--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Jordan, William George collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 14 number: 12 published: 1911-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Jordan, William George, "Little Problems of Married Life. IV," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 12 (October 1911): 1093–1098.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera14012unse 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: improvementera14012unse start_page: 1093 end_page: 1098 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera14012unse publication_year: 1911 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 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Little Problems of Married Life. IV THE BOY PIONEERS OF UTAH. 1091 several young men and boys and they have all been enthusiastic over it. Their faces brightened at the thought of playing pio- neers, living for a few weeks each year in the open, learning wood- craft, hunting, fishing, swimming, providing food for starving camps, pushing hand carts, furnishing aid to the sick and injured, preparing the rustic meal, listening to stories around the camp- fire told by real pioneers, singing hymns, holding councils of war against Indians, guarding camp, blazing trails, planning irrigation .\sJ£^$*s&£^zJi*m&££ -Safes Photo by C. W. Carter. GOING ON A MISSION IN 1867. A company of "Mormon" missionaries in Echo canvon on their way East. systems on the desert, laying out cities — and numberless other things the pioneers had to do. If such an organization did no more than stimulate a healthy enthusiasm and create a loyal admiration of these noble pioneers, who blessed these western deserts with their God directed efforts, it would justify itself. But it will do more than this. Like the Boy Scout movement, it can be made a magnificent factor in the character-building of the young. It will help to offset the unf >r- tunate results of civilization by giving the boys a sane attitu le 1092 IMPROVEMENT ERA. toward life, by creating in them a love for simple life and simple pleasures, and by stimulating their fullest physical and moral development. Of course, it will require leadership; but the question of lead- ership is solved beforehand in the "Mormon" Church. It will require the best brains and enthusiasm in the Church to perfect the organization and work out the intricate details. But when once accomplished, it will stimulate a new interest, will fill the empty benches of the Mutual Improvement Association, and can be made a lasting monument to the memory of the pioneers— a veritable "passover" in preserving the story of their pilgrimage across the plains and their subsequent struggle with the desert. Prcvo City, Utah. Elder F. B. Hammond, president of the Norwich conference, Eng- land, writes to his son, F. P. Hammond, who is studying medicine in Chicago, and gives this valuable little illustration: "I pray that your mind may be fruitful in learning the attributes of the physical body, but that you will not forget the spiritual body. If the physical body does not get the right kind of food, it may need a physician to prescribe what will be best for it to bring it to a healthy condition. It is just so with the spiritual body. If it does not get the spiritual food required, it will be sick and need a physician. There are hundreds of thousands who are spiritually sick, but do not know what ails them. They take it for granted that if they believe in Jesus Christ, they will be healed, but belief alone in the doctor will not heal them. They must take the medicine prescribed, the work that shall make them whole. The Savior, who is the great Physician, said that to be saved one must be born again of the water and of the spirit. Paul, the great apostle, said at the day of Pentecost, 'Repent of your sins, and be baptized, and you shall receive the Holy Ghost.' He has the spiritual medicine that mankind needs in order to be healed." A few words of advice to his son are that he may keep the commandments of God, pay his tithes and offerings, love his fellowmen, honor the Sabbath day, attend his meetings, and partake of the spiritual food given to us by our great Physician, Jesus, through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Little Problems of Married Life. * BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN. IV.— Living in Boarding Houses and Hotels. When some kind bird-lover, in a mansion facing Central Park, had a fine three-story bird-house built and placed in a big elm that extended its green branches over the park wall and across the roadway we were all interested. It was really a tri- umph in carpentry and it bore proudly, in large painted letters across its front, the name, "Birds' Apartment House," so that the house hunting birds could read and understand. And as an extra inducement to secure tenants a generous supply of nest- building material was placed on each of the three floors. With a neighborly interest you may say was just idle curiosity, I waited the coming of the first tenants. It was not long before the grandeur of the edifice caught the eye of a busy, chirping robin. He twittered speculatively near the open door as if attracted by the sign but fearing the rent would be too high. Then he boldly entered the ground-floor apart- ment. In a few moments he came out and flew away till my eyes could no longer follow the black speck in the distance. Soon he returned with another bird and, idly speculating on my neighbor's affairs, as mortals will, I presumed the new bird was his financee whom he had called for to go house-hunting. The young couple stayed within but a little while and then, perched on the ledge as if studying the neighborhood, they chattered excitedly as if con- ferring on the wisdom of their choice. It was really not my affair * Copyright, 1910, by Fleming H. Revell Company. 1094 IMPROVEMENT ERA. at all, you know, and I did not mean to be in the least intrusive, but somehow I felt confident they would take th« place. Next morning, bright and early, a twittering, cheery "chee chee,"and a rustle of wings made me turn my eyes to the house in the trees, and I was sure that the new family were moving in. Soon, to my surprise, I saw twigs, sticks, blades of grass, tufts of cotton and strands of hair pushed and pulled inpatiently through the open doorway by the indignant birds, and fall fluttering into the street. Then the two birds scurried off on a shopping expedi- tion in the neighborhood and soon brought back in their tiny bills twigs and other furnishings of their own. Then I understood it all — it was the birds' instinctive protest against beginning their wedded life in furnished rooms; they wanted to build their own home in their own sweet way. I agree with the birds. Furnished rooms, boarding-houses and hotels can never be true "homes" for married people. At their best, they are but substitutes, not equivalents. They lack the sense of possession, of privacy, of permanency and of person- ality that gives an atmosphere of peace and sacredness to a home of one's own, no matter how small, how modest and plain it may be. They bear the same relation to real homes that an incubator does to a hen — a mechanical imitation of a living reality. In her own home the wife reflects her individuality as natur- ally as the sun radiates light and heat. In boarding-house rooms she has little care and responsibility, slight incentive or oppor- tunity to exercise her individual taste — to give those personal fem- inine touches that grace a real home. Her one or two rooms have not the furnishings she would have selected; they have not the loveable familiarity and the storied memories that may make an old walnut dresser of her own dearer to her than some one else's mahogany masterpiece. The little personal treasures and dainty ornaments that she carefully places around to add a touch of color and brightness and to take a little from the strangeness of it all seem a studied, pathetic, evident attempt at cheerfulness, like a forced smile struggling through tears. When she hangs a beribboned calendar over a grease spot on the wall that is reminiscent of the head of some prior tenant, or launders her handkerchiefs at the wash-stand LITTLE PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE. 1095 and spreads them flat on the window-pane or the mirror to dry, and tries new ways of disguising the presence of a row of dress- laden hooks that constitute the overflow from her one insignificant apology for a closet it all seems so woefully cramped, and tem- porary, and unsatisfying. It is not at all the home her girlish dreams pictured. There is no pride of personal possession. From lack of real occupation her days are long and weari- some; she has not that absorbing stimulus which in a home of her own would fill her hours with duties transmuted into pleasures. The days of inaction are often consciously filled with time-killers, like reading, walking, shopping, matinees, visiting, and over- elaborate care of her clothes, which instead of being episodes of change in her daily life become almost the whole story. There is, too, the constant, forced association with those she does not like, whose presence irritates, whose jests jar when she is not in the mood for them, and whose tales of private griefs poured into her unwilling ears make the lamentations of Jeremiah seem joyful by contrast. There is no sense of privacy, there is the feeling of living constantly on parade, with a constant curb of expression on the emotions. Though her heart may be worn and weary and her mind worried she must put on her property smile of sweetness when entering the dining-room, for she must run the gauntlet of critical eyes and if her own show signs of tears she knows it might start a trail of gossip and speculative comment difficult to stop. The insincerity, curiosity, idle talk, petty meanness, criticism and monotonous sameness, commonly incident to the life is trying to her. It is difficult to live in it and be not part of it; it is so easy to sink by gravity to the com- mon level. There is always this danger where a number of people of varying tastes, interests and ideals are forced by pressure into family community without the genuine love, sympathy, comrade- ship and unity of purpose of a home family. And if even these qualities be absent in the family, there is a tie of blood which has a certain degree of neutralizing power in every discord. This homeless life in a boarding house is harder for the wife than for the husband, as a long term of punishment is harder than a short one. His business duties, keeping him away from the 1096 IMPROVEMENT ERA. scene most of the time, make his realization of it perhaps less, yet he may suffer vicariously in noting the subtle changes in his wife, either in her struggle against the environment or in her surrender to it. In the false perspective of their living, sources of misunder- standing multiply, and the loving adjustment of their views and ideals may be disturbed as the needle of a compass is automatically deflected in certain regions. Meals that in their own home might be enjoyed in frank, gen- ial, trusting companionship and sympathy are now taken under the fire of many eyes that make the sweetness of instinctive confi- dence impossible. In the artificial atmosphere of their living he may be almost afraid to look across the table for fear of being accused of flirting with the new border from Kentucky, who expects to be in town all summer. If the husband does not talk he is likely to be charged with being disagreeable and sulky; if he does talk he may be accused of trying very hard to be fascinating to someone for whom he really does not care two straws. Caught between the horns of the dilemma, the husband thinks hard, says under his breath something not for publication and wishes — that he had a home. The wife may suffer, too, the same mistransla- tion of her most innocent actions. The quiet, social evenings with a few friends have always to be considered from the standpoint of some one else's convenience. The lady on the third floor back is sick and cannot bear the noise of a piano, or walking on the floor disturbs the rest of the ner- vous old gentleman in the rooms underneath, or any of a dozen other considerations may emphasize the limitations of boarding. Where two are forced by circumstances to live for a time in fur- nished rooms or in boarding houses, it makes a special call on their finest tact, patience and love, to neutralize the effect of many con- ditions that they would never voluntarily choose. Hotels give more independence, but more isolation, more free- dom, but also more loneliness. The unwelcome closeness of con- tact of boarding houses is exchanged for an' unwelcome aloofness and coldness. Hotels are excellent institutions for travelers or those desiring temporary quarters, but they pall quickly on lov- ers of a home. They have such an institutional atmosphere as you walk two blocks after leaving the elevator, through heavy,