Was it lead by authoritarian control freaks like today. I’m wondering if the mid-late 20th century was a pleasant fluke.

Gotta find someone older than me, and THAT AIN'T EASY !!!

Happier. Much happier. I was a small child in the early- and mid-1950's. Everything was A-okay through the 1960's and into the 1970's. The church was growing and growing. It was seen as a family church that included softball, basketball, youth conferences featuring Paul Dunn, road shows, recitals, and giant (and I mean BIG) dance festivals. The church was destined to have 100 million members by now. But it stopped. The "Correlation Program" came along, and the enjoyment was slowly sucked away, and the missionary effort slowed. But it was mass communicatin' that caused the slow implosion, until--finally--the Internet, and Satan's spawn, The Search Engine.

Damn you, Google!! Damn you!!

I graduated from high school in 1950 in a small southern Idaho town that was about half Mormon, and my memories are much like Cludgie's.

I remember participating with my Mormon girlfriend in a huge church dance festival with probably a thousand teenage dancers, in a baseball field. The stake put on an amateur stage play every year. The "Green and Gold Ball" was an annual stake event. There were pot-luck dinners at the wards, which all had kitchens.

No correlation. No family home evening. Every quarterly stake conference we had an apostle as the main speaker. Nobody was required to go on a mission. I was never once asked by the bishop about masturbation.

Temple recommends were issued for each temple and were good only for that temple. You didn't have to have a recommend to be considered a good Mormon. There were only four temples in Utah, one each in Canada, Hawaii, Arizona and Idaho.

On the other hand, I was contacted a few years ago by another exmormon who told me that he had grown up in the same ward and at almost the same time as I was there, just a couple of years afterwards. He said that he knew other members of my family. He also said that he had been continually sexually abused by ward leaders, but said nothing because he assumed that was just the way it was. I was completely unaware at the time that anything like that was going on.

So maybe things haven't changed all that much after all.

My grandfather told me stories of Cache valley back in the Roosevelt days. There were no paved roads, they road on sleighs or on a horse to get here and there. Relief society was all day long once a week. Everyone in the valley knew everyone elses and there was only one stake. Women (who were married) didn't work so they socialized all day long. They were always making a quilt. The sacrament was done with one cup, and everyone drank out it. (This was before germs existed). To go to school they would take a trolley. The kids were wild, smelled bad, never bathed, and it was really really hard to learn anything in school (probably even worse today because there were bigger class sizes).

My grandmother talked about going up Logan Canyon about 1940 right after the road got paved. They would hold a girls camp where all the girls got together and abuse each other. It was really bad.

I had an uncle from Wellsville in the 1850s who died from being getting beaten up after school. Mormons children were really rotten, and there was lots of free range parenting. Kids are better behaved today.

In 1950 I was 14 years old and only concerned with playing dixieland jazz on my cornet.
Organized religion was not therefore my highest priority

One of the most important doctrines in our wondrous Church is this one.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/20.17?lang=eng#p17

D&C 20:17 - By these things we know that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which are in them;


Just a friendly reminder that D&C does not stand for Delusions & Craziness. The teaching that God is unchangeable is a very sacred doctrine and covenant in our marvelous gospel. If the Church has ever really changed then of course its not God's Church. But thanks to the beloved Correlation program I've got a good washing done on my brain to make sure I never dare question this :)

That there will be change is unchanging and unchangeable.

The unchangeableness of permanent changeability is the foundation of changeabilitiness!

Yay, ghawd!

All the episodes were in black and white.