Promotional Material for

The Diaries of Charles Ora Card:
The Utah Years, 1871–1886

edited by Donald G. Godfrey and Kenneth W. Godfrey

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For Immediate Release . . .

ASU Professor Works to Preserve Mormon History . . .

Professor Donald G. Godfrey, Ph.D., Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University, has just completed editing, The Diaries of Charles Ora Card: The Utah Years, 1871–1886. Working with Kenneth W. Godfrey, who spent thirty-seven years in the L. D. S. Church Educational System as teacher and administrator, the Godfreys (they are not related and trying to figure out why) have made public a rich historical resource chronicling and important period of Mormon history that historian Thomas G. Alexander called “Mormonism in Transition.”

The diaries detail the pioneers’ attempts to make the desert blossom including their work on the Logan Temple and Logan Tabernacle. During this era, the church faced increasing economical and federal pressures. The records accent the everyday struggles of a people, their leadership both locally and church wide, and Card’s own dramatic capture by U.S. marshals as well as his escape.

Utah readers will enjoy a virtual who’s who in Mormon leadership of the time. Arizona readers will recognize pioneers of their own and see a strong relationship between the Arizona settlements, Cache Valley, and the later Canadian settlements. Canadian readers will have a better understanding of the foundations from which their pioneers grew and moved northward.

Card was a community and church leader at a pivotal time in the history of the West. He spent nearly two decades in city and county government, serving as city councilman, road commissioner, coroner, justice of the peace, and selectman. He was a strong proponent of education. He taught and served on the examining board, the Logan School Board, and the Brigham Young College Board. He spent fifteen years, developing irrigation projects in Logan, Hyde Park, Richmond, and Smithfield. He was a member of the militia. He was a farmer and a millsman, operating the Card and Son Mill, Central Mills, the United Order Mill, Temple Mills, and the mill for the Board of Trade.

Two of Cache Valley’s most conspicuous and historically significant buildings, the temple and the tabernacle, were constructed under the superintendency of one man — Charles Ora Card. But Card’s own focus was not on building. His focus was service to his community and his church.

In this key contribution to Mormon history, Card’s diaries record the words of every major church authority of the time — including John Taylor, all the Thatchers including Moses Thatcher, Orson Hyde, D. H. Wells, Henry Ballard, Marriner W. Merrill, Charles W. Nibley, William B. Preston, Franklin D. Richards, Lorenzo Snow, Wilford Woodruff, and Brigham Young.

Editors Donald G. Godfrey and Kenneth W. Godfrey have worked to preserve the integrity of the original diaries and what was communicated directly as well as providing extensive footnotes so that the reader may better understand the challenges of the times and the testimonies of the people.

David Whittaker, curator of Western and Mormon Manuscripts at the BYU Library Archives, noted that “while Card is ususally remembered for his pioneering leadership of the Mormon settlements in Alberta Canada … his experience and preparations were anchored in his earlier life in Cache Valley.… These professionally edited twenty-three journals are the records of both the rich history of a Mormon community and also the life experience of a major contributor to that community.”

Book Information:

Donald G. Godfrey and Kenneth W. Godfrey (eds.), The Diaries of Charles Ora Card: The Utah Years, 1871–1886, Provo: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, 2006.

Price: $29.95
Pages: 604
Illustrations: 44
Extensive Index
Complete Reference List

Contact Information:

Donald G. Godfrey, Ph.D.
Professor and Editor
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Arizona State University
PO Box 871305
Tempe, AZ 85287-1305

E-mail – don.godfrey@asu.edu
ASU Phone 480-965-8661