.
Latter-day Saints in Ankara, Turkey
(front, left to right:) William R. Hofstetter, Glendale, California; Glen B. Edmunds, Manti, Utah; Harvey Rex Gardner, Colusa, California; Jay L. Long, Wellsville, Utah
(back:) Hope K. and Edward R. Pledge, San Angelo, Texas; Betsy W. Long, Wellsville, Utah; Iona L. and Elwood A. Worthen, Salt Lake City
.
Church Welfare Sewing Project
(location not identified)
.
BYU Student Assembly
(is this in the Smith Fieldhouse?)
.
Long Beach (California) Third Ward
MIA Chorus
(seated:) Betty Douglas, Arlene Mulhern, Beverly White, Robert Douglas, Margaret Jennings
(second row:) Teresa Neilson, Zoe McCurdy, Bonnie White, Marilyn Williams
(back row:) Allen Zustin, Robert Barker, Ronald Vaughn, James Duggan, and Laster Martin
.
Latter-day Saint Servicemen (American) in Ulm, Germany
Odell Stone, West Virginia; Gerald Purser, Logan, Utah; Robert Mauzy, Ogden, Utah; Norman Reece, Aberdeen, Idaho; Jacques F. Pruhs, Alhambra, California
.
MIA Maids of Mt. Emmons Ward, Moon Lake (Utah) Stake
Rosabell Ames, Ann Boswell, Josephine Wall, Mary Reay, Bonnie Perkins, Gwendolyn Chapman, Carolyn Dastrup
.
LDS Group in Athens
Sam Gadzia, Orin Parker, Rita Parker, Barbara Fexis, Shirley Gadzia, Emma S. Stephens, Frederick Orton, Charmaine Willis, Karma Evans, Tom Evans, Sally Stephens, Leon R. Stephens, Amy Willis, Andrew W. Willis, George Fexis
.
Songdo Beach, South Korea
only the American servicemen are identified:
(front:) Ross, L. Covington, Chaplain, Logan, Utah; Ralph O. Erickson, Elder, Deseret, Utah; Howard W. Bradshaw, Elder, Beaver, Utah
(standing:) Jesard Morrise, Elder, Seattle, Washington
(back:) Robert L. Ellis, Elder, Ogden, Utah; Paul H. Maxwell, Elder, Paul, Idaho; Franklin K. Buchanan, Elder, Watsonville, California
.
LDS Servicemen (American) aboard USS Randolph
(seated:) Charles A. Merrell, Duncan, Arizona; Horace R. Wheeler, Alamosa, Colorado; Gayle R. Anderson, Pocatello, Idaho
(standing:) John F. Taylor, San Diego, California; Vern M. Yates, Salt Lake City
.
Latter-day Saint Boy Scouts
(location not identified)
.
Chorus of Mutual Girls (Beehive through Gleaner) at Youth Conference
Oahu, Hawaii
leader: Caroline Lake, of Stake YWMIA Board
.
Latter-day Saints at Kindley Air Force Base, Bermuda
.
Family of Dr. Ho Jik Kim, Pusan (first Korean convert)
(front:) Jung Sook Kim, Mrs. Pilgun Kim, Dr. Kim, holding Young Sook
(standing:) Tai Whan, Shin Whan
.
Setting of Cornerstone, Los Angeles Temple
Stephen L. Richards, Thomas B. Childs
.
10,000 Witnesses to Los Angeles Temple Cornerstone Ceremony
.
June Conference, Dance Festival
.
Members of MIA, New Zealand
Performing Haka
.
David O. McKay Greeting Children in Guatemala
.
David O. McKay Laying Chapel Cornerstone
Montevideo, Uruguay
.
General Conference Crowd
.
Shibata Branch, Japan
MIA Award Night
Recognizing attendance at meetings, payment of tithing, observance of the Word of Wisdom, reading the reading course book, and speaking in sacrament meeting.
.
LDS Servicemen’s Conference, Korea
.
Another great selection, Ardis. I feel like this is my PokemonGo: I can’t do anything else until I’ve scrutinized each one of these.
It’s a curious feeling, isn’t it? Thanks, Gary.
That does appear to be the Smith Fieldhouse, Ardis. That building was completed in 1951, so it would have been available for that assembly–and it was used for forum and devotional assemblies, as well as commencement exercises, until the Marriott Center was completed 21 years later.
I’m wondering about the exact date of the cornerstone ceremony at the Los Angeles Temple–and whether my parents would have made the trip from Pasadena to join the other 10,000 people there. If they did, and the date was in September or later, I was likely there. But I can’t see myself in that photograph!
Thanks for confirming my guess about the Fieldhouse, Mark.
And I see you! Your father is holding you, back there, on the left … no farther back … yes, there!
The cornerstone was laid on 11 December 1953. They apparently filmed it — I find a site with that fact, but not a link to the film.
Yes, I saw that site–the BYU library, wasn’t it?–and I see that the 11 December 1953 date was there.
And I couldn’t have been there!
The MIA Maid picture is surprising. Hair and glasses like that have never been a part of teenage fashion in my lifetime. I associate that look with women a generation or two older than me — but I guess some of those women would have been teenagers in 1954.
At the risk of really putting my foot in my mouth by guessing ages, I’m still not sure I believe everyone in that picture is 14 or 15. Did the category of “MIA Maids” formerly include some slightly older members of the Mutual Improvement Association?
I think the woman on the left is probably their adviser, but otherwise those girls really are 15ish. Unlike Beehive Girls, which did include girls and women of all ages in the program’s earliest years when it was a summertime self-improvement program rather than an age-group class as we know it, the MIA Maids were always 14-15-year-old girls.
I gave up trying to read most of the characters on the photo from the Shibata Branch–they’re too small and faint and my eyes too old. The characters in the circle around the stylized MIA read “God’s Glory is [Illegible]” but I suspect that we can all guess what the next characters mean.
But, where is Shibata? If there’s a clue in that sign in the photograph, I can’t see it. There is a small city of that name on the northern coast, on the opposite side of the Japan Alps from Tokyo, but even now there’s not a branch of the church there.
There is also, however, an area in Osaka named “Shibata,” which contains two major train stations–the old national railway Osaka Station and a private railway’s Umeda Station–as central a location in Osaka as one could have wished for. Given the date–and the relatively recent return of missionaries to Japan, I’m putting my money on Shibata-cho, Kita-ku, Osaka.