In the fall of 1927 (the exact date isn’t clear from the material I have), the Mutual Improvement Associations of Cardston, Albert, held a convention. One of the events of that convention was the following dramatization, written by S.H. Nelson, depicting the history of Cardston, from its earliest settlement down to the dedication of the cornerstone for the temple. The pictures are actual scenes from the 1927 production.
LEE’S CREEK, N. W. T., CANADA, (now Cardston, Alberta), 1887
SCENE 1
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Cast of Characters:
Charles Ora Card, represented by Joseph Y. Card, his son.
Zina Young Card, represented by Athena B. Williams, daughter-in-law.
John Anthon Woolf, represented by Seth H. Nelson.
Mary A. Woolf, represented by Jane Woolf Bates, her daughter.
SETTING: Curtain rises, discovering Brother and Sister Card before the tent door, camp kettle and block of wood with ax, showing also British flag, the Union Jack, above the tent. President Card seated writing in diary.
John A. Woolf and wife Mary entering from left.
Card. June 3, 1887. Camped on the East Bank of Lee’s Creek, North West Territories, Canada, in company with Brothers Woolf, Hammer, Layne, Farrel, Anderson and Leavitt. All well in camp tonight. (Kills mosquito on hand and face, and wife Zina kills mosquito by slapping his bald head. Rises and says:) The mosquitos are pretty bad tonight, aren’t they? (Then addresses Brother and Sister Woolf.) Good evening, folks. How’s Brother John Woolf and how is Sister Mary Woolf? (All shake hands.) Have a chair — no, I mean a box or a log.
Mary. Any kind of a seat at home is better than bumping and bouncing in a spring seat over a rough, unmarked trail.
Zina. Is everybody set for the night?
John. Yes, I think so. We just strolled around the bend and found the horses and cattle all resting quietly.
Zina. You have to watch out or they will get lost in this tall grass.
Mary. The grass is tall, isn’t it? I noticed today that the boys’ stirrups dragged in it as they rode along. Why it’s taller than the sage brush in Cache Valley!
Card. And much more useful, Sister Mary. They told me as I passed through Calgary last fall the cattle wintered out in the most severe weather and they only put up hay against the severest winters. When we were going through British Columbia just before arriving at Calgary an old mountaineer told us of the Buffalo Plains in the British Northwest. I turned to the brethren and said, “If Buffalo can live there the Mormons can.” I feel sure that President Taylor made no mistake when he set me apart to the mission of founding a settlement for our people on British soil and we will not be sorry that we have chosen this part of the Northwest Territories.
John Woolf. President Card, the breaking that has been done by Brother Leavitt, and others, shows that the soil is rich and rather easily prepared for crop.
Zina. And the best part of it is that no irrigation ditches will have to be made.
Card. Brothers Farrel, Hammer, Ricks, and myself went this morning up Lee’s Creek to visit those English chaps. The vegetables they showed us from last year’s garden will satisfy any one that this is a good place to build a home.
Mary. That is the way I like to hear you men talk. Crops and cattle are all right, but what we want is a home, isn’t it Zina? Zina. Of course, we do.
John. Tut, tut. To hear them one would think that we didn’t know how to look after a family. We have already arranged for Mr. Barker to guide us to the timber tomorrow.
Mary. You say one of them is named Barker?
Card. Yes — Barker and Donovan — a couple of cultured fellows, too. They are the border men for the big Cochrane Ranch. They put up hay which they sell to the ranch and keep on hand supplies so that when the cowboys are riding this part of the range to head off the cattle from straying across the line into Montana they will have handy headquarters.
Woolf. We are glad they are here. Mr. Barker has promised to help Brother Miles survey our homesteads.
Mary. Brother Card, did you say we were on the cattlemen’s range? If that’s so, let’s move on. They will surely try to haze us out of here.
Card. No fear of that, Sister Mary. Those Red Coats we saw at the St. Mary’s River ford are the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. They will take care of the cattlemen or Indians or anyone else who would try such a thing.
Zina. Some cattlemen confessed to Charles in Calgary last fall that a settler’s cabin and his little farm were never molested, much as the cattlemen disliked seeing them come into the open range.
Woolf. How far away is this coal town you were telling us of?
Card. Lethbridge? Why about 60 miles northeast, down the St. Mary’s River.
Mary. That is a long way to go for supplies. Card. Yes, but we will soon overcome that difficulty. We will start a co-op store in the way they tell me the merchants down in Montreal started their bank.
Zina. There will be plenty of time to build stores, Charles, when you have built me a house.
Woolf. We will have, to put up a fence or so in a hurry as Henry Matkin and Johnnie and the other boys are tired of herding.
Zina. I think we’ll raise camels so they won’t get so sore footed when they are taken to market. Camels have the right kind of feet for long trips.
All. Camels!
Zina. Don’t you remember what Charles did in Helena to cure the cattle’s sore feet? He dipped them in warm tar and wrapped them in gunny sacks. A dandy way to protect their poor little tootsies!
Mary. Oh, well you can’t say he didn’t try something.
(All laugh.)
Card. Zina, do you think I should patent that idea?
Zina. No, I don’t. But if I had come down the trail from Canada a few days’ travel to meet my family, I would not have disguised as a ruffian.
Woolf. No hard names now.
Mary. It’s a fact, for you heard it yourself.
Zina. Surely you remember what Johnnie said when he saw Charles getting into my wagon.
Woolf. Oh, yes. “Pa, that old stiff’s climbing into Aunt Zina’s wagon.”
Card. Why would Johnnie say that? He has known me all his life.
Zina. That’s easy. When he last saw you, you were a nice gentleman with a well trimmed beard and now, folks, just look at the old Santa Claus.
Woolf. Those weeks of travel and finding a way over unmarked trails were no time to “spruce up,” nor were they a stroll down Logan Main Street.
Mary. My boy, Wilford, asked me today if this was home and when I told him it was he began to cry and said, “If it’s home, well, where’s all the houses!”
Brother Card. Folks, how happy we should be. We can raise crops without digging water ditches, get hay without planting it or going to the mountain sloughs. Our parents broke sod in Utah over one thousand miles from the edge of civilization. We are only a couple of days’ travel from the railroad where we can get supplies and market our products. We are well equipped to build homes and a town. We are strong and well and we are well clothed while they were sore-footed and many of them clothed in buckskin and others in tatters. Tonight we are under the good old Union Jack with a government established in the Territories. They put up their flag with bleeding hearts, for had not its protecting folds been torn from them by unloyal, murderous, desperate men who had robbed and scourged them?
We can call this land home — a land of peace and of plenty — generations of men and women will be born and reared here and will build towns and settlements, for I see before me great waving fields of wheat and corn. — HOME, that blessed retreat for the honest in heart … Listen.
(Singing of “Home, Sweet Home” heard at back.)
Curtain.
A PROPHECY
SCENE 2
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Characters:
Charles Ora Card — represented by Joseph Y. Card.
Pres. W. Woodruff — represented by James C. Cahoon.
(As curtain rises a meeting is in progress. “Come, come, ye Saints” is being sung. As the song closes Brother Charles O. Card rises and speaks to audience.)
Card. Brothers and sisters, we are certainly pleased today to greet our beloved President, Wilford Woodruff. When President Taylor sent us here a few short years ago I did not think the President of the Church would be able to visit us so soon. We have had trials and still have them, but we are not discouraged. We all have houses and are getting our farms under cultivation. Our children are in our own school. We have found the laws good and just, and that the government officials are ready and anxious to help us. We are of the body of the Church; though far away, her leaders are mindful of us. Brother Woodruff, I doubt if in your life you will ever speak to more eager listeners than you will find this afternoon.
Woodruff. Dear brethren and sisters. I fully appreciate the nature of your trials and hardships, and the privations you have endured, but let me remind you of some of my pioneer days in Utah. Don’t think that all the roses of Utah were all planted by Jim Bridger. I know who planted those in our yard. And I know how the water that made them bloom came from City Creek. It ran in a ditch that myself and neighbors dug. We had no fine vegetables to eat while we were digging the ditches for we had to get the water out before we dared plant the seed. And the sage brush had to be removed from the land first. You tell me that you merely plow and plant and the God of Nature does the rest. Have you had to fight desert sand and crickets? Has any great army marched against you to destroy you? No. Be of good cheer. Be encouraged. Strive to improve your holdings and the Lord will bless you. Build yourselves fine places of worship — there comes to me now a thought, nay a vision — “Ere long a temple will be erected on one of these eminences near by, to the most high God. Amen.”
Curtain.
LAYING THE TEMPLE CORNERSTONES— FULFILMENT
SCENE 3
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David O. McKay. Under appointment of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the presence of the Stake Presidency and other officers of the Alberta and of the Taylor stakes, and in this large assembly, I pronounce the sides of this stone parallel and the corners four square; therefore, I declare this corner stone of the Cardston temple, properly and evenly laid. May the structure it supports endure through the ages, and God’s blessings attend this ceremony.
Curtain.
Not to distract from the content, but I can’t find a website that agrees that “an historical” is correct in American, British, Canadian, or Australian English. It’s called by one authoritative website, “an unnecessary affectation.” Did that actually change at some point in the mid- to late-20th century? I remember an older woman puzzling over the title of “Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia,” convinced that it was wrong.
(And tell me this isn’t too tangential! Surely on a history blog we need to discuss the articles used in front of History and Historical!)
“A historical” has apparently become standard in the past few years, or so I was assured while we were working on that encyclopedia, although I still have to pause and think about it to get it right.
I think the reason for the change is that unlike the “h” in “honor” or “hour” or “honesty” which is completely silent (and so “an” is appropriate as before other words beginning with vowel sounds), the “h” in “historical” is actually pronounced, as it is in “horse” or “hiccough,” which call for “a” as the article. I have no idea who proposed the switch ir how it spread so fast. It sounds like an academic decision rather than a popular one.
One source I just found through Google says that “an” used to be standard before words like “hotel” and “history” despite the pronunciation of the “h” is because it was traditional to do that with words coming into English from French. If that’s the case, there’s your “affectation”!
My great-grandparents ‘enry and ‘arriet would definitely say “An ‘istorical Dramatization.”