Chapter 12: Missionary Men

“Is that the Titanic?” asked Jaedin, tapping me incessantly on the shoulder to make sure I had actually regained consciousness.

I picked my head up off the desk; the computer screen was chock-full of the letter “s” – which had apparently been my last keystroke before giving up a fight with drowsiness the previous night. It took me a minute to recall where I had left off.

“The Titanic?” I asked.

He pointed to a black and white photograph of Hamp holding a life ring on the deck of a ship.

“Oh, that,” I answered him, “No, that’s actually another ship.”

He looked disappointed.

“But I did find a connection,” I said, trying to regain his interest, “Check this out!”

I showed him the online encyclopedia article about the SS America, formerly known as the SS Amerika under a German flag. Jaedin was appreciably interested to discover that Grandpa’s ship was the very vessel that had first sighted and sounded the ignored warning of the iceberg that sank the Titanic. As I recounted further details about the ship, though, I lost his attention yet again. He ran out the door and I dove back into Hamp’s mission journal on my own, immersing myself into the streets of New York during Thanksgiving week in 1930.

~~~~~~~~

Hamp and his traveling companions – a handful of missionaries about to be dispersed all across Europe – have arrived in the newly coined Big Apple with three days to spare before they set sail. Their arrival in New York City is accompanied by excitement but also by an overwhelming measure of trepidation; the bustle of the big city stands in stark contrast to the largely agrarian economy of the Salt Lake Valley.

As soon as they check their bags into their hotel, they hit the streets to take in as much of the city as they can. When they stop at a nearby hot dog stand, the vendor can’t stop talking about the disappointing baseball season; they get an earful about the fact that Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth – who had made back-to-back World Series appearances just a few years before – have now been shut out of the World Series for the second time in a row. The vendor is furious as he slaps the condiments onto their hot dogs. Though Yankee Stadium has just been locked up for the winter, they can see it in the distance and are in awe of its sheer scale. Hamp points out the nearby Chrysler Building in an attempt to change the subject, but he can’t seem to get a word in, so the missionaries walk away while the vendor keeps right on fuming.

The newly completed Chrysler Building has just finished basking in its short-lived glory as the world’s tallest building. “Boy, what a building!” Hamp notes later in his journal. Gleaming in the sunlight, the Art Deco ornamentation of its crown is certainly awe-inspiring to the Utah sightseers; just a few blocks away, however, an army of 3,000 laborers scrambles around 86 floors overhead, having robbed the Chrysler Building of its title with still twenty floors to go. The Empire State Building will forever transform New York City’s famous skyline on its completion; already, the Mohawk iron workers waltzing effortlessly across the girders draw crowds of spectators along the streets below, the missionaries among them.

While the construction process makes for a spectacular sight in itself, this spectacle is just the beginning: The overly optimistic architects have incorporated mooring masts and walkways into the planned superstructure to serve as a transatlantic terminal for dirigible parking. Perhaps the missionaries’ return trip will be by Zeppelin! Though their vision is a bit premature, they imagine a triumphant return three years down the road, being welcomed back onto U.S. soil after walking across the gangplank on the 102nd floor’s landing platform. What an entrance that will make!

Meanwhile, the missionaries get themselves lost a time or two while wandering around town, nearly tripping on the curbs and narrowly missing cabs and buses as they cross the streets with their eyes fixated on the surrounding sights. Street names they have only read about in the newspapers suddenly appear on the street signs all around them.

Wall Street is spewing out ticker tape again, yet a financial recovery is still nowhere in sight. The stock exchange has just rung in the one-year anniversary of Black Tuesday, and many investors are still reeling from the shock of the crash. The voices that initially predicted a quick turnaround have now been silenced. Wall Street had been resilient in the past – after all, stock prices had rebounded quickly after the still-unsolved Wall Street bombing several years before. It had been the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, but the traders had mopped up and managed to reopen the stock exchange the very next day. This descent, however, is no mere bump on the graph paper; it is becoming painfully apparent that the nation’s financial machine will be bogged in for the long haul.

Despite the dismal financial scene on paper, the iconic signs of the Great Depression – soup kitchen queues and hobos hovering around burning barrels – are hidden away from the entertainment district and its bustling façade of wealth. In contrast, bright electric lights beckon along the prominent promenades; with a few days to kill, the elders follow the crowds and take in as big a taste of the excitement as they can swallow. The missionaries find that the longest lines are not for government handouts but for the cinemas.

Mission rules allow for a large measure of personal interpretation, and missionary life in general is only loosely regimented. Movies, bathhouses, amusement parks, and other activities are among the choices being debated; Hamp pushes for Coney Island, driven by Lindbergh’s statement that its new Cyclone ride was more thrilling than crossing the Atlantic. After some discussion, however, they decide instead to warm up at a movie house. Inside, they peruse a set of options much more abundant than was offered at the old movie house back home in Utah. First they have to decide between the new talkies or the more classic, silent films. Blockbuster talkies are gradually knocking off the silent films at the box office, but not without debate from the stars. The Marx Brothers, for example, have latched onto the talkies to expand their comedic routines, but Charlie Chaplin, for one, is still resisting the trend. He is, in fact, on the opposite coast at that very moment, refining his silent Tramp character on a set that is being built to resemble the very streets of New York.

Finally, the missionaries decide on a double feature. Having just glimpsed an image of New York’s future skyline, they take in Just Imagine, a film purporting to depict New York City in the far distant future: Year 1980. Following the film, they excitedly debate the feasibility of each imaginative stretch. But Hamp is more enthralled with the second film, Hell’s Angels, a Howard Hughes epic that glamorizes the British pilots who fought in the Great War. In particular, he is captivated with the characters who have friends on the opposite sides of the trenches. As he witnesses scenes depicting the moral dilemma of dropping bombs on former friends in a foreign land, little can he know that he will encounter eerily familiar scenarios in less than a decade. The most stirring scenes show the German counterparts obediently jumping to their deaths for Kaiser and fatherland in order to lighten the load on their Zeppelin.

“And we’re supposed to convert these people?” he asks his companions after the show.

These deeper thoughts are soon forgotten as they walk past the exhilarating lights on their way back to the hotel. Big bands and string quartets – hired by Governor Franklin Roosevelt himself to get musicians off the streets – play venues in the parks and surrounding plazas. George Gerschwin and Irving Berlin’s new tunes ring from pianos on all floors of the buildings overhead. On Broadway, Diane Belmont – who will later drop the stage name in favor of her real name, Lucille Ball – headlines the shows.

Rodgers and Hammerstein, having met only once before, are pursuing separate paths at the moment – trying their best to make a lasting mark on showbiz. One result of those efforts, Showboat, is defining a new genre: the musical production. Florenz Ziegfeld’s famous Follies are still in full steam in his new theatre on Sixth Avenue, but after producing Showboat, he recognizes that the embodiment of America’s cultural future lies not in operettas, but in the musical. It is all amazingly opulent in electric light, and the elders are hooked. They scour the Playbill, marking their selections from its diverse menu.

As they take a short-cut to the hotel after a long evening, they cross some of the seedier sides of New York as well. Straggling newsies on the street corners try to sell off their last remaining papers, shouting out any headline that might capture the attention of the passersby. Prominent in the headlines but unknown to the missionaries is Mayor Beau James. Lax on prohibition and harboring a weakness for showgirls, he has proved to be quite popular with the people of New York; the results of his inaction, though, are readily apparent to the missionaries as they traverse the alleyways. Governor Roosevelt, while hiding his bout with polio from public view, has begun a battle to end the mayor’s political career and clean up the streets. Though FDR and his cousin Teddy historically represented opposing political parties, they had both ultimately found themselves waging a vehement, gubernatorial fight against the corruption of Tamany Hall. A guerilla army – viciously opposed to these reforms – still operates actively in hiding from back-alley pillboxes, taunting the missionaries with solicitations along their way. Just as they begin to feel nervous and out of place, the elders spot Lady Liberty and regain their bearings.

Hamp’s journal entry that first night sums it all up: “Quite a town, big buildings, cars, elevated trains, taxi cabs, noises of all kinds, pawn shops, etc. Just like a mechanical toy.”

The next day is Thanksgiving, and – though they don’t admit it to each other – the rookie missionaries all miss their families dearly. Hamp pictures his parents and little sisters sitting down together to a fancy dinner with their best china on the table. His chair would be empty – his photograph staring down at them from the wall. He knows that the blessing on the food and the prayer of thanksgiving would be directed toward him and would be dedicated to his efforts. Would Chick’s heart stay softened? Perhaps he even uttered the prayer himself, finally countering Mimi’s story about the embarrassing rail car blessing in the process. Hamp smiles at the thought but doesn’t dwell on the scene for long as he still has a large piece of New York to navigate.

The missionaries gather for breakfast at their hotel and mutually decide to celebrate Thanksgiving at the Bronx Zoo. They are surrounded by noisy distractions along the way. Upon arrival, they eat chili dogs and Cracker Jack instead of a turkey for their Thanksgiving dinner.

As they marvel at the size of the snakes, crocodiles, and other ferocious beasts that look smugly tame in their cells, they think of their counterparts from the mission home who are at that moment on their way to brand new mission fields in the Amazon Basin.

“Well, despite the Kaiser, I’m glad we’re heading to Europe rather than the jungle!” Hamp remarks.

Many of the zoo’s signature animals are missing, though, having been borrowed for a six-mile jaunt across town in the Macy’s Day Parade. Only a few years since the inaugural parade, its famous balloon characters dominate a procession that has already become a New York tradition. The missionaries only catch a few glimpses of the crowds from a distance; they feel much more comfortable walking along the sparsely populated streets that on this day seem more like the familiar streets of Salt Lake rather than those of a world capital.

Though they only cover a few miles on the streetcars and subways during their stay, they take a big enough bite of the Big Apple to set their heads spinning. It is a taste they will not soon forget. There is so much more to see, but they know they will be back in a few short years to perhaps have a chance to take in some of the sights they missed. They retire to the hotel early and spend their final day studying, shopping, and preparing for the voyage.

Bright the next morning the horns in the harbor begin blaring as they have each day since their arrival; but this time – on their departure day – the signals rouse them from their sleep like a call to arms. They head briskly to the harbor and, after organizing their luggage, walk straight across the gangway through a gate bearing the SS America’s insignia. An excitement fills the air as they board the ship, fueled by the collective hopes and dreams of hundreds of departing passengers making their way to Europe for whatever adventures might lie ahead.

Gambling on who might first emerge from the fiscal abyss, some of their fellow travelers are reversing the dreams of their ancestors by leaving America for the more promising futures offered by Soviets, Nazis and other governing powers that appear to offer redemption from recession.

The missionaries stow their belongings in their cabins and climb the stairs to the upper deck in time to watch the deckhands pull in the ropes. The ship’s horn blares emphatically as they maneuver out of the harbor. The sheer size of the city strikes them all from this vantage point. Seven million souls surround them – more than ten times as many in this single city than in the entire state of Utah.

Hamp is exhausted from his urban safari, but he continues to shoot photos of the skyline until it amalgamates with the waves. As it has for generations, New York City seems to mark the world’s crossroads in this era. If Hamp could have panned around and zoomed further in and out of the various windows of New York City that day, he would have found within this epicenter a treasure of budding, yet untapped talent. Comic strip characters and superheroes are at that moment forming in the minds of a few creative souls confined to the concrete jungle. Emerging actors, artists, politicians, producers, musicians, and other stars in the hundreds are still anonymous but destined to be household names in the years ahead.

As the sea expands and the waves roll ever higher, the landlubbers from the Utah desert begin to lose their equilibrium. They remember all too well the story of the SS Vestris, which had left New York with missionaries aboard just two years before. The ship had begun taking on water in heavy seas; the missionaries jumped into a lifeboat as the ship began its death roll, but the lifeboat had not been detached and was dragged down with the sinking ship. With the fatal headlines of that day still fresh in their minds, the brigade of traveling companions tries to quell their queasy stomachs and uneasy nerves by hamming it up as best they can.

Hamp is proud to give his letterman’s sweater – embossed with its large, golden “S” – some international exposure. While everyone else dresses in suit coats for a group photograph of the missionary entourage, he proudly represents L.D.S. High with his sweater. Not happy with a boring, posed photograph, he then grabs one of the ship’s life rings and holds up his newfound prop so that his companions can look through it like a porthole.

After four days at sea, they make a stop in England to drop off the British contingent, another in France for the French mishes to disembark, and finally into the port city of Hamburg, where the last three missionaries in the group round out their final day of travel by boarding a train to the industrial hub of Leipzig. As they pull into Hauptbahnhof Leipzig, one the largest train stations in the world, the smoky scene seems especially surreal to Hamp. The Salt Lake Union Pacific depot and ten others like it would fit within these walls and still have room to spare. He exchanges money to purchase a postcard, resorting to gestures to make himself understood, and then snaps a few photos for his father, who would surely be impressed by the station’s grand scale.

The fledgling missionaries then catch their connecting train to Dresden, a picturesque city on the Elbe River, where they meet their new Mission President, Oliver Budge. President Budge’s father had been converted by the renowned Mormon scholar, Karl Maeser, and he is noticeably excited to be serving in Dr. Maeser’s hometown.

After their personal interviews with President Budge, the new missionaries stay the night in the mission home. As he retires to bed, Hamp writes his first impressions of Germany in his journal:

Then, perhaps anticipating that Dot might read his journal someday, he adds, “and no good looking girls.”

The next morning, Hamp is shipped off to the small town of Zwickau, where a little old lady named Sister Ewig – who, incidentally, would later convert the Uchtdorf family – feeds the missionaries until they are good and full, then hounds them to eat even more. Despite the hospitality of the local branch members, Hamp feels lost and homesick.

After two weeks, letters begin to arrive from home; rather than providing any solace to his spirits, they leave him feeling even more isolated. As the weeks wind on, however, the homesickness brought on by the stream of letters from Dot, Chick, Mimi, and others back home is gradually replaced with nostalgia. Finally – once he manages to accept his fate – the references to life back home stir only distant memories.

Periodically he receives a telegram from Dresden, packs his bags, and heads to the train station to tackle a new area. In his travels and his daily ministry among the people, Hamp comes to know the minutest details of German life and soon finds himself so caught up in his work among the Germans that he rarely thinks about life back home.

His first public talk in a sacrament meeting is a disaster, but he sets his mind toward bettering his language and speaking skills. He practices hours at a time for his next talk and is eventually able to preach with ease. He finds the German language perfectly aligned with his personality; with its unarbitrary, phoenetic pronunciation, logical rules, and lack of grammatical exceptions, Hamp eventually finds German capturing his thoughts more succinctly than English ever could. In combination with his tall stature, his newly adopted, highly verbose speaking style at the pulpit earns him the nickname The Parson among his fellow missionaries.

Having forgotten himself in his labors, Hamp doesn’t even notice when Dot’s weekly letters become biweekly, then wane to monthly. He continues to write her on a weekly basis, but finally realizes one day that he has not had a response in almost two months. Alarmed, he writes a letter to Mimi asking what is going on. He waits another month to hear back, by this time knowing the inevitable contents of her reply letter before he even opens it.

Sure enough, Mimi admits, Dot had been seen around town lately with Vaughn Winkless. Hamp has never heard of Vaughn nor anyone else in the Winkless clan, but he despises the sound of his name and pictures the creepiest breed of cretin as its bearer. He paces around the apartment the rest of the morning, carrying himself through a repeating cycle of emotions that begins with disappointment, despair, and dismay – then evolves into pain, anger, jealousy, and rage.

He might have been able to deal with a Dear John letter, but the silence seems an even worse betrayal. Each time he goes through the cycle of emotions, however, he finds it a bit easier to bear, realizing that he had actually been preparing himself for this moment for months now, having known deep inside that their relationship had changed in his absence.

Nonetheless, over the next few weeks he feels a lack of direction without his primary letter-writing outlet; he decides to turn his efforts toward his father. Though they have corresponded quite frequently since his departure, the contents of their letters have generally been superficial. Hamp now focuses on writing him a real, soul-wrenching letter, calling Chick to repentance and challenging him to return to the fold. As he sits at the typewriter, he directs every bit of bottled up emotion toward his father. When he pulls the last page of his lengthy letter out of the typewriter, he decides not to even proof read it; instead, he says a simple prayer, licks the envelope, and runs outside to hand the letter to the passing postman, hoping to make the next day’s transatlantic mail run on the SS Bremen.

Over the next few weeks, Hamp anxiously awaits the reply, not knowing whether Chick will be offended, humbled, or annoyed.

Finally one frigid winter morning, the postman knocks on the door of his Breslau apartment. Hamp answers the door in his robe, and the courier hands him an envelope marked Eilbote von Berlin – an “urgent message” from Berlin. Disappointed that it is not a letter from Chick, he sets the telegram aside, thinking it is just another transfer letter, and gets dressed for the day. Finally he sits down for breakfast and opens the telegram, curious to find out where he might be heading next. It reads:

Hamp stands up so quickly in response to the shock that it knocks his chair to the floor. He begins to pace anxiously back and forth across the kitchen with his thoughts racing, trying to imagine what might be going on at that very moment half a world away. He feels horribly inadequate, helpless, and alone. With his mind still spinning, he has not even had a chance to fully let the news sink in when another knock comes at the door. It is another Eilbote. The telegram reads:

He immediately loses control of himself and collapses on the floor. Her words can only mean one thing, and it crushes Hamp’s soul. He can hardly fathom the notion that the first word from Dot in six months turns out to be in the form of a cryptic obituary notice!

He finds himself caught between conflicting emotions; all of a sudden, the petty squabbles of romance seem insignificant. In a single instant he has become the man of the house – albeit a far-distant house – and the mantle descending onto his shoulders weighs him down against the cold floor. After a period of near-unconsciousness in a prolonged, prostrate position, he forces himself to sit up and huddles against the hearth, suddenly feeling an overwhelming sense of responsibility for his mother and his two little sisters still at home.

It already seems too much to bear by the time a third knock rattles the door; this time Hamp cannot stand to answer. His companion, Elder Ross, greets the postman at the door to sign for the final Eilbote. Though Hamp tries to refuse accepting the reality of it all, the finality of the news comes crashing down on him as he reads President Grant’s words confirming the worst:

The rest of the morning Hamp alternates between episodes of lying in bed shaking and pacing back and forth across the apartment like an invalid. Finally Elder Ross convinces him to go outside and walk it off. Hamp complies and goes about the remainder of the day in a daze. At last, when evening comes, he returns to the apartment to pour out his soul in his journal:

He debates returning home himself to take care of matters but then comes back to his senses, knowing that he couldn’t possibly arrive in time for the funeral.

For two long weeks he waits to hear the circumstances of Chick’s death and any word of the funeral proceedings. Finally one evening, after returning from a priesthood meeting in which he had forced his way through the delivery of a talk, Hamp finds a letter from Mimi in the mailbox. He tears it open in the dim stairwell, nearly tripping as he tries to read it on his way up the creaking stairs.

In the letter, Mimi tells of how Chick went in for what should have been a routine surgery. Before the anesthesia took effect, Chick had reportedly turned to Mimi and said, “You know, I believe Hamp is right. I’m going to quit smoking and give Heber a heart attack by showing up in Church on Sunday.”

Hamp stops dead in his tracks and has to put the letter down when he reads about the effect his call to repentance had had on Chick. He enters the frigid apartment and stares out the window, trying to come to terms with what he is reading. He winds up the phonograph to let the big band music drown out the wind whistling through the corridor while Elder Ross fires up the hearth. Finally he sits down at the table to finish reading the letter, including Mimi’s detailed description of the funeral service – leaving Hamp feeling more alone and isolated than ever before. Once again, he turns to his journal afterwards:

He wonders aloud to Elder Ross whether Chick would have actually followed through on his deathbed repentance and quit smoking. He had felt so sorry for Gordon over the loss of his mother just a few short years ago, but now in his depressed delirium, Hamp begins to feel that Gordon had it easy; after all, Gordon could rest assured of his mother’s place in the heavens. But in Chick’s case… Hamp’s thoughts begin to spiral out of control as he recalls being in the temple without his father’s presence. Perhaps God would forgive the smoking, but had Chick knowingly and willingly turned his back on his own eternal family while the prophet himself was calling him to repentance right before his eyes? Surely that warrants a strike from the swift sword of justice. Would God in His mercy overlook his faults and usher him through, or did the grim reaper just harvest himself another victim? Hamps heart jumps wildly back and forth between these scenarios, longing for answers from above.

If only he could have faced his father directly just one last time – perhaps armed with the new-found doctrinal commitment he had acquired as a missionary he could have swayed him before it was too late. Hamp knew that he had procrastinated thousands of opportunities to confront his father in person before his mission; each chance now flashes into his mind and weighs him down with an unbearable burden. Why hadn’t he at sent his rebuking letter earlier? In the midst of this guilt-ridden, depressive episode, his zealousness gets the better of him, and he begins to feel that Chick’s death might mark an eternal chasm that will forever tear their family apart.

He vows silently to himself never to pick up a cigarette so that his own children would not have to bear such a burden as this. Chick’s own father had died just before Hamp was born, and Hamp had always felt cheated not to have known his grandfather; Hamp lets the long-term implications of his fresh loss run wild through his mind, realizing that his own children would likewise never know their grandfather.

Meanwhile, the phonograph has slowed to a stop. He winds it up again and puts on one of his favorite tunes, the recent Bennie Krueger hit, I don’t know why. The song’s lyrics only widen the gaping hole in his heart by reminding him of Dot, who had left him much more slowly than his father. That gradual loss now descends on him all at once, right on top of his mourning; the compounded, double impact seems too much to bear. While Elder Ross stamps tracts in the other room to keep busy and stay out of the way, Hamp feels entirely alone and abandoned.

As evening turns to night, however, the music crackling from the phonograph eventually begins to provide a bit of solace and companionship. Hamp continues with his journal entry, trying to extract something positive out of the situation by making himself another promise:

Armed with this commitment, Hamp emerges from his depression over the ensuing weeks with a more positive perspective for his Weltanschauung. Though he has committed himself to completing his mission and is on his way to clearing away the emotional obstacles related to Chick’s death, other factors affecting his ability to make good on that commitment spin out of his control. The worldwide depression has continued with no sign of a recovery; the situation affects every missionary, but the financial implications are especially overwhelming to Hamp. With the source of his mission funds threatened, nothing seems certain. Chick had luckily carried enough clout with the railroad to avoid the layoffs that had affected so many others, but Hamp now wonders incessantly whether Mimi can continue to support his mission with the Union Pacific’s pension.

Mimi’s next letters are more logistical and less emotional than her report of the funeral; to Hamp, though, the business-oriented letters contain a measure of relief in quelling his nagging uncertainty. Hamp discovers that during his absence, Chick had been hosting dignitaries from around the country – including famous explorers and aviators – through his role as a civic club leader. As it turned out, the circle of friends he had gained through these efforts repaid him handsomely after his death by donating to a trust fund in his behalf. Mimi and her lawyer had been sorting through the logistics for several weeks; the outcome, she was pleased to report in her letter to Hamp, was that they would be able to cough up just enough to see his mission through – but at the expense of the plan to meet him in Berlin.

Hamp is certainly relieved to hear that his mission is not in jeopardy, but at the same time he is quite disappointed to hear that Mimi and Margaret will have to forego their dream of traveling to Europe. He had assumed that his own plans for post-mission travels would likewise have to be nixed – until he finds a second letter in the envelope. It is a note from Margaret letting him know that she will contribute what remains in her savings account toward his travels. She doesn’t have enough to get herself a transatlantic passage, but she hopes it will at least allow Hamp to see the parts of Europe that lie outside his mission boundaries. “Just be sure to take some pictures for me,” her letter reads.

Hamp is humbled; he knows how hard Margaret has been working to save extra money for her trip. He will have to shrink his planned circle around Europe to fit the reduced budget, but he starts making detailed plans that will stretch Margaret’s funds to take him as far as he can possibly go.

Slowly and steadily over the next few months, Hamp again becomes overwhelmed with his work and loses himself in it. Though thoughts of his father often spring back into his mind unannounced, the emotions gradually subside, and life returns to the prescribed routines of missionary life. News from back home eventually begins to focus less on Chick’s death and more on everyday life.

Hamp is excited one day in particular to get a letter from Homer. He rips open the letter and is happy to hear that Homer and Gordon have finished their schooling at the U. That in itself is a feat; the same depression-era economy that has made it arduous to finance a three-year mission is making a university education equally difficult to finance. Even rarer in these days is the young man who manages to do both. While many university students have been dropping out of school to pursue a meager income through menial labor, Homer and Gordon had persevered with their fortitude and frugality, allowing them to turn in their mission applications as fresh university graduates. Hamp is further thrilled to read that they received their calls at the same time to the same mission: their destination is England, where Rulon is currently serving.

~~~~~~~~

In a dingy apartment overlooking the Liverpool docks, Rulon is also delighted to hear about their mission calls, but his mood is soon swayed by the arrival of a package from Leo. Her enclosed letter bears news of a death that absolutely devastates him; though it is a merely a figurative death, it has hit Rulon as hard as any real obituary.

“L.D.S. High is now a thing of the past,” Leo’s letter reads. “We were hoping against hope until the last minute that a donor would step forward but to no avail. It sure made for a gloomy mood on campus these last few weeks.”

As her letter chronicles, the Church Board of Education had held an emergency meeting to decide the fate of the school. The Church had already withdrawn its financial support from most of its other schools in the wake of the depression, but many Church officials held the gem of the L.D.S. in special regard, resulting in particularly heated discussions about whether to prioritize the dwindling tithing funds in its favor.

According to the official meeting minutes, Brother David O. McKay and other allies had put up “a vigorous fight” for the preservation of the school, but by the end of the meeting, Commissioner Merrill, President Grant, and other board members had gained the necessary majority to end the discussion. The matter was closed, the paperwork was signed, and the L.D.S. ultimately fell victim to the budget’s guillotine. Trained in shorthand at the very school they were closing, Leo simply couldn’t believe what she was recording in her meticulous meeting minutes.

With the doors closing, she reported to Rulon in her letter, graduation had been a somber ceremony indeed; the school song was a requiem, the processional march a dirge.

Though he is generally stoical by nature, Rulon is visibly saddened at Leo’s account of the graduation ceremonies. His sadness, however, quickly turns to vexation; he wrinkles up her letter, then smoothes and flattens it out to read it again, wishing beyond hope that it weren’t true.

The accompanying package also contains a copy of the 1931 L.D.S. High yearbook – the final edition capping nearly a half-century of annuals. As he thumbs through the pages of the “S” Book, the full burden of the institution’s financial failure lands on Rulon’s shoulders like a load of bricks. He had taken the school’s fiscal well-being as his own responsibility; likewise, he now considers its failure his own shortcoming.

The last page of the yearbook, like an epitaph for the institution, shows a full-page image of the Salt Lake Temple – viewed from the L.D.S. campus commons – with the following, indelible caption:

He closes the back cover in frustration and pushes the book away from himself for added distance, but his chair keeps him captive, and he can’t help staring at it from across the table. He wishes he could walk the campus one last time the way he remembered it: alive with its student body; didn’t the campus belong to them, after all? Instead he now pictures a ghost town in the temple’s shadow, perhaps vulnerable to a wrecking ball even before his return. Will it take on another form? Will there be a return to its former glory with all of the familiar traditions? Or will it just fade into the past to be forgotten by future generations who wander around whatever institution might replace it without any inkling that there had once been a celebrated campus under their feet?

With that prescient thought in mind, he can’t imagine how he will ever face up to the failure by setting foot again in Utah. He had trusted in the Lord that all would be well in his absence. Now he doubts his original decision; perhaps he should have stayed home to help keep the school afloat. But it is too late; not even his financial wizardry can save the institution now. He places the book on end and stares at it from across the table; it looks disturbingly like a tombstone for the school.

“Rest in peace,” he says to himself. Though he would rather fling the book out the window, he packs it away and decides instead to channel his energy into his study and his missionary efforts. He begins to attack each day with an increased fervor, but he finds that his attitude toward the work has changed fundamentally.

As the weeks disintegrate into the past, burning Leo’s hard-earned cash in the process, his approach to proselyting becomes argumentative, nearing on combative. He feels like a man with no fear; realizing he has nothing to lose, he brazenly goes about contacting priests, pastors, ministers, theologians, scholars, politicians, and anyone else who will grant him an audience.

This new application of his gifted mind and memory enables him to recite endless scriptural references verbatim without ever having to open his books. He keeps up the press until his opponents either concede defeat or merely cannot summon the effort to continue the fight. Encouraged by these perceived victories, he feels more empowered every day. He finds this encouragement liberating enough to motivate him to stand up – literally on his soap box – in the market place to try and rouse the masses with his street preaching. Like his mentor George Romney, he thrives on the opportunity to engage unsuspecting passersby in lively debates in the public forum.

Rulon keeps meticulous records of his achievements. His reports catch the eye of his mission president in London, the Apostle John A. Widtsoe, who promptly calls him as an assistant. Rulon’s financial skills quickly earn him the role of mission treasurer, following in the footsteps of Elder George Romney and others who had received their training in L.D.S. High’s economics classes. Rulon still manages to break away from his office duties as often as possible, carting his soap box to Hyde Park to engage in rhetorical arguments about any doctrinal point that might precipitate an opponent from among the crowd.

As time goes on, though, he finds that the arguments are becoming easier to win – not necessarily because of his increasing prowess, but rather due to a paradigm shift among the people. Even among the clergy, attention is quickly shifting toward politics, and the finer points of religious doctrine become less relevant in the public eye. As Rulon goes about his debates, holding firmly to his views on the trinity, priesthood authority, infant baptism, resurrection, and other topics, he finds that the only resurrection people want to debate is that of the German war machine.

~~~~~~~~

Hamp continues his ministry in Germany, observing completely ordinary sights destined to be catalysts for the cataclysmic events of the near future. He serves in the major metropolitan cities in the expansive German state of Silesia as well as in the surrounding countryside, where he has the opportunity to visit counts in the castles, farmers in their fields, and pastors in their parishes.

In one Silesian village, he even meets members of the von Richthofen family – relatives of the Red Baron himself – who continue to honor their fallen, local hero despite his Jewish ancestry. Still under the illusion that their nobility will save them from the rising storm, they fail to recognize that their feudal titles are part of a dying caste system.

The missionaries are generally well received among the locals, many of whom take them for cowboys from the Wild West. Romantic as it seems to the missionaries to see peasants tilling the crops around fairy-tale castles, even the foreign visitors recognize that the new Nazi banners flying from the turrets represent a viral system that simply cannot coexist with the status quo.

One hot afternoon in the summer of 1932, Hamp and his companion visit the border town of Gleiwitz, where, according to the church records, a single church member supposedly resides. They wander through the market place and finally locate the address, then try in vain to convince the elderly lady who answers the door to make the two-hour rail journey each Sunday into the nearest branch in Breslau; she politely declines but quickly softens their hearts by inviting them in for a hearty Silesian lunch.

After the meal, they move to the Stube – her sitting room – and the discussion turns to lighter topics. Hamp points to an accordion in the corner.

“Can you play us something?” he asks.

“Oh, I don’t play much anymore,” she remarks, “at least not since I got my new radio.”

“That’s too bad,” Hamp says, “I’ve always wanted to learn an instrument myself.”

“Well if you want to start with the accordion,” she says, “you can take it with you for the trouble of wasting your whole day trying to rescue a hopeless old woman.”

“Are you sure?” asks Hamp, thinking about how proud Mimi would be if he were to surprise her by coming home as a trained musician.

“Quite sure,” she says, turning on the radio, “I get all the music I need by turning just one knob – why bother with all of those buttons on the accordion?”

Hamp picks up the accordion and starts pressing some of its buttons.

“Besides, they’re now building the radio tower even higher,” she remarks, “They’re calling it the Silesian Eiffel Tower. Just imagine that – the tallest wooden structure on the planet, right here in little old Gleiwitz!” She points out the window, and the missionaries spot the tower on the hillside.

The simple structure looks harmless enough with its countryside backdrop; the soothing Silesian music it emits – with its blend of Slavic and Prussian influences – is entrancing but equally benign. No one could have imagined at that point in history that the very same radio transmitter would in just a few short years broadcast the ludicrously false report that the Poles had attacked Germany’s borders, “justifying” the first shots of World War II – a conflict that would ultimately bury almost 100 million victims and, in the process, erase every trace of Silesia from the map of Europe.

“Well I do appreciate it very much,” Hamp says, squeezing the accordion and emitting some truly awful notes in the process.

The old woman laughs and turns up the radio’s dial. “We’ll need that stronger signal to drown out your playing!”

“Well I promise to practice until I’ve mastered the instrument,” Hamp says with his right arm raised.

The missionaries leave the humble home with a prayer and make their way back to their apartment, with Hamp schlepping along his new accordion. Along the way, they pass through the tiny Silesian village of Leobschütz, where a young Jewish girl named Stefanie Zweig plays with her Gentile friend Dietlinda Geissinger outside the synagogue. Hamp will one day cross paths with them again in an unrecognizable world turned entirely upside down.

For now, however, Silesia sleeps in an idyllic slumber, and the populace is yet unaware of the calamity about to descend on them. Border-region farmers bring their goods to market while the Gleiwitz radio tower broadcasts barely believable stories about the Germans’ peaceful intentions and camaraderie with the Poles. Just across the border in a rural village outside of Krakow, a pensive 13-year-old named Karol – destined to be the Venerable John Paul II – questions the propaganda spewing from Gleiwitz. He watches with disgust as the people are lulled into complacency while the intolerance rises all around them, fearing what the future might hold for his native Poland.

After learning to love the Silesian setting and finally feeling at home there, Hamp is transferred to Rathenow, just outside of Berlin. “Not such a hot city, but it will pass with a shove,” he disappointedly records in his journal that night. For the first time, he is paired with a native German companion, Herbert Schreiter. They are an odd match from the beginning – “Herbie” being the shortest and Hamp the tallest of all the Mormon missionaries in Germany at the time. Although they draw laughs walking down the street together, this ridiculously mismatched pair – despite their contrasting backgrounds – share between them a unique ideology. They quickly become not just assigned companions but pals as well.

Hamp’s proficiency in German certainly receives a boost from the pairing; it is one thing to meet with German people over lunch and recite talks from a sacrament meeting podium. But to spend every waking hour with a native German is an entirely different matter, and Hamp thrives on the experience. Through their relationship, Hamp also begins to appreciate and love the German people even more. When they speak of the past, the American high school experience – epitomized by Hamp’s involvement in social clubs, sports, dances, and other activities at L.D.S. High – is completely foreign to Herbie.

Herbie teaches Hamp a few tunes on the accordion, much to the dismay of their neighbors. Hamp, in kind, tries to show Herbie and the members of the Rathenow branch how to play football, basketball, baseball and other American sports. Despite his stature, Hamp is a bit awkward at sports and doesn’t manage to fool the Germans by posing as an expert.

They often discuss the changing political scene and wonder whether they might someday face each other on the battlefield. It is a terrible but real prospect – foreshadowed by the increasingly growing rift between the German and U.S. politicians.

They still hope for the best, but the words of their ecclesiastical leaders give an equally bleak outlook. In a 1932 General Conference address that reaches the elders in print a few weeks later, Hugh B. Brown sounds an alarm that leaves his wife Zola wondering whether the blessing Rulon received in her home will, in fact, come to fruition, or whether the raging cloud will swallow the missionaries whole. Citing letters from Elder Widtsoe, who is witnessing the building conflict first-hand as a mission president in England, he entitles his talk with an Old Testament quote: “Blow ye the trumpet…sound an alarm…let all the inhabitants of the land tremble.” In his address, he quotes further from Joel:

It is certainly a hopeless message, but some of those listening to his admonition think he surely must be exaggerating the European conditions. Continuing his address, he says:

Though alarm bells are sounding with these prophetic words, in general, the chaotic political scene is confined to newspapers and radio broadcasts. Meanwhile, missionaries in Germany continue to eat in Jewish restaurants and buy clothing from Jewish department stores.

~~~~~~~~

In the midst of this tumult in Germany, Homer and Gordon board the SS Manhattan and make their way to England. They devote themselves whole-heartedly to their ministry but do not initially see much success springing from their toils. In his proselyting, Gordon has no trouble expressing his convictions – he is as bold as ever – but he begins to question whether he is making any difference at all. The fruits of his labor are nowhere to be seen; he wonders whether his time – and his university degree – might have been put to better use in earning money to supplement the family finances rather than drawing from the already near-empty coffers. Frustrated with the seemingly insignificant results of his efforts, Gordon writes to his father, Bryant, expressing some thoughts about the futility of the work.

Famously told by Bryant to “forget yourself and get to work,” he dives head-first back into his efforts, drawing a second wind from thoughts of his eldest brother, whose desire to serve his country had robbed him of the chance to serve a mission. Gordon considers his promise to visit Sanford’s graveside before returning home. How can he stand at that cross if he willingly gives up his own fight here? It is unthinkable; with that renowned resolution, he takes up his own cross and takes on a new attitude that is contagious to his companions as well.

While ministers wage war against them in the press, Gordon, Homer, and a handful of other young missionaries try to replicate the miraculous, mass conversions that had transpired on the same soil a few generations before. Borrowing Rulon’s soap box, they begin – at first a bit timidly and then rather boldly – to electrify and agitate the crowds with their street preaching in Hyde Park.

Homer and Gordon also serve in Liverpool, where they try to out-shout the fish vendors at the market. They begin knocking doors in the back alleys and, in the process, witness the seedier sides of Britannic life. The fairs, the freak-shows, and the pubs add to a clamorous atmosphere that makes Salt Lake City seem exceptionally dormant. Homer finds the raw music that emanates from every street corner to be quite invigorating; it contrasts with his classical training but seems honestly expressive. Rulon had heard the same music and was sickened by the environment from which it sprang, spawning thoughts that – once encapsulated by Liverpool’s famous Fab Four – would someday prompt him to preach racist ideas about the origins of the evil back-beat.

As was the case with Rulon, both Homer’s and Gordon’s organizational skills are noted by the mission leadership. Owing much to the knowledge and skills they had acquired at the L.D.S., they are soon sent back to headquarters to help the maestro conduct his orchestra from the pit. It is a daunting task that includes consolidating and organizing remnants of previous mission headquarters in Preston, Liverpool, and Birmingham. With these efforts underway, they then embark on a public relations campaign intended to give the Church a voice in the press.

~~~~~~~~

Across the channel in the Kaiser’s dwindling realm, Hamp is wrapping up his mission in the capital city of Berlin. The purported Thousand-Year-Empire is yet in its infancy, and the streets of Berlin are full of people who are hysterically enthused to be participants in the historic events. Dozens of political parties vie violently for the upper hand, and political placards are posted on every imaginable surface. In the excitement of the race, many contestants unwittingly trample each other underfoot.

The debauchery and decadence that had defined Berlin during the Roaring Twenties never really disappeared during the Great Depression but merely moved underground. Now that the new economy is booming, these forces have reappeared, competing with the nationalistic interests for their part in the cityscape.

Hamp and his companions take in one show in particular – a show that would have been innocent enough back home, but which has added elements that surprise the missionaries, prompting them to walk out and commit to avoiding the venue in the future. The real-life stories that would inspire Cabaret and other period pieces are being written all around them. Along its seedy streets, Berlin’s night clubs are now blatantly promoting promiscuity, homosexuality, and prostitution.

Recognizing that right-wing religious zealots – even those not politically aligned with the Nazis – will welcome cleaner streets, the Nazis immediately take action, rounding up the sinners and closing the clubs. In doing so, they receive tacit support from the churches and manage to hijack the issues for their own, much more deeply disturbing, purposes. The bloodied and beaten club owners, patrons, and performers await an unknown fate in newfangled concentration camps whose ultimate purpose has not yet been revealed.

In the meantime, LDS Church members are caught in the confusion along with the rest of the Christian churches. Sure the Nazis might catch a few Jews in their dragnets during the roundups, they argue, but at least they are ridding the streets of homosexuals and prostitutes in the process. Glad to see those elements routed from the streets, and in accordance with their articles of faith, Church members in Berlin justify remaining subject to their new rulers even after the Nazis rise to power. Armed with further propaganda proclaiming that the Nazi Party had single-handedly ended the Great Depression, LDS proponents of compliance make a formidable case against those who favor opposition.

A young LDS Boy Scout named Helmuth Hübener is caught in the middle of these conflicting loyalties. His eventual excommunication, execution, and exoneration would define the dichotomy of the day so consummately that authors, screenwriters, and Hollywood producers would take note for decades to come – casting Haley Joel Osment in his role almost 75 years later.

While native German Church members are forced to choose sides, the foreign missionaries go about their work, oblivious to the political maneuverings. In fact, the day of Hitler’s Machtergreifung – his infamous power seizure – the official mission history relates only a “childish” squabble between branch members that requires the intervention of the mission president.

On occasion, missionary tracts are confiscated, and a few beatings are reported here and there. The mission office files one complaint to the authorities that two elders were beaten by a Nazi thug using his belt buckle. The perpetrator is reprimanded and the elders receive an apology.

As the notorious scenes associated with Hitler’s consolidation of power – including the Jewish boycott, the Reichstag fire, and the book burnings – unfold around them, the missionaries focus their efforts on trying to keep the branches running. Hamp snaps a few photos out of mere curiosity but doesn’t bother noting much about the political strife in his journal – that is, until one particular morning, he and a handful of other missionaries go to their favorite restaurant for breakfast and find the entrance blocked.

Peering over the gathering crowd, Hamp can make out the word Juden and a large Star of David that have been painted on the window. The residents seem genuinely infuriated; rather than combating the racism and injustice, however, the city’s populace appeals to the city officials out of mere annoyance for having to change restaurant venues. It is not much of a backlash, but the Jewish stores eventually reopen in response to the public reaction, and the residents – including the missionaries – take this as a sign that their voices are being heard. Unwittingly, they then sit back while the dark forces behind the initial boycotts gather increasing strength behind the scenes.

Confident that the turmoil will pass, President Budge keeps his eye on the Church’s future growth. He sends missionaries as scouts to Poland, to the Baltic States, and to the Balkan Peninsula. His scouts are dispatched to the outer grasp of the scattered Soviet republics to return and report on any prospects for the Church in each respective area. They use the East Prussian island enclaves of Danzig and Königsberg as their operating bases on the eastern frontier and venture into areas yet to be dedicated by Church leadership for the preaching of the gospel.

Just a few hundred miles away from mission headquarters, millions of Ukrainians are starving in the Holodomor, prompting uprisings that are being brutally suppressed; those who survive have to resort to thievery and cannibalism. The accounts are denied in the state-run press, but the missionaries see the first-hand horror for themselves. After reading the reports of his scouts, detailing the truly appalling conditions just to their east, President Budge considers Stalin to be a greater threat to humanity than Hitler. He decides that the time is not right to begin harvesting the scattered tribes from beyond the mission borders and refocuses his efforts on strengthening the German stakes.

Meanwhile, as Hamp and his companions dine at the reopened restaurants and read the daily newspaper coverage of Soviet purges, pogroms, and manmade famines, they find the German government propaganda machine proclaiming that a similar fate will strike Germany if the communists get their way. The Nazis promise that they are the only alternative to this decline into barbarity. Those who wish to believe the message do what they feel they need to do and justify one small decision after each increasingly larger step – ultimately ending up as complicit partners, entwined in an ideology that would have rattled their collective conscience had they taken a few steps back along this course.

As he finishes his mission, Hamp is not worried in the least about the political scene. He is entirely confident that the lessons learned in the Great War will manage to prevent its sequel. Ever since that horrible conflict, graffiti messages all over Germany proclaim Krieg nie wieder – “to war no more.” To Hamp it seems to be such an obvious, prevalent wish; the carnage of millions of war dead less than a generation before embodies mistakes that a civilized society couldn’t possibly repeat. While some are alarmed at the pace of the growing air force and other German military buildups, Hamp feels that this new arms race will at least keep the world powers in check; he can’t begin to fathom the hard reality that other, more skeptical sources are now beginning to recognize.

In this spirit, Hamp travels to Berlin for a mission conference. It is June 26, 1933; his time has expired, and he sits down with President Budge for an exit interview at the conclusion of the conference. Almost three years before he had sat across the desk from President Budge in a similar scene, but at that time he had been utterly overwhelmed – illiterate and as inconversant as a toddler. This time – with thousands of new relationships and a complete mastery of the language under his belt – he gives a contemplative, comprehensive review of his mission. President Budge asks pointed questions about Hamp’s individual accomplishments, prompting memories of the many souls he had touched and those who had likewise touched him.

While these memories are sweet, there is yet an air of disappointment. Hamp had grown up hearing stories about missionaries converting droves of Europeans – whole villages in fact. As President Budge cites a few statistics related to his service, it is hard for Hamp to swallow the actual, dismal results as presented numerically. Granted, there have been a few individual conversions, but Hamp feels a bit disheartened when he thinks of branches like Naumburg – where he had devoted so many months of his life – that are now closed. Things certainly hadn’t gone the way he would have imagined.

Much as he hates to lower his expectations, though, with President Budge’s help he begins to focus on his personal growth and is actually quite pleased with the accomplishments in the end. He has become sharply organized and an effective leader and administrator. More importantly, he has gained many interpersonal skills that will help him form and keep countless more relationships in the future. To top it off, his dedication to the gospel is incomparably stronger than it had been just a few short years before. In the meantime, he has learned to love the people, the language, and the culture of Germany. Sensing a deeper purpose in his original mission call, he finally sheds any air of disappointment that he hadn’t been called to England with his other friends.

Just as he begins to feel better, though, his heart sinks again. “If only I could have taken this testimony back to my father,” he says glumly.

“Cast those thoughts far from you, dear Elder,” President Budge says with a consoling tone, “We all have to grow up one time or another. You just had to do it more quickly than most. Like Paul of old, you came here a boy, but you leave a man.”

After a handshake and a heartfelt hug, Hamp feels elated. He leaves the office and closes the door behind him – a civilian once again. With two hundred dollars in the bank and sixty days before his ship sails, a world that stands full of promise but teetering on the brink of chaos is at his feet. Wherever it might lead humanity in the longrun, he intends to see it all for himself in the meantime.