A special day set aside for thanksgiving seems
very appropriate, although we should always
be thankful for our blessings. The Lord suggests—even
more than suggests, He commands—that we
should be thankful for all things. For example,
in a modern revelation reiterating in our
day some of the basic commandments given through
Moses, we read, “Thou shalt thank the Lord
thy God in all things.' A few verses later
in the same section, after counsel on fasting
and prayer, a reward for faithful obedience
coupled with thanksgiving is promised.
And inasmuch as ye do these things with thanksgiving,
with cheerful hearts and countenance, . . . the
fullness of the earth is yours.
May I share some verse which deals with the
significance of Thanksgiving Day:
What Thanksgiving means
Thanksgiving means a lot of things
To different ones I know.
To some it means a wintry day
With gusty wind and snow.
Some others see a sunny day
A warm and balmy time,
With flowers growing in the yard
And orange trees or lime.
Some see a colored autumn scene,
A white and frosty morn,
With yellow pumpkins in the field
And rusty rows of corn.
To some it’s just another day,
And toil the body saps.
No chance to look ahead to see
A holiday perhaps.
To some it means a day to stuff
With turkey, sauce, and pie.
They eat so much it really hurts;
Then on a bed they lie.
Those football games in constant stream
On television screens
Take up the day from morn till night—
At least, that’s how it seems.
But few there are who see this day
As one on which we kneel
In thanks to God for countless things
That should us to Him seal.
Our health, our wealth, our freedoms dear,
Our family and our friends,
The joy of living in this day—
The list just never ends.
The pilgrims felt it worth the time
To set aside a day
To think of God and thank Him, too,
In their own simple way.
We, too, should give to Him above
A day from busy life,
A day when we can think of Him
Without internal strife.
Just pause and ponder on the name—
Thanksgiving Day—it ranks
As one we make a holiday,
A special day for thanks.
This year as I contemplated Thanksgiving—or
more accurately this talk for Thanksgiving—I
recalled some background from the past which
has led to many things for which I am now
grateful. I realize that few things come into
our possession full blown without roots in
the past. Great new ideas—even those arising
out of flashes of inspiration—are most often
rooted in our experience and background from
the past. Similarly, much that we enjoy in
terms of material conveniences, family tradition,
and educational methods and aspirations developed
from past roots. At Thanksgiving time it is
appropriate for us to pause to contemplate
a little of the road behind us, that the road
ahead might have more meaning.
This morning we meet in a beautiful, large
facility with multipurposes, but in season
emphasizing basketball competition. There
are still in existence facilities for basketball
which brought us to this comfortable and commodious
building. On Sixth North and First East is
an old building, the upper floor of which
was once BYU’s men’s gymnasium. Within
two blocks of that, on University Avenue,
is the old gymnasium for women, where intercollegiate
basketball games were once played. I well
remember BYU’s home games, played in the
Springville High gymnasium so that more students
and others might see this competitive sport.
Many at BYU now remember the tremendous enthusiasm
which accompanied the opening of the great
new facility, the George Albert Smith Fieldhouse,
where most of the games of the Stan Watts
era were played. Today’s generation of students
knows only this 22,000-seat facility, now
one of the finest and largest in the nation.
Our assemblies since my BYU student days have
migrated from College Hall on the lower campus,
to the Joseph Smith Auditorium, to the George
Albert Smith Fieldhouse, and to the Marriott
Center. Other University functions have seen
like change. Our bookstore was preceded by
another in the Herald R. Clark Building, which
in turn was preceded by facilities in a temporary
barracks building, and, for those of more
ancient vintage, a cubbyhole in the basement
of College Hall on the lower campus.
Although I do not consider myself old, I have
experienced a variety of methods for space
heating. Many armloads of wood I personally
carried to provide fuel for a stove, which
served three purposes—cooking, water heating,
and space heating. I have had some experience
with fireplace heating, coal heaters, coal
furnaces, and fuel oil, and I now use a convenient
electrically controlled gas furnace. The current
return to wood stoves does not hold the glamour
for me that it might for others.
In my early youth we carried water from the
well across the street and used water which
came off the roof in rainstorms. I’ve seen
the installation of a water line in a small
community which brought cold water to the
kitchen sink. Water was heated in a tank on
the wood stove, later by coils attached to
a separate hot water tank. Of course, it’s
much more convenient to have natural gas or
electricity as a source of fuel to provide
hot water at any time, day or night.
I have studied under the light of kerosene
or coal oil lamps. I went through an era when
we used a single, bare electric bulb in the
center of the room, and now we use specialized
lamps and fluorescent and indirect lighting.
All of these experiences give greater appreciation
for what we presently enjoy and a sense of
wonder as to what the future may bring.
Some traditions, such as membership in the
Church, may have several generations behind
them, such as mine, whereas many of the student
body at BYU find themselves as the first generation
in building a tradition of membership in the
Lord’s restored Church. Without being exhaustive,
for example, many of my progenitors joined
the Church in its early days. My great-grandfather
Silas Smith was baptized in 1835, and his
father, Asahel Smith, had received with gladness
the news of the restoration of the gospel
through his grandson Joseph Smith, Jr., which
he felt was a fulfillment of one of his own
prophecies. Two of Silas’s sons accompanied
their widowed mother to Nauvoo and later across
the plains, arriving in Salt Lake Valley in
September 1847. These two both had very large
families, and the younger of the two was my
grandfather.
Samuel Walker West and his family embraced
the gospel in Tennessee and in 1842 migrated
to Nauvoo and later moved west with the Saints.
His daughter, Emma Seraphine West, pioneered
in southern Utah and northern Arizona. Her
youngest son is my father.
My grandfather Lorenzo Hill Hatch, was baptized
in February 1840 at the age of fifteen in
Vermont. The same year his father, mother,
grandfather, and grandmother all joined the
Church. Lorenzo’s mother died in Vermont;
his father died in Nauvoo in 1843. His grandparents
died in Winter Quarters and Council Bluffs,
but Lorenzo and two brothers began a large
Hatch posterity in the Church.
His fourth wife, Alice Hanson, with other
members of her family, joined the Church in
England in 1854. As a nineteen-year-old young
lady, she sailed to the United States and
then walked across the plains in a handcart
company. Her youngest child is my mother.
The faith and devotion of these ancestors
have influenced family tradition and life
and have also obviously influenced my feelings
and attitude. But in the final analysis, for
me—the same as for anyone coming into the
Church—whether fifth generation or first—the
conversion process was personal and individual.
Some things don’t change in quite the same
way as others, but we still build on the contribution
of others. Who doesn’t remember some influential
teacher in one’s life who changed the course
of one’s thinking or the direction one has
taken? Three or four of my high school teachers
are fondly remembered; they greatly influenced
my learning and my desire for a college education.
Much has happened at BYU during my thirty-four
years of employment, plus over ten years’
acquaintance at the University during my student
years, including the interim periods while
working, serving a mission, and completing
a term in the military service by invitation
of our government. Five presidents have made
their marks on Brigham Young University in
that period. Many teachers have sacrificed
much to contribute to the ongoing flow of
development. You have heard the names of many,
but let me suggest a few names that may not
be as familiar to you but who, in my opinion,
have contributed greatly to my own growth
and have greatly influenced my career—Herald
R. Clark, H. Val Hoyt, A. Smith Pond, Joseph
K. Nicholes, Weldon J. Taylor, Wayne B. Hales,
Sidney B. Sperry, Robert K. Thomas—the list
could go on. Others would have a similar but
different list. Perhaps most of you may have
someone whom you have known or currently know
who has influenced you in such a way that
they might fit the model so well described
by my eldest sister in a tribute to our mother:
We need not search among the recounted deeds
of the great to find life’s intimate expressions.
Her meaningful messages are truly reflected
in the humble life of each individual. From
the common everyday experiences of humanity,
existence moves in the boundless realms of
eternity; and so from the life happenings
of one fragile being may other personalities
be enriched and courage be summoned in the
struggle of making human relationship more
understandable and pleasant. Such is the aim
of every noble soul.
As enjoyable as a look back may be—and certainly
we should look back and be thankful for those
persons and those developments which have
brought us to our present state—we need
to be thankful that we are endowed with the
power to act, the power to think, the responsibility
to do things of our own free will and choice.
We should be grateful that we live in a land
wherein individual initiative and rights are
still accepted principles. We can make individual
and collective contributions. We can begin
that which for others might become tradition
and history. In our generation we can hold
the lamp of progress in our hand to pass it
to the coming generation. At this Thanksgiving
time may the brief gland behind to sources
of our traditions and current blessings give
us determination to carry on, to build, to
grow, and to contribute to the progress of
mankind. Particularly, may we further the
eternal purposes and work of our Father in
Heaven, that we might be worthy of the blessings
promised to those who devotedly and faithfully
pursue the principles of the gospel, that
we might have joy and might have in our lives
the fruits of the Spirit described by Paul:
Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
That this might be our blessing, I pray humbly
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
