“We’ve Got to Go to Work”
Despite the hardship of frontier life, for decades thousands of Latter-day Saint men left their homes and families to preach the gospel. While missionaries preached the gospel in many foreign lands and throughout the United States, many women and their children kept farms productive, ran businesses, and took on additional work.
In spring 1919, Harriet “Ret” Gundersen’s husband, Thomas, was called on a mission in the southern states. With six children at home between the ages of 15 and 3, Ret braced herself for difficult times but resolutely told her husband, “The Lord has called you to do his work, and I will do my part. We will sustain you in the mission field.”
When Thomas boarded a train headed east on May 28, Ret and her children showed brave faces. “After coming home from the railroad station,” Joe recalled, “I went upstairs and cried and cried.” Ret did not allow them to dwell on their sorrow, however. “Come on, Dode,” she called to Joe, using his family nickname, “this won’t do us any good. We’ve got to go to work.”
Every member of the family pitched in. Ret rented the family’s blacksmith shop and took in laundry and mending. Howard worked at a local brickyard, and he and Lamont delivered newspapers each afternoon, while the younger children hoed and weeded a neighbor’s garden. When her father warned her that her potato crop might fail, Ret stayed up late watering the plants, and her children spent extra time tending to them. That fall, they borrowed space in her father-in-law’s storage shed to keep the excess potatoes, which they later sold at $1.50 a bushel.
During the two winters that Thomas was away, the Salt Lake Valley experienced epidemics of influenza and measles. As each of Ret’s children fell ill, ward members came to their aid. Brother Lars Larson, their ward teacher, frequently visited the family to pray with them and to give priesthood blessings. One winter when Erma became particularly ill, Ret’s aunt May, a professional nurse, stayed with Erma while Ret attended to her home and calling. Ret found strength in the fellowship of their ward and family.
Throughout Thomas’s mission, Ret served faithfully as president of the Winder Ward Primary. “I never will forget the dear women friends of the Primary who helped me,” Ret said. “The Lord helped us at that time in so many ways, and He tested my faith almost beyond my endurance. He came to our rescue in due time in answer to our many prayers.”
Because of the sacrifices by families like the Gundersens, by the mid-20th century, Latter-day Saint congregations were flourishing in all 50 states.