Chapter 29
’Tis Eventide
On a quiet November night in 1943, Nellie Middleton heard her doorbell ring. It was dark outside, but she knew enough not to have the lights on when she opened the door. Nearly three years had passed since German bombs had first fallen near her home on St. Paul’s Road in Cheltenham, England, and Nellie continued to darken her windows at night to keep herself and her daughter, Jennifer, safe from air raids.
With her lights out, Nellie opened the door. A young man was standing on her front step, his face in shadow. He extended his hand and quietly introduced himself as Brother Ray Hermansen. His accent was undeniably American.1
A lump came to Nellie’s throat. After their branch disbanded, she and other women in Cheltenham had rarely had a chance to take the sacrament.2 The United States had recently sent troops to England, however, to prepare for an Allied offensive against Nazi Germany.3 Once it had occurred to Nellie that some of the American soldiers stationed in her town might be Latter-day Saints who could bless the sacrament, she had asked her stepsister, Margaret, to paint a picture of the Salt Lake Temple and place it in town. Below the picture was a message: “If any soldier is interested in the above, he will find a warm welcome at 13 St. Paul’s Road.”4
Had this American seen her poster? Did he have authority to bless the sacrament? Nellie shook his hand and welcomed him inside.
Ray was a twenty-year-old Latter-day Saint soldier from Utah and a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. Although he was stationed ten miles away, he had heard about the Salt Lake Temple painting from another Church member and obtained leave to visit the address. He had walked to Nellie’s home on foot, which was why he had arrived after dark. When Nellie told him about her desire to take the sacrament, he asked her when he could come to administer the ordinance to her.
On November 21, Nellie, her daughter, and three other women welcomed Ray to their Sunday meeting. Nellie opened the meeting with prayer before the group sang “How Great the Wisdom and the Love.” Ray then blessed and passed the sacrament, and all four women bore testimony of the gospel.5
Soon other Latter-day Saint soldiers heard about the meetings at St. Paul’s Road. Some Sundays, Nellie’s living room was so full that people had to sit on the staircase. Since communication remained open between Allied nations, the Saints in Cheltenham were not cut off from Church headquarters in Utah. And the British Mission continued to publish the Millennial Star during the war, providing the Saints with lesson materials and news articles to discuss at their meetings.
One of the most significant news items in the Millennial Star at this time was the call of Spencer W. Kimball and Ezra Taft Benson to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Both men had been stake presidents outside of Utah when President Grant called them as apostles, and both had ties to the British Mission. Heber C. Kimball, Elder Kimball’s grandfather, had opened the mission in 1837. Elder Benson, meanwhile, had served in the mission in the early 1920s.6
During meetings with the soldiers, Nellie could tell how much they missed their families. Since the military censored outgoing mail, loved ones often had no idea where their soldiers were stationed. Nellie began writing letters to the soldiers’ families, describing how wonderful it was to have their brother, son, husband, or fiancé in her home. She included her address on the envelope as a clue to where the soldiers were located.7
In one letter to a soldier’s wife, Nellie wrote, “I know how much you must miss your husband and how you look and long for news. But I want to tell you, you would have been so proud if you had heard him speak of you and of the Church.”
“I feel that as long as we do our best,” Nellie wrote, “the Lord will continue to bless us. We have had so much of His kind care and protection, and even among all this misery and destruction, we feel so thankful for all our blessings.”8
Around this time, thirty-year-old Mary dos Santos visited her aunt Sally’s farm near the town of Santa Bárbara d’Oeste in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Sally had been meeting with Latter-day Saint missionaries from the United States, and she suggested that Mary meet with them as well. Mary was not very religious, and she was not at all interested in a new church. But she agreed to let the young men visit her and her husband, Claudio, as long as they promised not to talk about religion.
Later, when the missionaries visited Mary’s house in the city of São Paulo, she and Claudio found them to be both interesting and amusing. They stayed for four hours and only spoke about the Church to mention an English class they taught every Thursday. Mary’s grandfather had been born in the United States and emigrated to Brazil after the American Civil War, so Mary had grown up speaking English at home. But Claudio, a Portuguese-speaking Brazilian who knew only a little English, was interested in the class. He thought learning more English might help him advance in his career.
Before Claudio attended his first class, Mary warned him to be careful. “Go to the English class, nothing more,” she said. “Do not pay any attention to whatever comes before or after!”
Claudio did not take her advice. After class, he stayed for an activity where local Church members and their friends acted in skits and enjoyed music. Claudio loved anything musical, but he was especially drawn to the good spirit of the meeting and the people.
After he came home, Mary wanted to know more about the class. “How was it?” she asked.
“Marvelous!” he said. He told her about the activity. He was already looking forward to going back.
Mary did not like that he had stayed after the class ended, but she supported him as he returned week after week. One day he persuaded her to go with him, and she enjoyed the activities as well. Before long, both of them became interested in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.9
The Church in Brazil was still in its infancy at the time. On the recommendation of South American Mission president Reinhold Stoof, the Brazilian Mission had been created as a German-speaking mission in 1935. Three years later, however, Brazil’s president implemented laws to weaken the influence of foreign governments and promote national unity. One of these laws prohibited the use of any language other than Portuguese, the country’s official language, in public meetings, including church services.10
Although the Saints received police permission to hold some meetings in German, the missionaries began turning their attention to Brazil’s Portuguese speakers, many of whom seemed eager to meet with them. And in 1940, the Church published a Portuguese edition of the Book of Mormon.11
The language restrictions, meanwhile, continued to frustrate Brazil’s German-speaking Saints. These frustrations only intensified in the summer of 1942, when German submarines attacked Brazilian ships. Brazil declared war on Germany, and German-language missionary work came to a halt.12 While some German-speaking members turned against the Church and its predominantly American leadership, many remained committed Latter-day Saints.13
In the São Paulo Branch, where Mary and Claudio attended meetings and activities, a handful of Portuguese-speaking and German-speaking Saints worshipped together.14 But there was a problem with leadership. Missionaries had typically led the branches in Brazil, and there were now fewer missionaries because of the war. The Brazilian government had also imposed a ban on new foreign missionaries entering the country. When mission president William Seegmiller arrived in 1942, more than sixty North American elders had been serving in Brazil. Now, in early 1944, the last remaining missionaries were scheduled to fly home, and there were very few Portuguese-speaking priesthood holders in Brazil to fill vacant leadership positions.15
Claudio’s English lessons stopped once the missionaries returned to the United States. But not long after the classes ended, he and Mary received a visit from President Seegmiller’s wife, Ada. After chatting a while, she said, “You know, those missionaries, they would be very happy if you were baptized.”
The couple did not agree that night to be baptized, but they decided to start attending Sunday meetings. Their interest in the gospel grew until, shortly after the new year, they decided to join the Church. On January 16, 1944, Mary and Claudio were baptized by the Seegmillers’ son Wan only a few days before he left the country to serve in the U.S. military.16
A few weeks into the new year, Helga Meiszus Birth learned of the death of her cousin Kurt Brahtz, a soldier in the German army who had recently been wounded in the Soviet Union. Growing up, she and Kurt had been like brother and sister, and she wept as she thought of him and her late husband, Gerhard, another young victim of the war. For a while she was inconsolable. Then she forced herself to stop. “I’m crying for myself,” she said.17
A short time later, while attending a district conference near her home, Helga met with Paul Langheinrich, the second counselor in the mission presidency. As they talked, Paul asked, “Sister Birth, how would it be for you to go on a mission?” Helga considered the question. With most of the young men off at war, sister missionaries were desperately needed. Serving a mission during wartime would not be easy, though, and she would have to get special permission to move to Berlin. Still, she wanted to help the Lord’s work, so she told Paul she was willing to serve.
Months passed, and no mission call came. During that time, she worried more and more about her younger brother Siegfried, who had been drafted into the army. She was sure something had happened to him. When she finally received a letter from him, he was in an army hospital in Romania. A bomb had shattered his body, mangling his knee and hip. “Helga,” he wrote, “the war is over for me.” He died a few days later.18
The branch held a memorial for Siegfried the following month. Helga’s aunt Nita from Hamburg came to Tilsit for the service, joining Helga, her grandparents, and her aunt Lusche. As they left the memorial together, Lusche grabbed Helga’s arm and said, “Why don’t you come and stay with me?”
“I can’t,” Helga said. She had already promised Nita and her grandparents that she would stay with them that night.
“Come home with me,” Lusche pleaded. “I cooked so much pea soup!”
Helga felt something inside pulling her toward Lusche. “OK,” she said.
That night, after climbing into bed at Lusche’s house, Helga saw a blinding flash of light. She knew at once that it was a flare from an Allied bomber, illuminating a target. She and Lusche scrambled down to the cellar as air raid sirens wailed outside.19
Helga was no stranger to raids. The year before, shrapnel from an enemy bomb had struck her in the head and stomach. Her entire body had gone numb, and she believed she was going to die. “I will see Gerhard,” she had thought.20
Now, as the walls rattled with the force of multiple explosions, Helga did not think she would leave the cellar alive. Huddled together, she and her aunt sang a hymn she sometimes turned to when she felt scared:
O Savior, stay this night with me;
Behold, ’tis eventide.
Finally, the house stood still and quiet. The next morning, a man Helga knew from work knocked on Lusche’s door. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” he urged.21
Helga followed the man to the street where her grandparents lived. Their apartment building had been completely flattened by Allied bombs. Horrified, Helga watched as volunteers searched through the rubble for survivors. Nearby were the bodies of the dead, covered in blankets. Helga searched among them, but her grandparents and aunt were not there.
Workers continued picking through the wreckage of the building. After a few weeks, they found the missing bodies.22
Helga could not understand why God had allowed such a thing to happen. Her grandmother had been a faithful member of the Church, and her testimony had anchored Helga’s own. “Did they really have to die this way?” she wondered.
Then, one night, she had a dream of her grandparents and aunt. In the dream, she understood that their deaths had come quickly, without suffering. Helga also found comfort in knowing they had died together.
A short time later, she received a call to serve in the mission office in Berlin. She was happy to leave Tilsit. It did not occur to her that she might never see it again.23
Not long after Claudio and Mary dos Santos were baptized in São Paulo, Brazil, mission president William Seegmiller asked Claudio if he would like to be an elder. Claudio was surprised, but he said yes. Having attended church for only a few months, he was not exactly sure what it meant to be an elder. He knew all the missionaries were called “Elder,” and they were remarkable young men who dedicated their lives to God. If that was what being an elder meant, that was what he wanted to be.24
The following Sunday morning, just before Sunday School, President Seegmiller ordained Claudio to the office of elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood. When he finished, he said, “Now we are going to prepare the sacrament and set up for Sunday School.”
Claudio was a little bewildered. Everything was happening so quickly, and he did not fully know what he was doing. But he followed the president’s instructions and performed his first priesthood responsibility.
That evening, during the branch’s sacrament meeting, President Seegmiller recruited Claudio’s help again, this time to interpret for him as he spoke to the Saints in English. Claudio was still learning English and had never interpreted before, but he agreed to try.25
At the start of the meeting, President Seegmiller asked the Saints to sustain Claudio’s ordination. To Claudio’s surprise, he understood President Seegmiller clearly, and he easily conveyed the words in Portuguese.
President Seegmiller then told the congregation about a letter he had written to the First Presidency one year earlier. It had expressed his fear that the Church in Brazil did not have enough worthy Portuguese-speaking men who could be ordained to the priesthood and support the branches. He now felt ashamed for having written the letter.
“Today Brother Claudio was ordained an elder,” he said. “Will you sustain him as the first Brazilian branch president of São Paulo?”
Claudio was stunned as he interpreted the words. He thought of his inexperience. “What knowledge do I have?” he wondered. He knew the story of Joseph Smith, but he had never read the Book of Mormon. The only thing he had to offer was enthusiasm for the restored gospel. Maybe that was all the Lord needed from him.
He looked out on the congregation and saw the Saints raise their hands in support of his call. He felt honored. Maybe he didn’t know much, but he was willing to work.26
Claudio’s responsibilities began immediately. He took charge of Sunday meetings and blessed the sacrament. A missionary had taught Claudio to read music, and he soon developed a repertoire of around twenty hymns on the organ so he could accompany the São Paulo Saints. At first, he had only one counselor to assist him, but the two men did their best to juggle work and family responsibilities as they ministered to Saints scattered throughout the enormous city.
Despite his inexperience, Claudio trusted that God had a purpose for calling him to lead the branch. “If it is the true Church, if there is a God in charge, He had to select someone,” he told himself. “He had to choose someone with enthusiasm that could receive authority and do the work.”27
Across the Atlantic, Nellie Middleton and her daughter, Jennifer, were still holding sacrament meetings with soldiers and local Saints in Cheltenham, England. War had been a part of Jennifer’s life for nearly five years—almost as long as she could remember. Now, at ten years old, she was used to food rationing, air raid sirens, and her gas mask, which she carried everywhere she went in a special case her mother had made.28
She was also used to being the only child at Church meetings. She loved the adult Latter-day Saints in Cheltenham and had befriended many of the soldiers who came into her home to worship. But she yearned to be fully united with them—to be a baptized member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Jennifer had wanted to be baptized as soon as she was old enough, but there was no baptismal font in Cheltenham, and with the war going on she and her mother had never had a chance to travel to another city. During the summer of 1944, however, Hugh B. Brown, who had led the British Mission until the war forced him to leave, was called to return to England to oversee the local missionaries, members, and seventy-eight branches throughout the country. When he came to meet the sisters in Cheltenham, he collected their tithes, which Nellie had kept in a tin box.29
Jennifer was impressed by the tall mission president standing in her living room. He bent down and shook her hand.
“President,” Nellie said, “I don’t know what to do with this child. She wants to be baptized, and we can’t travel.”30
President Brown said he could arrange for them to ride a military train to the city of Birmingham, some fifty miles north. There they would have access to a baptismal font.
Jennifer asked Arthur Fletcher, an elderly man who lived in a nearby branch, to perform the baptism and Harold Watkins, an American soldier she knew, to confirm her.31 The baptism was set for August 11, 1944. They would all travel to Birmingham together.
When the day arrived, Jennifer stood on the train platform wearing a new, emerald-green traveling outfit her mother had made for the occasion. Since the Church had recently begun asking people to wear white for baptisms, Nellie had also sewn another dress for the ordinance, fashioned from a beautiful old piece of embroidered white cotton.32
The train belched clouds of steam as it rolled up to the platform. The stationmaster gave the order to board, but Harold Watkins had not yet arrived. Jennifer squeezed onto the train packed with soldiers, all the while scanning the crowd for her friend. She did not want to leave without him.
Suddenly, a soldier riding a rusty bicycle careened onto the platform. He had his cap shoved in one pocket and his tie in the other. It was Harold! He threw down the bicycle and jumped on the train just as it began to move. Jennifer let out a cheer.
Breathless, Harold told them his story. That morning, the camp’s commanding officer had ordered all men to be confined to their barracks. But Harold had promised to confirm Jennifer, and he knew he had to leave—no matter the risk. At the last minute, he sneaked out of camp, found an old bicycle resting against a wall, and rode the six miles to the train station as fast as he could.
Jennifer and the rest of the group made it safely to Birmingham. Two young women from the area came to the service to support Jennifer. One of them spoke about how a person getting baptized was like a ship finally setting forth on the voyage of life. Grateful for the chance to finally call herself a member of the Church, Jennifer was ready to begin her own journey.33
That summer in Salt Lake City, seventeen-year-old Neal Maxwell entered an army recruitment office and volunteered to go to war. He had been waiting for his chance to join the service ever since the fighting started. Though he was not old enough to be eligible for the draft, he did not want to wait any longer.34
So much was happening. On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied forces had stormed the beaches in northern France in what came to be called “D-Day.” After that fierce battle against the Nazi defenses, the Allies had secured a foothold in continental Europe and begun pushing their way to Germany. Neal hoped the invasion meant the Allies were gaining the upper hand. He wanted to be a part of ending the war as soon as possible.35
Neal reported for duty in September. His parents, Clarence and Emma, struggled to understand why he wanted to rush off to war. Their anxiety increased when they learned he would be in the army infantry.36 His assignment would likely place him in combat on the front lines.
Neal arrived for basic training with a book called Principles of the Gospel packed among his gear. The book, which Church leaders had prepared especially for Latter-day Saint servicemen, contained information about the doctrine of the Church, instructions for administering priesthood ordinances, a selection of hymns, and general advice for military service. “We pray that the Lord will give you courage and fortitude to do your duty fully,” the First Presidency had written in the introduction, “and to acquit yourselves honorably wherever your lot is cast.”37
Once training began, Neal could see he had much to learn. Other recruits seemed older and more experienced than he was. Growing up, he had often been self-conscious about his appearance. He was too short to play on the high school basketball team, so he had turned to raising pigs in the agricultural club. Severe acne had left his face scarred, adding to his insecurity. He had gained some confidence, though, as the coeditor of the school newspaper.38
Neal wrote home often during training, his letters full of youthful bravado. Since the attack on Pearl Harbor, filmmakers in Hollywood had supported the United States military by producing action-packed movies that idealized the war and the American men who fought it. Neal believed the army was molding him into a tough, resilient fighter. He wrote home about shooting rifles and hiking twenty miles at a time. “Our sergeants are overseas vets, and they spare no punches,” he informed his parents. When training was over, he told them, “I’ll be a real man.”39
At times, though, he was shocked by the behavior of some of the soldiers around him, and he expressed new appreciation for growing up in a humble, gospel-centered house. “Our home was heaven,” Neal wrote to his mother. “Now I realize how swell and grand you and Dad have been.”40
Neal’s training ended in January 1945, and he was assigned to fight the Japanese at the fierce Pacific Front. A few days before his departure, he spoke with his mother on the telephone. She told him she knew an officer who might have a way for him to fulfill his military duty without having to fight.
“Maybe,” she said, “you don’t have to go overseas.”
“Mom,” Neal replied. “I want to go.” He knew it was hard for her to say goodbye, but he had a duty to perform.41