![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2025\/01\/Martha_and_Abner_Howell__public_domain_.jpg\")
<\/a>(public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A new article appeared earlier today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cSmall Hinges, Great Doorways: How Some Descendants of an Enslaved Youth Unexpectedly Became Prominent Utah Citizens,\u201d<\/a> written by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw<\/a><\/p>\n Abstract: A vivid illustration of how \u201cthe doorways of history turn on small hinges\u201d is found in the Howell family tradition about Wilford Woodruff\u2019s short stay at the home of slaveholders in the South, where it appears he may have taught a 14-year-old enslaved boy named Jackson Howell. Decades later, Jackson\u2019s son Paul C. Howell would migrate to Utah and become a prominent citizen of Salt Lake City. Later, Paul\u2019s son, Abner, would serve a unique mission and would continue to speak and serve in the Church. Several Church leaders played a key role in the story of the Howell family throughout the years when priesthood and temple restrictions remained in place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dr. Bradshaw\u2019s article was accompanied online by\u00a0\u201cInterpreting Interpreter<\/em>: A Hinge for the Howells<\/a>,\u201d which was written by Kyler Rasmussen<\/a>:<\/p>\n This post is a summary of the article \u201cSmall Hinges, Great Doorways: How Some Descendants of an Enslaved Youth Unexpectedly Became Prominent Utah Citizens<\/a>\u201d by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw in Volume 63 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>. All of the Interpreting Interpreter<\/em> articles may be seen at https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/category\/summaries\/<\/a>. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter<\/em> series is available at https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at The Takeaway<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Bradshaw tells the story of Abner Howell, a prominent African American Latter-day Saint in the early 20th<\/sup> century. Bradshaw proposes that Abner\u2019s grandfather may have been a slave boy that Wilford Woodruff recorded teaching in Arkansas in 1835, and presents new records that shed light on Abner\u2019s mission to reactivate Black members in various parts of the U.S.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We said our final farewell to my wife\u2019s ninety-eight year-old father today<\/a>. \u00a0It was a wonderful funeral, full of tears and humor. \u00a0As I\u2019ve said many times before, the funeral of a good person can be one of the best, most inspiring, and most humbling meetings that we have \u2014 and my father-in-law was a remarkably good man in every respect.<\/p>\n The only thing that went awry was that one of his sons, who had flown over from his home in the Washington suburbs of Portland to be with his clearly dying father and then to assist with funeral preparations, became very ill last night and was unable even to attend his father\u2019s services today. \u00a0That seems to me deeply sad. \u00a0What it meant was that his wife had to read his remarks today and that, in his stead, it was I who dedicated and consecrated the grave in the Salt Lake Cemetery.<\/p>\n Only a few feet to the east from where the burial took place today, which was amidst the graves of other members of my wife\u2019s family, is the unostentatious marker of Harold B. Lee, eleventh president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>. \u00a0And maybe about a hundred feet further eastward from President Lee\u2019s grave is the small but moving monument shown above. \u00a0Here\u2019s some background on my interest in it:<\/p>\n Back in 2013, I was moved by the obituary notice for Matthew Stanford Robison that appeared in the\u00a0Deseret News<\/em>: \u00a0https:\/\/www.deseretnews.com\/article\/682084\/Obituary-Matthew-Stanford-Robison.html<\/a>\u00a0 I saw that notice at just about the time that a national atheist organization \u2014 in what was plainly intended as an in-your-face jab at the benighted Latter-day Saints \u2014 was very publicly planning to hold its national convention in Salt Lake City, and I commented on it in a blog post, as follows:<\/p>\n I know the arguments against theism reasonably well, and I don\u2019t discount their force. \u00a0By natural temperament, as it happens, I\u2019m more inclined to skepticism than to faith. \u00a0There are legitimate reasons for disbelief, though I ultimately find the reasons for belief more persuasive and find belief itself far more \u00a0satisfying. \u00a0What I\u2019ve never understood, though, is how some people can seriously claim that atheism represents\u00a0good news<\/em>. \u00a0I can understand coming sadly to the conclusion that life is purposeless, that the cosmos doesn\u2019t care, and that, at death, we and our loved ones cease to exist. \u00a0I simply can\u2019t grasp why anybody would find this a message to be enthusiastic about.<\/p>\n I simply cannot imagine a more glorious, joyous message than the one that is implicit in the grave monument shown above. \u00a0Certainly the message that we\u2019re here briefly, pointlessly, and then rot, that all human relationships end in death if they haven\u2019t already ended before, doesn\u2019t quite compare. \u00a0And almost every other message or fact seems trivial nonsense by contrast.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I can\u2019t help but think of my father-in-law\u2019s passing as a liberation. \u00a0He had become very deaf, and his vision became poor. \u00a0And, in his last months, his mind was noticeably less clear. \u00a0He has now burst through those limitations.<\/p>\n But back to today\u2019s funeral. \u00a0At the conclusion of her remarks, my wife read a poem that has been credited to Henry Van Dyke. \u00a0Many of you will, no doubt, be familiar with it. \u00a0It expresses very well my own view of the subject:<\/p>\n I am standing upon the seashore. She is an object of beauty and strength. Then, someone at my side says; \u201cGone where?\u201d And just at the moment when someone We had a service at the graveside, following the funeral at the mortuary chapel. \u00a0My father-in-law enlisted in the Navy in 1945, when he was eighteen. \u00a0But his service was cut short by, among other things, the surrender of Germany and the capitulation of the Empire of Japan. \u00a0Accordingly, he was never particularly proud of his military career. \u00a0However, his family requested a military honor guard, and I must say that I was impressed by it. \u00a0(It was a Navy group, but one of his granddaughters is an active-duty Air Force officer currently stationed near Washington DC and, happily, she was allowed to participate with the honor guard, in uniform.) \u00a0I wish that we had done the same for my own father\u2019s graveside service. \u00a0He was already serving in the Army when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and he remained enlisted \u2019til the conflict was o\u2019er \u2014 that is, until the end of the Second World War, by which time he was attached to the Eleventh Armored Division of General George S. Patton\u2019s Third Army.<\/p>\n The chaplain of the Naval Honor Guard recited a poem that I had never heard before. \u00a0However, I was able to track it down online, and I found that it was written in May 1942 by one Sherman Walgren<\/a>, who was (along with the future stage and screen actor Jason Robards<\/a>) a sailor aboard the cruiser USS Northampton<\/em>, which was sunk by Japanese torpedoes on 30 November of that same year at the Battle of Tassafaronga. \u00a0Here is the poem that was recited early this afternoon:<\/p>\n What is it the billowing waves impart, The salt spray stings on the naked cheek, Was it centuries since we sailed away For gone are the lonely nights and the days And tho the sailor sails the seas My father-in-law has gone home. \u00a0We will sorely miss him. \u00a0If, however, there was ever an honorable return, his was one. \u00a0May his memory be a blessing.<\/p>\n \u201cEpisode 8: What was the Cost of Being a Witness?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Once again, in a bid to support teachers and students of the 2025 Come, Follow Me<\/em> curriculum, which turns shortly to the translation of publication of the Book of Mormon, the Interpreter Foundation is making materials from its Witnesses film project as available as possible to the public. \u00a0Here, for example, is a short-video feature that we think some of you might find interesting. \u00a0And we encourage you to share it further:<\/p>\n Witnesses of the Book of Mormon\u2014Insights: What price did the witnesses pay for being witnesses\u2014and for never denying their testimonies of the Book of Mormon? This is Episode 8 of a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. . . . These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses<\/em>, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. This week we feature Gerrit Dirkmaat, Associate Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. For more information, go to <\/span>https:\/\/witnessesofthebookofmormon.org\/<\/a><\/span>. Learn about the documentary movie Undaunted\u2014Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em> at <\/span>https:\/\/witnessesundaunted.com\/<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0 A new article appeared earlier today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: \u00a0\u201cSmall Hinges, Great Doorways: How Some Descendants of an Enslaved Youth Unexpectedly Became Prominent Utah Citizens,\u201d written by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw Abstract: A vivid illustration of how \u201cthe doorways of history turn on small hinges\u201d is found in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":41257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38387,56,25382,38390,38393,4003],"class_list":["post-108722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abner-howell","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-henry-van-dyke","tag-sherman-walgren","tag-the-ship","tag-witness"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>
\nA ship at my side spreads her white
\nsails to the morning breeze and starts
\nfor the blue ocean.<\/p>\n
\nI stand and watch her until at length
\nshe hangs like a speck of white cloud
\njust where the sea and sky come
\nto mingle with each other.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThere, she is gone!\u201d<\/p>\n
\nGone from my sight. That is all.
\nShe is just as large in mast and hull
\nand spar as she was when she left my side
\nand she is just as able to bear her
\nload of living freight to her destined port.
\nHer diminished size is in me, not in her.<\/p>\n
\nat my side says, \u201cThere, she is gone!\u201d
\nThere are other eyes watching her coming,
\nand other voices ready to take up the glad shout;
\n\u201cHere she comes!\u201d
\nAnd that is dying.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nand repeat and repeat with each dash
\nWhat is the pounding in my heart?
\nI\u2019m sailing home, at last.<\/p>\n
\nand the wind sings in the mast,
\nbut it only sings because it knows,
\nI\u2019m sailing home, at last.<\/p>\n
\nOut of the harbor there,
\nor was it only yesterday
\nI don\u2019t know, nor care.<\/p>\n
\nmid tropical isles alone
\nand gone is the hunger countenanced there,
\nAt last I\u2019m sailing home.<\/p>\n
\nand in distant places roam
\nThere is no \u201ccall\u201d that\u2019s quite so sweet
\nas the call \u201cI\u2019m Sailing Home\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/a>