Graduate School and Early Family Life

     In the Summer of 1958, we were back in Banida helping on the farm during the summer break from graduate school at WSU in Pullman, Washington.  Here you see a remarkable group of children, just before Linda was to be born that July.  Amy is in front and back in the baskets are Susan and Stephen. Can you imagine any cuter kids than they?

     The bicycle (and who knows what happened to it later?) is a used, 3-speed Schwynn that I remember buying for $25.00.  I used it throughout graduate school so that Barbara would always have a car available should she need one for utility or emergency purposes.  I scouted out what route I should take from our married students’ housing to the campus and the seminary and institute building in order to avoid the steepest hills and it worked very well in all kinds of weather.  As far as I knew, it was the first bicycle that students were riding on the hilly campus of Washington State University.  I started using it in 1957 when we first arrived in Pullman and it provided good, inexpensive transportation and exercise through graduate school.  I could park it anywhere and because of its condition, I never worried about anyone wanting to steal it.  Three years later, there must have been at least a hundred other students who followed the example and were riding bicycles to and from classes at the university.

     We then moved to Moscow, Idaho and I continued riding the same bike during our first two years while serving as Director of the Institute at the University of Idaho in Moscow, as well as Director at the Salt Lake Institute adjacent to the University of Utah and frequently, even while serving in the Commissioner’s office down town in the Church Office building I would ride the same means of transportation.

     Back then, I think a lot of people thought it was really strange for any faculty member, or other professional, to ride to work in such a way.

     Finally, after those three years at Washington State University, graduate school came to an end.  Dad and Mom drove clear up to Pullman to be there for the graduation.  I was flattered that I was offered a contract to remain at WSU as a faculty member for a salary that was about 30% higher than what I would receive remaining with CES and the Institutes of Religion.  I thanked them but turned down the offer.

     I was invited to become the Director of the Institute of Religion adjacent to the University of Idaho at Moscow.  This institute of religion was the first to be established by the Church way back in 1927.  As I recall, J. Wiley Sessions became the first Director and then, for the 28 and half years, preceding mid-year of 1959-60, Brother George S. Tanner had served in that capacity.  For many, he had become an “institution.”*

     I should point out that Dan J. Workman, Barbara and their family accepted the assignment to come graciously to Moscow and covered for one semester as interim director in order to permit me to finish my PhD research dissertation at WSU without interruption since I was in the middle of it.  We then traded places and he began his graduate school at WSU.

     Brother Tanner was considered by many to be quite an intellectual Gospel scholar and there were some who were sad to see him go. A sister Stephens, the wife of the obstetrician that delivered Douglas, said to me shortly after we arrived that she really admired and appreciated Brother Tanner.  He was so intellectual.  She said that she was reminded of him when President John F. Kennedy quipped at a special luncheon in the White House in Washington D.C. for winners of the Nobel Peace Prizes that, “There had never been an assemblage of more talent in that room since the time that President Thomas Jefferson dined there alone.” 

      He had been among some Institute of Religion men who went back to the University of Chicago to receive graduate training under a variety of Biblical scholars.  I am sure that there were those that thought I was quite young, inexperienced and would have to prove if I could anywhere nearly “fill his shoes.”

      We moved to Moscow, Idaho in the summer of 1960 to begin our time serving as Director of the Institute of Religion.  We made a down payment with money saved during graduate school, on an older two-story frame home at 409 Lewis Street (as I recall the address).  Douglas had just been born bringing our number of children to five.

     It was in November of 1960 that I was called to be the Bishop of the Moscow, Idaho Second Ward which served the single and married students attending the University of Idaho.  

     

    Barbara served as Relief Society President with two of the student wives as counselors and one as secretary. In the picture from left to right:  Joanna Barney, secretary, Connie Wright, second counselor, Sharon Gillette, first counselor and Barbara, president.  Amy was the first child to be baptized in that ward since the children of the married students were all younger.

     Here is a picture of the Bishopric of the Moscow 2nd Ward of the Lewiston Idaho Stake. On the front row are left to right are: George Willmore, 1st Counselor, myself, and Larry Moore, 2nd Counselor. On the back row from left to right: Gary Burton, Financial Clerk, Jon Huber, Records Clerk, and one I don't recall.