This talk was given July 10, 2022 in the Newark 3rd Ward Wilmington Delaware Stake. It contains quotes and summaries from an American Legion Contest Oration from 1961; a sacrament meeting talk from 1996 on the families of Robert, Alfred, Alfred Jr. and Douglas Ridge; and the talk on my South African mission which was the basis of the 2001 Sunstone article linked in a previous entry. The bracketed italicized passages were not read when the talk was given.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to you, however the past month we have spent travelling to attend family events and to see old friends from whom we have been more or less cut-off for the past couple of years because of the pandemic. It seems like I have hardly slept in the same bed for more than two or three nights in a row. There has been little time to reflect on something entirely new to share today. I have thought, however, as we have travelled about the country and renewed and strengthened valued ties with friends and family about how grateful I am for these ties and for a country in which I am free to enjoy them. As it is a patriotic season I thought I might share some observations from previous talks relevant to the blessings of being an American. The blessings of being part of the continuing great American experiment in self-government.
I note first of all that it is difficult to imagine the Restoration of the Gospel in any other context. The prophet dealt with many difficulties as he attempted to fulfill his calling, but the difficulties would have been insurmountable in any other place and time.
I recount here, then, some stories and thoughts from past talks pertinent to the gratitude I have for my country and those who have made it what it is. In some cases I will draw conclusions. In others I let the stories speak for themselves.
(American Legion Oration)
At the suggestion of my High School debate coach I entered an American Legion oratory contest. It is to the talk prepared for this contest that I turn to first. The talks were supposed to address the topic: “The Constitution, A Barrier Against Tyranny.” This was in 1961, the height of the Cold War and just 15 years after World War II. In my oration I choose to pose a question: What is it that has kept the great American Experiment bumbling along for 175 year?. Politicians, pundits and polemicists of all kinds constantly predict its imminent demise. I suggested we might learn something from the example of the experience of Germany after WWI. Germany formulated the Weimar constitution generally thought to be well- conceived, and an appropriate basis for a thriving democratic government. But the fledgling republic collapsed in the face of the humiliation of military defeat and the world-wide depression and economic collapse. Demagoguery won the day thriving on resentment, hatred and fear. Democracy was rejected in favor of totalitarian dictatorship.
In my oration I talked of what is known as the “White Rose Affair” named for a resistance movement in Nazi Germany led by a brother and sister, popular students and former leaders of Hitler youth groups, Hans and Sophie Scholl and a handful of their friends. They managed to distribute mimeographed leaflets in a number of cities across the country. Hans had been to the front and seen the brutality of the war and knew that the Nazi’s boasts Wehrmacht invincibility were lies. He and his comrades had seen the horrors of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto. Sophie had a tendency to read forbidden books. The group had seen their Jewish friends one-by-one disappear into the camps. Their leaflets disseminated the truth of the corruption of the Nazi leadership the failure and brutality of the war and ofthe horrors of the holocaust. They pled with their fellow citizens to take a stand for peace and democracy. The Nazi Gestapo scoured the country looking for an extensive well-organized resistance. They hardly imagined that the movement consisted merely of half-dozen-students and a professor with access to a mimeograph machine. Sophie was eventually observed scattering leaflets at the University of Munich where they were students. The janitor who saw her turned her in to the Gestapo. They were brutally interrogated for 17 hours and quickly convicted in circus-like show trail. To the end Sophie refused to apologize for what she had done. She insisted that she and her brother were the patriots and that it was the Nazis that had betrayed their country. Sophie was 21 and Hans was 25 when they were guillotined.
It was only after the war that Hans and Sophie were and the White Rose were acknowledged as heroes and it was recognized that the failure of Weimar resulted because too few had been faithful to the principles and institutions for which the members of the White Rose were to die. Too many succumbed to the rampant hatred and resentment spewed by demagogues or stood by while the venom spread.
After World War II Germany was partitioned into an ultimately successful democratic West and a totalitarian East. Berlin, the capital, was divided by a wall and armed guards intended to keep anyone from escaping repression in the East and fleeing to freedom in the West. In my American legion oration I noted a newspaper account of a group who had simply driven through the wall in an ordinary truck. The wall collapsed in front of them because, it turned out, some East German masons had put more sand than cement in the mortar between the bricks in that section of the wall so it actually didn’t take much to push it over. I took this story to be an ironic metaphor for the point I wished to make that both well- conceived institutions and an involved and responsible citizenry are necessary to maintain a democracy and make a constitution a barrier against tyranny.
We in our time are not called upon to make heroic sacrifices. We are heirs to an America shaped by generations who fought for independence and fought to end slavery, who fought to end the evils of Nazi-ism. We are heirs to generations who lived and preserved our democracy through those wars and through the great depression. Generations who shaped a more just society by democratic means. Our responsibility is to take up Lincon’s challenge to show that government of the people, by the people and for the people can long endure. We must treasure our institutions and treasure and respect one another. A civil society is not a given. It must be treasured and nurtured.
(Ridge Family Talk)
All of us are the descendants of immigrants most of whom made great sacrifices to come here. Many came to join the saints in Zion. All of them came to take part in the great American experiment in self-government. In this connection I cite some passages from a talk I gave in this building on May 25, 1996 when we were the Newark Ward and Wynn John was our bishop. In part I note this talk particularly because in its opening paragraph I say that ”our daughter Emily is expecting our first grandchild.” It was for that reason I was particularly interested at that time in the connections between the generations. As it turns out Emily and the child she was carrying who is now Amanda Martin-Nelson and her daughter Elise Layne Martin-Nelson are here with us. I then recounted some the challenges faced by some of my own progenitors in coming here to join the Saints.
The Robert Ridge family came to this country from Middlesborough, England in 1915. Middlesborough was a steel mill town and Robert Ridge had been a supervisor in the rolling mill of the Dorman and Long Steel Company. They had met the missionaries some years before and joined the church. Missionaries frequently stayed in their home as did the mission president, Heber J. Grant.
{Robert’s grandfather John had been General Secretary of the steelworker’s trade union during the early days of the labor movement. The workers had discovered that it is the nature of unregulated industrial capitalism that it generates great productivity, but does not necessarily distribute the fruits of that productivity equitably. The family tradition is that because workers could not feed their families on steel mill wages the union organized a strike. During that strike children would run up to him in the street and kiss his hand because their mothers told them that Mr. Ridge was going to get them bread to eat. Ultimately management learned to work with the union to provide a better life for workers.}
Robert and his wife Elizabeth gave up a comfortable home and successful career in Middlesborough to join the Saints in Utah. Their departure left a sizable hole in the little Middlesborough branch. There was no steel industry in Utah and Robert could only find menial employment. He was for a time the janitor on a train that went from Provo, Utah, up Provo canyon to a little town called Heber. The train was called, for some reason, the Heber Creeper. He worked cheerfully at his job and he and Elizabeth were grateful to be able to be sealed in the Salt Lake Temple and to raise their children with the Saints in Utah. Their circumstances were such that when President Grant visited them he couldn’t help notice that they hadn’t enough coal to heat their home. He found it necessary to leave instructions with the Stake President that the Ridges were not to want for coal.
{One of the children was Alfred. Grandpa Alf was 15 when he arrived in the United States. He soon met Amme Startup and they were married in the Salt Lake Temple. Their reception was in the old Provo 6th Ward Amusement Hall. That is what we called the Cultural Hall before instructions from Salt Lake City eliminated the name with its hint of frivolity. Although Alfred had done well in school in England further education in Utah was simply not possible. He ultimately took up the printing trade. He became interested in the new technology of photolithography and cut the first photolithographic plates in Utah County using an acid bath in the family bathtub, much to Grandma Amy’s dismay. It became a successful business and Grandpa Alf for many years did all the typesetting and photolithography for the Provo newspaper, the Daily Herald.}
{Grandpa spoke with an English accent to the end of his days. This together with the fact that he frequently came home covered with printers ink must have made him seem different to some of the neighbors. When the Great Depression hit the growing family which soon numbered seven sons and no daughters suffered some difficult times. It was sufficiently traumatic that the oldest boy , Alfred Jr., my father, does not talk much about it. A younger boy, my uncle Donald, however, fortunately liked to talk and is the source of what I know about this time. While there was not always enough for the seven growing boys to eat, and clothing and shoes were sometimes threadbare, uncle Donald particularly remembers other kinds of hurts. He has memories of playmates called home by their mothers who told their children they know they were not supposed to play with “white trash” like the Ridge boys.}
{The second son, Allen, dated and eventually married a Hedquist girl. The Hedquists owned a drugstore on the corner of Center Street and University Avenue in Provo, one of the town’s more successful retail establishements. Allen and Edna Mae used to walk from the old Provo High School to Hedquist’s Drugstore for lulnch. After some time Edna Mae asked Allen who that old guy with the inky hands and overalls was that they frequently passed as they walked down Center Street. Allen would say hello to him and walk on. Allen finally confessed that the old guy was his Dad.}
The Ridges struggles were typical of their generation of immigrants. They gave up comfortable lives in the old country to accept the hardships and difficulties of life in a new country. And they did it for their children and their descendents. Their selflessness is an important key to the continuing viability of the American Experiment.
(South African Mission Talk)
The final talk I cite summarizes some thoughts on my mission in South Africa. I was asked to give this talk at a Sunstone Symposium and it was ultimately published in the Sunstone magazine(July 2001). My missionary experience was particularly important to me in developing a testimony of my own. I therefore cite the talk as a way of sharing my testimony. But South Africa in the 60s (1964 to 1966) was in the throes of Apartheid, so I also cite the talk because ,my two years there seeing the corrosive effect of Apartheid on life in that beautiful country made me particularly grateful for my American heritage.
{Critical for my decision to go were my first two years at Harvard. After I got over my initial terror of the big city and the distance from home, of life without my family and friends, and of the imagined possibility of attacks on my Mormon faith and culture, I rather enjoyed being a novelty. I discovered that my roommates and friends were curious and interested in me and my unusual religion. The small LDS student community was close and supportive. Their activity and commitment made the Church seem more intellectually respectable. Their open, free questioning of our teachings and practices made me feel more comfortable about my own questions. When the bishop approached me, I was ready to set aside my doubts and fears and to initiate the procedure to go.}
My call came while I was in Cambridge attending college at Harvard. I had two room mates, one Jewish and the other the son of a Baptist minister. We had interesting late night discussions. The times were such that when My Dad told a Jewish friend (Jack Perlman?) that I had a Jewish room-mate, his friend was moved to tears. I had alerted my room mates that a letter from 47 East South Temple, Salt Lake City, was coming which would shape my destiny for the next two years. It awaited me on the mantle when I returned from class one day, and they stood around anxiously while I opened it. I quickly ascertained that I was being sent to South Africa. For several weeks everyone in the dorm greeted me with "South Where?" Late one night they all surprised me with a farewell party. They gave me a pen and pencil set (I was well-known to have trouble keeping track of my pens and pencils) which I found inside a series of boxes, each containing a smaller box and each bearing the question "South Where?" The friendly support of these friends and roommates had been part of the reason I had chosen to go, on a mission, and remains part of the lasting memory of my mission.
South Africa was two nations living in the same land. This was evident on the streets of Johannesburg where you might see a Rolls Royce negotiating to pass a mule drawn cart, or a bare-breasted mother with nose ring and ear rings nursing her baby on the sidewalk in the shade of a concrete and steel skyscraper.
Missionaries usually stayed in boarding houses. In our boarding house in Kroonstadt, in the Orange Free State, there was a large wood fired water heater. Every morning Jan, a black man of 50 or 60 or maybe 70, got up at 4:30 and rode his bicycle 4 miles from the township where he was permitted to live and began his day of domestic chores by building a fire in the water heater so we could have hot showers. Jan had to have a pass with him wherever he went which told where he was permitted to be and when he was permitted to be there. I do not know Jan's last name. Whites never seemed to address blacks by their last names in South Africa. Jan's home was small with a dirt floor and outdoor toilet. The jobs he and his family could aspire to were prescribed by law. He could not vote. His educational opportunities were sharply limited. The only weapon he had to use in trying to shape his own fate was his unfailing cheerfulness and good nature.
At the end of my mission on the multistage trip home, we landed first in Nairobi in Kenya. I walked down the steps from the airplane and there was a young woman in a neat, blue civil service uniform checking passports. She was black. The sudden realization that here was a black person dealing with white people as a civil authority had a remarkable effect, and I will always remember that moment. It was as though a knot somewhere inside of me relaxed and it was easier to breath.
My missionary experience is still very much with me. It influences my feelings about the gospel, the Church and, in fact, all aspects of my life. Vivid and specific memories still come to mind dissolving completely the miles and years. In Carletonville there was the baptism of the impossibly red-headed and gloriously befreckled Soles children Gaby and Francine. And there was the blessing of the Alexander's baby one very bright Sunday morning, the first time I had stood in the circle on such an occasion. In Kimberley there was faithful sister Martha (Maisie) Humphrey Dalgleash, an elderly widow who regularly fed us tomato sandwiches and encouragement. Her severe facial cancer scars seemed to fade with laughter, ultimately disappearing completely because she found so much to laugh about. In Johannesburg there was the beam of early morning sunlight illuminating Elder Mark Petersen and his wife Emma Marr as they stepped out of an airplane sitting on the tarmac at Jan Smuts airport. Two hundred of the faithful were there at 6:00 to greet the first apostle in more than a decade to visit South Africa. Tired and a little embarrassed by all the attention the Petersens nevertheless enthusiastically took part in singing “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet”, happy to join the South African saints as fellow citizens in the household of God.
From my present age my mission memories are suffused with light. Perhaps it is a remnant of the white, transparent sunlight that illuminates the huge, pure blue sky and rolling grasslands of the western Transvaal. Perhaps it is simply longing for my lost youth. Or perhaps it signifies a trace of something divine, a gift to balance my skepticism.
Finally I would like to recount an incident from my mission not mentioned in my Sunstone talk that has left an impression and strengthened my gratitude for my country and my pride in my country.. A member of the church told me something of his time serving in the Intelligence Service of the South African military during WW II. Part of their training was to learn something of the military traditions of the various countries involved in the war, both friend and foe. What he was told about the American military was this: The American GI is the only infantryman in the world who would share the last of his rations with an indigenous child. (I know what Dan Vincent* is thinking: That says more about the rations than it does about the soldier). To me this captures the generosity, the optimism, the idealism, the selflessness so frequently found in the American character, characteristics shared by Hans and Sophie Scholl, that are key to the continuing success of the Great American Experiment.
*Dan and his family have been very good friends for many decades. I am optimistic he will forgive my little joke his expense.
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