Tag Archives: righteous Gentiles

biographical, Mormon history

Henry D. Styer: A Sense of Fair Play

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Henry Delp Styer (1862-1944), scion of one of the first Czech families to settle in colonial Pennsylvania, was a member of the West Point class of 1884. His first military posts were in the west, including Utah, where he was assigned to Indian duty part of the time, and to service as the professor of military tactics at Utah Agricultural College in Logan for part of the time. He served in the Philippines during the Spanish American War, and again several years later. He commanded Fort Niagara for a time, and served on the Mexican border during the tense years of the Mexican Revolution. Other duty posts included Trenton, New Jersey, and Camp Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington.

Perhaps his most exotic assignment came in 1918, during the Russian Revolution. Continue reading Henry D. Styer: A Sense of Fair Play →

Mormon history

A Good Word for the Elders, 1884

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[I have to read so much anti-Mormon rancor in my work that I’m a real sucker for any kind word someone had for us in the 19th century.

Thomas J. Berry, born at Lee Valley, Hawkins Co., Tennessee, in 1844, was a farmer and sometime Justice of the Peace. He married Cornelia Trent in 1881, and they became the parents of at least three children, one of whom, George Leonard, a free-thinker like his father, was a labor activist in the pressmen’s and railroad workers’ unions, served with the rank of major in World War I, was appointed by Woodrow Wilson as a member of the American Commission negotiating the peace treaty at the end of that war, and was appointed by Tennessee’s governor to serve out the term of a senator who died in office. Continue reading A Good Word for the Elders, 1884 →

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John Edward Rocha: Non-Mormon Champion of the Saints

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John Edward Rocha was born in Portugal (probably in the Azores) in 1876 and emigrated to Hawaii in 1880 with his parents Manuel and Elzida Rocha. He married Mary Carvalho, Hawaiian-born daughter of Portuguese immigrants, in about 1905, and in rapid succession four children (sons Marseillaise/Marcy and Harold, and daughters Cecilia and Olga) were born.

Rocha was a tailor, and operated his own designing and tailoring business in Honolulu, where he employed several other tailors. On returning to his business one day in 1913, he found one of his employees mending an old coat. Rocha was angered by the sight – his business served some of the finest families in Honolulu, and he ordered the employee to drop what he was doing. They were not in the business of patching and mending old clothes, he said. Continue reading John Edward Rocha: Non-Mormon Champion of the Saints →

Mormon history

Righteous Gentiles

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Yad Vashem, the Jewish memorial to those who died in the Holocaust of the 1940s, includes a program to recognize the contributions of the Righteous Gentiles, or the “righteous among the nations,” those who “mustered extraordinary courage to uphold human values.”

The Righteous honored by Yad Vashem come from 44 countries; they are Christians from all denominations as well as Muslims, religious and agnostic, men and women, people from all walks of life, of all ages, educated professionals and illiterate peasants, rich and poor. The only common denominator is the humanity and the courage they displayed by standing up for their moral principles.

Continue reading Righteous Gentiles →