Some journal thoughts & a Lecture by Everett Pitt, Riverside Branch
Max H. Rammell
With some modifications, the following lecture was given on the 3 May 2009, at the Riverside Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by Everett Pitt. It is apparent, and he so stated that together with a few personal thoughts he was indebted to Elder Jeffrey Holland's book "However Long and Hard the Road," for the major portion of the lesson. The lesson inspired me to insert a few personal thoughts of my own, for I too am a personal product of the so called Great Depression days of the early 1930's.
Here are a few of my thoughts gleaned from my journals, after which I will include the entire talk as given by Brother Pitt.
It was during my growing up years that the country was going through the Great Depression. I was too young to fully realize the implications, but I did realize that money was scarce and Mom and Dad's silent faces let me know that something was wrong. Dad always provided us with food. He had some cattle, pigs and potatoes and a garden and he supplemented it with wild game. So we never went hungry.
It was during this period of time, or perhaps a little before the depression became so severe, 1925 to be accurate, that the church issued a call for additional and older missionaries. The calls would come from the pulpit at Stake Conference time. I presume that the presiding brethren assumed that Parley Rammell was a little better off (a figure of speech) than some of the others in the Valley, so he was one of the missionaries called. That he and Mother accepted the call has always been an inspiration to me.
They were literally struggling for life itself, trying to homestead 160 acres on the West side of Teton Valley, with a few head of horses and a small band of beef cattle that roamed free in the mountains. They were subject to wild animals and even wilder animals in the form of cattle rustlers of the day. They also had a small band of milk cows, a few chickens and a large band of kids (You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille). But go he did, and Mom became the Dad, and Leon, my older brother & Doris my older sister, became the breadwinner for that six months Dad was gone.
Years later, I heard Dad often repeat the promise of Elder John A. Widstoe of the Twelve, who set him apart. Among other things, he promised him that his cattle and affairs would be looked after and taken better care of in his absence than if he were present. Through the good grace of our Heavenly Father and the labor of a faithful little Danish girl and her 11 year-old son, they lost no cattle, stolen or otherwise. Dad was able to fulfill his mission with honor, with spiritual manifestations that he was accepted and to return home happy for the experience.
I should record the circumstances that made this mission financially possible, for they are faith promoting to me. It appears from the events of the previous year that Dad had broken some ground out of sod, with nothing but an old single bottom walking plow and harrow to work the ground. He had sown some grain in the ill-prepared soil, watched it germinate and grow into a rather poor stand of wheat. He realized that his yield would be scant, but with needs so great, the harvest was eagerly awaited.
Then seemingly at the last moment, even those hopes were shattered as they witnessed a hailstorm destroy what little there was. Disappointment, some darkness on the borders of fear, and dismay clouded their present state of affairs and their future plans. But to their joy, the next spring the grain volunteered and they had a bumper crop. Dad was fond of saying, "a hailstorm sent me on a mission."
It was while serving in New Orleans that Dad received a witness of the forces of evil, an experience that fortified and strengthened his character through the contrast of good and evil. It was while living with other Elders in an old brownstone house on Canal Street, as he remembered:
There was much sickness in the house, and as we would administer to one Elder, another would become sick. We were gloomy and ill at ease with one another. This went on for a period of time, when one evening, rather late at night, I was unable to sleep and I lay down on a small couch in what served as a living room. Dozing lightly at best, I heard a knock at the door. Before I could respond, a handsome, dark complexioned man, wearing a black bowler hat, entered and stood silently looking at me for a few moments. Then, in an instant, he leaped as a mad man and I felt the suffocating pressure of an unseen foe. It was a life and death struggle, but spiritual forces came to my rescue as I rebuked him in the name of the Lord. The evil foe left me and disappeared as through the wall of the room. Whereupon, I immediately sent for the other Elders and we soon left that place.
Through this and other experiences, my Dad became a fluent and inspirational speaker, much sought after for funerals and such. Mrs. Mary Smith, a trusted friend and a family attorney, once remarked to me that she had never known a more informed and qualified man as my father. Thus, the man whose schooling didn't go beyond the third reader, became a self-educated and successful business man of the 20th century. He displayed much foresight and vision; his judgment was impeccable and he was humble enough to acknowledge, as he did often, that it was of the Lord. I cannot say too much in praise of my father, nor my mother and I am humbly proud to be their son.
With Dad's return from the mission field, the economy grew steadily worse, until one day he entered the home quietly and looking at Mom said, "Lettie, we are busted." His shoulders drooped for a moment and then straightening up, he took Mom in his arms and repeated, "We're broke, but we're not licked yet." Subsequent events proved him once again to be right.
He had been farming some land that he was buying from the state of Idaho. He had quite a large band of horses at the time. They were all named and considered a part of the family. Indeed they were so much a part of my Dad that when future events demanded that his style of farming had to be changed and horses could no longer play a major role, his heart was broken when they had to part with them. But that is another story and our attention is still on finances.
A day or so earlier, he had made a decision to borrow $1,500 to be used wisely and to enable him to operate. The money arrived and he proceeded to take it to the bank, where Mr. Jansen, who was president of the local bank in Driggs, Idaho, the county seat, met him. With the smell of money in his nostrils, he greeted my father warmly, put his arm around his shoulders, welcomed him into the inner sanctum. He carefully took Dad's money as he assured him everything was okay. He ushered him to the door of the bank, closing it behind him. The door was not to be opened again, until months later with the new banking laws of the FDR Administration.
Well, the money was gone and the loan debt remained. Dad, like countless others, went under. Some men threw themselves out of windows, others consoled themselves for the remainder of their lives that they had been unjustly dealt with, but not so with my Dad and Mom. He signed over the land to the state of Idaho, thus saving them the expense of foreclosure; he hugged his wife and they started over again.
With so much of the farming land being returned to the state and the county in lieu of taxes, it wasn't long until land and Sheriff's sales became more prevalent. This land could be purchased for taxes due and with very little (10%, I think) money down and the balance over many years. Dad had a little life insurance that he cashed in and so armed with a few hundred dollars, plus $100 that his daughter Doris loaned him, (she was now working) he began to buy up different parcels of land. He remarked that he wasn't sure why other men attending the sales would often say, "Parley, don't you know when you're licked? Don't you know when you have had enough?"
Well, Parley didn't know. Together with his sidekick, Leon, my older brother, who stuck with him through thick and thin, and by all means, his dear wife at his side, they acquired property that reestablished him in the farming business. Dad in the generosity of his heart, even bought for me, a kid that hated farming, a 100 acres of ground for $300. He did it in his great love for me and thinking that it was my start in the business world.
Dad came into this world as a humble boy of immigrant parents, little or no education, and left it a prominent and highly respected man of substance.
I can also recall mother telling of her worries when it was her turn to feed the "threshers," the large group of neighbor men who would follow the threshing machine from farm to farm with their teams and wagons to pick up the shocked grain (some times from under the snow, depending on how far you were down on the list).
They would feed it into the big hungry machine. And Mother used to say that the men were hungrier than the threshing machine when they would come in to eat.
She would start early in the morning, right after breakfast, recruiting the girls to help peel mounds of potatoes and bake bread. The terrible part was to go to town for beef steak. Even though for 25 cents she could buy enough meat to feed everyone, it was still hard to part with. My wife, Denice, remembers about the same thing, but her Mom couldn't go to town after beef steak. It was too far away and besides her Mom couldn't drive and they raised their own beef.
We both remember early farm life, with the butchering of hogs and beef, chicken and what-not to feed the family. This usually happened in late fall, so that the meat would not spoil. Denice said their food consisted mostly of what they grew and not much store-bought.
I can recall that my Mother used to have a charge account at A. C. Miner's store and in the fall, dad would go in and "settle up." My, how he used to groan and say, "Lettie, we've got to retrench." I think the summer bill would hover some where around $100 and poor little Mom would say, "But Parl, I don't know how to cut back. We have got to eat."
I can still taste the luxury of bakers bread at 10 cents a loaf and it disappeared like cotton candy. I can never remember ever going hungry, but during the so-called depression, food really was pork and beef, supplemented with garden vegtables, potatoes and some wild elk and deer.
Meat keeping was a big problem and I remember Dad salting the pork and putting it in big barrels of salt water to keep it. As food for thought, try to imagine life today, without the deep freeze and refrigerator, not to mention a few other little items that we think we could not do without, like the telephone, electric lights and etc.
At this point will begin the original lecture by Everett Pitt:
After the last Priesthood General Conference Session on Saturday, while waiting for the traffic to clear out of the parking lot, my son and I had a chance to visit about the messages from the General Authorities. During this discussion, he asked several question about the Great Depression of the 1930's. He began by stating: "Dad, I don't remember ever not having what we needed and some extra. Were you ever out of work? He continued; "I remember you and Grandpa talking about some of the things you encountered such as Grandpa working in the coal mines or building road with teams of horses and scrapers and how dry and dusty it was for both men and horses." He asked about the time Grandpa trucked his fattened pigs to Salt Lake city and because there was no buyers he brought them home, butchered them and hung them in the upstairs room and kept the windows open to keep them frozen. Just what was all this about?"
As a result, I went to "However Long and Hard the Road," a book by Jeffery R. Holland. The messages came from essays and addresses written by Elder Holland. They have one thing in common: they are intended as messages of hope. We all need this today, with the things that are plaguing our world and are certainly fitting for our young and older alike. Universally, we all have need of support, encouragement, reassurance, and confidence. Our young have, like the rest of us, need of hope, that incentive that helps us keep moving, keep trying, and keep believing until hope's sister virtues of faith and charity can also work their miracles". The thoughts, including the invitation to repent when and where necessary, are shared with the intent that they might give encouragement to those who are struggling, that they might "succor the weak, lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees."
No one in mortality is spared the pain and sorrow and difficulty that are inevitable in a fallen world. We all have our share of troubles, and sometimes it may seem we have more than our share. But we must try to remember that our "afflictions shall be but a small moment," and if we "endure it well, God shall exalt (us) on high." Faithful Latter-day Saints in every generation should still sing with their pioneer ancestors, all is well, all is well.
We all ought to be concerned about a problem that is universal and that can, at any given hour, strike anyone anywhere. I believe it is a form of evil. At least, I know it can have damaging effects that block our growth, dampen our spirits, diminish our hopes, and leave us vulnerable to other more conspicuous evils. I know of nothing that Satan uses quite so cunningly or cleverly in his work on a young man or woman. I speak of doubt (especially self-doubt), of discouragement and of despair.
Today, there are plenty of things in the world to be troubled about. In our lives, individually, and collectively, there surely are serious threats to our happiness. Each morning, I watch the TV news. That is enough to ruin anyone's day, and by then my day has only begun. Inflation, energy, jogging, mass murders, kidnappings, unemployment, floods, etc. all seem to be topics for the day ahead. With all of this waiting for us, we are tempted, as W.C. Fields once said, to "smile first thing in the morning and get it over with." But my concerns are not the national and international ones. I would like to focus on those matters which do not make headlines on TV or in newspapers but which may be quite important in our personal journals. I am anxious about the problems with our daily lives and loves and finances and futures; about our troubles concerning our place in the scheme of things and the value of our contribution; about our private fears regarding where we are going and whether we think we will ever get there.
I wish at the outset, however, to make a distinction that f. Scott Fitzgerald once made: "Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement---discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint." We all have troubles, but the "germ" of discouragement, to use Fitzgerald's word, is not in the troubles, it is in us--or to be more precise, I believe it is in Satan, the prince of darkness, the father of lies. And he would have it be in us. It is frequently a small germ, hardly worth going to a doctor for, but it will work and it will grow and it will spread. In fact, it can become almost a habit, a way of living and thinking and there the greatest damage is done. Then it takes an increasingly severe toll on our spirit, for it erodes the deepest religious commitments we can make--those of faith, hope and charity. We turn inward and look downward and these greatest of Christ like virtues are damaged or at least impaired. We become unhappy and soon make others unhappy, and before long Lucifer laughs.
As with any other germ, a little preventive medicine ought to be practiced in terms of those things that get us down. There is a line from Dante that says, "The arrow seen before, cometh less rudely." President John f. Kennedy put one aspect of the same thought into one of his state of the union messages this way: "The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining." The Boy Scouts say it best of all: Be prepared." That isn't just cracker-barrel wisdom with us; it is theology, D&C 88:92 states: "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear." Fear is part of what I wish to oppose. The scriptures teach that preparation--prevention, if you will--is perhaps, the major weapon in our arsenal against discouragement and self-defeat.
Of course, some things are not under our control. Some disappointments come regardless of our effort and preparation, for God wishes us to be strong as well as good. We need to drive even these experiences into the corn, painful though they may be, and learn from them. In this too, we have friends through the ages in whom we can take comfort and with whom we form timeless bonds.
Thomas Edison devoted ten years and all of his money to developing the nickel alkaline storage battery at a time when he was almost penniless. Through that period of time, his record and film production company was supporting the storage battery effort. Then one night, the terrifying cry of "Fire!" echoed through the film plant. Spontaneous combustion had ignited some chemicals. Within moments, all of the packing componds, celluloids for records, film, and other flammable good had gone up in flames. Fire companies from eight towns arrived, but the heat was so intense and the water pressure so low that the fire hoses had no effect. Edison was 67 years old--no age to begin anew. His daughter was frantic, wondering if he was safe, if his spirit was broken, how he would handle a crisis such as this at his age. She saw him running toward her. He spoke first. He said, "Where is your mother? Go get her. Tell her to get her friends. They will never see another fire like this as long as they live." At 5:30 the next morning., with the fire barely under control, he called his employees together and announced, "We are rebuilding." One man was told to lease all the machine shope in the area, another to obtain a wrecking crane from the Erie Railrod company. Then, almot as an afterthought, Edison added, "Oh, by the way, does anybody know where we can get some money?". Virtually everything we now recognize as a Thomas Edison contribution to our lives came after the disaster. Remember, "trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement--discouragement has a germ of its own."
To those who are trying hard and living right and things still seem burdensome and difficult, I say, take heart. Others have walked that way before you. Do you feel unpopular and different or outside the inside of things? Read Noah again. Go out there and take a few whacks on the side of your ark and see what popularity was like in 2500 B.C.
Does the wilderness stretch before you in a never-ending sequence of sand dunes? Read Moses again, Calculate the burden of fighting with the pharaohs and then a 40 year assignment in Sinai. Some tasks take time. Accept that. But as the scripture says, "They come to pass." They do end. We will cross over Jordan eventually. Others have done it--and so can we.
Are you afraid people don't like you? The Prophet Joseph Smith could share a few thoughts on that subject. Has health been a problem? Surely you will find comfort in the fact that a veritable Job has led the Church into one of the most exciting and revelatory decades of this entire dispensation. President Spencer W. Kimball knew few days in the past 30 years or more of his life that were not filled with pain or discomfort or disease. Is it wrong to wonder if Pres. Kimball has in some sense become what he is, not only in spite of the physical burdens but also in part, because of the? You can take courage from your shared sacrifice with that giant of a man who defied disease and death and who shook his fist at the forces of darkenss and cried when there was hardly strength to walk, "Oh , Lord, I am yet strong. Give me one more mountain." (see Joshua 14:11-12)
Do you ever feel untalented or incapable or inferior? Would it help you to know that everyone else feels that way too, including the prophets of God? Moses initially resisted his destiny, pleading that he was not eloquent in language, Jeremiah thought himself a child and was afraid of the faces he would meet.
And Enoch? This is the young man who, when called to a seemingly impossible task, said, "Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight and am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?" (Moses 6:31). But enoch was a believer. He stiffened his spine and squared his shoulders and went stutteringly on his way. Plain old ungifted, inferior Enoch. And this is what the angels would come to write of him: "So gret was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of god, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him." (Moses 7:13)
Too little, too late, inadequate Enoch-whose name is now synonymous with transcendent righteousness! The next time you are tempted to paint your self-portrait dismal gray, highlighted with lackluster beige, just remember that so have this kingdom's most splendid men and women been tempted. I say to you, as Joshua said to the tribes of Irael, as they faced one of their most difficult tasks, "Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you." (Joshua 3:5)
There is, of course, one source of despair more serious than all the rest, one that is linked with the poor preparation of a far more serious order. The opposite of sanctification, it is the most destructive discouragement in time or eternity. I speak of transgression against God. It is depression embedded in sin.
Here the most crucial challenge, once you recognize the seriousness of your mistakes, will be to believe that you can change, that there can be a different you. To disbelieve that it clearly a satanic device designed to discourage and defeat you. We ought to fall on our knees and thank our Father in Heaven that we belong to a church and have grasped a gospel that promises repentance to those who will pay the price. Repentance is not a foreboding word. It is, after faith, the most encouraging word in the Christian vocabulary. Repentance is simply the scriptural invitation for growth and improvement and progress and renewal. You can change! You can be anything you want to be in righteousness.
If there is one lament I cannot abide, it is the poor, pitiful, withered cry, "Well that is just the way I am". If you want to talk about discouragement, that is one that discourages me. I've heard it from too many people who want to sin and call it psychology. And I use the word sin to cover a vast range of habits, some seemingly innocent enough, that nevertheless bring discouragement and doubt and despair.
You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. Another satanic suck punch is that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. That is just not true. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, "I will change"--and mean it. Of course, there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make. You may well spend--indeed, you had better spend--the rest of your life proving your repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as they did for alma and the sons of Mosiah. Even if you have serious amends to make, it is not likely that you would qualify for the term "the vilest of sinners", which is the phrase Mormon used in describing these young men. Yet as Alma recounts his experience, it appears to have been as instantaneous as it was stunning.
(Alma 36)
Do not misunderstand. Repentance is not easy or painless or convenient. It is a bitter cup from Hell. But only Satan, who dwells there, would have you think that a necessary and required acknowledgment is more distasteful than permanent residence. Only h e would say, "You can't change. You won't change. It is too long and too hard to change. Give up, give in, don't repent, you are just fine the way you are". That is a lie born of desperation. Don't fall for it.
The Brethren used to announce at general conferences the names of those who had been called on missions. Not only was this the way friends and neighbors learned of the call, but more often than not, it was the way the missionary learned of it as well. One such prospect was Eli H. Pierce. A railroad man by trade, he had not been very faithful in the Church, "Even had my inclinations led in that direction, which I frankly confess they did not," he admitted. His mind had been given totally to what he demurely called"temporalities." He said he had never read more than a few pages of scripture in his life, that he had spoken at only one public gathering (an effort that he says "was no credit" to himself or those who heard him), and he used the vernacular of the railroad and barroom with a finesse born of long practice. He bought cigars wholesale--a thousand at a time--and he regularly lost his paycheck playing pool. Then this classic understatement: "Nature never endowed me with a superabundance of religious sentiment; my spirituality was not high and probably even a little below average."
Well, the Lord knew what Eli Pierce was and he knew something else. He knew what he could become. When the call came that October 5, 1875, eli wasn't even in the Tabernacle. He was out working on one of the railroad lines. A fellow employee, once he had recovered from the shock of it all, ran out to telegraph the startling news. Brother Pierce writes: "At the very moment this intelligence was being flashed over the wires, I was sitting lazily thrown back in an office rocking chair, my feet on the desk, reading a novel and simultaneously sucking on an old Dutch pipe just to vary the monotony of cigar smoking. As soon as I had been informed of what had taken place, I threw the novel in the waste basket, the pipe in the corner (and have never touched either to this hour). I sent in my resignation, to take effect at once, in order that I might have time for study and preparation. I then started into town to buy scriptures."
Then Eli wrote these stirring words: "Remarkable as it may seem, and has since appeared to me, a thought of disregarding the call, or of refusing to comply with the requirement, never once entered my mind. The only question I asked--and I asked it a thousand times--was; "How can I accomplish this missing? How can I, who am so shamefully ignorant and untaught in doctrine, do honor to God and justice to the souls of men, and merit the trust reposed in me by the Priesthood?"
With such genuine humility fostering resolution rather than defeating it, Eli Pierce fulfilled a remarkable mission. His journal could appropriately close on a completely renovated life with this one line: "Throughout our entire mission we were greatly blessed." But I add one experience to make the point.
During the course of his missionary service, Brother Pierce was called in to administer to the infant child of a branch president whom he knew and loved. Unfortunately, the wife of the branch president had become embittered and now seriously objected to any religious activity within the home, including a blessing for this dying child. With the mother refusing to leave the bedside and the child too ill to move, the humble branch president, with his missionary friend, Eli, retired to a small upper room in the house to pray for the baby's life. The mother, suspecting just such an act, sent one of the older children to observe and report back.
Then in that secluded chamber, the two men knelt and prayed fervently until, in Brother Pierce's own words, "we felt that the child would live and knew that our prayers had been heard." Arising from their knees, they turned slowly, only to see the young girl standing in the partially open doorway, gazing intently into the room. She seemed, however, quite oblivious to the movements of the two men. She stood entranced for some seconds, her yes immovable. Then she said, "Papa, who was that man in there?" Her father said, "That is Brother Pierce. You know him. " "No", she said matter-of-factly, "I mean the other man." "There was no other, darling, except Brother Pierce and myself. We were praying for the baby." "Oh, there was another man," the child insisted, "for I saw him standing above you and Brother Pierce and he was dressed in white." Now, if God in his heavens will do that for a repentant old cigar-smoking, inactive, stern-swearing pool player, don't you think he'll do it for you? He will if your resolve is as deep and permanent as Eli Pierce's. In the Church we ask for faith, not infallibility. Here are five things to remember when trouble strikes. They are among the most fundamental truths of a gospel-centered life.
1. Pray earnestly and fast with purpose and devotion. Some difficulties, like devils, do not come out save by fasting and by prayer. Ask in righteousness and you shall receive. Knock with conviction and it shall be opened unto you.
2. Immerse yourself in the scriptures. You will find your own experiences described there. You will find spirit and strength there. You will find solutions and counsel Nephi says, "The words of Christ will tell you all things what you should do" (2 Nephi 32:3)
3. Serve others. The heavenly paradox is that only in so doing can you save yourself.
4. Be patient. As Robert Frost said, with many things the only way out is through. Keep moving. Keep trying.
5. Have faith. "Has the day of miracles ceased? Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them? Or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved? Behold I say unto you, Nay; for it is by faith that miracles are wrought; and it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men." (Moroni 7:35-37)
Yes Parley was right, "Lettie, we're broke but we are not licked."