'Hard times' can forge faith

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Church News
'Hard times' can forge faith
By Jason Swensen
Church News staff writer
Published: Saturday, May 30, 2009

Stanley Steadman remembers a day decades ago when he knelt in family prayer with his parents and brothers. Such entreaties doubled as daily lifesavers for the Steadmans, who — likes tens of thousands of other families — were enduring the frigid days of the Great Depression.

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
Daniel and Enid Faust of Taylorsville, Utah, were children during the Great Depression. Despite the economic hardships of the time, members such as the Fausts found spiritual support through faith, prayer and looking out for one another. Such support can be found amid today's economic struggles.

Jeffrey D. Allred
Elder Glen L. Rudd stands outside the Welfare Square silo in Salt Lake City. Elder Rudd is a lifelong witness of the blessings found in the Church's welfare program.

Midway through that prayer, a plaster light fixture broke loose from the living room ceiling, fell to the ground and shattered. Shaken by the unnerving crash, Stanley's brother looked up from his prayer and asked his parents if he should continue.

Yes, they said. Keep praying.

That event seems an apt symbol of the faithful members of that time. Despite the terrible economic crash that occurred as suddenly as that falling light fixture, devout LDS families kept focused on God and endured, day-to-day.
Deseret News Archives
President George Albert Smith, right, Elder Marion G. Romney, left, Elder Harold B. Lee, back left, and Stewart B. Eccles inspect bishops' storehouse in 1946.

For more than a year, a severe global 21st century economic recession has left many shaken and troubled. Comparisons to the U.S. Great Depression that began in 1929 and stretched through an entire decade have become common fodder for news stories. So as financial analysts eye the volatile markets and uncertain job outlooks, Church members once again look for divine comfort and spiritual supplication.

For most, the Great Depression is an unsettling chapter from the history books. But for a small percentage of "veteran" members such as Brother Steadman, those tough times exist in easily conjured memories. Many say the spiritual support that sustained members during the Depression remains available to rank-and-file members today. The lessons they learned then can help others today.

Elder Glen L. Rudd, an emeritus Seventy, knows the story of the Church and the Great Depression perhaps as well as anyone alive. As a young man, he watched desperate workers in his father's poultry business sit down to a lunchpail meal of potato peels. As a priesthood and Church welfare leader, he remembers a time in the Salt Lake Valley in the early 1930s when more than half of the wage earners in the Church were unemployed, including many local priesthood leaders.

"Unemployment destroys a man," Elder Rudd told the Church News. "It tears your guts out if you can't buy food for your own family."

During the Great Depression, the Church inoculated unemployed members from the "curse of idleness" by developing a welfare system anchored in priesthood solutions. Working under the direction of general Church leadership, stake presidents and bishops dispatched unemployed men to work in nearby fields to harvest crops. The produce from those harvests was then shipped to local Church storehouses and canneries to be distributed to hungry members. By staying busy and eschewing idleness, unemployed workers re-discovered their dignity, he said. They felt ownership in providing for their families.
Deseret News Archives
Welfare workers enlisted horse-drawn wagons and plenty of muscle to harvest sugar beets.

The curse of idleness exists today — and members who find themselves without a job may be especially vulnerable. Elder Rudd said men and women overcame the burdens of the Great Depression and remained spiritually strong by staying busy, following the counsel of their priesthood leaders and by never, never giving up.

"All great [men and women] have the ability to keep fighting, to keep plugging away," said Elder Rudd, who will soon mark his 91st birthday and is, yes, still working.

Daniel and Enid Faust are self-described "Depression Babies" who said today's members can realize the caring spirit that defined LDS families and units during the Great Depression.

"Hard times will prove us as a faith," said Brother Faust, who was raised in a Depression-era family that included his late brother, President James E. Faust of the First Presidency.

Deseret News Archives
A team of priesthood holders cuts wood at a work project in the Salt Lake Granite Stake wood yard in 1931.

The Fausts said diligent members remained focused on the dependable force of family and the gospel during the Depression years of frightening instability. Neighbors and fellow ward members looked out for one another. Folks often didn't have the money to be out and about, so they passed their time at home with family. It sounds restrictive, but many were offered a moment of Zion as they found strength through a unified gospel community.

"People were happy," Brother Faust said. "We didn't have much for Christmas, but you had your family. We had family home evening and made music together. One person would play the piano and another would play the violin."

Brother Steadman said his Taylorsville, Utah, community endured tough times by finding joy in simple, spiritual endeavors. "The Church was the key that held it together. It provided spiritual and temporal activities."

The Steadmans were also a musical family. So the brothers were often called upon to perform at ward reunions and parties. Sometimes someone would pass around a hat to reward the boys for their efforts. Brother Steadman's cut was once 40 cents. "That was real money," he said with a smile.

Still, those community activities provided rich respite from the frigid circumstances found outside the warmth of the Taylorsville Ward chapel.

Elder Rudd said the need to care for one another continues today. Some economists may not be labeling the current financial crisis a "depression" — but the sting is felt just the same when an individual is out of work or facing money woes.

"If there are 10 people in a ward out of work, that is just as real as 1,000 out of work people in a community," he added.

Ultimately, Brother Faust said, Church members survived the Great Depression by involving the Lord in their lives. It's a tactic that still works.

"If you have a testimony and you believe in God, you will find out He will help you."
© 2009 Deseret News Publishing Company