 What’s the deal with the black & white saddle shoes?  Click here for the story of our farm in Greene County, Iowa. Here's looking at life at Simple Serenity Farm  Carla’s sister & brother-in-law Chris and Tony Woods, of Des Moines, were at the farm on Sunday, August 22, helping Carla do the lawn mowing and other yard work that we’ve struggled to keep up with lately, with all our medical appointments. The Woodses brought along their 18-month-old granddaughter Ari, who was a delight watching all the action from the porch with Chuck, catching up on her reading and then getting a moment on the lawn tractor seat! Click here for larger format Earlier photos in this series Iowa Hall of Pride netINS, Inc. Butler House on Grand B&B Sam's Barber Shop Douglas T. Bates III, Attorney KMA Radio's ''Chuck & Don Show'' Barack Obama story & coloring book The Monks of New Melleray Abbey RELATED LINKS About Offenburger.com Biographies Want to Reprint? Want Updates? ARCHIVES Chuck Offenburger's columns Christie Vilsack's columns Carla Offenburger's columns Carla's book reviews Jared Strong's columns Guest Columns The Simple Serenity Farm columns Farm Photos, 2006 - 2008 Our Iowa News Digest Along Our Way 
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 When the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings, Brothers & Sisters, all is well! All is well! By CHUCK OFFENBURGER June 25, 2009 DES MOINES, IOWA When you are a back-row bass singer – and not a very good one at that – in a church choir that has only eight members, hearing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform is surreal.
It was their first-ever concert in Des Moines, and only their second-ever in Iowa – following Ames in 1992. Can someone please explain to me how that has happened? In this state that so loves music – with the nation’s best high school music program and several college choirs/ensembles that also rank among the best in the U.S. – why, oh why, aren’t we regularly booking the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and its “Orchestra at Temple Square”? Even moreso, with the historical link between Iowa and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, their choir should be performing annually here. If you are aware at all of the church’s 19th century history, you know that the “Saints,” as they sometimes call themselves, moved their original settlements two or three times across the United States seeking relief from persecution and harassment. In the 1830s and ’40s, the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, was their home base – and for a time it was a bigger city than Chicago. After a mob murdered some of the church’s leaders in Illinois, the remaining leaders decided it was time to move again, and thus in February, 1846, began the great Mormon Trek, now sometimes referred to as their “exodus,” to the West. It was the same year the Iowa Territory was granted statehood. As those courageous pioneers crossed what is today southern Iowa, they established many base camps for those who would follow, and those camps became many of our towns of today – Garden Grove, Macedonia and Council Bluffs among them. Craig Christensen, a high-ranking LDS church member from Salt Lake City who was traveling as an ambassador with the choir, told some of that story at a pre-concert reception Monday night. He said because of the kindnesses other Iowa settlers gave to the Saints as they passed through, “Iowa is still sacred ground to us.” Then Christensen referred to a specific incident that happened in Iowa during the trek. In April, 1846, the Mormons who had reached Locust Creek Camp No.2, on a ridge just southwest of today’s town of Seymour in southeast Wayne County, were having a miserable time of it. Winter was stubbornly hanging on, and it was cold. But spring was trying to start, and the ground was muddy and slick. It was a real challenge for the people to keep their animals, wagons and selves slogging along their way. And that is when Elder William Clayton received a message by courier from Nauvoo – Clayton’s wife back there had delivered a baby boy. He was so overjoyed he sat down in his temporary quarters at the camp and wrote what 163 years later is still one of the most-loved anthems of the LDS Church, “Come, Come, Ye Saints.” It is still sung regularly by 13.5 million Mormons around the world, and it was written right here in Iowa. Now that you know – or have been reminded about – the story behind the song, especially the difficult circumstances the Mormons were in, savor the song’s words: Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear, But with joy wend your way. Though hard to you this journey may appear, Grace shall be as your day. ’Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive; Do this, and joy your hearts will swell – All is well! All is well! Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard? ’Tis not so; all is right. Why should we think to earn a great reward If we now shun the fight? Gird up your loins; fresh courage take. Our God will never us forsake; And soon we’ll have this tale to tell – All is well! All is well! We’ll find the place which God for us prepared, Far away in the West, Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid; There the Saints will be blessed. We’ll make the air with music ring, Shout praises to our God and King; Above the rest these words we’ll tell – All is well! All is well! And should we die before our journey’s through, Happy day! All is well! We then are free from toil and sorrow, too; With the just we shall dwell! But if our lives are spared again To see the Saints their rest obtain, Oh, how we’ll make this chorus swell – All is well! All is well! I have sort of a fun connection to that song, something that I treasure as one of the highlights of my journalism career. In late 1995 and very early 1996, as Iowa’s Sesquicentennial was upon us, a Mormon who was an artist on the Des Moines Register staff with me, Matt Chatterley, was telling me how closely his church’s history was linked to early Iowa’s. I was intrigued, so much so that I went to Nauvoo in late January to do a couple of days of interviewing. I wanted to write a Register column in early February on the 150th anniversary of when the Mormon Trek began. While working on that, I for the first time became aware of the story of “Come, Come, Ye Saints” being written in Iowa. Since I was a member of my Catholic church's choir – and had been a singer since high school – I was fascinated by it. I decided it’d be a neat salute if we could get church choirs of the different faiths across Iowa to sing the great Mormon hymn at their services on that same February weekend that was the anniversary of the trek’s start. So, my artist friend Chatterley got quick permission from his church’s officials to let us reproduce the sheet music for “Come, Come, Ye Saints.” He put it on one page of paper. Then I wrote a column, telling about the idea for Iowa church choirs to sing this song at their services. We said we’d fax it free to any church choir director in Iowa who contacted us. And on that one weekend, more than 100 church choirs in the state indeed performed it for their congregations. But maybe even more fun, for Chatterley and me, was something we pulled off in the newsroom of the Des Moines Register, leading into that weekend. He’s got a good voice, and while my voice is only fair, I do have a lot of nerve. We prevailed upon an outstanding singer, Phyllis Wolfe, who was our newsroom librarian, to join us. And then we coaxed another female voice – we can’t remember now whether it was Kelly Huggins Baughman from advertising or features editor Jeanne Abbott – to join our impromptu quartet. We sent word throughout the building that everyone should come to the center of the newsroom at high noon for a surprise. There, I quickly told our co-workers the story of “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” and explained that we were encouraging Iowa church choirs to perform it to remember the start of the Mormon Trek. Then the “Des Moines Register Newsroom Tabernacle Quartet,” as I think we named ourselves, gave its first and last performance. I doubt that great hymn has ever been sung in a stranger place! So, needless to say, when I finally got to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing that song on Iowa soil, well, it made Monday night an experience I will never forget.  DID YOU NOTE THAT LINE UP ABOVE HERE, ABOUT HOW THE CHOIR “CONNECTS WITH AUDIENCES IN A WONDERFUL, ALMOST EERIE WAY”? In the fall of 1998, I was wondering about why Iowa has such a strong tradition in choral music. So I went to the best source about such music in the state – the legendary Weston Noble, then in his 51st year directing the globally-known Nordic Choir at Luther College in Decorah. He said it goes back to the immigrants, specifically the Lutheran immigrants, who came from strong singing traditions in Europe. They insisted on having excellent music programs in the schools. And how is it, I asked him, that choirs can have such spiritual connections with audiences? The answer came spilling so fast out of Professor Noble, who was then 75, that I was hard-pressed to keep up with my notetaking. “Consciously or subconsciously, we strive for wholeness all of our lives,” he said. “It’s a never-attained goal, but real value lies in the journey. In this journey there can be unique moments of wholeness, and those moments seem to happen more frequently in the arts, and especially in music, than in a lot of other human activities. We all know those moments when they occur. We experience tears, goosebumps, joy rushes. Your back becomes like a washboard.” Noble continued: “My own personal philosophy is that the spirit side of our nature is mysteriously touched by an element of the music, the harmony or the rhythm, which inspires our emotions, which in turn rule our body. For that brief moment in time, our tri-part nature is totally lined up – the spirit, the soul or emotions, and the body – and we experience that unforgettable moment of wholeness. “It is such an overwhelming feeling that no wonder we search for it over and over and over.” I think we were all feeling that Monday night when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed in Iowa. You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.
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