--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Booth, J. Wilford collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 12 number: 11 published: 1909-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'J. Wilford Booth, "Four Heroes Far Away," *Improvement Era* 12, no. 11 (September 1909): 898–907.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera12011unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera12011unse start_page: 898 end_page: 907 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera12011unse publication_year: 1909 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Four Heroes Far Away FOUR HEROES FAR AWAY. BY J. WILFORD BOOTH, PRESIDENT OP THE TURKISH MISSION. "A good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of »ne's birth." "And then whate'er befalls me, I'll go where honor calls me." 'Then with my last fond sighing whisper soft when dying I'll Farewell, farewell, my own true love." "Blue Bell, they are returning, Each greets his sweetheart true, Blue Bell, my heart is yearning, Never a one greets yon. Sadly they tell the story, Tell how he fought and fell, No thought of fame or glory, Only of his Blue Bell." The above quotations form a peculiar mixture of sentiment, but you will soon see that each line has some thought to lend us in our talk of four comrades in the fight for right whose home- coming has been delayed until time shall blend into eternal day. Up to date the number of missionaries to Turkey, according to our records, is forty-seven, covering a period of some sixty- eight years — from about 1840, when Apostle Orson Hyde landed in Palestine, to the present time. That is only one missionary f.;r every seventeen months, but of course, nothing much was done the first thirty-three years, or until the visit of another apostle, Lorenzo Snow, who dedicated again the land of Palestine FOUR HEROES FAR AWAY. 899 to the work of the Lord and the return of the Jews to their prom- ised inheritances. Still another fourteen years passed by before, in 1889, missionary work began perma- nently and since that ; date in twenty-three years, we have had forty-four mission- aries, which still averages us only two a year. Out of that little company there are four young heross "who have never re- turned." They died and are buried in the land "beyond the sea," and their sep- ulchres are with us until this day. I am sure there are none of my read- ers who, were they the living loved ones EDGAE D. SIMMONS of these dead broth- ers here, would feel Eigar Dilwrorth Simmons, son of Joseph Marcellus Simmons who died Feb. 14, 1872, and Rachtl Emma that honor had been Woolley, eldest daughter of the late Bishop Edwin D. misplaced by a short Woolley, was born in Salt Lake City, April 25, 1863, ordained a deacon Feb. 18. 1887, an elder. Jan. memorial article in 28. 1889 and a seventy, Apr. 20, 1889. Though but the pages of our 26 years of age, when he died, he was a matured man in business, in fidelity, in honesty, in all tnat young men's journal, makes the well-rounded character which seldom is accorded to youth. He started as cash boy at Walker the Improvement Brothers at 10 and was paying teller in their bank Era, locating their when he left for his mission. distant graves. The remains of nearly all the elders who have died in the mission field have been carried, even from the most distant corners of the earth, to find a place of rest in the necropolis of their own wards 900 IMPROVEMENT ERA. in Zion, but of our quaternion heroes who have laid down their lives for the cause of truth in Turkey, not one has been taken back to be interred in the "banks of flowers," by the hand of former friends amid the tender tear-fall of grief-stricken homes and sorrow- ing hearts. But we do not complain that they are here, neither do I think their loved ones at home feel that any slight has been in- tended. It seems more like the ruling of a wise Providence to allow their bodies to rest here under the dew and the sod, "that their monuments might per- petuate their work in bearing witness of the truth." The names of our dead comrades are Edgar Simmons, D. Adolf Haag, John A. Clark and Emil J. Huber. Each one has gained a good name, better than precious ointment. Each died in honor and in the harness of the priest- hood, and surely the rest of each will be a glorious one. The loved ones of ADOLPH HAAG these four noble young men, I know have never forgotten the "last fond look" and the farewell kiss of the brave boys who went where honor called them, and next to, if not equal to, the dear mothers and sisters whose "hearts are waiting for the boy that never returned," I think our tender sympathy must go out to meet the "Blue Bells," the true FOUR HEROES FAR AWAY. 901 and faithful sweethearts, the streams of whose gushing life in the overflow of grief, have been turned aside into the Salton Sea of Solitude, to weep in pensive waiting for some mighty force t° turn the tide into its former course again. Ah, brave girls, your reward is not lost either. When the life of your absent loved one is some day un- folded to your view, and when you trace his trials through the field of toil and thorns of shade and flowers, you will see how often your mes- sage of love, encased in a crescent of hope and full of faith and prayer and pu- rity, has just arrived in time to lend the needed aid to help him on until released in honor. The Turkish mis- sion is, of course, a hard one, and we understand there is a coldness in re- sponse to calls to labor in this for- saken land. Less JOHN A. CLARK. brave ones will most likely choose a field more fascinating, but at the same time it keeps our numbers few, it keeps these few the bravest just the— kind we need to meet the situation here. WHERE OUR BOYS ARE BURIED. Here is a picture of the first elder, and his grave, who died 902 1MPR VEMENT ERA in the Turkish mission —Elder Edgar Dilworth Simmons, of Salt Lake City. He arrived here July 9, 1889, leaving Salt Lake City April 20, 1889, and was afterwards located in Aintab, where with a companion he studied the language a few weeks, but was soon left alone, and in January, 1890, was taken down with smallpox, and after fourteen days, with only native friends to care for him as best they could, he succumbed, and died on February 4, 1890. He was buried by a kind minister of the Protestant Church, known as Budville Krihor. Elder Simmons' grave is at the north- west edge of the Protestant Armenian cemetery, at Aintab, not far from the Central Turkey Col- lege, and the spot is marked by a heavy substantial monu- ment of black basalt on the north face of which is inscribed this touching epi- taph: Edgar D. Simmons Died at the Post of his Office Feb. 4, 1890, aged 26 years. The absence of trees EMILE J. HUBER. makes the place look desolate, but the springtime brings a gauze of green; and floral offerings rise around the tomb as gifts of nature to the dead who slumber there. The elders with Sister Booth have oft resorted pour heroes far away. 903 thereto decorate the grave, and I have seen her sit in meditation there as if her heart contained the sorrow of the dead boy's mother, while she seemed to say in silence: Eager I gaze into the gloom around, Thy form to see, Striving once more to catch the cord that bound My heart to thee. The second of our missionaries to lay down his life in this far off land was elder Adolf Haag. This young man [took up his labors in Palestine and spent most of his time in Haifa among the German colonists. After about two years in the midst of earnest work, typhoid struck him down and he died at the home of good friends, Brother and Sister Hild, at Haifa. The date of his death GRAVE OF ELDER EDGAR D. SIMMONS, TURKEY. is indicated by the following inscription on the west front of a neat cube of rock supporting a white, broken marble column. Peep through that bunch of geraniums and you may read in clear. cut letters: Adolf Haag Von Payson, Utah, U. S. A., Geb. 19. Feb. 1865, in Stuttgart, Deutschland, Gest. 3. Oct. 1892, in Haifa, Ein Missionar der Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligeu der letzten Tage. 904 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Aside from these written words, there seems to be a sacred blending of evergreens and marble as the sunlight and the shade play in harmony there, sending out a song of longing affection on the breeze from the heights of Carmel to some one far away, say- ing: Do they miss me at home, do they miss me? It would be an assurance most dear, To know that this moment some loved one Was saying ''I wish he were here." THE GRAVE OF ELDER ADOLF HAAG, HAIFA, TURKEY. In this same picture, you will see straight along the aisle to the right, another tombstone much like the one described as that of Elder Haag. Now look at the next picture and you will see a view of the place where lies the third one of our heroes, Elder John A. Clark, of Farmington, Utah. He sleeps beneath this sunlit pile of mar- ble within a few yards of the tomb seen in our last picture, and their twin monuments are taken in both photographs, but shrub- bery obstructs the view more in the latter than in the former. You cannot read the letters clearly in the picture, but if you come and FOUR HEROES FAR AWAY. 905 stand by the tree there, and push that flower aside you may see in neat forms these chiseled words GRAVE OF ELDER JOHN A. CLARK, HAIFA, TURKEY. In fond Remembrance of John A. Claik, Son of Ezra and Susana Clark, Born Feb. 28, 1871, at Farmington, Utah, U. S A. Died Feb. 8, 1895, at Haifa, Palestine, A Missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints During his stay in 1894, and up to his death in 1895, Elder Clark was cared for to the last by Brother and Sister Hilde and other kind friends. So far as we can learn, he died of smallpox, but more detailed information can be had from elders present in the mission at that time. In the tithing record of the then Haifa branch we find a credit of ten francs to Elder Clark,on January 18, 1895, and still later, Jan. 26, his name appears again, so it will be seen that his illness was not long, as he died in thirteen days after this last date. Those who knew these two young men in 906 1MPRO VEMENT ERA . Zion, whose graves are here by the side of the sea, ia the tranquil evening shades of Mt. Carmel, where you see their sepulchres so close together in double testimony of the gospel, will think of the words of David, as his two friends, but a few hours ride from the sacred spot ? lay "fallen in Mt! Gilboa." They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, And in their death they were not divided. On the day after Easter, April 12, of this year, I plucked a leaf and a blos- som from each of these dear boys' graves and am saving them for their folks at home The fourth and last of our intrepid companions is Elder Emil J. Huber, who died here at Aleppo, of typhus, on May 16, 1908, and was buried two days later in the Christian cem- etery, northwest of Grave of Elder Emil J. Huber, Aleppo, Turkey. the city. Waiving the eulogy he so nobly earned in his less than one short year of missionary labor, we shall be content this time to have him share the passing praise of this Decoration Day article, while we look with solemn mien at the monument now standing over his "little sleeping palace" among a multitude of other tombs. FOUR HEROES FAR AWAY. 907 During the last Sunday services which he attended, Elder Huber arose, and with a voice trembling under the power of the Holy Spirit, bore his last testimony, and among other things, he said: " I know the gospel is true, and you cannot deny it, having heard it preached by a humble servant of the Lord:' That sentence is inscribed around the base of the monument, and the voiceless testimony is now doing the work cut short by the transfer of Elder Huber to a mission among the dead. You may read almost every letter also on the face of the red-tinted rock, as shown in the picture facing the east. On the oppo- site side also are given some data, and so the epitaph in all would read as follows: In Memory of Emil J. Huber, Missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born in Paris, March 7, 1885. Set apart at Salt Lake City, July 23, 1907. Died in Aleppo, May 16, 1908 As one looks at the monument, the words of Jesus so fitting for the occasion come to mind: "I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." I trust this article, imperfect as it is, will be a source of comfort to hearts that have ached so long, and have, like the mother of Sisera, cried oft in anguish, "Why is his chariot so long in coming?'' Mothers, sisters, sweethearts, if the gift of flowers and fre- quent visits, and a tribute of tears can count for aught at the graves of your loved ones in this far off land, then Sister Booth has filled that part of your wishes whenever she could do so, and has been, with pure love for all of them, a sweetheart, a sister, and a mother, to these brave comrades in the cause of Christ. Aleppo, Turkey, May, 1909.