Joseph's Journals

On the first page of Joseph's earliest journal to which I have access is written "Book B". On the second page he wrote, "Continued from page 240 Book A." Unfortunately, I don't have a "Book A". It must have gotten lost, damaged, or some other distant relative has it and is holding on to it for personal reasons.

The 12 volumes of journals of which I do have electronic images ended up in the possession of my great aunt, Gertrude, after Joseph died. In September 1979 she donated them to the Church Historical Department. The church microfilmed them and made the microfilm available to anyone who wanted to view it. In 2009 I went to Salt Lake City and sat in the reading room of the new Church History Library, scrolled through the microfilmed journals to dates of entries which were of interest to me, and dictated the text onto a digital voice recorder. I transcribed the text after I returned home.

A few years later I noticed that the Church History Department was making various digitized images of items from their collection available online, and anyone interested could request digitization services. I requested the journals be digitized in their entirety. Initially my digitization request was denied due to copyright issues. I refused to take "no" for an answer and persisted. I emailed them a scanned copy of the donation certificate (of which I have the original) and assured them that there was no closer relative other than me who could authorize or restrict the duplication of the journals. I also referenced my interest in family history and argued that had noticed as I had become familiar with the microfilmed version a few years earlier that Joseph had tucked family photos and mementos between the journal pages. Those priceless items could be found nowhere else. By denying me access to his journals they were denying me access to important family history. They finally relented and agreed to the digitization.

I don't know exactly how many months went by - probably about a year - when I received another email from the Church History Library telling me that the digitization would not be happening and the case was closed. Again, I persisted and protested, referring them to all the previous correspondence. Apparently they had major changes in staffing as well as policies and procedures. However, my protests were successful. Within a week or so I was emailed links to the electronic files which I immediately downloaded.

From my understanding, the purpose of digitizing historical resources and documents found in the Church History Library is generally to make them available online, but some (actually, quite a few) are restricted and closed to research. Some restrictions are due to privacy issues and others involve controversial issues the church would prefer to keep out of the public eye. Prior to my digitization request, Joseph's journals were not on the Church History Library's radar and anyone could request the microfilm to view. But once they were digitized by a member of the staff and the contents reviewed, most of them have subsequently been closed to research. Only journals #2 and #4 are available online (here). I don't know if anyone can request to see the microfilm in the library reading room, but I think it would be unlikely.

Some researchers and scholars can obtain access to items which are otherwise closed to research if they know the right people and make the right argument. I tried to gain access to a couple of former Salt Lake Temple president's journals and was denied. Prior to another trip to SLC, whenever that happens, I'll try again.

I've read through Joseph's journals in their entirety no less than three times and have taken extensive notes on whatever interested me. This was no small task. The number of images of journal pages and enclosures total 4,751. Most of his writings dealt with his various, often mundane, activities of the day. Some, however, were very enlightening. Others which dealt with family tragedy such as death and illness were quite troubling and inspired a true emotional response within me. And then there were those journal entries that kind of created a window into his soul and peeled back  layers to expose how he truly experienced life.

The journals span more than 59 years. The first one begins at the tail end of his Swedish mission in July of 1888 when he was 23 yrs. old and ends in November of 1947, 12 days prior to his death at age 82. It's interesting to compare the content and the handwriting as the years roll on. For the most part, once he was hired as a recorder in the Salt Lake Temple he would include the number of ordinances he recorded each day in his journal. For a number of years, while Lilian was hospitalized and he was apparently overwhelmed with life, temple ordinance numbers were the only things he wrote in his personal journal.

A page from his earliest journal.

A page in which he only recorded temple ordinances.

A page from his last journal.