From the Improvement Era, December 1958 –

What about Shannon?

By Virginia Kammeyer

“She’s a pretty little ice cube.”

My husband had just asked me, “How are you progressing with Shannon LeRoy?” and I had answered him, wearily.

I lowered myself in a middle-aged fashion onto the sofa. Most Tuesday nights I got along pretty well with the girls, but the evenings Shannon decided to come to Mutual, my discipline dissolved.

“What does she do?” Ray asked.

“Nothing much. It’s mostly her attitude. She doesn’t come often enough to do herself any good. About once a month she strolls in— late— her little nose in the air, and dressed like a model. She walks as though she were stepping over the bodies of her prostrate subjects, and takes a seat in the back. And every girl in there wishes she could drop dead and get up again looking just like Shannon. After that, there’s no use trying to give a lesson. All they have on their minds is, ‘Gee, what a cute hairdo’; and ‘Where did you buy that dress?'”

“Have you tried talking to her?”

“Yes, I have. She looked at me as though I ought to be out scaring crows, or something.”

“Why does she come?”

“Just to make an impression, I guess. She’s certainly pretty, and she has lovely clothes.”

I had taken this class of Junior Gleaners with misgivings. Happily teaching a Sunday School class of serious, purposeful adults, I had been knocked flat when the bishop asked me to be the leader for the sixteen to eighteen-year-old girls in Mutual. My whole experience with teen-age girls had been the care and feeding of a husband and two sons, and a million camping trips with same.

“Why did he ask me?” I protested to Ray. “I don’t know anything about girls.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” my husband told me. “You have a lot to give them. Those girls need someone who can help them understand true values.

And you can do it, gal.” He squeezed my arm.

No doubt of it, I felt weak. But I was surely to learn a lot, whether the girls did or not.

As the autumn progressed, our Junior Gleaner class went pretty well. They were sweet girls, who only needed an occasional stern reminder to put away their lipsticks and wallets full of pictures and quit giggling.

Then the Young Women’s president, Mary Hearst, asked the leaders to make a survey of the inactive girls. We were to call on them and find out why they were not coming out to Mutual, Sunday School, and Sacrament meeting. The Church was concerned about these little stray lambs, and we were to make an effort to get them active again.

Some of the girls, I found, had evening jobs, some were plainly not interested, and on one report I wrote:

“Shannon LeRoy— Has been baptized, but parents are inactive. Mother and father both work. Shannon said she might come.”

And so she did start attending, occasionally. I should have been glad that she came out at all. But the evening was wasted when Shannon showed. The girls clustered around her, giggling and whispering secrets. And one haughty look from her could shatter my morale, and make the teaching of wholesome values seem corny.

And the nights we met with the boys, heavens! She would sit on the back bench and laugh with the fellows and Bob Tremaine or I, whichever was in charge that night, went down in utter defeat.

“I can’t get close to her,” I said to Mary Hearst. “She just gives me that look. And she won’t call me ‘Sister Gregory’; it’s a very cold ‘Mrs.’

“I don’t want to keep a Treasures of Truth Book, Mrs. Gregory’; and ‘I won’t have time to work on a Silver Gleaner award.'”

“Well, don’t give up,” Mary Hearst consoled me. “You may reach her yet.”

I doubted it.

So when Ray asked me, that night, how I was progressing, I shook my head wearily.

“There’s a thing coming up in October called a ‘Membership Comradely.’ It’s supposed to be a little tea for the girls and their mothers; and they have a ceremony where they bind some sheaves of wheat. I don’t know much about serving a tea.

However, the girls grabbed delightedly at the idea of a party. Half of them volunteered to bring cookies and half of them punch, and they took home little written invitations to their mothers.

They came to my house, the night of the Comradery. I had prepared a small table, as the manual suggested, with the stalks of wheat on it, and green and gold ribbons for tying them into a sheaf.

The girls, wearing party dresses and nylons and heels for the occasion, sat proudly beside their mothers. We had an opening prayer; Lola sang a song; and Mickey told the story of Ruth the Gleaner.

The girls stood, all together, and picked up the stalks of wheat from the table. Karen, the class president, began to recite the Gleaner Sheaf:

“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”

She placed her wheat on the ribbon.

I had lighted candles on the fireplace mantel, and the light flickered on the lovely young faces of my girls as they clasped their wheat and each said a part.

“I, a Gleaner, from this season’s gleanings, shall come forth bearing my fourfold sheaf. First, I shall bring a clean body— nothing forbidden shall enter it— no corruption shall touch it. It is my surety of eternal joy.

“Second, I shall bring from my gleaning a pure heart. From it shall flow high ideals, pure thoughts, clean speech, righteous actions. By the pure eye of faith I shall see God.

“Third, from my season’s gleaning, I shall bring an humble, obedient spirit. I shall obey God’s laws with delight. I shall honor my womanhood. I shall intelligently, diligently, and prayerfully perform my duties. I shall know God.

“Fourth, from my season’s gleaning I shall bring an honest mind. I shall not bear false witness. I shall speak truly. I shall honor my word. I shall learn the truth and the truth shall make me free.”

Karen tied the green and gold ribbons around the wheat the girls had placed on the table, and handed the sheaf to me.

The sweet voices chanted in unison:

“Thus, bearing my fourfold sheaf, I shall hope to ascend into the hill of the Lord and stand in his holy place; then shall I receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of my salvation.”

I gave a little thank-you speech; the girls served the punch and cookies to their mothers; and we had our closing prayer.

I felt satisfied with the evening. The girls seemed impressed with its message. But Shannon wasn’t there. She hadn’t felt that it was important enough to come.

I thought I might possibly strike a spark in her several Tuesdays later, when the girl’s chose secret pals.

Everyone in the class wrote her name on a strip of paper, her birth date, and her hobbies. We put the papers in a box, and then pulled out, secretly, the name of the girl we would be a “pal” to in the coming year. We were to remember her on her birthday and special holidays, and try to keep it secret who the remembrance was from.

The girls, with giggles escaping like leaky hoses, wrote their information and sneaked the folded papers into the box. Shannon, with a bored flip, tossed hers in, too.

There were squeals and quick clutching of papers, as they fished out the names. I knew that Mickey had picked out mine, by the way she glanced at me and snickered. I reached for the last one.

Shannon LeRoy. Birthday, March 17. Hobbies: Dancing, buying new clothes, boys.

I almost laughed and almost wept. Here was my chance to reach her, as a “Secret Pal.” But how could I ever do it, when she frankly stated that she was interested only in boys and clothes and dancing?

The Tuesday after Thanksgiving I came home from Mutual really shook up. I was so mad I was sputtering.

“Ray!” I cried. “Do you know what she’s done?”

He didn’t have to ask who “she” was.

“She’s engaged! That sixteen-year-old child came in tonight wearing a diamond so big she needed a crutch. What can her parents be thinking of?”

“I suspect thev’re not. Who is he?”

“His name is ‘Chet.’ He’s twenty-one, he has ‘yummy blue eyes.’

“The minute she came in flashing that ring, I could feel little waves of green envy going around that room. She’s going to be married next summer in front of her mother’s rose-banked fireplace. Chet is going to buy a new car and take her to Mexico for a honeymoon.

“Oh, Ray,” I wept into his shoulder, “how can I teach those girls the importance of temple marriage and waiting for the ‘right one,’ when everything that girl does and says shows me wrong?”

All he could say was, “Well, you tried.”

The Junior Gleaner-Junior M Men Stake Christmas Ball was to be held in our ward because we had a large dance floor. Our boys and girls were asked to do the decorations.

“Well work on them for the next three weeks after our lessons,” I explained. “Then we’ll put them up Saturday morning before the dance. Do any of you have any suggestions for pretty decorations?” They chattered happily for the next half hour about Christmas trees and Santa Clauses and “Where can we get some tail stepladders?”

Through all the discussion, Shannon said nothing. But when the class was over, and I was collecting my books, she came up to me and said, “I’d like to do the decorations.”

I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Have you ever done anything like that?”

“I’ve had a little experience,” she said loftily.

“Yah,” Terry volunteered. “She was in charge of decorations for the Sophomore Prom last year.”

“She’s real good,” said Betty.

“I’m willing to put you in charge, Shannon, if the others say you can do it.”

“Sure, we’ll let her,” they agreed.

For the next three weeks, after the lesson, they worked with blue and silver paper and sequins, fashioning stars and snowflakes and flying reindeer.

In her cool little way, Shannon had a good deal of ability. She was clever and artistic, and she could make the others do what she wanted. Being artistically stupid myself, I was glad to let her do it.

The Saturday morning of the dance, the girls and fellows arrived to hang the decorations. In old shirts and rolled-up jeans, they stood around and laughed and waited to be told what to do. I didn’t feel that it was my project anymore, so I waited, too, for Shannon.

In she strolled, wearing figure-hugging toreador pants. In five minutes she had the work organized— the girls, including me, sticking stars and snowflakes on the walls, and the boys climbing stepladders to hang the reindeer. We decorated the hall with charming effect. The sequined stars and snowflakes glittered .and twinkled from the walls, and the silver reindeer flew about the room, suspended on threads from the ceiling.

It was a beautiful dance, and Shannon’s decorations made it so. But where was the girl? While the teenagers of the stake fox-trotted, and waltzed, through the evening, she never, came. People everywhere were exclaiming how pretty the hall was. She should have been there for the applause. It wasn’t like her to miss a personal triumph.

There would be no more Mutual until after the New Year. I went Christmas shopping the Monday after the dance, and finished my day with a dilemma. What, oh, what, could I buy my Secret Pal? I had a feeling her taste and mine were not the same. What I would consider pretty and useful she would probably scorn. I wanted to reach her, very much. I knew she had talent, and the abilities of a leader. I didn’t want to see her throw it all away in an unwise marriage. If I could do something to make her accept me as a friend. Standing in the snow, I prayed that Shannon might realize the Gleaner ideal of womanhood, and make its goals her own.

It was getting late and starting to snow again. I hurried to the bus stop and stood waiting, my back to a store window.

The bus was late, so I turned to look at the wares in the showcase behind me. It was a jewelry store, flashy with rings and watches and rhinestone bracelets.

Shannon might appreciate a piece of jewelry. But I couldn’t afford anything that could possibly compete with the glaring diamond she wore. I peered closer at an object in the corner, then went inside to get a better look.

“That jewelry box?” the clerk said, and lifted it out. It was a beautiful little gold box, with a hinged lid and— I had been right— it did have, engraved on the top, entwined stalks of wheat.

“I’ll take it,” I said. I didn’t even ask the price. Shannon would know who had sent it, but I didn’t care. It was perfect.

“Dear Shannon: (I wrote on the card )

“For all you value most highly, I send this little box.

“From one who treasures you,

“Your Secret Pal”

Christmas Eve Ray and I went to meet our boys at the bus, home from college for the holidays. They tramped about the house, and ate enormously and laughed and told college jokes and called up girls. It was good to have them home.

Christmas morning I was up early to put the turkey in the oven, but no earlier than the boys, who thundered down the stairs to turn on the tree lights and put some Christmas carols on the record player.

With our tree aglitter, and “Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful” filling the house, we opened our presents. We gave the boys the new ski equipment they had been hinting for; I presented Ray with the full set of the Comprehensive History of the Church which he had long wanted. He gave me the new mixer I needed, and hosiery, and a new robe. The boys had pooled their resources and bought us, jointly, a gasoline camp stove. Their motive was hideously apparent, but we laughed and thanked them and hugged one another.

The doorbell chimed. My men were busy examining the camp stove, so I went to answer it.

There on the steps, tears streaking her face, stood Shannon.

“My dear, what’s wrong?” I exclaimed. I had never seen her show emotion of any kind.

“Mrs.— Sister Gregory, I”— she gulped back a sob, “I got the little box you sent. I knew it was from you, so I— I wanted to thank you,” she wailed.

“Well, you’re welcome, Shannon; but I’m sorry it made you cry.”

“Sister Gregory.” She was struggling to control her voice. “Do you know what I got for Christmas this morning? My mother gave me a new dress, and Daddy gave me a check; and you gave me the little box. I went to put my treasures in it, like you said on the card, and do you know? I only had two treasures—only two real treasures— my Junior Gleaner necklace and that little card you gave me, with the Gleaner Sheaf on it. I didn’t have another thing that was really important.”

Her voice was very low. “I realized, all of a sudden, how poor I was.

“Oh, Sister Gregory.” The Kleenex she was dabbing at her eyes wasn’t stemming the flow. “I wanted to come to that dance. I wanted to see how the room looked, and have fun with the other kids.”

“Why didn’t you come, Shannon?”

“Chet didn’t want to go. He said Church stuff was stupid. I gave him back his ring. See?” She held out her empty hand.

“I want to be like the other girls — and like you!”

She was trembling, and I realized that she was cold.

I took her in my arms and led her into the house.

“Ill help you, Shannon,” I said, “to be much better than I am. And I’m going to be your really true Secret Pal.”