August 24th

Aug 24, 1843 - William Clayton writes in his journal: "At night I asked mother [his mother in law] if M[argaret Moon--his plural wife] might sleep with Ruth [Moon--his legal wife and sister of Margaret] and me. She appeared very rebellious and would not consent but said we might do as we had a mind."

Aug 24, 1844 - A council meeting of the apostles and other members of the Anointed Quorum accepts two written revelations to Brigham Young concerning completion of the Nauvoo temple. These would never be published and are unavailable.

Aug 24, 1848 - Along the pioneer trail Heber C. Kimball and his son-in-law Horace Howard open the two-day-old grave of the infant son of Horace and Kimball's daughter Helen Marr Kimball Smith Howard (a widow of Joseph Smith) to see if it had been buried prematurely. They determine that it had not been.

Aug 24, 1877 - First President of Seventy B. H. Roberts receives a patriarchal blessing from Presiding Patriarch John Smith. He later writes of it: "The blessing in the main was unsatisfactory and greatly disappointing, . . ."

Aug 24, 1893 - Presidency and apostles vote to "save Bro. [Leonard G.] Hardy from penitentiary, and take steps to get the means to meet the amount of his defalcations" from Salt Lake County. Son of former Presiding Bishopric counselor and a local bishop himself, general authorities want to protect embezzler Hardy's appointment by courts as receiver for LDS church's confiscated properties.

Aug 24, 1898 - George H. Hudson is first Mormon to die in combat during U.S. War. As private in Battery B of Utah Light Artillery, he is killed by Filipinos during Philippine Insurrection at conclusion of Spanish-American war of 1898. Filipinos want true independence, not to be new colony of the United States.

Aug 24, 1954 - Apostle Mark E. Petersen states, in defense of the exclusion of black men from LDS priesthood ordination, "Is it not a reasonable belief that the Lord would select the choice spirits for the better grades of nations?" Three days later he gives a speech I support of segregation.

Aug 24, 1985 - Counselor Gordon B. Hinckley dedicates temple at Johannesburg, South Africa.

Aug. 24, 1991 - CHURCH NEWS prints official reassurance of Jack H. Goaslind, Jr. (First Quorum of Seventy member on executive board of Boy Scouts of America) that LDS church is still in BSA: "'Learning for Life' [program for self-identified homosexual scouts] does not affect the use of traditional Scouting as a tool to further the goals of the Aaronic Priesthood. As far as the Church is concerned, we are still totally supportive of the Boy Scouts of America program as we know it." This is in response to distressed inquiries from parents about Goaslind's previously published statements that LDS church "would withdraw from the Boy Scouts of America" if it permitted membership by self-identified homosexual teenagers. This retraction represents either a reversal of First Presidency decision or repudiation of Goaslind's speaking out of turn.

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