Compiling modern history of church is challenging

PROVO, Utah — Compiling the history of the 20th-century international church has its own set of challenges, some of which were described in two presentations at a session of the Feb. 27 Church History Symposium at BYU on "Preserving the History of the Latter-day Saints."

Mark L. Grover, a subject librarian at BYU who has spent 30 years gathering the history of the church in Latin America, lamented that original records and documents are often in jeopardy of being destroyed by those who don't understand or appreciate their significance.

But Michael N. Landon, an archivist with the Church History Library and Archives, sounded a note of optimism regarding more recent efforts to preserve the history of the church in Latin America.

Grover said, "The impressive archival collecting program of the church, beyond official records, has not been significantly extended outside the United States. There is often not a place where historical documents can be donated. Consequently, many personal records that are in the church archives about the 19th-century church are not available for the 20th-century international church."

Moreover, early members in international areas know the value of their documents but their children do not always have the same appreciation for their experiences, he said.

"Stories of bishops or stake presidents running out of space or moving to new buildings who discard historical documents are recounted in every place I have visited. Luckily, some early members of the church have saved these documents, often retrieving them from garbage cans."

Grover said: "Local, often amateur historians, in general have a great passion for the story of the church in their countries and are providing a yeoman service to historians."

He presented examples of three approaches.

One is that of Nestor E. Curbelo, a Uruguay-born church member whose work in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as a church Institute director evolved into a passion for church history, beginning with the need to provide information on local church history to his students.

"He singlehandedly is responsible for the collection, preservation and dissemination of much of what we know about the church in South America," Grover said.

Other approaches are represented by private historians and collectors, such as Fernando Gomez in Mexico, and by missionary historians such as those who have served in Sao Paulo, Brazil, he said.

Landon said, "For me, the urgency in collecting, preserving and disseminating the history of the church in Latin America relates to purpose: What is it that we expect church history to do for us?"

While some may use history to engage in polemical debate, "a decidedly different expectation regarding the value of church history can be found in just one phrase of the Church History Department's purpose statement: 'To help God's children make and keep sacred covenants,'" he said.

With that in mind, some church members in Latin America may be dismayed to learn that a recent survey indicated archival records from there represent just 14 percent of the total housed by the Church History Department," Landon said.

"Does this mean that the history of the church in Latin America is being lost?" he asked. "Some significant historical material surely has vanished, but much of it is still intact in private possession, and there is an increasingly greater probability that digital technology will improve the preservation odds."

Landon shared at length the history of a Brazilian family who traced their beginnings in the church to a convert in the small Catawba Indian tribe in South Carolina in 1883. Their family history went from there to Utah and eventually to Brazil.

"In some respects," Landon commented, "Carolos Marcelino, a stake high councilor in Londrina, Brazil, is a second-generation and a fourth-generation Latter-day Saint. His great-grandmother and great-grandfather, Catawbas from South Carolina, were members of the church, as well as his grandmother, Lucy Myrtle Head Marcelino. His father, Guilherme, as a convert baptized in 1956, was a pioneer of the church in Londrina, Brazil. Within three months of the arrival of missionaries to Londrina, Guilherme found the church, was baptized, became the first elder ordained in that city, and he remained committed and faithful to his covenants all the rest of his life. Guilherme's son, Carlos reflects the same level of commitment as his father and Carlos's children are now, depending on interpretation, fifth-generation or third-generation Latter-day Saints."

Landon added, "Guilherme, in collecting and preserving important family documents, conducting genealogical research, and writing his own life history, has left a legacy for the rising generation of his family that will, from my perspective, strengthen their resolve to make and keep sacred covenants."
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