A Church-wide Fast with Prayer
While living in Sanford, Colorado, the President of our Church issued a Proclamation asking all church members to fast and pray and ask our Father in Heaven to remove the persecution from us. The U.S. Government had made a law against plural marriage, and nearly all of the authorities and many members of our church were living in that order of marriage, because they thoroughly believed that God had commanded it.
The officers of our government were hunting down every man who was living in that order of marriage and prosecuting them, and sending them to the pen. Unscrupulous scoundrels were acting as deputy sheriffs, and men and their plural wives went into hiding to keep out of their way. And the officers of the law were about to seize the temples. They said they would turn our temples into places of merchandise. [Page 90]
Our church had spent thousands of dollars trying to test the law which was made against plural marriage to see if it was constitutional and to protect our church property which was being seized and taken away from us.
So great was our persecution that every man, woman, and child was asked to fast for 24 hours commencing at sunset Saturday evening and continuing until Sunday night at sundown. We were instructed to neither eat nor drink during that time, and were to pray earnestly for help from the Lord. We were to keep our tempers and not scold a child, but have perfect peace in our homes. In our home we kept it strictly.
There were public prayer meetings in every ward in the church. The people humbled themselves before the Lord and sought him earnestly, especially those who were suffering persecution. Our hearts were tried to the utmost, and during that awful trying time when our hearts were wrung with grief, I wrote the following:
Freedom
Proud America blush with shame,
Disgrace is shadowing thy fame,
Innocent men in fettered hells are found
In Utah, and the adjoining country around.
Not only men, but women too
Are imprisoned for proving true
To their sacred covenants, and their God
Who cower not, ‘neath the chastening rod.
Faithful husbands are torn from loving wives
Officials laugh at children’s cries
As an affectionate father is torn away,
Doomed in the pen for months to stay.
To dwell with convicts of the blackest type
Who in deeds of crime are fully ripe.
Oh, America, where is thy pride,
That liberty for which our fathers died,
That freedom for which their blood did flow
Little more than a century ago?
They gave their lives, their blood did flow
In summer’s heat, in winter’s snow,
That they to us might guarantee
That precious boon, sweet liberty.
A century now has passed and gone
Since liberty was won. [Page 91]
The Stars and Stripes have proudly waved
Waved proudly ‘neath the sun.
Have bid the refugees of earth
The exiles from all lands, to come,
And drink at freedom’s fountain,
On freedom’s soil stand.
Have promised ail the sacred rights
That mortal man could ask,
That we, in freedom’s perfect sun
Forever more might bask.
T’is passed, the tyrants hand is raised,
We feel oppression’s power.
The faithful servants of our God
Are hunted every hour
Take down the dear flag that proudly waves
For liberty has fled,
And freedom ‘neath the dreadful stroke
Seems lifeless, cold, and dead.
Or let it wave at scarce half mast
’Till innocent men are free
And the faithful servants of Israel’s God
Enjoy their liberty.
Lorena E. W. Larsen
Monroe, Utah, 1887
The authorities of our church worked hard, both through courts and otherwise, spending thousands of dollars, to legalize the holding of church property and get back that which had been taken from us, and keep our temples from going into the hands of the receivers. And God blessed their efforts, and finally the dark clouds began to lift.
Again, our church President proclaimed a 24 hour fast asking the whole church to fast, pray, and give thanks to our Father in Heaven for the dawn of peace which was appearing.
The fast day was held and we surely had a time of rejoicing.
In our traveling about to keep out of the way of U.S. Marshals, our son Bent Franklin had no opportunity of attending school until we were living in Sanford. And I had no school books with me, so I took the Bible, the dictionary or a newspaper, or anything which contained reading matter which was available and taught him small words. When he finally started to school the teacher put him in the chart class, but to her surprise he read it right off, and was promoted to the first reader immediately. [Page 92]
For the Mrs. Carter who owned the home which we rented when we first came to Sanford, Colorado, we, the neighbors, had some sewing bees. We made her some dresses, aprons, and other things.
Mrs. Hans Brown, the Danish lady who lived just across the street west, and whose husband had taken up a new farm on the west side of the mountain from Pueblo, was among the group sewing until mid afternoon, when she suddenly jumped up and said, “Oh good vomans, dar is myn Hans, I skall haf to run home, he ish not wory strong. I skall haf to fex up hes tings, befor he go to de farm. He skal stay two or tre day, maby von veek, and ven he ish avay, I can do nothings vor heim. Myn dear Hans, I must run.” And while she talked she ran around the room trying to find her needle, thimble, and scissors.
Her grown daughter Taah, was a great hand to borrow things from the neighbors, and seldom returned them, and when asked about them she would say, “Oh, I was just going to bring them to you.”
When I lived at the Carter house she borrowed our flat irons every week. We had three new ones. After we moved to our new home one iron was missing. Months passed and I supposed we must have lost the iron in moving. One day the children were playing at Browns, and B. F. came running home and said, Oh, Mamma, I know where your iron is, it’s to Brown’s, I just saw it there. I told him to go back and ask Taah if I could please get my iron. And when he asked her she smilingly said, “Oh, I was just going to bring it home.”
She was in love with Robert Johnson one of our Monroe boys whom I have previously mentioned. One evening our Monroe boys came to town from their ditch work 20 miles away. Always after corning to town they would rush to our house, riding as fast as their horses could run, and giving a few Indian war whoops as they came, to let me know they were coming. They would then proceed to tell me all the news from home, or give me their letters to read, then rush back to Jim Warnock’s for dinner, and get from his store supplies for the coming week or weeks as the case may be. One evening Taah was watching for their coming, and went immediately to the store to meet them. When the boys came in she was doing some shopping. Will Warnock stepped over to her and in a low tone said, “Taah do you know that today is Rob’s birthday?” Taah thanked him, and proceeded to buy several quite expensive gifts for him, and in presenting them she said, “Oh, Rob why didn’t you tell me before [Page 93] about your birthday.” The boys came back to tell me what a joke they played on Taah.
There were some quite exciting stories going around town about men trying to get into homes. And as my husband was away every time he could get a chance to find work, and no substantial lock on the door, I took the ax in one night for protection, but I was much more frightened with the ax than without it, so it remained outside thereafter concealed under a stick of wood.
We investigated one of the most exciting stories which was going the rounds. It was reported that a black man came to the Casto’s home after midnight, and stealthilly tried to get in at every door and window in the house. After trying in vain for hours, he finally left. We made close inquiries about the date of this happening and it coincided with the date that my husband went there late in the night to get brother Casto to go with him to administer to the sick.
My husband had knocked at every door, and finally went to the bed-room window, knocked several times on it calling brother Casto all the while. Finally when he got no response, though he knocked and called loud enough to waken the neighbors he went away. Well I decided that if all the reports were like that one, that I and the children were perfectly safe whether my husband was there or not.
At the time we lived in Sanford there were but a very few men who administered to the sick. I don’t know of any beside my husband, Hans Brown, Brother Casto and the bishop, “Bishop Bertelsen.” There may have been a few others.
Before our Mormon people went there, there were a few rich ranchers in the southern part of the valley. Mr. Eskerige was one of them. He owned a lovely home and large farm on the west side of the valley, which was irrigated from large flowing wells.
Conejos, an old Mexican town, was the county seat of Conejos County. Lahara was the large railroad station a few miles west of Sanford. Manassa was six miles south and a little west and the almost abandoned town of Ephraim was between Sanford and Lahara. Alamosa was 20 miles north. San Luis Valley is supposed to be 100 miles long by about 30 miles wide.
Among the first Mormon settlers there were quite a group of young Mormon boys who had taken little interest in church activities in their homes in Utah, but were full of adventure and went there to get rich, --Quite a large part of the population were Mormon converts from the southern states, who had but little experience in the church. [Page 94] They, after coining to Sanford, were sometimes so badly tried with those young indifferent fellows that they returned to their homes in the south.
Bro. Birk our neighbor, and ward teacher, told us that he took his family and went back twice, and was packed up the third time to go just because those young fellows seemed so irreligious and indifferent. He said that he was so tried that he disposed of what property he had in Sanford, and had packed everything ready for going to his southern home next morning. He had a wife and two children. In the afternoon baby went to sleep normally and the mother laid her on the bed on the floor. In three hours they found her dead. He said when he looked at his dead child he knew it was his punishment for his lack of faith in his God. He said, why all those people he had been so tried with, whom he had considered good-for-nothings, without human sympathy, rushed to his aid, overflowing with love and sympathy, and that his own kinsfolks wouldn’t have been so kind. From that hour he loved them, and the Lord, and the Gospel as he had never loved them before, and had worked in the church ever since, with such joy and happiness as he had never known before.
One family told my husband about their conversion. It was about the time when the Mormons were so badly persecuted in the Southern States. There came a man into the town where this family lived, who called himself Robert Edge. He began holding street meetings. He taught the Gospel, the same as the Mormons, but the people of this locality knew nothing about the Mormons, nor the name Mormon was never mentioned by him. He held street and cottage meetings for some time, and had a large group of people converted.
They wanted him to baptize them, but he said he could not. They very much wanted to be baptized and asked him what they should do. He said, “There will come someone from the west who will baptize you.”
This Sanford lady said that he often came to their home, that he often shook hands with her, and would say, “Does my hand feel like a natural hand?” She would say, “Yes, only it’s much cooler.” She said she never saw him come, nor go. He would just be there.
One day he came and said he couldn’t stay any longer, that there were other people he had to visit, and asked if their son could take their carriage or light wagon and take him about 15 miles out in the country that evening. There was to be a cottage meeting that evening. And as their son and this man drove into the country, he told the boy just what was happening at the meeting. A mob gathered [Page 95] and tried to break up the meeting and the whole scene was told to the boy as they traveled along. No one suspected that he was a mysterious person until after that meeting.
The whole group of people waited for baptism. They finally heard of a Mormon missionary baptizing the people quite a distance away. They sent for him to come and baptize them, but he supposed it was a plot to get him there and murder them, and he refused. Then they sent messengers to him to assure him that they were sincere. He came and they were baptized.
I may be mistaken, but I believe the Mormon missionary was either Thompson Lisonbee, our former Monroe bishop, or Franklin Spencer, our Sevier Co. President.
I had heard some thing about it, before it was related to my husband in Colorado.
We left Sanford May, 1890 soon after our son, Bent’s, baptism May 10, 1890.
While living in Sanford, cottage meetings were held at the homes of the people. One evening at a testimony meeting I got up and bore my testimony. After meeting, some of the ladies said they believed I was the first woman in town who had ever spoken in a public meeting.
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