News from Tennessee Conferences 19 Jun 1917

News from Tennessee Conferences 29 May 1917

News from Tennessee Conferences 15 May 1917

News from Tennessee Conferences 1 May 1917

News from Tennessee Conferences 24 Apr 1917

News from Tennessee Conferences 3 Apr 1917

News from Tennessee Conferences 20 Mar 1917

So much in here this week. There is a dedication of a new chapel in Sarah Mississippi. and the Memphis branch sends representatives and a choir. We see a little of Sisters Rindlisbacher and Pettit. Both are very cool sister missionaries. We see brother Henry LeRoy Stewart (1878-1939), a local member of the Memphis branch. He shows up again and again over the years. I just have to write a biography on him. And we have the release of President Henry Child of the Middle Tennessee conference (cause he is going home) and the calling of a new president George W Barrus. Plus a similar leadership change in Mississippi.

News from Tennessee Conferences 27 Feb 1917

The saints living near Morristown were in Bybee, Tennessee. Although not yet organized as a branch, the group consisted mostly of the families three adult children of Anna Eliza Inman Talley. They had been joining the Church in 1905 and included Anna before she passed away in 1909. One more of her children would join the church later in 1917. 

Oakwood was a suburb just north of Knoxville, now entirely subsumed by the city. 

Sarah is about 50 miles south of Memphis. Columbia has long been a center of LDS preaching, though it would be many years before there would even be a branch located there. Most of the members in the area lived well outside the city. Today there are two wards.

I would like to identify who the grandfather "personally acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith" might be. There were a few Tennesseans who could fit the bill. But with so little to go on I am not very optimistic. My best option is to track down Elder Rudd's journal. (Elder Wilson's journal ends just over a year before this event).

News from Tennessee Conferences 30 Jan 1917

Today Johnson City has two wards, Knoxville has eight wards and a branch, and that doesn't include the three wards in the cities between Knoxville and Johnson City.

Memphis has 2 wards and a branch as well as 8+ wards in the surrounding suburbs. It also hosts the first temple built in Tennessee. Jackson has 1 ward. Franklin has 3 wards and hosts the Nashville Temple. Nashville has 5 wards and a branch as well as 8+ wards in the nearby suburbs. Pulaski recently got its own branch.

News from Tennessee Conferences 23 Jan 1917

Some time during the last two weeks of December, President and Sister Callis made their way to Knoxville, where they apparently held a cottage meeting, though beyond the short description above, there is no other record of their visit and no details of the meeting survive.

News from Tennessee Conferences 9 Jan 1917

A few notes about exact dates, or the lack thereof. Elder James Baron and Alma Pace were released on 8 Dec 1916, and both made it back to Salt Lake City by Decemebr 16th. Elder Flake was appointed President of the East Tennessee Conference on 11 Dec 1916.  The exact date Elders Willis and Horsley were temporarily directed to Chattanooga was not recorded, but such moves for the winter were not unusual especially considering Chattanooga was within the East Tennessee Conference area. Similar moves to the city were going on in Middle Tennessee.

The record of the two baptisms, Sister Stone and Sister Slaughter, are not available. It appears that they have been lost. Sister Stone was probably Mary Epaley Stone. Her husband was baptized in 1915 and several children were baptized in 1917. The Stone family lived in Humphreys county. Sister Slaughter has evaded all my efforts at detection. I am guess since she was baptized on the same day by the same missionary pair, that she lived near the same place. Although I don't have an exact date, based on other events in these reports, I would guess they were baptized in early December. That would mean that shortly after baptizing the two sisters, Wilson and Rudd were transfered from Humphreys county to Nashville.

News from Tennessee Conferences 2 Jan 1917

Liahona: The Elders Journal

January 2, 1917

Although published in 1917, this news article describes events from 1916 possibly as far back as November. The baptism mentioned here is for William Solomon on November 26, 1916. And Sister's Pettit and Rindlisbacher were transferred to Memphis on Dec 8, 1916. So consider this a transition piece as we ease into the new year.