HR: Historians Recount, Les historiens(ne)s racotent
Alberta
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Historian Brigham Young Card & Don Stanyar
Brigham Young Card, born 1914, is the great-grandson of Brigham Young. Mr. Card and Don Stanyar live in Lethbridge, Alberta. They are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), or commonly known as the Mormons.
Brigham Young Card est né en 1914. Arrière-petit-fils de Brigham Young, M. Card et Don Stanyer vivent à Lethbridge, en Alberta. Ils appartiennent à l’Église de Jésus-Christ des saints des derniers jours, c'est-à-dire l’église des Mormons.

Brigham Young Card: “Scouting has always been a strong component of the LDS [Mormon] faith, especially in Alberta.

Brigham Young Card: “We’re urged as LDS or Mormons to have a 30-day supply of food and, if possible, a years supply ahead. So if anything happens to the economy you’re not immediately out of food. We do it for ourselves, but in practice we never turn anybody away. They’re your neighbours.

Brigham Young Card: “We think, for example, the Native People, they are the legal responsibility of Canada because they surrendered their land for us to live on. So, we will do all we can on a one-to-one basis to help them.

Brigham Young Card: “We think that the LDS or Mormon contribution isn’t just handing out bread and blankets. It’s handing out better ways of learning how to live so you can take care of your own needs better. And that’s been a very important contribution.

Don Stanyar: “We had volunteers from outside of our congregations come to the church cannery to can for humanitarian purposes for our local food banks, for the food banks on the [Native] Reserve. We did between five and six thousand cans over a twelve-hour period. We will donate our time to do things for the warehouse purpose, which has nothing to do with our own. You’re not thinking of yourself when you’re doing this.” “As we needed a more regular system for handing on our surplus in a way that benefits others then the tithing principle was adopted churchwide.

Brigham Young Card: “My concept of Mormonism is that it is an external quest for values and structures that lead to enduring open systems. Open systems with one’s family, with one’s neighbours and community, and with one ’s country, continents and the planets.

Brigham Young Card: “We think we could overcome poverty quite rapidly. We won’t put a time limit on it if we practice what the Mormons were trying to do and have been doing. And you do it through mutual help when it’s needed, where it’s needed. It has no bearing on the economy. If you’re able to think in those terms you can have values and structures that can endure.

Brigham Young Card: “And incidentally, it was the Mormons who lent those two companies trying to build that U.S. railroad [the Transcontinental] the final money they needed to complete the line from Brigham Young’s Mormon coffers.

Brigham Young Card: “We’re still Scouts, basically. Observing, noticing and passing on the good.”
Brigham Young Card & Don Stanyar
railroad image
Source Material
  1. NB Associated International, 2923 – 29 Street South Lethbridge, Alberta T1K 6S7
    Brigham Card, Naomi Card, Don Stanyar.
  2. Card Y. Brigham, The Canadian Mormon Settlement, 1886-1925: A North-American Perspective - Canadian Ethnic Studies XXVI, No. 1994.
  3. Card Y. Brigham, Alternative Values and Structures That Lead To Enduring Open Systems…Sociological Reflections on The ‘Mormon’ Quest. Paper presented 1972.
  4. The Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples. University of Toronto Press, 1999.
  5. Palmer, Howard, The Mormons –The Land of the Second Chance-The History of the Groups in Southern Alberta.
  6. The Mormon Presence in Canada. University of Alberta, Lethbridge, Alberta.