Remember the Sacrafices – June 30, 2002
Sacrifice: it’s one of the strengths that built this mighty land. Put simply, it’s a willingness to give up something needed or treasured for a greater good, and the measure of the willingness to sacrifice is one measure of a people. Pilgrims sacrificed their homelands for God; settlers by the shipload followed their lead. Then these hearty folk moved across America, shaping a nation.
Sacrifice was abundant in Nauvoo, Illinois, in the nineteenth century. The people of Nauvoo were essentially religious refugees with a fervent desire: to build a temple for God. The massive undertaking required expertise they didn’t have and funds they couldn’t muster. So they gave what they did have—time, a willingness to work hard, and a spirit that said share first and worry about yourself later.
One woman recorded in her journal, “The people were most of them poor, and they denied themselves every comfort they possibly could to assist in finishing the [Temple].”1 Men donated one day in ten, and few who worked full-time received pay. Most survived on meager means. Wrote one man, “Many times I have worked on the stone quarry on the banks of the Mississippi River, and had nothing for dinner but cornbread when dry, dipped in the river.”2
People did whatever they could. A donation record from November 16, 1842, showed 20 dollars in cash, thirteen and a half yards of cloth, a skein of yarn, a quilt, 3 animal skins, 2 pair of boots and a pair of shoes, some socks and mittens, and 25 pounds of apples.3 Women sewed shirts for the workers, portioned out their garden produce, and contributed pennies one at a time, eventually collecting a thousand dollars to purchase the glass and nails for their temple. All this came from a group sharing their food to stay alive.
Today a temple stands again in Nauvoo, rebuilt by a generation who hasn’t forgotten the sacrifices of its predecessors. This landmark temple serves as a symbol of the determination, resilience, and courage of the original builders and also as an inspiration today for countless Americans who, like their ancestors, have the heart and soul of a people willing to give their all for what they believe.
Program #3802
1. Carol Cornwall Madsen, ed., In Their Own Words: Women and the Story of Nauvoo (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1994), 205.
2. James Leithead, Autobiography in family’s possession.
3. As quoted by Donna Hill, Joseph Smith, The First Mormon (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1977), 295.