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Never Change a Song
Utah Historical Quarterly
Vol. 44, 1976, No. 3
Never Change a Song
BY FAE DECKER DIX
OUR FAMILY LIVED IN A little Utah town called Parowan, the mother colony of southern Utah. Father's family had been among the first stalwarts to arrive in the beautiful valley of the Little Salt Lake, and, on his mother's side, they were "converters" from far back. So, father, too, was a converter filled with the missionary spirit and the everlasting zeal to pass it on. He would look at a man a block away and declare he could "tell by his walk he's no Mormon." And that settled that man, in my father's opinion.
He was a huge man, my father, carrying the burden of a huge name — Mahonri Moriancumer — which plagued him much as it became the target of many schoolyard taunts in childhood. He, consequently, hated nicknames and never allowed us to call each other little pet names in the home. Whatever he named us that was it — at least at home.
But, withal, he was a kindly man, respectful of women (especially mother), and of his church and country. And, while I remember him as stern and towering, he had also a heart as tender as spring grass when it came to counseling us children in our iniquities, or caring for us in illness, or teaching us to pray in family circle night and morning. We each had our turn.
I remember how his voice rang through the chapel on testimony Sundays as he fervently recalled his missionary experiences in Pennsylvania. They called him the "walking Bible" back there, and he loved the appellation. For years I thought he alone had converted all of Pennsylvania to Mormonism. He sang in the choir, too, and it was the choir that got us into all that trouble about a favorite Mormon hymn — "O Ye Mountains High," Elder Charles W. Penrose's stirring contribution to the spirit of a new kingdom.
If only Professor George H. Durham, our respected choir leader, had not gone back to Boston to study at the conservatory. Or, if he had not stopped by Salt Lake City on the way home that summer of 1919 and met with the church music committee. Or, if only father had not been so set in the first place on keeping alive the spirit of the embattled Mormon pioneer. My sister and I thought of all these things after the episode was over. But it was only an exercise in regret. Professor Durham (our generation always called him that except, maybe, on Sundays when everybody was Brother) did stop by Salt Lake City en route home from his New England studies. And he learned something of great import: Certain of the old Mormon hymns, those of a "quarrelsome nature" would be dropped from the next hymn book. Some others would be altered to comply with a new sense of brotherhood, as the time had come to show we lived at peace, and not in the persecuted memories of the past.
In deference to Professor Durham, and to his outstanding musicianship, the interim choir director always turned the choir to him whenever he returned to our town to visit. He came before them this time with his usual ease and distinction and presented the new plan. He said that the years had gone over our heads and we were then far enough away from the mob terror of Illinois and Missouri to stop singing about them in our church gatherings. And, he said, the first song to be looked at was the beloved, "O Ye Mountains High." Some of the words had to be softened, and we would learn the new lines immediately, and sing them always from then on.
Father came home in a great huff that night. The Durhams never offended him. They were his good neighbors. He considered them highly talented. He even said they were the town aristocrats.
"But, George is off his burr this time," he lamented and plainly added that he would not go along with such "desecration of our hymns."
"But, papa, it's the church committee — the music people in Salt Lake, not Brother Durham," my younger sister ventured. (She was the daring one.)
"Music committee nothing," he scoffed. "And, don't you let me hear you upholding them." Blanche was quickly silenced. His voice raised as his hand came down on the table — "It's the spirit of the day," he shouted. "And, when they get to tampering with our hymns, the last days are upon us!"
He hit the table again and ranted again. Mother rocked quietly in her chair by the north window and crocheted a little faster. We children went about our evening reading trying not to let on we'd heard. None of us argued with father.
"Forget Nauvoo?" he thundered. "Forget Missouri? Why, they'd still run us off the face of the earth if they could. But they'd better not try. Just let them try." (I wondered if they knew we still existed out here so far away.)
"Besides," he kept on, "I know what Brother Penrose meant when he wrote that hymn. He meant we should always defend Zion. And don't you forget it! He didn't mean we should sit back like a bunch of good-for-nothings and change his words."
But choir practice night came again, and there they were practicing the new words. I was among them by then for Professor Durham had invited a group of us just turning thirteen to sing in one of the numbers. It would be good training for full choir membership later. We were proud of this honor even though we were only to sing one number, and even though our thin voices could not hold up to the maturity of the experienced members.
It was exciting to hear them practicing "O Ye Mountains High," their strong, clear tones blending in triumphal declaration:
It was the third verse that made the trouble. Someone "up North" (meaning Salt Lake City) said this one must be changed. The original lines as written by Elder Penrose, forthright editor of the early-day Deseret Evening News, read:
The more kindly words were to say:
But, farther down in the hymn, verse four proclaimed:
Gentiles meant anyone not a Mormon. So these last words were changed to
But father just couldn't bear any of this. He argued it out with anyone who would listen, although that didn't mean any of the choir members. He said we still had foes and they should be afraid of us.
"Freedom's abode! What does that mean?" he would storm. And, I felt he really would rather have "the Gentiles bow 'neath our rod."
But the next Sunday came and we were all in our places including father seated on the tenor row. I looked down from the junior choir row at my mother and younger brothers and sisters seated in the congregation. Mother looked patient and sweet-faced, the blue plumes on her hat riffling lightly above her blue eyes. The children were prim and neat with their ribbons tied and their faces sober.
We were in a new chapel and proud to be there. The sun sent amber shafts across the audience from the stained-glass windows, making everyone appear quietly rapturous.
Brother Durham came down the aisle shortly before the meeting began. He was a stately man with a striking profile, a soldier's bearing, and holding the complete confidence of a whole community — except, for just this one day, perhaps, my father whose faith hung faltering in this idol.
The organ played, and the choir was on its feet singing gloriously. Prayer was said, the sacrament passed, and the long sermons begun. Then it was time for the closing song. The piano and the organ were joined in duet swelling to a flourish as the choir burst into the strains of "O Ye Mountains High, Where the clear blue sky—" They sang the soaring first and second verses and waited for the interlude.
As we approached the new lines of the third verse, I gradually recognized other words coming from behind me — coming from the tenor row — words in my father's straightforward tenor. He may not have had a good voice, but he had a loud one! And, he was going loud and clear against the whole choir. Intensely he sang the old words to the old hymn while the choir obediently sang the new words. They held onto the last note, and he came in with,
Somehow they all got through at once. The music sank to a close. Someone gave a benediction. And, I was overwhelmed with adolescent agony. I glanced down at mother. Her eyes were lowered, and the blue plumes shadowed her face. My sister, Blanche, sitting next to her, looked like a tower of wrath for so small a girl. She was glaring straight at father, I felt sure, for she was the brave one among us. I knew she intended taking a stand when we reached home, and this for me was scary.
The choir stayed for practice, but not me. I don't know if any of them said anything to father. I didn't want to know. I slipped out a side vestibule and scurried across "the square" toward home. Perhaps father just forgot himself, I kept thinking. It would be easy to do. I would try not to care so much. Nothing seemed funny to me then as it does now in retrospect.
The rest of the family arrived home almost together. Mother went up the porch steps and into the parlor. She removed her hat and laid it on the piano. It slipped to the keyboard making a tiny chime as a hatpin touched the keys. She walked down the hall to her bedroom and closed the door.
Father stalked home an hour later. He looked determined, even oddly satisfied. My older brother started to smile, but quickly wiped it off by putting the back of his hand to his mouth as father walked through the house and out to the orchard.
Blanche and I had changed from our Sunday dresses. We took a small brass bucket from the kitchen and carried it to the raspberry patch where we were going to pick berries for supper. Out there she exploded:
"What is wrong with papa? He shouldn't do that to us! I can't stand it!" "It's nothing," I consoled. "Not really. Maybe he just forgot." "Forgot! What do you mean 'forgot'?" "Oh, I don't know. I don't know any reason." "Well, I'm humiliated." (Blanche always used big words for her age.) "I'm really humiliated, and I'm going to do something about it." "There's simply nothing to do," I said. "We ought to just forget today."
"Well, I won't! I'll do something." She waited awhile and then declared: "Starting next Sunday I'll always take the sacrament with my left hand. That's what I'll do."
And starting the next Sunday, she did just that. I was terrified for fear father would catch her. He never did. And, if he ever had, he wouldn't have connected it with his personal loyalty to the old words of an old hymn.
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