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Although the cover of the January 1959 Relief Society Magazine was of sunny Los Angeles, my favorite bits of this issue are two small poems about the cold of winter.
Not that picking favorite bits of any Relief Society Magazine is easy. Whenever I read from one, I get excited.
Hey, everybody! There was a decades-long tradition called the Eliza R. Snow Poem Contest (not to mention a short-story contest as well)! A fun coöping of the phrase “Woman’s Sphere“! The introduction of fruit salad to Mormon cuisine!
Even when men show up its interesting with no less a conservative than Joseph Fielding Smith reminding the women of the Church to speak up and to exercise their authority to lay hands on the sick.
Good stuff. I never walk away from the Relief Society Magazine disappointed.
Anyway. Those poems:
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At the VERY least, there are always kitschy advertisements.
There have been some pretty remarkable products of Mormonism’s cultural history–including some things (like that quote from Joseph Fielding Smith) that definitely would raise eyebrows today. Rich veins to mine, culturally and literarily.