Tuesday, June 11, 2013

What do you do with a Fast Mormon?

My Dad's cousin Glenna has been helping me acquire pictures of the Haynes family, so I thought I'd share a little story for her about her Dad, my great uncle Glen Haynes.
The Haynes Boys:  Glen, Verl, Seth, and Jack.  They also have a middle sister Mary, who was probably (wisely) avoiding these hooligans at the time this picture was taken.

This story is from my Grandpa Happy Jack Haynes, Glen's little brother.

"We were only on the [Campbell] Ranch a year or two, then moved to Fort Shaw, Montana.  We lived about a mile south of town.  On the 4th of July, there was a picnic at the Fort.  Glen won a foot race, first prize was 25 cents.  The community still didn't trust Mormons, so they decided to run the race again!  Glen won again!  They were still upset about the outcome, so they split the prize money!  Each kid only got 5 cents!"

Astounding.

Jack would have been about 4 when this happened, in the early 30s, so Glen would have been about, say, 13?  I could see something like that contributing to a major chip on the shoulder, but as far as I know, Glen didn't carry one. The family moved again about a year later 10 miles west to Simms, Montana.  Hopefully community sentiment was better there!

With ordinary small town folk being so ignorant not even a lifetime ago, I guess I shouldn't be so caught off guard when I frequently notice prejudice toward Mormons in mainstream media (even in the well-meaning ones) today.  Like Glen, I guess we can just take our nickel and trust that people have great capacity for change.

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