Twins, twins and more twins

Isn't this an adorable sight? Three women in our ward, all of whom were Primary teachers in our Senior Primary, became pregnant with twin boys.  One set of parents had to move out of our ward when the mom was ordered into the hospital for months and months, and due to the expense, her husband moved in with her grandparents, and that is where they need to live for the time being. But they came back to visit our ward for the Primary program, and to show off their babies to the children.

All of the babies are beautiful melting pots of diverse DNA heritage. And each set of twins has a different placental history. Which is so interesting to me! On the left is a set of mo/mo twins. This means the boys shared a sac and a placenta.  In the middle are a set of di/di twins--each boy had his own sac and his own placenta. On the right is a set of mo/di twins--these two shared a placenta, but each had his own sac.

On the left are Emmett and Everett, whose parents are a blonde woman from Utah with an English surname, and a man whose family were settled in Utah when they came to the US as refugees from Vietnam. The parents of the middle two, Liam and Luke, are a Brazilian mom and a dad from the Dominican Republic. The twins on the right, Oliver and Christopher, are the sons of a mother with an English surname (whose parents presently live in Japan) and a dad who is a mix of Polish and Hawaiian ancestry. (By English surname, I mean that the names are recognizably from England. You know the kind of name like Miller or Shepherd or Ford or Hancock or Ashby or Layton. Names like that.)

I just think it is so cool that all of these wonderful babies have such diverse heritages and also such diverse experiences in the womb. Aren't they adorable?

Empowering Women Students

On October 22 I went to a really great lecture sponsored by the Faculty Women’s Association. I almost didn’t go because, typically, I got involved in what I was doing and didn’t notice when my computer reminded me about it—if the volume is off, all that displays is so small that I don’t notice it. (I am not a champion notice-er at the the best of times.) But I decided to go anyway. Then, when I got to the correct room in the Wilk, it was set up so the door was beside the speaker. That was intimidating! But I decided to “feel the fear and do it anyway” (which, by the way, was a very good book. And it has been probably over 20 years ago since I read it.)

I sat by a faculty member (who was “in charge” of this event) who has become one of my best faculty friends, Denise, who is a math professor. As you would expect for an FWA event, most of the audience were other FWA members, but there were also a few male professors sprinkled throughout the room. That was nice to see. Because the topic was “Empowering Women Students through Learning and Engagement in the Classroom.”

The speaker was Lori Wadsworth from the Marriott School. Since I missed the first few minutes, I got there right when she was saying that our LDS culture unfortunately reinforces some of these things (which things? Gender role expectations, I think. I was not there, so I missed that bit.) For example, our male LDS youth see no female leaders after age 12. There is so much emphasis on dating and marriage that our young males learn to look at the opposite sex as possible mates instead of, you know, people. And then they sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between personal and professional relationships with members of the other gender. (This is problem even in the classroom. For example, in one class Dr. Wadsworth had students put themselves into groups. A female student was having a hard time finding a group that would accept her in the male dominated classroom. One male student said he would have to ask his wife if it was okay for him to have this female student in his group. He asked his wife. She said that she would need to come with him to the first group meeting, and then she would decide. She came and met the female student and told her husband it was not okay. (The female student was very pretty.) So he told the female student she could not be in their group.  Seriously! Dr. Wadsworth was like--can you imagine this happening in the workplace? "I need to bring my wife to our meetings to see if I can work with you, my female colleague." As if!!! The classroom is a professional space, and male students and female students need to see their relationships there as professional relationships.)

Dr. Wadsworth pointed out that when Brigham Young was asked if he thought it was more important to educate his daughters or his sons, his answer was his daughters, because they would have more of an impact on his grandchildren.  (This reminded me of my own family—on my dad’s side, my grandmother attended the BY Academy when BYU was new and still BYA. But my grandfather only had an 8^th grade education.  They had five children: three sons and two daughters. My dad and my Uncle Clyde worked at home on the farm to help finance the post-secondary educations of their two sisters (which as bachelors until they married in their thirties they could do). Both of my aunts were frequently working mothers—teachers. Aunt Elaine was sometimes a stay-at-home mom while subbing; Aunt Ethel always worked in my memory, but she very likely was at home while her children were small. But I am 7-8 years younger than her youngest child.)

Dr. Wadsworth said that the record of men’s and women’s experiences in history have been very different. Because history is male dominant, in many cases, women’s experiences are simply not present. And yet males and females do have different experiences, and all experiences are important. We need to develop a Diversity Culture—and what that really means to her is that we need to be allies with those people who need us, whether it is race or age or gender or disability or whatever—we need to be those allies who will support and encourage and let all voices be heard.

She told a story about how students seeing a female faculty member can make a difference. The required accounting class that has to be taken before students can be admitted as accounting majors was taught by a man for a long time. Recently a woman was hired to teach that class. The number of women in the accounting major went from 15% to 30%. More women applied and were admitted because they saw a woman who had majored in accounting in a leadership role, and it made them think, “I can do this, too.”

She shared some insights from an AdLab study. (Explanation from Wikipedia: “BYU Adlab is an American advertising agency housed within the College of Fine Arts and Communications at Brigham Young University…it is one of the only university-sponsored advertising agencies in the world.”)

n  Female students shy away from competitive programs

n  Female students don’t see options or take the power to personalize their careers. It is harder for them to believe that they can create their own definition of success.

n  Women hold themselves to a higher standard than men do. (So if they see an ad for a job, most women will not apply unless they know they meet 100% of the job description, while most men will apply if they meet 60% of the job description. And yet when a woman is hired into a position over a man, sometimes people will say “she only got the job because she is a woman” as if the employer is only trying to meet Affirmative Action quotas, when the woman is probably clearly better qualified than the man. Like maybe even by 40%.)

n  The effect on women of efforts to level the playing field can actually be negative. By drawing attention to differences, instead of making things better for women, it can actually make things worse. (We see this in the Me Too movement and in Black Lives Matter—instead of people jumping on board with support, there can be backlash, as we have all seen.)

n  Both men and women need to see role models of men and women leaders. (Our male students from BYU have seen only male role models (as leaders) at church since age 12. They know that there are female leaders in Young Women and Relief Society, but they do not really “see” them in the way that females do. Then they see mostly male leaders at BYU. Our faculty is a 63% male, 37% female split, which is on par with the national average, but the upper leadership is predominately male. Some male students who leave BYU are unable to work effectively for female bosses. Dr. Wadsworth said that, frankly, it is embarrassing. Because this news comes back to the business school—they hear about it from employers. It needs to change. So if we are in departments that are predominately male, what can we do to help our students see female leaders? Guest speakers, advisory boards, mentoring. She also mentioned that as departments try to involve their female faculty in order to make them more visible (as leaders) to all students and staff, is that females become overloaded with citizenship responsibilities. If every committee needs female members, but the males outnumber the females 2 to 1, you can see how this quickly becomes a problem for the females.)

Action items:

n  Schedule guest speakers

n  Provide role models

n  Use case examples that involve females

n  Consider usage of teams. (Try to have 2 women on each team if numbers allow. Studies have shown that the voice of one woman will be ignored by a group of men, but two women speaking up can make it so the female voice is heard.)

n  “Invite” female students to do things—to apply for programs or scholarships, or opportunities (Female students are less likely to volunteer for things that look competitive, so inviting them makes them feel like they should do it. Women need to be invited, and they generally need to be asked two times. One time can feel to them like you are just being polite and didn’t really mean it. Two times feels like maybe you really are serious. Generally, men overestimate their ability to do things, and women underestimate, hence their need to be invited.)

n  Call on women in your meetings and classes first (This was super interesting—in research done by the Economist, in 247 departments at 35 universities in 10 countries, the results were all the same: men are 2.5 times more likely to answer questions than women are. But if a woman is called on to answer first, then the ratio is equalized. It is like when a teacher calls on a woman first, all the women are being granted permission to speak. So say there are 26 people in the class evenly split between genders. A man is called on to answer a question first. It would end up that if 10 men spoke, only 4 women would speak. But if a woman would be called on first, it would end up as an even split, with 7 women and 7 men responding to questions.)

n  Avoid over-emphasis of gender

Too much insulin

Jeannie is one of our library custodial workers. I have known her for years--we met in one of Brother and Sister Taylor's awesome conversational Spanish classes. Jeannie was taking it with her husband David, who is a computer guy somewhere on campus. At the time, she was working for the Costume Shop, but that was a part time position, and at some point, she decided to work full time and ended up on our custodial staff in the HBLL.

When I saw Jeannie this morning (Monday actually) and greeted her, she said "It is so nice to see you again after such a long time" or something like that--I could not remember when I last saw her, and she does not always have assignments on the fourth floor--I think I usually see her on Six. So I said, "Oh, has it been a long time?"  And she said yes, that it was her first day back to work after being off for months due to a really strange pancreatic cancer she had. Her story was so interesting that I wish I had been recording it! Because I am afraid I will forget important parts. With our family history of pancreatic cancer, I was absolutely astounded that she was there, post-cancer, telling me the story--but this was not a normal pancreatic cancer.

Jeannie had an insulinoma. This is a rare "tumor of the pancreas that is derived from beta cells and secretes insulin." (thanks, Wikipedia) Her first symptoms were that she could not think straight. Like, she couldn't remember how to clock in and out, or which direction to walk to get to her car. And this came on very suddenly. Her husband was with her, leaving work, when it happened. He thought she was maybe having a stroke or something, so he drove her straight to the hospital.  She was not having a stroke, but her blood sugar was super low, in the 30s. So they tried to up her blood sugar. They plied her with about 20 packages of cookies, and a bunch of sweet drinks, but they could not get the sugar levels up above 69. They needed her levels at least 80 to send her home.

What happens with an insulinoma is that it produces so much insulin that it decimates all the sugars.  As they tried to treat Jeannie, she was forced to eat so much sugar. She would eat until she just was sick of eating, but still her sugars would be low. Over the course of a very few months, she gained 100 pounds from all the enforced eating, but her sugar count remained ridiculously low.

Since this condition is rare, most doctors in the area had never seen it. One had, and he treated her. Finally, after two surgeries, they found and removed the tumor, and Jeannie's life started to normalize.  She has lost about half of the weight she gained, and while she still has to check her blood sugar levels carefully, she wears a monitor (small round thing on her arm) that is constantly measuring, so she only has to poke herself if the readings reach certain points (of too low or too high) which happens only occasionally.

Of course, to make things interesting, as if having a rare medical condition was not enough, our blankety-blank human resources department TERMINATED HER (which fortunately did not mess with her insurance, since David also works on campus) without asking or telling her boss. He was LIVID. She was supposed to be off on sick leave.  Human incompetence was to blame. So once she was well enough to work, she had to go through the entire hiring process, security clearance, etc. before she could actually start work again. So that was fun for her. Not.

(Began writing on Monday; posted on Tuesday.)

Stake Conference

Last Sunday, Naomi Golbeck posted a question on Facebook: I have a weird question but I’m very curious. For anyone over 68 years old, do you recall there ever being 2 Sunday sessions for Stake Conference?

(My thoughts at the time: Naomi’s mother is about 68 years old. And yes, of course there were 2 Sunday sessions.)

I answered (first person to do so): I am not over 68, so you don’t have to be that old to remember this, because I remember it very well. Since we lived in the country, there was a time when we always went out to eat between sessions, which was both shocking to me (going to a restaurant on a SUNDAY) and also very cool (going to a RESTAURANT, which our family rarely did.)

Naomi must have thought I was confused, because she asked me if was remembering STAKE conference, or was I really thinking of GENERAL conference. (Her question made me laugh, because during the era that I was remembering, we NEVER had two sessions of General Conference. We were lucky to have access to one.)

After a bit of back and forth about that, I wrote: Then, the Stake Presidency decided that we (all of us from out of town) should probably not be going to restaurants on Sundays, so they started to have box lunches available at the stake center. And I LOVED IT. Because we got to eat lunch and play with our friends who were also from out of town. It was quite wonderful.

Then Naomi private messaged me to say: The reason I’m asking is because my Mum is in the early stages of dementia. She has yet to be diagnosed, but we know it’s what she has. We need as much info to take her doctor as possible…and this morning she asked me if there is an afternoon session of stake conference. Mary (Naomi’s older sister) knows it wasn’t around when she was little, so I’m trying to figure how far back she’s (her mom) remembering things…and confusing it for now.

I answered that I am (almost) 61, and that I would guess that I was about 10 when the afternoon sessions were discontinued. (Turns out that I was spot on.) And I promised Naomi that I would find out more about it.

Naomi’s question brought back many stake conference memories, among which was the memory that stake conferences happened more frequently. We had QUARTERLY stake conferences, instead of meeting together as a stake only twice a year. This was especially important to young me after they changed our ward boundaries, and I lost my beloved friend Dorothy Anderson to the second ward. At least I would see her at church four times a year! Which was better than none. Or two.

But as a librarian and researcher, I wanted to find sources about the history of stake conferences, and that was a little harder than I expected.

I started with our Taber Stake History book that Ellen (Conrad) compiled about 15 years ago or so. But it only had people’s stories, not facts or dates. I found the article my sister Colleen had written for it. She mentioned going out for lunch at Petrie’s Pantry (one of only a handful of possible restaurants in Taber) which was the memory I was thinking of. But she also mentioned the book store! That was another surprising thing that I used to love about stake conference! Before, between and after sessions, the Seventies Quorum had a room set up as a satellite Deseret Book store. And my mother sometimes let me buy a book! (And I could always look…) I remember buying a book about tithing. And the biography of Joseph Smith by his mother, Lucy Mack Smith. In Colleen’s article, she says it was a visiting General Authority who told the stake presidency to put a stop to both the eating out at Petrie’s Pantry and the book store.

In my quest for information, I tried searching on lds.org, but did not find what I was searching for. (Although I did find at least one good article that touched on some history of stake conference material, of course I can’t find it today!) I meant to ask John and Ellen about their memories of stake conference, since they were down here to go into the MTC, and were coming to church with us in the afternoon. And since Ellen had compiled the Stake History book, I thought it would be a question that they were at least interested in. But then, I completely forgot about it, and didn’t even bring it up.

So on Monday, I sent this question to our friend James MacDonald, who is the head of reference services for the Church History Library:

I have a research question for you: So, a friend in Lethbridge whose mother is beginning to exhibit signs of dementia asked her this weekend if they were going to the afternoon session of Stake Conference, and her daughters who are too young to know that was a thing were pretty shocked—they wondered where she got that idea. I, and others, assured the girls that their mom was indeed remembering something that really was a thing for a long time.  So this made me wonder about the dates of changes to stake conference.  Some things I remember, but not well enough to put dates on them. I looked on lds.org and found an article about stake conferences, but it did not answer all my questions.  So, here they go:

1.       Stake conferences used to be held quarterly. When did that start, and when did it change to twice a year?

2.       Stake conferences used to have morning and afternoon Sunday sessions. When did that change to only one Sunday general session? (I am not counting the extra meetings for various groups that may occur.)

3.       The sacrament used to be observed at stake conference. When did that stop being a thing? When it was a thing, was it served at both morning and afternoon sessions, or only one of the two?

If you know of a resource that will answer all the questions, you can point m to it and I will find the answers myself. Or you can answer them, if you will.  

I got an answer back on Thursday: 

On February 12, 1929 the conference schedule discontinued the practice of two sessions on Saturdays. However, in that same missive it explains that there was to be 3 sessions on Sunday: a morning, afternoon and evening session. It is unclear whether the 3 meetings was an alteration to previous practice. I was unable to find a documented change from 3 sessions to two.

In the October session of the 1967 General Conference, the afternoon session of quarterly Stake Conferences were discontinued (beginning January 1968) and replaced with the regular ward sacrament meeting.

Beginning in 1979 the quarterly schedule of Stake Conferences was reduced to twice annually. It appears that Stake Conferences were held quarterly from at least 1913. This is the earliest letter I can find referring to the quarterly schedule. However, that schedule may predate 1913. The Conference Reports (General Conference) on the Internet Archive may provide clues to this schedule pre-dating 1913. Alternatively, and probably more successfully one might examine the general minutes of several prominent stakes to identify the beginnings of that schedule.

On February 16th, 1979 sacrament meetings being held on Stake Conference Sunday's were discontinued in the hope that a) more time would be available for families and b) ward and stake buildings could be better utilized on those days.

On January 1, 2015 the schedule of stake conferences was changed to 2 local conferences per year. One to be presided over by the stake president and the other a general authority. Every other year the Stake participates in a broadcast conference from Church Headquarters.

I believe this covers most of what you were looking for. I pulled this information from a closed to research collection. If you wanted to cite these dates you would need to find a public source to reference. I hope that with the dates provided you could use publicly available sources to document the changes, if necessary (General Conference, magazines, Church News). If this is for curiosity I hope my word is sufficient.

A small caveat. It has been my experience that these types of policy/practice changes can fluctuate. For example, you might have a change of practice instituted in 1923 that is rolled back in 1946 and then redone in 1972, or something to that effect. The above reflects the practice changes I have been able to identify documentation for.

Jane and Emma and Jacob and Shayla and Carter

Yesterday, Bruce and I took Rachel, Miriam and Benjamin to see the "Jane and Emma" movie. Patrick's friend has written the script, and I spied one of Josie's friends among the actresses. It was a good movie about Jane Manning James, one of the first African American converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and her friendship with Emma Smith, focusing particularly on the night when Joseph Smith lay under his funeral shroud, when the next day would be his viewing.  It is a very tender and moving story. But kind of cerebral, so I think all that Benjamin got out of it was that it was kind of freaky to see a dead body laying perfectly still under a shroud.  (Although technically, that was a live actor, and not a dead body at all...)

We went to eat at Wendy's after, and as soon as we got in line to order our food, Rachel and Miriam started giggling. When I asked what was so funny, they just giggled even harder.  And then the guy standing in front of me in line said, "Hey! You have the kids today?"

And it was Jacob! And beside him were Shayla and Carter. Rachel and Miriam were wondering how long it would take for the grown-ups to notice that we were standing next to each other.

So we ended up eating with them. And that was fun.

Shayla, Ben, Carter and Jacob

Rachel and Miriam (and Bruce's hand)