Comments on: Southwestern States Mission: Deaths of Children and Parents at Home

By: Edje Jeter

Edje Jeter — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 14:45:42 +0000

Mark: thanks for sharing.

I don’t know what the policies are or have been about missionaries temporarily leaving the field.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:02:47 +0000

My grandmother died in March 1949, about six months before my father finished his service in the Canadian Mission. A few months before her death, he was able to travel back to Arizona to see her. I don’t know how common that was in those days, or if it’s ever permitted for young missionaries now.

If it was an exception even then, perhaps it was granted because my dad had already spent three years separated from his mother during his military service during and following World War II. But I’d be interested to know if there were others who were able to travel home mid-mission to visit dying relatives–and if there were any standard policies for such situations.

On a mostly irrelevant tangent, my dad said the trip home was by air–in noisy, uncomfortable, un-pressurized DC-3 aircraft that made a dozen stops between Toronto and Arizona. The trip back was by train–quiet, comfortable, elegant.

By: Edje Jeter

Edje Jeter — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 03:21:41 +0000

Amy, Ardis, and Bruce: Thank you for your comments and the additional information.

By: Bruce Crow

Bruce Crow — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 01:26:34 +0000

I’ve seen some missionaries in Tennessee describe how they or their companions dealt with death at home. Their reactions ran the whole spectrum.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 21:50:26 +0000

One of my companions lost her father a week or two before we were transferred to be companions. I’m afraid I was very little — even no — help to her. I was barely hanging on myself, and I had no idea how to help her, nor was their any concern expressed from mission headquarters. Sister N. spent most of that month in bed, and I spent most of it at the table, reading Les Miserables. Neither of those options were available to traveling elders — I wonder how they coped.

By: Amy T

Amy T — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 19:46:54 +0000

Oh, so sad. This reminds me of several posts on Bessie's blog, Ancestral Ties. It's so very tragic to lose a child at any time, but being on a mission means that there's a good chance the person can't be present for the mourning rituals, which would tend to complicate what can be an already complicated grieving experience. John Morgan lost a child while he was serving as president of the Southern States Mission, but he was able to return home for the funeral. He had just returned to Chattanooga after taking some emigrants to Colorado when he received news that one of his daughters was ill. He got on the train for Salt Lake City and as he traveled across the country he received telegrams in Memphis and Kansas City telling him about her worsening condition and then about her death. He said:

Received a telegram at 1 p.m. that my dear little Flora was dead. She was born on the [19] day of [September] 1882 and died at 11:05 a.m. on the 1st inst. A bright, beautiful child that my love and affections clung to as strong as the bonds of death, but we had to give her up for the time to claim her in the morning of the first Resurrection. My heart seems almost broken at the thought that I could not be with her.

And here's one other story about the death of a missionary's child. This is from the point of view of the missionary's sister, writing to him in New Zealand after his three-year-old son died in an accident. (Mellie Groesbeck Morgan Letter to Joseph S. Groesbeck, 1890) Oh, it's all so sad. Bessie put that letter on her blog after my sister lost her daughter in a similar accident, and although it's been more than two years now, we all still have such tender emotions about her death.