Chapter 8 Last Years in Lamoni “… let the line descend.” - Doctrine and Covenants.   From the common sorrow of every young man and wife who learn by what suffering the race of man is perpetuated, and from the great but common joy of saying and thinking their “firstborn” the most wonderful in the world, we eventually settled down to a normal existence. With the examples of our public-spirited parents before us it was only natural that we should take a pleasurable interest in the civic problems of the growing Iowa town, and that we should gradually find for ourselves a position of some importance in the official and social life of the community   Besides our older friends, and the friends of our families, to who we were still “the children” with all the love and confidence which that term implies, we made also the acquaintance of the splendid young men and women who came to assist in building up the college and the public school system of the town, young people whose broad university training and youth enthusiasm made of them excellent companions and co-workers in the new projects of betterment that were then being introduced by certain of the prominent townspeople.   It was one of our greatest pleasures in our early married life to assist in the working out of this civic program. The beautification of the already lovely little town, the clearing of vacant lots, the laying out of parks and playgrounds, the planting of squares and roadways were activities which appealed to us particularly, not only as being needed at this time but as being an investment for the future; and besides, my husband always considered the establishment of civic pride among the first requisites of a healthy society.   Later on, his interest in community affairs took different forms. I remember particularly an illustrated lecture which he used to give after we went to Independence, and for which he made the slides himself, working out the history of the fly and its relation to disease, from various charts, and supplementing them with photographs of the town’s most contaminating dumpheaps. In recent years, of course, the smaller problems of community house-cleaning have been left to other hands, while his attention has been turned to the more difficult task of community building. With his church architect and financial executives, for example, he has planned out a group of buildings which he hopes will some day surround the site of the Temple that is to be built in Independence. It is his hope that by beginning early enough to plan the office buildings, auditorium and other structures pertaining to the headquarters of the church they will conform to some distinctive style of church and will not have to be rebuilt, as is the case with so many institutions which come from small beginnings and whose leaders have not looked forward to a sufficient expansion.   “City planning” was not the only one of my husband’s and my own activities which originated during this period; for it was at about this time that Father Smith, after the stress of church finances had forced him in some way to reduce the upkeep of his large country home, turned over to Fred and me a share of the duty and pleasure of entertaining the official guests of the church. There were many who came to Lamoni, and many more after the transfer to Independence whose standing in the church or whose business with the heads of the church made their entertainment by some of the leading men a necessary courtesy, and though such persons as Presiding Bishop E. L. Kelly, also kept “open house” for many years, there were many to whom from this time on we became the official host and hostess. There were men who came from foreign countries to consult with the leaders of the church on the problems of their work, visiting missionaries, philanthropists, railroad representatives, historians, politicians, reporters – and always the people who came to locate at “headquarters” and must be made welcome.   The questions of those who came from the world to inquire into the history and policies of the church that they might more accurately represent us in their treatment of us as members of their state of nation were many. Not content with those who came to us, my husband used often to search out writers or historians who had not correctly stated the facts, particularly in regard to the distinction between our church and the “Mormons” of Utah, concerning which there is much misunderstanding, owing possibly to the fact that many gain their data from the Utah Church, who in spite of court edicts to the contrary are often by reason of their superior size, their confusing name and their distinctive nickname mistaken for the original church. Mr. Smith was at one time historian of the church, and as such, as well as because of his having been early placed among the executives of the organization, frequently engaged in missions of this nature.   It was at that same Kirtland conference at which Father Smith first asked us to help keep “open house” for the church in his place, that Fred’s father offered him the privilege of leaving the church work, while he was not yet so thoroughly identified with it.   Kirtland was for many year the center of Reorganized latter Day Saint activity. It was here that a beautiful temple was built, by the sacrifice and actual physical labor of the people, but this was the last of the General Conferences to be held in the old historical town.   This conference had been a particularly hard one for the elderly president; he had become discouraged in the face of official difficulties and personal disappointments and said once to Fred:   “My boy, if you do not think that you wish to stand, throughout the best of your life, the trials and disappointments that you have had to see me endure, now is the time for you to withdraw.”   That is a blessed quality of youth, as well as one of its bitterest weaknesses; the discouragements of those who have lived to see even the silver linings tarnish, cannot turn them from the course they have set any more than the warnings of age can keep them from making the very same age-old mistakes over and over again. Frederick told his father, as I had told him once, that he could think of no better place in which to serve humanity than that offered him by the church. And after all, what would become of the world’s work if its young people did not have the courage and enthusiasm to take up happily the burdens that have become almost too heavy for older shoulders to brace to?   If was only poetic justice that with the answer he had made to his father the task which the older man promptly shifted to his son’s shoulders should prove on of our heaviest burdens. From the necessity of keeping “open house” for all who cared to come, we have become used to sacrificing every phase of our personal life to this all-absorbing duty. My little daughters have been called from their work or play to prepare for unexpected guests; we have long since become skilled in tricks of “emergency” cooking, and we have resigned ourselves to the constant intrusion of every element of distraction. Through is all, however, we have made almost superhuman efforts to maintain the atmosphere of a real home.   In spite of its trials, however, the life of a host and hostess of the public has its compensations; the association of national and international characters, the contact with interesting personalities, the depth of sympathy and understanding that come from constantly meeting in this close personal way with many people of varied types and missions. And occasionally, too, there came into our lives people of rare qualities whose presence in our home was purely a joy, and whose congeniality in the time they spent with us soon brought us to think of them as friends, friends who friendship was lasting and dear to us in after years.   One of the first who came to us in this way was Ernest Dewsnup, a young college professor from England, a graduate of Owens College, Victoria University, whose interest in the economic conditions of the country, particularly of the railroads, had brought him to America to investigate and to write certain of his books.   When his work brought him to Lamoni, in connection with Graceland College, it was our privilege to have him in our home a great deal. His fine intellect, his culture, his interest in the broader, bigger things of life and the delicacy and sweetness of his manners and disposition made him an unusually pleasant companion and guest.   He was much longer in this country than he had expected and he finally sent for his wife, but he was too typically English to settle down contentedly in America, and as their children came on he became restive for his native land, especially that his children might be educated in England. He did not approve of the American public school system, and consequently when he could he returned to his home where he has become on of the foremost professors of the University at Liverpool, and where he did valuable work for Britain during the recent war.   Josephine, his oldest daughter, is just finishing a course in architecture at an English university, my husband learned when he made a short stop at Ernest’s home, near Liverpool, during his recent year abroad. The younger children are pursuing their studies in the most conservative and excellent of English schools, but child like they remember America with affection, and when “Uncle Fred” left for London and asked them if there was anything he could send them from the city, they begged him to send them a baseball and bat.   “Cricket’s all right,” said Roger, sturdily, “but it’s awfully slow.”   Mr. Smith spent, he said, the greater part of a morning trying to find a baseball and bat in London, and eventually located an American sport shop, and had several bats and balls with a catcher’s glove and a “mitt” sent to his little friends. He had been a great comfort to them, it seems, in his short visit, but he had awakened memories of their American days, and the “boat letters” he received after he had left Ross house were full of allusions to the far-off home of baseball around which clung so many of the happy, childish memories.   “You must not forget to send the baseball bat and ball,” wrote Roger, “for boys at school can’t wait to learn to play baseball, which they say they can’t do with the ball and bat.”   “It is nice of you to think of sending a baseball bat and we are going to have a lot of fun with it,” wrote Ernesta in her letter, “Give my love to my friends in America. And I will give my love to you. And don’t forget to come back next summer. I will not forget to come over when I am older.”   Jo began her letter: “Dear Uncle Fred: -   “This is just a word to wish you good luck on your voyage. I wouldn’t mind a week on the ocean myself, but my exams begin on Monday and I must not even think of it. I’m planning to have an easy summer after all this hard work. I shall probably measure St. George’s Hall of Liverpool for one thing…”   And the letter which Ernest himself wrote to Fred after this visit there, and which was typical of his broad interests and of his quiet but lasting friendship, was as follows: “June 6th “The University of Liverpool. “My dear Fred: -   “Just a word of two to wish you a pleasant voyage and a happy reunion with your people after your long absence. I am afraid that you have seen the English nation at its worst, but you will no doubt understand that we are not quite as bad as we look.   “I am sorry your stay at Ross House was so short, but we look to you to rectify this another time. Kindest regards. Sincerely yours,” Just how many friends we had in Lamoni we scarcely knew until the time came for the transfer of the church headquarters from the little Iowa town to the old Southern community ten miles from Kansas City, Missouri, where lay the greater part of the church property, including the “Temple Lot” which was designated by the founder of the church as the site of a temple which should be eventually built as the worshiping place of the Latter Day Saints. When the headquarters of the church were established in Independence it was of course necessary for the leaders of the church also to leave the hospitable little town, but the Lamoni people felt that they were losing many of their foremost citizens, and their sorrow at our leaving was a testimony of the friendship.   The General Conferences were then held in Independence on alternate years, but it was in Lamoni, and at the first conference after the establishment of our home at the new headquarters that our second child was born.   Personally I was very happy in my new gray home among the giant oaks, and would gladly have stayed there and gone to a Kansas City hospital, but everyone solemnly insisted that Fred must be at the conference, but that he must also be with me. And at last it dawned upon me just why everyone had suddenly become so considerate of me, and I packed up my things and announce my intention of visiting my mother and sisters in Lamoni. Obviously, if Fred must go to conference and must still be with me it was necessary for me to go to the conference.   He accepted my sacrifice without words. In fact I think he did not entirely realize that there had been any sacrifice, but he cannot be blamed for that because I did not intend to let him know that there had been one. It pleased me, however, to tease him a little on the journey, as the old-fashioned day coaches bumped north over the illy kept branch railroad.   “I can just see your church people in conference assembled,” I told him with all apparent seriousness. “You know how I love to see them all arranged according to their positions, with the highest officials all spread out across the platform, so fine-looking in their dignity and in all the glory of their venerable beards and portly rotundity, I can see it deep in its important business some fine day not very long from now, when a messenger rushes up the long aisle, and you in your eagerness stand to receive him. He brushes past the page at your elbow and whispers in your ear.   “There is a hasty consultation among the choristers, a rustle of reporters’ notebooks and a stir of anticipation passes over the waiting audience. The choir files in to the measured cadences of Gounod, and after a touching rendition of ‘For unto us a son is born,’ the secretary rises and swelling with importance announces the birth of your son and successor. A moment of death-like stillness ensues, during which you with your hands behind your back and your eyes roaming aimlessly over the distant galleries as if the matter meant nothing in the world to you, and then you will turn suddenly and stalk down the aisle and out to me, while the audience bursts overwhelmingly into the strains of, ‘We thank thee, O God, for a prophet!’-“   When I got that point I could not resist laughing, and he looked at me reproachfully and asked me if I thought he deserved such treatment. Then in the face of the fact that I had followed him clear to Lamoni that he might be with me during my illness, he left me immediately for a state convention of editors at Des Moines, promising faithfully to keep in touch with me. I coaxed, but I shall never forget how he answered, like a child trying to excuse a blunder, that he considered the meeting of sufficient importance that he would take his chances. The point was, of course, that he wanted to go. The convention had been a favorite recreation in former years and the newspaper men of the state were among his best friends.   Bess insisted on going with me to the hospital and it was she who said to me, “Well, Ruth, you have your little girl,” I glanced quickly at my husband. He was standing by the window looking out, and closely as I watched him I could not see that a muscle of his face changed. He turned to me with a smile.   The older girl has grown up to be my sweetheart and companion, but the little one, as we have always affectionately called her, is “daddy’s girl.” She is much like her mother, and one of the things in which she most resembles most the fact that she almost idolizes her father. One of us runs for his slippers and the other for his house jacket when he comes in from the office, and if he is tired or a little cross we play with him and pet and tease him together into a good humor, while the older one and her father rather take each other for granted.   The church people have become reconciled to our girls, I suppose, and if Frederick ever regrets that he has not a stalwart son to succeed him as he succeeded his father, he has certainly never said so. For myself, I am quite willing that the “line shall descend” still farther, and that some other woman’s son shall inherit the honor and the toil of my husband’s unique position. 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