Posted by:
Brother Of Jerry
(
)
Date: August 27, 2019 06:42PM
I had one as a kid, as did the rest of the family. They were 8½ by 14" I believe, formatted in landscape mode, with two holes on the left margin, that were weirdly notched open toward the margin. I never did figure out what that was about.
The covers themselves were built like a tank. Rigid covers at least a quarter inch thick, and a sturdy metal hinge in the cover at the left margin. Behind the hinge was a sliding clamp mechanism that gripped two polished metal posts quite firmly. As you added more material to your BoR, you could buy longer posts to handle the added paper.
Personal history, ordination and baptism certificates, patriarchal blessings, mission certificates, blah blah blah were the sorts of things that I suppose were supposed to go in there.
It was the one area where my terminally devout mother fell down in her otherwise complete willingness to do more than the GAs asked. She was sporadical in keeping journals, and even more sporadical in keeping a BoR. Nobody else in the family still has those armor-like covers anymore. I have custody of my mother's papers and journals from when she passed away, including her BOR covers. There are baptismal certificates for all my sibs in there, my dad's Line Of Authority (I remember how important and totally special Mormons thought that was).
There are a few photos and local newspaper articles about the ward, a few family group sheets of genealogy, no patriarchal blessings. Not much in there, really. Kind of sad that a lifetime of fanatical dedication amounted to very little. I'm the only child that fully left, though the others were just cultural Mormons. In the next generation, everyone has left, or are at best jack Mormons. It feels like those recent photos of the Titanic rusting away.
Those too-long covers stick out from my bookcase. I doubt anyone from the next generation has any interest in the BoR or the journals my parents kept. My dad was actually the main journal keeper, even though he was not Mo until I was almost through HS, and never fully drank the koolaid. There are a few entries I would like to look up sometime, like their reactions to the priesthood change in 1978, and the time my dad finally joined Mormonism.