OCR Text |
Show I Mormon Country' Days Ended In Small Towns, Says Author The days of the Idyllic "Mormon Country" have virtually ended, according to a Brlgham Young University associate professor of English and a specialist in pastoral Mormon life. Dr. Edward A. Geary told a BYU forum that this year as the LDS Church celebrates its sesquicentennial, much of the "regional culture" of Mormon lifestyle has faded into the past. "Regional culture lasted for about 100 years and made up virtually the whole body of the church," the speaker said. "Today, when the majority of church members live outside this (Intermountain) region and when even within the region most people live in urban surroundings Instead of the traditional farm villages, the regional period is at an end." He pointed out that some small towns still have remnants of the early pioneer period. Even Salt Lake City has some rather distinctive characteristics of the region-if people know where to look. "Typically, the Mormon village had a rather short prime. It took 10 to 15 years of hard pioneering, followed by a 20 to 30-year 'golden age' when the fine houses and public buildings were constructed. By. the end of that time, the village had usually reached the limits that its watered land could maintain, and the majority of its young people were forced to go elsewhere to establish their own homes-elsewhere being the larger towns and cities in Mormon Country or else outside the region altogether. "As depopulation set in, so did a general decline; the trees matured and began to die, and few new ones were planted; smaller farms were absorbed into larger ones, and abandoned houses and barns were left to sag and eventually fall, while the lilacs and yellow roses ran wild in the front yard. Even-taully, what was left was a decaying world held together by 'bailing wire,' with widespread unemployment and neglect," he observed. Dr. Geary said that actually most Mormon villages are less rundown today than they were 30 years ago but the process of cleaning up has been largely a process of destruction of the distinctive elements that were characteristic of the regional culture. Dr. Geary, himself a product of Huntington, Utah, which he claimed is typical cf Mormon Country, said that some may want to celebrate this vanishing period while others may want to cling to this heritage as sll very Important, even heroic. A sense of humor still remains, however, in may of these Mormon towns. He told students several stories to illustrate this. "St. George-Utah's Dixie has probably glorified its pioneers beyond any other Mormon settlement. Yet, through all the Dixie lore runs a recognition that it is really a terrible place, a mistake, a place where no person in his or her right mind would choose to live. "From the earliest times there was a comment, first attributed to George A. Smith, for whom St. George was named, and later becoming part of the J. Golden Kimball cycle: 'If I had a lot in St. George and a lot in hell, I'd sell the lot in St. George and live in Hell.' "I think of that remark whenever I see "I think of that remark whenever I see the television commercials extolling St. George as an ideal place to live. I think also of the lament of George Hicks, one of the early pioneers: 'May heaven help the Dixie-ite wherever he may belli He told the audience that in Huntington, one of the last places settled under the direction of Brigham Young, people used to say: "When Brother Brigham sent settlers into Castle Valley, the Lord called him home." Over in Sanpete Valley, where the people live on carrots (they call them Sanpete bananas), they say, "Every man ought to marry a wife from Sanpete because no matter what happens, she's seen worse." Dr. Geary pointed out that there were Images of Mormon Country before there was a Mormon Country-images generated in the shortlived settlements in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and by planned settlements that were never built, such as the City of Zion. "Probably the most potent image was that of a refuge for the Saints. In 1842, Joseph Smith prophesied that the Saints would 'become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains.' In 1844, as the end drew near in Nauvoo, Joseph proposed sending out a party to seek a new location in the West-where, as he put it in a series of striking images "We can build a dty in a day, and have a government of our own, get up into the mountains where the devil cannot dig us out, and live in healthful climate where we can live as old as we have a mind to," the speaker said. "It was with such images in mind-tempered, no doubt, by harsh realities but still Jthere-that the Saints made the trek west, and it was through the Images that they viewed the land when they arrived," he added. "The view was favorable, despite the well'known remark attributed to Harriet Decker Young that she would rather travel a thousand miles farther than stop in such a barren place." The speaker observes from considerable research into Mormon history that if Mormon Country was the Garden of Joseph, Brigham Young was the landscape architect and chief gardner. "Garden imagery-as well as practical, down-to-earth advice about gardening-is very common in his discourses, and his regular 'progresses' through the settlements were like the visits of a farmer to his various fields to see how the crops are maturing and whether the 'weeds are taking over. "But it was no ordinary garden that he had in mfnd, aiTs clear from the instructions he gave to the Saints in Ogden in 1860, with one of the most striking images of human possibility that I know of: 'Cultivate the earth and cultivate your minds. Build cities, adorn your habitations, make gardens, orchards and vineyards, and render the earth so pleasant that when you look upon your labors you may do so with pleasure, and that angels may delight to come and visit your beautiful locations." On the same trip, Dr. Geary said, President Young explained to the people in Wellsville just what was to be the staple crop grown in the Garden of Joseph. "This is a splendid valley, and is better adapted to raising Saints, than any other article that can be raised here.. .It is the best country in the world for raising Saints..." |