This is the text of a genealogical training lesson entitled “For a Wise Purpose.” Which was used throughout the church in the 1940’s. The lesson speaks extensively of the Hale family, and includes the story of the lighting of the Logan temple. An exerpt of this lesson, including the pictures, has been scanned for you and appears in the halefam.org photo gallery.
The reference for this LDS Church-wide genealogical training manual is: “For a Wise Purpose” (Lesson 43), Birthright Blessings, Genealogical Training Class, Sunday School lessons for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, published by the Deseret Sunday School Union Board, 1942, pp. 129-31.
For a Wise Purpose
Bishop Jonathan H. Hale. The story of his life is told in an excellent family genealogy–a local product of which we may all be proud–entitled Bishop Jonathan H. Hale of Nauvoo, His Life and Ministry, by Heber Q. Hale.
Bishop Hale was the father of Alma H., and a stalwart and heroic martyr to the faith. Both he and his good wife, Olive (Boynton) Hale, laid down their lives in a tragic manner at Council Bluffs, Iowa.
“There came the cry of a newly-born baby from his tent on the ground; a sick wife and hungry children; days and nights without sleep or rest; the culmination of a long and taxing strain upon a body, which heretofore had not known exhaustion; suffering and handicapped from a broken leg; contaminated river water and improper food; hundreds about him sick and dying–all combined in so completely wearing him down and lowering his resistance to a point where the dreaded malaria got in his deadly work, and a manly heart was stilled and a tired body was laid to rest. His faithful, worn and weary wife, with her two baby daughters, soon followed the worn-out father in death–all passing out of this life within two weeks–Martyrs to a Great Cause.”
Marvelous Record of Temple Work. With such a glorious heritage to inspire them, the Hale family has carried on in a most noble way. In one field alone, that of temple work, their record will be hard to excel. From 1889 to 1938 their records show a grand total of 60,505 temple ordinances administered, and the work has continued steadily since. Each year the Hale family members assembled at the home of Alma H. Hale at Logan and went in a body to labor in the Logan Temple.
Providentially there came into the hands of this family of temple workers a Hale genealogy, tracing their ancestry back eight generations to Thomas Hale of England. One day U.S. Senator Robert S. Hale of Vermont inquired of George Q. Cannon, Delegate from Utah, if he had any knowledge of the family of Jonathan H. Hale who had migrated with the Mormons to the Rocky Mountains. The Senator was compiling a genealogy of the Hale family and needed this information to make it complete.
President Cannon knew all the sons very well, and put Senator Hale in communication with them at once. They sent in their record. Although Senator Hale died, other relatives, Senator Eugene Hale and George Hale, published his genealogy in 1889. Yet they had no appreciable interest in the record after it was printed and disposed of. Senator Eugene Hale immediately sent a copy of the Hale genealogy to the Hale brothers in Utah, and they commenced the labor, culminating in the total mentioned above.
[Caption under photos of Jonathan’s three surviving sons: Aroet Lucius Hlae (1828-1911), Alma Helaman Hale (1836-1908), Solomon Henry Hale (1839-1925) “Sons of Jonathan Harriman Hale and Olive Boynton, and nephews of Dr. John F. Boynton. These three have left a numerous posterity of faithful Church members.”]
Manifestation of Divine Approval. One evening in February, 1896, the Hale family was completing the record of sealing for the whole record in the Logan Temple when “a strange phenomenon was reported: the sacred structure, it is said, became suddenly illuminated–flooded from dome to foundation with a blaze of light. Apostle Marriner W. Merrill, who was then President of the Temple, observed the phenomenon as he was traveling on the highway that night from Logan to Richmond. It was likewise observed by many residents of Logan. . . . The following night the Temple was again flooded with illumination, the same as on the previous night.
“President Merrill finally concluded and announced to the general assembly in the Temple that this beautiful and glorious manifestation was a spiritual phenomenon. ‘The matter was subsequently called to the attention of President Wilford Woodruff,’ the account in the Deseret News continued, ‘who declared it to be an assembly of the great Hale family from the spirit world, who had gathered within those sacred walls in exultation over their liberation through the beneficient ministrations in their behalf.’”
Many Family Histories. In behalf of a family so diligent, it is not surprising that other men of the world should search out other lines of their ancestry. The wife of Bishop Jonathan H. Hale, Olive Boynton, was a sister of John F. Boynton, who was one of the first Quorum of Twelve Apostles. He left the Church but in his later years spent virtually his whole time compiling a monumental genealogy of the Boynton family, tracing it back to about 1000 A.D. Others gave similar service. In the Church Record Archives are charts recording the names of 200 direct ancestors of Alma H. Hale. For virtually every line there are one or more printed family genealogies with excellent records of descendants, including the families of Palmer, Johnson, Wicom, Hazeltine, Harriman, Elithorp, Plummer, Wood, Dole, Stickney, Hardy, Kimball, Scott, Whotlock, Day, Pengry, Nichols, George, Pratt, and Hutchinson.
In this remarkable way has the prayer of President Woodruff been fulfilled.