Hmmm, I remember hearing him give a wonderful talk when he still had a testimony. There were some allegations of molestation about him, but I’m thinking he drew away and sort of apostasized when (I think) Elder Packer offended him. He spoke at a convocation at SUU(then SUSC) afterwards. Boy was it sad. He wandered and slurred his speech and as I remember, much of his talk seemed nonsensical. The room seemed embarrassed for him.

I’ve wondered what happened to him. Very very sad.

I’m hoping someone writes a good biography of him someday. Surely he deserves better than what a few people think they remember about him.

Since the post was as much about the Deseret News as about George P. Lee, allow me to point out that Towaoc has never been on the Navajo Reservation. It is the headquarters of the Ute Mountain Reservation. (Just to be clear, Lee was a member of the Navajo Nation despite his birthplace.)

I wonder if they’ll announce it during general conference when they do the stats?

And why is his funeral still being held in a church building? I don’t know, but to me it would seem more fitting for someone who was excommunicated to be celebrated elsewhere…

Its pretty hard to deny that DN is biased towards the Church. Duh. Its owned by the church of course its biased.

Newly Housewife, excommunication is irrelevant as far as where a funeral is held. We’ve had a couple of funerals in our building for people who never were Mormons.

Elder Lee spoke very movingly about selling trinkets by the side of the road to tourists—of being dirty hungry and poor. I don’t believe he truly apostasized in terms of no longer believing. I think his pride was tremendously wounded and he didn’t know how to handle it. I think he felt rejected and demeaned. The molestation charges were sort of murky. As I recall, it was a foster daughter who accused him of improperly touching her. I think he pled guilty or no contest. I’m pretty sure it was in St. George, the trial, I mean.

When I first heard him speak, he insulted some of the Indian kids kistening when he told them there was no native religion–there was only God’s family and God’s church. One God. It was hard for them to hear. (On a personal note, I was in love with a Hopi Indian man and I was trying to get him to hear the discussions. Elder Lee’s talk made my boyfriend very angry and was the start of the end of that relationship. He refused to hear any more about the church and we had a very sad breakup). I was working for the college’s multi-cultural department at the time–I met him and got to spend some time with him as I helped with the organizational factors of his visit. The person I met then and the person who spoke after his excommunication were entirely different people.

My boss at the time, a Paiute indian man married in the temple also struggled with the contradictions between his strong cultural upbringing and his membership in God’s true church. I believe the pressure to reject, in essence, who they are and try to fit the Mormon mold can be a make or break deal.
I hope somebody does write a book about him and I hope they do him justice. I certainly don’t think his excommunication put a period to his possibilities as a child of God and a member of God’s church. And I don’t care how contradictory that sounds.
Right after that there was some talk about the brethren needing to be kinder. As I recall, there was some sort of quasi-apology/explanation on BKP’s part. But I could have totally mangled the situation in my fractured remembering.

I am glad the Deseret News left out the excommunication. I have had relatives and friends who died and who had been excommunication and some who had returned from excommunication, and the obituaries and life stories at the funerals usually did not mention that. I think that was a kindness to the family and to the deceased. I hope his passing is announced at conference as a former general authority–I think it will be.

George P. Lee’s death is sad because it reminds me today of my Indian placement foster brother. After high school graduation, he returned to the reservation. We lost touch as our lives went on. I tried to find him this year, and found out he drank himself to death in 2002, alone in the desert. He was full of good humor and life and we went everywhere together. Not having kept up with him is something I will always regret.

It is a sad story. George Lee was the most recent GA excommunicated. I believe the next most recent was in 1945 when an Apostle was excommunicated for adultery. story below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_R._Lyman

Lyman was born 1870 in Fillmore, Utah Territory, and was closely related to many early leaders of the LDS Church. His father Francis M. Lyman was the son of Amasa M. Lyman, both of whom served as apostles in the LDS Church. His mother was Clara Caroline Callister, whose grandfather was John Smith, Joseph Smith’s uncle, and a Presiding Patriarch in the Church. Clara Caroline Callister’s mother was Caroline Smith Callister, the only sister of the Apostle George A. Smith, who had served with Brigham Young as a counselor in the First Presidency of the church.

Lyman was ordained an elder in the church on August 29, 1891 by Joseph F. Smith. He graduated from high school at Brigham Young Academy in Provo, Utah in 1889 with a Normal Certificate, then taught at Brigham Young College in Logan, Utah, and later studied at the University of Michigan. Lyman was a teacher and civil engineer and was known for his work on the Utah State Road Commission.

Lyman was married to Amy Brown on September 9, 1896 by Joseph F. Smith. Amy Lyman would serve as the eighth general president of the Relief Society from 1940 to 1945.

Lyman was ordained an Apostle April 7, 1918.

In 1943, the First Presidency discovered that Lyman had long been cohabitating with a woman other than his legal wife. In 1925 Lyman had begun a relationship which he defined as a polygamous marriage. Unable to trust anyone else to officiate due to the church’s ban on the practice, Lyman and the woman exchanged vows secretly. By 1943, both were in their seventies. Lyman was excommunicated on November 12, 1943 at age 73. The Quorum of the Twelve provided the newspapers with a one-sentence announcement, stating that the ground for excommunication was violation of the Law of Chastity, which any new marriage post-second manifesto constituted. (Plural marriages performed between 1890 and 1906 were allowed to continue to practice polygamy until those polygamists died off.) For years after his excommunication, some apostles worried that Lyman might join the Mormon fundamentalist movement.[citation needed]

Later, Lyman returned to the LDS Church through rebaptism on October 27, 1954. He died at Salt Lake City, Utah.

Paul #18: That’s very very sad and tragic. My condolences.

MCQ and Annegb, Thanks for your understanding. I can see now how our blithe self-righteousness added to the terrible tensions these children and young people felt as they tried to become adults. It was too much for George Lee too.

I wonder if there is a book about the placement program. I knew a number of children in the program in gradeschool and it seemed like their stories turned out kind of sad too. I’m not sure whether the program can be blamed for all the sad stories, but based on the anecdotal evidence I’m aware of, it looks like the track record was not good.

God save us from the effects of good intentions.

Just found an article:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=13&chapid=91

The quote from Chief George at the beginning of that article is very instructive:

“I was born when people loved all nature and spoke to it as though it had a soul. . . .
[But] then the people came. More and more people came. Like a crushing, rushing wave they came, hurling the years aside. And suddenly I found myself a young man in the midst of the twentieth century. I found myself and my people adrift in this new age, not part of it.
We were engulfed by its rushing tide, but only as a captive eddy, going round and round. On little reservations, on plots of land, we floated in a kind of gray unreality, ashamed of our culture that you ridiculed, unsure of who we were or where we were going, uncertain of our grip on the present, weak in our hope of the future. . . .
And now you hold out your hand and you beckon to me to come across the street. Come and integrate, you say. But how can I come? . . . How can I come in dignity? . . . I have no gifts. What is there in my culture you value? My poor treasures you only scorn.
. . . Somehow I must wait. I must delay. I must find myself. I must find my treasure. I must wait until you want something of me, until you need something that is me. Then I can raise my head and say to my wife and family, “Listen, they are calling. They need me. I must go.”
Then I can walk across the street and hold my head high, for I will meet you as an equal. I will not scorn you for your seeming gifts, and you will not receive me in pity. Pity I can do without; my manhood I cannot.”

so…. what did he get excommunicated for?

I would hate to have anyone judge the Indian Placement program from afar. The discussion you hear from so-and-so in Utah or Idaho are completely different from the discussions you hear back in Indian Country. Not to say that there aren’t critics, because there are many, but there are also many participants who speak of the relationships they developed fondly and acknowledge the positive impact it has had in their lives.

I doubt that those who participated succumbed to the socio-economic challenges of the Rez at any higher rate than those who didn’t, while their contributions to the Church and to their tribes has been demonstratively significant (if you don’t believe me, check out the current slate of candidates for the upcoming Navajo elections). I would guess that for every one sad story there are are multiple return missionaries, temple sealings, university degrees and community leaders.

The Placement Program was voluntary and many who went didn’t stay a year and many didn’t return for a second year or more. Those who returned year after year did so by choice. In many cases, families joined the Church specifically to allow their children to participate, which is a different discussion, but it shows that in many cases it was desired and shouldn’t be confused with many who were forced to attend BIA boarding schools against their will.

We have dozens of acquaintances who went on placement. Almost all acknowledge that it was a bitter-sweet choice to make and that their placement experiences were sometimes difficult but that the lasting benefit to themselves, their children and tribes cannot be dismissed.

The fact remains that there has been, is now, and will be for the foreseeable future, tension between the Native culture and the surrounding culture, to blame the placement program, which was voluntary and for many desirable, is not the complete picture. Canceling the placement program would not have brought back the buffalo or improved language maintenance or brought economic opportunity to the Reservations, but in many cases it has had real, measurable, material and positive impact.

Last Lemming

The house that Lee lived in as a child is still visible off the highway between Shiprock and Towaoc (mis-spelled in DN) so “born in Towaoc” as the closest town and still on the Navajo Reservation is not completely inaccurate.

I can tell you that last night, there were comments on the DN article saying that he had been excommunicated … and they are not there today.

“So, while Lee’s body is in the stake center, will the bishop assign chaperones to keep it away from children?”

No, bbell showed up and beat up the body and banned it from the property.

Considering that there are plenty of abusers in their own culture, they should probably not be reacting in that way.

Several of the articles I have read on GPL say that he was claiming to have taken the 12 yr old victim as a polygamous wife. Don’t know how true that is. If true, I that claim alone would have what got him exed.

The last general conference that G.P. Lee spoke in, he was pretty off the wall, because of content and it was delivered in an animated and high-handed style. I thought the talk was just a bit racist against whites.

It would be interesting to compare a live recording of the original broadcast with the printed talk, or a church-published recording of the conference. I forget what exact year that was, but it was between 1983 and 1987.

PS. This is in the obituary in our local paper today: “He was a strong member of the LDS Church and served in various church positions before being called to the newly formed First Quorum of the Seventy at the age of 32.”

No mention of the Harkers.

This could make for a good discssion on how to hasndle sensitive subjects in obituaries.

Who hasn’t read the Book of Mormon and what’s that got to do with this?

41: That comment is amazing. I understand every single word you used, yet each sentence is utterly incomprehensible. It would be fitting to refute your sentiments in the same style, so here is my attempt:

Hold the newsreader’s nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers.

Try to argue with that, Jasca. BOOYAH!

This might be a dumb question, but it isn’t it a common practice for family members to write obituaries. So the content is not usually an editorial decision. So was the Trib running an obituary or an article about his life separate from that?

While GPL was current (before he separated himself from the church), the church presented a focus on the indians as Lamanites to the extent that the Gentiles will lift them up, and serve them. As I recall, it was a common theme, that wasn’t discuss as much after SWK died. As GPL said, the church had changed it’s teaching that the lamanites were the elite and that the gentiles could only be saved by taking care of the Indians. (Indians == Lamanite born into House of Israel) (Mormons == Gentiles adopted into House of Israel, and only counted with Israel as they lifted the natural born Israel up)

Yes, there was a change in commonly accepted mormon thought, that require that Indians and 4th, 5th generation LDS be able to stand on their own two feet and not need to be carried by anybody.

I’m sure that Lee felt deprived of being the Elite and that his Apple (red on the outside, white on the inside) sacrifice was not properly appreciated by the church.

I heard the Apple metaphor all the time when I worked with the Indian students at SUU (then SUSC). I don’t think Lee separated himself from the church. I think the church rejected him. I didn’t hear the off the wall kind of talk Bookslinger refers (in terms of religion–the disjointed, embarrassing talk I heard after his excommunication was a completely different category), the talk I heard was masterful in terms of sorting out the confusion about culture and religion. It was pure testimony. But there was a bitter feeling as he spoke of his upbringing in poverty. It was sort of “been there, done that–you young whipper snappers got nothing on me” in tone. Bitter might not be the right tone, but in retrospect, he seemed sad, or angry. But angry at his audience for clinging to tribal religion.

The Apple thing can serve to keep people down, like black people who are mocked by their own for speaking correct English (“I don’t talk white, I talk right.”)

First I’m sorry for the family. It must be hard to have to deal with the death of a loved one who is public figure on top of who was ostracized from the church they apparently still love. My prayers really go out to them.

Second, I’m almost amused at the line of thoughts here. I know nothing of the situation and have read little other than what’s here. But it’s interesting to see the tone of apparent President Boyd K Packer opponents, quick to blame everything on him. And we have some kind of child molestation charge in the midst. It’s a bit strange.

The mormon blogs usually seem to blame anything with child molestation and a church member on church leaders. And here we have a church member being accused, reportedly not contesting it and people are not only not blaming the church (as is usual) but there are some side digs in against President Packer.

I have no comment on the details concerning his excommunication, but I think some responses are telling. (and yes, mine tells me I’m a judgmental prick about people who are needlessly judgmental)

Get a grip, Chris, I’m not blaming Elder Packer for anything. I’m trying to remember what happened and one thing I recall is Elder Packer saying something about wishing he’d been kinder. His comment wasn’t specific to Elder Lee,but it was around that time and there was an inference. Although Wikipedia corrects me that a lot of Elder Lee’s conflict was with President Benson, for discontuing the Indian placement program. And that the abuse of the girl went on for several years.

Stephany (46)-

This might be a dumb question, but it isn’t it a common practice for family members to write obituaries. So the content is not usually an editorial decision. So was the Trib running an obituary or an article about his life separate from that?

The Deseret News blurb was written by a staffer — it wasn’t an obituary.

queno,

The obit may have been drafted by a staffer, but it was no doubt approved by a GA, edited by a GA, or there was a pre-existing policy anticipating GPL’s death. This thing is too sensitive to let a journalist make an independent decision. They were not allowed to make independent decisions when the original story broke. Even the church spokesman didn’t write his own copy back then. The only difference is that now DN journalists no longer have any illusions that they can do their job according to their own judgment when something concerns the church. This is not too unusual–owners of newspapers are known to get involved when a story touches on some vital interest of the paper’s owner.

The Trib just posted this brief article about many of the positive things that mourners at his funeral remember about him. The Deseret News? Still nothing since that first, brief, uninformative article…