Personal History of H. Clay Gorton

Born 7 March 1923

I have compiled several journals through my life, but they are more in the form of diaries, recounting daily events. I have been encouraged from time to time to record some of the more significant events of my life, so I will now attempt to do so. At this writing, 1995, I am in my 73rd year, but some events remain as vivid as the day they happened. These are the ones I would like to record.

First, concerning my joining the army during the Second World War— I had completed one year of college, 1941-42, at the University of Idaho, Southern Branch, and during the summer of 1942 I worked as a laborer on the construction of the Farragut Naval Training Station on Lake Pend O’Reille in northern Idaho. Having decided to join the Army Air Force, I thought I would like to get whatever protection the Church had to offer. So I asked my bishop if I could be ordained an Elder and go through the temple. He replied, ‘‘we can’t ordain you an Elder.’’ I asked, ‘‘why not?’’ and he said, ‘‘because you don’t pay your tithing.’’ (Since my father was not a member of the Church and Mother did not work outside the home, the subject of tithing never came up.) So I said to the bishop, ‘‘If I pay tithing on all the money I earned this summer and then promise to continue paying tithing for the rest of my life, could I then be ordained an Elder?’’ He replied, ‘‘I don’t know, I’ll have to ask the stake president.’’ The next week he reported that I could be ordained. So I was ordained an Elder and received a recommend to the Salt Lake Temple.

I joined the Air Force on Monday, November 4, 1942, so on the prior Friday my father accompanied me to Salt Lake City, and on Saturday I went through the temple, while Dad waited outside.

I must confess that I knew practically nothing about the temple and its purposes, but as I sat in awe in the creation room waiting for the session to start, I asked the Lord if He would let me know if this work were really true, and that if He would, I would dedicate my life to His service. At that moment there came over me a feeling that I had never experienced before in my life, and but few times since. I received an overpowering impression that indeed this was the work of God and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was all that it claimed to be. I knew with an absolute knowledge from that time forth that this was the true Church. There has never been since that experience the slightest shadow of doubt in my mind on the subject.

After the temple experience, Dad went home and I spent the weekend in Provo visiting friends at BYU. On Monday morning I returned to Salt Lake City to report at Ft. Douglas when the thought occurred to me that I didn’t have a patriarchal blessing. So, in my ignorance, I went into the Church headquarters at 47 East South Temple Street and told the girl at the desk that I wanted a patriarchal blessing. She informed me that a person who had his office on that floor was a patriarch and maybe I should talk to him. I went into the office of Frank B. Woodbury, who I recognized as one of the temple workers on the previous Saturday. I requested a patriarchal blessing and he asked for my recommend. I said, ‘‘Do you need a recommend for them too? I’m about to join the army, won’t my temple recommend do?’’ He allowed that under the circumstances it would be all right, and asked me to take a chair. Before beginning the blessing he said, ‘‘if there is any particular blessing that you would like to Lord to give you, just ask Him, and if it’s his will He will inspire me to give you the blessing.’’ I thought that that was a pretty good idea, so I asked the Lord about what I should know about my future wife and family. Brother Woodbury pronounced a rather long blessing, ending with the following paragraph ‘‘I seal upon you the blessings of life and health and I seal you up against the power of the destroyer, that you may overcome every doer of evil and every obstacle that would hinder you in the accomplishment of your mission, that you might live upon the earth to fulfill the mission for which you have been sent here, to bring souls unto Christ and to help to prepare the people to unity and to faith for the coming of the Savior.’’ He then paused for what seemed to be a long time and then continued, ‘‘You shall be blessed in your labors and in your home where you shall have the inspiration of the Lord to be with you, and as you go forth and seek for the companion for your life’s work seek the Lord to guide and direct you that you might find the companion who will be most suitable for you, with whom you may go forward and accomplish your life’s mission, with whom you may establish in your home the proper environment for the training and for the development of the choice spirits waiting to come upon the earth that they might come through the proper lineage to which they are entitled and receive the proper training and environment to prepare them for this great latter-day work.’’ He repeated the sealing paragraph in these words, ‘‘I seal upon you these blessings and seal you up to come forth in the morning of the First Resurrection, clothed with glory, immortality and eternal life, and with your companion to rule and reign in the house of Israel forever.’’ Again the same feeling came over me that I had felt in the temple, and I was reduced to tears. I knew that my prayer had been answered and that the words of the patriarchal blessing came from the Lord. I have had complete confidence in it since that time, as will be borne out later.

I was assigned to Shepard Field, Texas for basic training. We went to Church in Wichita Falls. On one occasion that fall there was a branch conference there, and Elder Harold B. Lee, of the Quorum of the Twelve, was the visiting authority. During his talk he said ‘‘be kind, forgiving, and overlook the faults of others.’’ For some reason that phrase impacted me greatly, and I have tried to keep it in mind and live by it ever since.

On another occasion at Shepard Field I was playing table tennis with some of the soldiers. One young man impressed me very much, and I decided I’d like to get acquainted with him. So when we were both off the table at the same time I went over to the coke machine and got out a couple of bottles, went over to him and said, ‘‘here, have a coke.’’ He replied, ‘‘No thanks.’’ I said, ‘‘Why not? It’s really hot in here.’’ He said, ‘‘I don’t drink coke.’’ Surprised, I asked, ‘‘Why not?’’ He said, ‘‘because I’m a Mormon.’’ I felt about two inches high, and from that day to this I have never tasted another coke.

I took a General Classification Test at Shepard Field and received a score of 144, which was high enough for me to select whatever field of specialization I liked. The most technical field appeared to be the weather service, so I chose that and was sent to Chanute Field in Illinois to go to weather school. In March of 1943 I was sent to San Francisco to work in the Army-Navy Weather Central as part of the 4th Army Air Force. After getting settled I applied for Officer Candidate School, and since the 4th Air Force had to send four men from the area overseas each month, since they were going to lose me anyway, they transferred me to Alaska.

I arrived, as I remember, in October of 1943, and was stationed at Elmendorf Field in Anchorage. While there I worked part time in the parts department of Alaska Airline. I also met and started going with a girl by the name of Marjorie Robinnette, who was not a member of the Church, but who attended Church with me. After a year I was transferred to Cold Bay at the end of the Alaska Peninsula, which was considered as part of the Aleutian Islands. Since there was no civilization there except the Air Force Base, I bought a violin and some instruction books and tried to learn to play the violin. I practiced several hours practically every day for a year, but it was a lost cause. I never could master the thing.

Shortly after joining the army I determined to go in a mission when the war was over. In preparation, I sent $40 a month home to build up a missionary fund, and would order three church books from Deseret Book Co. in Salt Lake. When starting the third book, I would order three more. In this way I tried to learn a little about the Church, and build up a bit of a library.

After a year in Cold Bay my number came up for rotation back to the States. However, although I had become engaged to Marjorie Robinnette, I had the feeling that since she did not belong to the Church, marrying her would not be the thing to do. I did not want her to feel rejected, so I never told her my feelings, but decided to try to emphasize our differences and maybe she would decide that she didn’t want to marry me. So I declined the offer to return to the States and continued my service at Elmendorf Field. After a couple of months she commented that if we couldn’t get along any better than we were, perhaps we shouldn’t get married. This was now January 1946. All the Soldiers whose time was up when mine was, had shipped out by boat for Seattle. In Seattle there was a seaman’s strike and they were held up there for two months. Since I now had more service points than anyone else in Alaska I was permitted to return to the States by plane. We flew in a DC-6 to Great Falls, Montana, and from there to the separation center at Greensboro, North Carolina, where I met some of the GI’s who left Alaska at the time I would have gone had I not stayed.

I must admit my inadequacies as a public speaker during my teen years and later. I was so frightened to speak in public that in spite of the bishop’s insistence, I never bore my testimony or gave any other talk at Church. After joining the army I tried to get over that fear, and so would accept invitations to speak in Church. However, although I tried writing out talks word for word, or using notes, or speaking extemporaneously, nothing worked. Every time I got behind a pulpit my heart pounded so loud I was sure the people on the back row could hear it beating.

I was discharged and arrived home on January 21, 1946. The next day I visited with Bishop Frank Kunz and asked if he would send me on a mission. He suggested that I should stay home for awhile after having been gone so long, but I replied that it would undoubtedly take some time to process a call and so why not start now. In those days all prospective missionaries were interviewed by a General Authority, so I was sent to Salt Lake City and was interviewed by Elder Matthew Cowley, of the Council of the Twelve. He asked me where I would like to serve, and although I secretly wanted to go to South America, I said that I would like to go to Germany because that is where the need probably was the greatest. He replied that they were not sending missionaries to Europe yet and I would probably be sent to the South Sea Islands. I didn’t have much hope of being sent to South America since I had flunked a course in Spanish during my one year of college in 1941. What a pleasant surprise it was when my call came to find that it was to Argentina. I was to report to the mission home in Salt Lake in June. Don Colton was the mission home president.

Shortly after I left Alaska, Marjorie also returned to the States, and although her home was in the State of Washington, she moved to Salt Lake City and found a job. That summer she called to ask if I would baptize her. I visited with her in Salt Lake and suggested that she take the missionary discussions before being baptized, which she was willing to do. Before she finished the discussions I left for Argentina. I have never heard from her since.

The Ward organized a missionary farewell Sacrament meeting, and my father, not a member of the Church, and my mother were invited to sit with me on the stand. After the sacrament, the bishop said some kind words about our young missionary, as I was the first missionary called from our Stake after the war, and turned the rest of the meeting over to me. I got up to the pulpit and was so overcome with stage fright that I couldn’t say a word, so after a minute I turned around and sat down, without opening my mouth—the shortest (and most embarrassing) farewell talk on record. The ward also had a farewell party to raise some money so assist me on the mission. Over $400 was donated at the party. Among the donations was $5 given by Brother Thompson, who was the garbage collector in town, and who was very poor. I understood that much of the money donated was given at considerable sacrifice by the donors, and I was impressed to use the money and my time as sacred assets belonging to the Lord for which I had a stewardship. Those concepts helped to keep my mind on the work during my mission.

While in the mission home I read in the Doctrine and Covenants that the calling of a Seventy was to be a standing missionary to the Church, and I was only an Elder. So I went to the Church office building and knocked on the door of one the Presidents of the Seventy. It was the office of Elder Milton R. Hunter. I pointed out the scripture to him and said that I would like to be ordained a Seventy. He replied that that could only be done on the recommendation of my stake president. I replied that I was in the mission home and would shortly be leaving for Argentina. If it was necessary for the stake president’s recommendation, couldn’t he call him on the phone? He did so, received a favorable response and ordained me a Seventy. I was the only Seventy in our group of eight missionaries going to Argentina and three on the way to Bolivia, so probably because of that reason I was called to be the group leader for the journey. We went by train to New York City, which took three days. There we stayed in the Astor Hotel while we secured our visas from the Argentine Consulate. We then boarded the Argentine freighter, Rio Santa Cruz, and started our journey to Brazil and Argentina. The Argentine missionaries in our group were Elders Wallace Bruce, James (Bud) Carrier, Allen Barnes Oliver, Sterling Stott, Keith Thompson, Harold Yancey, Sterling Yeaman and myself. We were 31 days on the ship, stopping at Havana, Cuba; the island of Trinidad, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Montevideo, Uruguay. We arrived in Buenos Aires as I remember on July 15, 1946. On the way down we spent two hours a day as a group studying Spanish and two hours studying the gospel.

At the time of our arrival so soon after the war there were only ten missionaries in the country. So I was paired with Allen Barnes Oliver, assigned as senior companion and sent to the Branch of Saenz Peña in Buenos Aires. About three weeks later, Wendell Hall arrived and we became a threesome. Although we had to speak in Church almost each week, my fear of speaking in public stayed with me. When called upon to talk, I would write out a talk in English, try to translate it into Spanish, have it corrected by another Elder, and then read it word for word in the meeting. I did this for five months until I was transferred to Mendoza. Because of my understanding that I couldn’t speak the language, I purchased a do-it-yourself Spanish grammar and studied the language as much as time permitted each day.  The other missionaries didn’t spend much time studying, but rather spoke as best they could with the natives. They learned the language faster than I did. However, I must admit that by the time I left the mission I spoke well enough that I lost my American accent, and investigators, realizing that I was not Argentina, often asked if I did not come from Spain. That language ability was clearly a manifestation of the gift of tongues since I had proven that by myself I could not learn the language.

In those days in Argentina, the Catholic Church had a powerful hold on the minds of the people, and held powerful influence in both the government and industry. As we began proselyting by handing out tracts in the area, the local catholic priest would follow after us about a block away and collect all the tracts that we handed out.

After five months in Saenz Peña I was transferred in December 1946 to Mendoza and called to be the president of the Mendoza branch that at the time had six members. Robert Rigby was my companion. In March 1947, I was transferred to La Plata and called as the La Plata branch president and president of the Quilmes district. At that time in the mission branch presidents were also district leaders and district presidents were also the zone leaders. In La Plata my first companion was Sterling Yeaman. He had previously been assigned to Fletcher Memmott who came from the colonies in Mexico and was well acquainted with the Spanish language. Since he spoke well he gave all the discussions and carried on all the conversations. Elder Yeaman for nine months had followed him around with practically no opportunity to speak or actively participate in the work.  When I learned that, I never gave another discussion when we were together, and Elder Yeaman performed all the baptisms (few though they were) that we had as a companionship. My other companions in La Plata were Wally Bruce and Howard Marsh.

La Plata was the second largest branch in the mission, with 47 members. All but one member paid their tithing. Visiting that member one day I learned that she didn’t pay her tithing because she had some disagreement with the way I as Branch President was running things. As we discussed the matter it became apparent that her feelings were due to a misunderstanding, and when that was cleared up she went into her bedroom and brought out her tithing which she had been saving since I was called as Branch President.

While in La Plata I became friends with Hugo Salvioli, at the time 16 years old. Together we translated into Spanish The Book of Abraham, and about three fourths of The Restored Church by William E. Barrett, which ran as a serial in El Mensajero Deseret, the mission magazine. We also translated the First Presidency message from the Improvement Era each month.

We had our meals with Hugo’s brother, Rolf, and his wife. One day his wife informed me that her sister, Elsa Pache, was in love with me. I immediately went to Buenos Aires and informed the mission president, President W. Earnest Young, expecting to be transferred to some other town. Instead, he instructed me to return to La Plata and try to get her interested in a local young man. I was aware that Florio de Angelo seemed to like her, so I encouraged his attention, and they began going together. After I left the mission they were married and raised a large family.

In March of 1948 I was transferred to Cordoba, again as Branch President and District President. Thus during my mission I spent 30 months as senior companion, 25 months as branch president and district leader and 22 months a district president and zone leader. When I left the mission in January 1946 we had about 100 missionaries in the country.

My first companion in Cordoba was Russell Cannon and I was next assigned with Lloyd Ray Aston. In Cordoba occurred another spiritual experience that has had the most profound effect upon my life. I was sent to Cordoba to straighten out a difficult situation with the missionaries. I was informed that they were spending much time with the Foot family and doing little proselyting work. The person I replaced, Gordon Larson, had made advances to Edna Foot, a daughter in the home, as a result of which, President Young transferred him to the newly opened Uruguay Mission, and I took his place in Cordoba. The Elders in Cordoba did not take kindly to me when I forbad all visits to the Foot home except for proselyting purposes. It should be explained that the Foot family was one of the few families in Cordoba that spoke English and they were very kind in befriending the missionaries. Unfortunately, the Elders let it get out of control and were neglecting their assignment.

After working in Cordoba for some six months, as I was saying my prayers one evening I received the indelible impression that I was to marry Edna Foot. The experience was similar to the ones I had had in the temple and during my patriarchal blessing. I knew it was from the Lord and that it would come to pass. So I determined to write her a letter and give it to her mother to be delivered to her after they had left the country. Edna’s Father had passed away some months before and she was taking her mother to England. Their passage had been arranged and the sailing date determined. So when the sailing date neared I confided my feelings to her mother and gave her the letter. About a week before they were to sail, her mother approached me and suggested that the least I should do was to let her know my feelings before they sailed, which I determined to do. Immediately afterwards we learned that the sailing date of her ship and been postponed. Now what was I to do? President Young was due shortly for a visit to Cordoba, so when he arrived I explained to him the situation and asked his advise, again expecting to be transferred away. Surprisingly, he told me to remain in my assignment, and since her ship was to sail on the Saturday of the October mission conference in Buenos Aires, and that Elder Aston and I should come to conference a week early and spend some time with Edna, who would be staying with her brother in Temperly, near Buenos Aires, prior to her departure. So we spent three days at the home of her brother, Charlie Foot, made our arrangements for after the mission, and she sailed for England on the appointed Saturday.

I was released on the first of January 1946, and traveled home with Sterling Stott, arriving about January 21, after visiting in Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala and Mexico. In February I received a letter from Edna (we will now call her Podge) in England asking me what I would like for my birthday, the 7th of March. I wrote back that I would like her to arrive in New York.

She had gone to the American Embassy to get a visa to come to the States, presenting her British passport, and was told that there was a quota for Britons and that there would be no openings until the next October. So she returned the next week with her Argentine passport and was informed that there was no quota for Argentines and was given an immediate visa.

She then went to the Cunard White Star Lines to get passage to the States and was informed that all ships were fully booked until next October. At the time she was working in downtown London as translator for a firm, and so she would stop in at the shipping company from time to time to see if there were any cancellations. Near the end of February, she was informed of a cancellation on the Queen Elisabeth, leaving London on March 4 and due in New York on March 7, so she booked passage and sent me a telegram saying she would arrive in New York on the appointed date.

There was no time for a reply, so she came without a response, not knowing if we would be there to meet her. The ship docked in the evening of March 7, and she was informed about 10 pm that passengers could debark or stay on the ship until the next day. However, debarked passengers could not get back on the ship. So she debarked and we got together just before midnight on March 7.

I had borrowed my father’s car and with my mother and sister, Pat, drove to New York, arriving on March 6. We toured through Washington D.C. and then took a southern route home because of the excessively heavy snows in the north that year. We arrived home on March 17.

It had been our plan to be married on April 7, which was her mother’s birthday. I had asked her to see the mission president in England and get a temple recommend before leaving the country. The Mission President was Alma Sonne, who informed her that he could not give her a recommend unless she had been in his mission for a year. We then went to our bishop and stake president and received the same answer. So we went to Salt Lake to inquire of one of the General Authorities how she could get her recommend. We were informed that the only way would be to get a letter of recommendation from President W. Earnest Young in Argentina, which could be honored by our stake president. President Young had been released and was on his way home at the time, so that was an impossibility.

We decided to attend general conference, and on the 5th of April were standing outside the tabernacle when who should walk by but President Young! We explained to him our plight, and while we were talking who else should walk by but our Bishop! So a recommend was immediately facilitated and we were married in the Logan Temple on April 7, according to plan. So I have known from that evening in Cordoba, confirmed by such succeeding events and in accordance with my patriarchal blessing, that our marriage was in accordance with the will of the Lord, was actually under His direction, and undoubtedly had been agreed upon by ourselves and our family unit defined prior to coming to mortality.

We lived that summer with my folks in Soda Springs, where I worked as a painter and a fireman until school started that fall. During the summer I was called to five different positions in the Ward, and was gone from home nearly every night of the week, which did not make things easy for Podge left at home in a strange town and environment.

We entered Brigham Young University that fall and I began to study physics. I was called to be the deacon’s quorum advisor in the 9th ward and then was asked to accept other positions as well. Remembering the experience of the preceding summer, I met with the bishop and asked if it would be all right if while going to school I could have only one church job at a time, to which he agreed. So for two years I was the deacon’s quorum advisor. During my last year I was called to be the first counselor to President Stanley Gunn, the stake mission president.

While attending school, on 1 November 1952, our first son, David, was born, and Podge’s mother, Elizabeth Foot, came from England to stay with us for a year. After being with us for six months I had the privilege of baptizing her. Before she left for England six months later we received special permission for her to attend the temple and be sealed to her husband, Richard Stanley Nelson Foot.

During my junior year I learned of electron-positron pair production in a modern physics class. So I put a piece of photographic film between the poles of a strong magnet and placed it on the roof of the science building for a week, and then developed the film. Surprisingly, we found a pair of exposed tracks that could be interpreted as electron-proton pair production, and my physics professor, Wayne B. Hales, was quite excited about it. He authorized us to acquire some nuclear emulsions—a 50-micron thick photographic film on a glass microscope slide—and extend the experimentation. So Tom Lee and I took the films and the 17-pound magnet to the top of Mt. Timpanogos on the 4th of July and retrieved in on Labor Day. After the film was developed we saw thousands of tracks of exposed film that had resulted from cosmic ray impact on the silver atoms of the emulsion. At Dr. Hales’ suggestion, I wrote a paper on the subject and it was accepted for presentation at the Utah Academy of Arts and Science.

The following year, Bob Willardson, a BYU graduate who was working at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, came by for a visit and left some application blanks with Dr. Hales. He suggested that this might be a good place for me to work and suggested that I fill out an application, which I did. I was invited back for an interview in the fall of 1952, and was hired in the semiconductor physics department based on my work on cosmic ray impacts in nuclear emulsions—employment to start after receiving my Master’s degree scheduled for June 1953. Semiconductors were very new in those days, and although cosmic rays had nothing to do with semiconductors, I was hired because it looked like I enjoyed working with small things.

The Christmas vacation before graduation, 1951, I asked Dr. Hales if we could define a thesis project for my master’s degree, and he suggested that I measure the radioactivity in the atmosphere. (Experiments on the atomic bomb were taking place in Nevada and New Mexico at the time and northerly winds were blowing radioactive dust up along the Wasatch front.) So before graduation the next spring I designed and built the testing apparatus, and that summer Dr. Hales and Forest Staffenson, another physics student, and myself borrowed the geology department’s truck and spent a week camping near Temple Mountain, about 60 miles west of Green River to measure the atmospheric radioactivity near uranium outcroppings and near uranium mines in the area. I had the thesis written and approved before entering graduate school that fall.

During the experimentation, the equipment was run 24 hours a day. Dr. Hales took the day shift, Forrest the evening shift and I the night shift. One morning I went to sleep in the back of the truck that provided about the only shade in the area from a canvas top. We kept the gasoline-powered generator in the back of the truck, and I was exposed to the carbon monoxide fumes from the exhaust. I woke up with a severe headache and for the rest of the day I was about as sick as I had ever been. From then on, the slightest amount of carbon monoxide would give me a violent headache.

We arrived in Columbus, Ohio on June 15, 1953, where we lived for the next sixteen years. Columbus at that time was part of the Great Lakes Mission, and the Columbus Branch met in a small rock chapel on 9th and Indianola Streets, which was built by Archie Brown of stones from the old Columbus prison that had been renovated. The Branch members were a close-knit group and we developed many friendships that have lasted over the remaining years. Shortly after arrival I was called as the MIA Superintendent and then as branch clerk.

In April 1956 the Columbus Branch was divided and I was called as President of the newly formed Newark Branch. Newark was about 35 miles away and the Branch included all of Ohio east of Highway 31 on the east side of Columbus and South of Akron. There were 72 members in the Branch; six lived in Newark and not more than two members lived in any other city. My counselors were James Brown and Fred Bragg, with Paul Berger as clerk. We met in the Grange Hall.

The first meeting in the Branch was on the first Sunday in April and the first ordinance performed was the blessing or our son, Stephen. On Sundays Podge would pack a lunch and after Sunday School, which was held in the morning, we took the children to a park where we had lunch. I then left Podge and the children in the park and traveled to the various towns visiting the members, returning in time for Sacrament meeting at 5:00 pm.

That service continued until the fall of that year when I was called as president of the Columbus Branch, replacing Jim Mortensen, who was called to be the District President. Jim was a person for whom I had great respect, and so I determined to use the same organization as he had, including his counselors. As we went to call one of his counselors we were informed that he was moving to Arizona in three months, and so it was obvious that I had to choose a new counselor. I knew that the Lord knew who He wanted in that position, and it was for me to find out. So I determined to make it a matter of prayer and then to consider each name in the branch directory, writing down the names of all that I thought could serve. I would then go over the reduced list to try to determine which one the Lord would have in that position. As I knelt down to pray, the name of Harold Capener, who at the time was inactive in the Church, came very forcibly to my mind, with the feeling that he should be the counselor. Nevertheless, I determined to go through the planned procedure to give everyone an equal chance. The first name on the list was Wade Andrews. Although I knew him very well, I couldn’t recall who he was, so I determined to return to him and go on to the next name. With the next name I had the same experience. I couldn’t recall who he was; so I accepted the fact that the Lord wanted Brother Capener to serve. The district presidency was meeting that night at the home of District Clerk, McKay Burton, so I went there and told President Mortensen that I wanted Harold Capener as my counselor. He said that I couldn’t use him because he was inactive. I replied that if he would promise to become active and obey all the principles of the gospel, could I then use him, to which he agreed. So we went immediately to Brother Capener’s home to issue the call. President Mortensen said, ‘‘Brother Capener, the Lord is calling you to be a counselor in the Columbus Branch Presidency. Will you accept the call?’’ Brother Capener reacted as if he had been hit in the stomach. He said, ‘‘I can’t do that. I don’t pay my tithing, I don’t come to church, I don’t keep the Word of Wisdom, I don’t keep the Sabbath because I’m building my new home on Sundays.’’ President Mortensen said, ‘‘Brother Capener, we’re calling you to comply with all those conditions.’’ He replied, ‘‘I don’t know, I’ll have to talk to my wife first.’’ At the time, his wife was visiting in Utah, so I suggested that he call his wife on the phone and then give me a ring and inform me of his decision. He accepted the call, and performed admirably as my counselor for a year. He was then transferred by the Agricultural Extension Division of Ohio State University to India to help them develop their agriculture. He remained there for six years. His family were the only Church members in the province of Punjab, and they held home Sunday School faithfully for the six years.  When they returned the Columbus Stake had been organized and Brother Capener was called as a member of the High Council. After about a year he accepted a position as dean of the Agricultural College at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and there was called to be the district president. When a Stake was organized at Ithaca, he was called as the first stake president.

During many of the automobile trips I took while driving around Ohio on Church business I often reflected on what I would do if ever I got in a head-on collision. I determined that if the collision were unavoidable, there would only be time to try to get out from behind the steering while. So, while driving I would practice throwing myself on the seat to the right at the last possible second before arriving at some selected point at which I imagined a collision would occur.

Approximately in September 1956, I was to drive Cal Katzenbach to Mansfield, Ohio, to be ordained an Elder by Brother George Hill, a counselor in the Great Lakes Mission Presidency. After we had finished dinner that evening I asked Podge if she would like to come along. She agreed, so we loaded the three children in the car, picked up Cal and started on our journey. About 12 miles from Mansfield at about dusk we approached a narrow bridge and observed a car coming around a bend toward us from the other side of the river. At the last minute just before entering the bridge we observed that the car was over on our side of the road and that a collision was unavoidable. We met at the middle of the bridge, his left headlight hit about a foot to the right of the center of my car. My skid marks showed that I had applied the brakes about 15 feet before the collision and that I had entered the bridge about four inches from the right railing. The 16-year-old boy in the other car was not injured; Cal Katzenbach, who was sitting behind Podge in the back seat had the skin scraped from his shins, but was otherwise all right. Podge had Stephen, about six months old, on her lap. Both the bones in her right forearm were fractured. Stephen’s head went through the windshield and shards of glass were sticking out of his face, one narrowly missing his eye. Both his forearm and upper arm were broken. David and Debbie were lying in the back of the station wagon. David had a severe whiplash and possible ruptured spleen, but no broken bones. As Debbie, three years old, flew forward she hit her head on the top of the back seat, resulting in a compound skull fracture.

We were taken immediately to the hospital in Mansfield, Ohio. President Hill came that evening and we administered to Podge and the children. As we administered to them they quit crying and went to sleep. After three days we were transferred to the hospital in Columbus. Only Debbie was kept in the hospital. She was seen by a neurosurgeon, who ordered an immediate operation. He found that a piece of bone had penetrated her brain about an inch deep, narrowly missing an artery. The area injured had to do with sensation in the thighs and hips. The doctor informed us that she would have to be on anticonvulsive medicine for the rest of her life, and that we could expect her to have occasional seizures. We again administered to her, and the doctor upon seeing her the next day said that although he couldn’t explain the reason she appeared to be perfectly normal. No medicine would be needed and she could shortly leave the hospital.

About six months after our call as branch president in Columbus it was necessary to replace the Sunday School Superintendent. Since Brother Capener was in charge of the Sunday School I asked him to make it matter of prayer and return to our next branch presidency meeting with a recommendation for the new Sunday School Superintendent. At the next meeting he recommended Jack Baldwin. I countered that we couldn’t use him because he was inactive in the Church. Brother Capener said, ‘‘shouldn't we ask him anyway to see if he would be willing to return to activity and accept the position?’’ So we went to brother Baldwin’s home and reenacted the scene that had earlier occurred with Brother Capener. Brother Baldwin’s response was the same, and he accepted the position, later serving as the first bishop of the Columbus Ward on the Stake High Counsel.

After two years as branch president I was released in October 1958 and called as a district missionary. In February 1961 the Columbus Branch was again divided and I was called as president of the Columbus West Branch. I wanted to call another inactive member, Brother Lamonte Wilde, as the Sunday School Superintendent. When I went to his home, I met the home teachers, Don Mortensen and 12-year-old Jay Lipovitch, at the door. At the end of their visit, Jay Lipovitch was asked to give a prayer and then they left. Brother Wilde, with a lovely active wife and two or three children was at the time a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood. He did not want to accept the call, but I wouldn’t take ‘‘no’’ for an answer. Finally he said, ‘‘why don’t you go home and pray about it, and if you determine it’s the will of the Lord, I guess I’ll accept.’’ I replied, ‘‘I’ll do that if you wish, but I’ve already prayed about and I’ll call you back in a couple of days and ask you to take the position.’’ He then relinquished and said that he would accept the call.

The next Sunday was the first meeting of the new branch presidency, and as we sat on the stand during the Sacrament it came to my mind that we hadn’t thought about getting any speakers for the meeting. So I determined to ask all the heads of the auxiliaries, after they were sustained, to bear their testimonies. I thought I’d better start with Brother Wilde, who had come to Church for the first time in a long while and was sitting on the back row. When he came to the pulpit he told of the experience of being called to serve. He said that while we were discussing the call, the thought came to him that he had been in the Church all his life and had not done as much as Jay Lipovitch, the home teacher that had offered the prayer in his home during our visit. And he said that he was there that day because of the prayer of that home teacher.

I thought that after six months as Sunday School Superintendent, Brother Wilde could be called to be the Aaronic Priesthood advisor, and after six months in that position I could call him to be a counselor in the Branch Presidency. We made him AP advisor after six months, but just as I was going to call him to be my counselor the Stake was organized. Jack Baldwin was called as the bishop and he chose Brother Wilde as his counselor in the bishopric.

The Columbus Ohio Stake was organized in February 1962, by Elder Howard W. Hunter, of the Quorum of the Twelve, with James L. Mortensen as president, Ralph M. Johnson as 1st counselor and myself as second counselor. This was a close-knit presidency, with much camaraderie and many moving spiritual experiences. I was plagued with frequent migraine headaches. We held our stake presidency meetings at 6:00 am on Saturday, and often during the meeting I would begin to get a migraine headache. Not wanting to interrupt the meeting, I would postpone take a headache pill until it was too late and my headache was out of control. The pain was normally so severe that I would be incapacitated—unable to drive home. So I would ask Jim and Ralph to give me a blessing. Each time they did so, as they laid their hands on my head, the headache would immediately disappear, and I would be perfectly normal, as if it had never occurred.

On Saturday, May 17, 1963, we were scheduled to attend a regional welfare meeting in Cincinnati. However, shortly before time to leave, Podge became quite ill, and it was apparent that I could not leave her. I had never missed a meeting of the stake up to this time. But I called President Mortensen, explained the situation, and asked if on their return they would come by the house to help me administer to Podge. Later that evening, I received a phone call from Ralph saying that on their way home, 25 miles out of Cincinnati, they had suffered a head-on collision and that Jim was seriously injured. I immediately left for Cincinnati. Ralph informed me that a lady in her husband’s rental car with power steering, with which she was unfamiliar, had swerved across the road and hit their car head on. The windshield popped out of the car and Ralph was thrown out through where the windshield had been, and landed in the barrow pit uninjured. Jim suffered a broken arm and very severe head injuries.

His wife, Molly, pregnant with their third child soon arrived at the hospital, and I spent the night with Jim and the attending physician, frequently returning to Molly to report his condition and attempt to console her. It soon became apparent that Jim’s injuries were fatal. Shortly before he passed away the following morning, Molly’s sister arrived, and with someone there to support her, I returned home to attend to Podge.

Elder Howard W. Hunter presided at the funeral, and he and I were the two speakers. While there, President Johnson and I asked Elder Hunter when he would like to convene another stake conference to select and sustain a new stake presidency. He replied, ‘‘Oh, I think we’ll just leave the organization as it is until the regularly scheduled conference in September. You two brethren can run the stake until then.’’

In September, Ralph Johnson was sustained as stake president, I was called as 1st counselor and Robert West was called as 2nd counselor. That presidency, with a change of 2nd counselor from Bob West to Leo Bendixen, lasted until February 1968, when President Johnson took a position as Dean of the College of Science at Utah State University.

Elder Thomas Monson, of the Council of the Twelve, called me at that time to be the stake president, and I chose Leo E. Bendixen and J. Boyd Eskridge as counselors. During my administration all the 26 stake presidents and six mission presidents east of the Mississippi River were called to Washington, DC, to make a decision on building the Washington Temple. (I had attended the dedication of the site a few years before by President Hugh B. Brown, of the First Presidency.) The meeting was presided over by President N. Eldon Tanner, counselor to President McKay. He asked us how much we thought the temple should cost. He stated that the Church was not interested in ornate structures, but he said, ‘‘this temple will be in the Capital of the United States, and essentially the capital of the world, and we want it to be jewel of a building.’’ After some discussion, the group suggested a price of 12 million dollars. President Tanner dismissed himself from the meeting, phoned President McKay and returned with approval to build a temple for 12 million dollars.

Stakes were assessed shares to be contributed based on member population and nearness to Washington, DC. Our stake was assessed $64,000. However, the Mission, which included West Virginia, had a large number of members but very little activity, and I felt that they would have a very hard time raising their share. So, on the way back to Columbus, I increased our share to $78,000, which I announced to the Stake on my return.

We determined to solicit contributions on the basis of personal sacrifice. This was based on the premise that we as members were to live the law of sacrifice and that the members would be richly blessed for doing so. I started by interviewing the counselors and clerks in the stake presidency, the stake High Council and the Bishops, asking each one, ‘‘how much are you willing to sacrifice in the next six months for the Washington Temple?’’ We then instructed the bishops and their counselors to interview each ward member on the same basis.

At a high council meeting two months after we started the campaign, we reviewed the situation. Among the leadership that I had interviewed, $40,000 had been pledged. We learned in the high council meeting that seven high councilmen, after making their pledges had received increases in their wages of exactly the amount that they had pledged! I was released before the final count was in, but I understand that our stake donated over $100,000 to the temple.

In the spring of 1969 I received a telephone call from President N. Eldon Tanner, of the First Presidency advising me that I was being considered to be called as a mission president and asked for my response. I, of course, agreed to serve, and was called to preside over the Argentina North Mission, and released as Stake President in May 1969.

In preparing to leave, it was necessary to sell our car, get rid of our dog and cat, and lease the house to someone. We had purchased the car, a station wagon, less than a year before. The scoutmaster in our ward said that he needed a station wagon to take the scouts around, so he bought the car. Our daughter, Becky, was taking the dog for a walk one day, when a lady driving by stopped to admire the dog; and Becky informed her that we had to get rid of the dog because we were going to South America. She immediately came to the house and bought both the dog and the cat. The Monday after our decision to lease the house we received a call from someone working at Battelle Institute in Hanford, Washington, who was being transferred to Columbus, who leased the house from us over the phone, without having seen it. So all the arrangements necessary for our leaving Columbus were immediately taken care of by our kind and loving Heavenly Father.

We arrived in Argentina with our five children on Wednesday, 11 July 1969, to replace Richard G. Scott as mission president. On the following Sunday he had scheduled district conferences in the morning in Mendoza, and in the evening 400 miles away in Córdoba. The experiences of that day are worthy of note, as they clearly demonstrated the hand of the Lord in directing His work.

The Mendoza conference ended at 12:00 noon, and President Scott had planned to drive the 400 miles to Córdoba in time for the scheduled 8:00 pm conference. As we went to leave about 12:30, Sister Scott in attempting to unlock the car door broke the key off in the lock. It took about half an hour to get the door open and we started our journey to Córdoba. Elder Mark McConkie, assistant to the president, traveled with us. As we drove, we discussed the interviews we had had with the Elders. In doing so, it became apparent that a pair of Elders needed to get to the mission home as soon as possible for an interview with the president. So we stopped the car and asked Elder McConkie if he would hitch hike back to Mendoza, find the two Elders and get them back to Córdoba by the next morning.

Traveling on, a motorcycle came from a side road and slammed into a car immediately in front of us. We barely missed being part of the same accident. Since numbers of people rushed out to assist the injured, we traveled on. Soon, however, the differential in the car failed, and we came to a halt. It was determined that the car would only go while accelerating in low gear. So we determined to return to Mendoza. While turning around, the car backed into a ditch and we were stuck. After extricating the car we started for Mendoza in accelerating spurts in low gear. After a tortuously long trip we arrived in Mendoza and stopped at the Automobile Club. President Scott asked me to see if I could get the car repaired while he went off to investigate public transportation. I found that since it was Sunday, the mechanic was not on duty and the car could not be repaired until the next day. President Scott learned that there were no planes, trains or buses leaving for Córdoba that day.

We determined to hire a taxi to take us to San Juan, 100 kilometers to the north, in hopes of catching a 5:00 pm plane from Santiago, Chile, stopping in San Juan enroute to Córdoba. As we were preparing to leave we ran into Elder Dewey Getz and his companion. We told Elder Getz of the plight and our plans and asked him to keep an eye on the car until we could return to get it. We then removed all belongings from the car and transferred them to the taxi and started for San Juan. I remember the trip well since the taxi driver had the radio on and we listened to a live account of the first landing on the moon—Sunday, July 15, 1969.

During the trip Sister Scott became carsick and we had to stop the car several times in order for her to compose herself. We finally arrived at San Juan just at 5:00 pm and pulled into the airport on the entrance to the city, only to learn that it was the wrong airport—the commercial airport being on the other side of town. We raced across the city to the other airport and learned that the plane from Chile was an hour late. We asked about tickets and found that there were four empty seats on the plane. The plane landed at 6:00, loaded passengers and took off for Córdoba, landing there at 8:00 pm. It took us nearly an hour to get our things from the plane and drive across town in a taxi to the Maipú chapel. We arrived an hour late for the conference where 800 people were awaiting our arrival.

Checking with President Fernandez, 1st counselor to the mission president, we were informed that on the prior Saturday he thought that perhaps we might want to take the plane back from San Juan and so had made reservations for four from there to Córdoba, hence the four empty seats.

In the mean time on Sunday afternoon Elder McConkie found the two Elders in question and also found that there was no public transportation from Mendoza to Córdoba that day. While trying to find transportation he ran into Elder Getz on the street (in a city of 650,000 people) who told him of our return to Mendoza and the trouble with the car. So Elder McConkie went to the Automobile Club, found the mechanic and convinced him to repair the car.

In Argentina there are no highway patrolmen, but cars are stopped at Provincial borders and other strategic locations and all pertinent documents are examined by the police. If the documents are not in order the cars are not permitted to continue. When we removed all belongings from the car before leaving for San Juan we overlooked Elder McConkie’s bible, which was still in the car. For some reason, his driver’s license was in the bible, so he was able to pass the checkpoints and arrived in Córdoba at 9:00 Monday morning. Without a doubt, the Lord facilitated the completion of all our obligations.

Many wonderful experiences occurred during our mission. The hand of the Lord was frequently evident in directing the work and blessing the missionaries. Details of our experiences are found in the journal we kept during the mission.

Upon or return from Argentina my job at Battelle had evaporated because of a small electronics recession at the time, so I found employment in Chicago with the Victor Comptometer Company as manager of component reliability. While looking for a house I was invited to live with Bob and Carol West in Naperville. We found a suitable house and sent for the family at the end of the school semester in January 1973.

I was called to serve on the High Council under stake president John Sonnenberg, and taught the institute class for the three years that we were there. About 50 young folks attended the institute class and they voted to continue studies during the summer months, so we taught 12 months a year.

Of the experiences of note that occurred during our stay in Naperville, we will cite the following: On one Sunday afternoon I had contracted a rather severe migraine headache, so I called my home teacher to give me a blessing. He asked the High Priest group leader, Fred Hilliard, to accompany him. The home teacher anointed and Brother Hilliard sealed the anointing. In his prayer he instructed me to get to a doctor to get the proper treatment to relieve the headache. Since I was too ill to drive, they drove me to the emergency room at the hospital. After waiting in severe pain for 45 minutes to see the doctor, he gave me a shot of demoral, which did absolutely no good, and charged me $25. I told Brother Hilliard that normally I would take an acetaminophen tablet and 5 grains of caffeine in half a nodose pill. Taken early enough at the onset of the headache the caffeine, acting as a vasoconstrictor, relieves the pressure on a nerve in the forehead caused by the expansion of a blood vessel, eliminating the headache. Brother Hilliard told me that I shouldn’t take any caffeine since it was against the Word of Wisdom. I asked him to consider carefully what he was telling me, for if he told me not to take the caffeine tablet, since he was my priesthood leader I would not take it, but that it would cost me at least half a day of work a week, and put me in considerable pain. He replied that I should pray about it. I responded that I had already prayed about it, and felt good about taking the medicine. He then said that he would pray about it. Fortunately, he never returned to ask me not to take the medicine.

Two weeks before leaving for my new employment with TRW in Redondo Beach, CA in October of 1975, while lifting some boxes, I severely strained my back and was hospitalized for 10 days. The Sunday following my release from hospital was stake conference, and following the conference I asked Stake President Sonnenberg if he would give me a blessing. He asked Elder Vaughn Featherstone to bless me. During the blessing, Elder Featherstone made two statements that have remained with me—one, ‘‘you have been a fit companion to the Apostles,’’ and two,‘‘your most significant church service is yet to come.’’ I have thought that most significant church service could have been in any one of my subsequent callings, including that of home teacher, depending on how I may have touched the lives of others.

After moving to Torrance, CA I was called as a member of the Torrance North Stake High Council. Eldon Morgan was Stake President. After some time in that position, as I remember, in 1978, I was called as a welfare specialist in the Los Angeles Region by Brother David Clark, functioning under the Presiding Bishopric in the Southern California area. The Los Angeles Region was designated as one of five regions in the Church as a test or experimental area for the new welfare services program. My calling as welfare specialist was later formalized as the Presiding Bishopric Welfare Service Region Agent. I believe that I was the first Region Agent called in the Church since the days of Algernon Sidney Gilbert. David Alger was called as the Region Agent from the Long Beach Region, and with two others from the other two regions in the Southern California Area we participated in the development of the new Welfare Services program, and contributed to the writing of the Welfare Services Handbook.

I was given the responsibility for the Deseret Industries, and met with the D.I. manager monthly to review and approve his operating plans. Up to that time Deseret Industries had operated at a financial loss. We developed some new programs that would aid in rehabilitating the workers and prepare them for employment in the public sector. This included assembling new furniture for one of the furniture businesses and repairing and selling donated automobiles. That year we made enough of a profit to put the entire Deseret System in the black for the first time, being one of four D.I.’s that did not operate at deficit that year. I served as a Region Agent for five years.

After that experience I was called again to the High Council, with George Magnussen as Stake President. While serving on the High Council, as I was driving home one day, the thought entered my head that I was going to be called as the bishop of the Redondo Second Ward. The thought did not appeal to me as I had been away from the Ward for over five years in the Region assignment and was not well acquainted with the members and specifically with the youth. I tried to put the thought out of my mind, but could not. Eventually, I accepted the notion and began to consider who I might use for counselors and other matters of organization. About a month after my first impression of being called as bishop, on a Saturday, I received a letter from Elder David B. Haight, of the Quorum of the Twelve, indicating that the Quorum had approved my call on the previous Thursday, and offering his congratulations. Since I was going on a business trip the next Monday, I took the Ward Directory and the General Handbook of Instructions to work to study on my trip.

At 10:00 am I received a call from President Magnussen asking if I had finished my High Council assignment of organizing the ward conference themes for the next year. I indicated that I had and he requested to see them. I informed him that I was going out of town, but could come home before my trip and deliver them to him. So I met him at my place at 11:00 am. Going up the walk together toward the house, he confided in me that my name had been submitted to be called as bishop and that I would receive an official call when the response from the Brethren would be received. I told him that I had received a strong impression about a month ago that I was to be called and that I had the Ward Directory and General Handbook with me to study on my trip in preparation for the call. I told him the confirmation of my impression was received the previous Saturday and handed him the letter from Elder Haight. He had not received his letter yet, but had called the Church that morning to verify that a decision had been made.

While bishop I assigned as my home teaching companion the oldest priest in the Aaronic Priesthood, and we visited the High Priest Group leader, the Seventies Unit leader, the Elders Quorum president and the Stake President. We always made our visits on the first Sunday of the month. I did this as an example to the priesthood leaders to promote home teaching visits early in the month. Traveling from home to home with my companion, and as appropriate during the lessons, we talked about going on a mission. Although three of my companions were not very active in the Church, all six were called and filled successful missions.