Not long after she and her husband returned from presiding over the South African Mission, Geneve J. Dalton spoke in Relief Society conference of 1936. She told how they succeeded in involving sisters there in Relief Society, even when many lived hundreds of miles apart, with little personal contact. She also spoke briefly of the benefits Relief Society could bring to women in the many countries she passed through on her return to the United States.
GENEVE J. DALTON
Former President, South African Mission Relief Society
Relief Society Conference, 1936
I would like to extend to President Robison, her counselors and members of the General Board, together with all the members of the Relief Society here, the greetings and love from all the Relief Society sisters in South Africa. They are indeed interested in the work here, and they look to the sisters of Utah for their inspiration, and, of course, for their guidance in the work.
They have just the same desires, I believe, that all Relief Society sisters throughout the world have, to know the Gospel, to live it and to be good Relief Society members.
They feel the influence of the wonderful organization, and what it does for women. I learned to love the Relief Society work, and I learned to love the women of the South African Mission, because Relief Society work teaches us to understand women, to feel for them, and inspires the desire to help them.
When I left the South African Mission there were sixteen organizations. Some of them very very small, and some of them a good size. The Relief Society has not been organized for so many years, it is really in its infancy there, but it is growing, and while I was there we were able to increase the membership about 200%. We were grateful for this, and would have liked every woman of the Church to be a member of Relief Society. I am sure this is going to come.
The Union of South Africa is a very big country, covering as much territory as the United States, so you will know that when we say the members are scattered, we do not mean by a few miles, but by a vast distance, so it was difficult to get the members of the Relief Society together. Some members were on farms, great distances from the cities, but we tried in various ways to reach these people and to make them members of the organization.
We were able, during the six years, to hold two Relief society conventions in the mission, though it was a difficult problem to get women to come so far, and to raise the money to bring them. I am sure that the two conventions we held with representatives from all districts in South Africa, helped the Relief society work there. I know that it increased the women’s knowledge, and they were more capable of carrying the Relief society work on.
There are many districts where we did not even have missionaries to help the sisters, and so it was difficult for new people, who had never done work in the Relief Society before, to get on to this work. The Relief society Mission President, of course, is unable to visit them very often, perhaps once a year at the most. We have some small organizations with perhaps only two or three members, including the Relief Society President, a First and Second Counselor, and the Second Counselor acts as the secretary. I do not believe there could be two organizations in all the Church that do more effective and efficient Relief society work than these two little organizations, one of three members and one of four. where we found just one woman alone, we tried to make her a member of the Relief society through an inactive non-attendance roll. These sisters would study and sew and make things to send to the different bazaars in the mission to help raise funds for charity. Many of these women who were out alone were able to do that, and we often received parcels from them for our bazaars.
Our special activities there were just about the same as we have here for raising our funds. We hold bazaars and concerts. we try everything because we have to scheme and contrive to make money.
I have great hopes for the Relief Society in South Africa. I know of the hospitality and love of the women there. There are great possibilities for it. We have many friends.
In my travels home, and we went to a great many countries, I could not help but think of the difference in the women of the nations. when we think of the natives of Africa and the nude women, and then we think of the veiled women of India and Turkey, and the women of China, with their bound feet, we cannot help but think of the blessing the Relief Society would be to these women. They are now, of course, overcoming the traditions that have guided them for hundreds and hundreds of years, but I know that the Relief Society is just the organization that will help women and that will teach them and educate them to overcome these things that bind them down. In Palestine and Syria we see the woman sitting in the door of her mud hut, and her children about her in tatters and rags and dirt, and we wonder how people can exist like that and get happiness out of life. Of course they look to the god whom they worship, and they have that instinct that every woman has in the world, to love her children, and do for them, and I suppose that this is the happiness these oriental women get out of life. But, I can only feel proud that I am a member of the Relief Society, and that I have been taught the gospel of Jesus Christ.