried records home in a briefcase so she could work on Saturday afternoons or Sundays.
The demands of Evelyn’s career were exhausting, and they took a toll on her health. But she could not forget the sad faces of the downtrodden men and women marching toward the state capitol. The legislature had largely ignored their pleas and refused to offer benefits to the unemployed. Now the image of their hopelessness and despair was stuck in her mind. She wanted to cry whenever she thought of it.36