Margaret R. Jackson Judd
Born: 7 September 1909
Called as First Counselor in the Young Women's General Presidency: 1961
Released: 1972
Died: 1 April 1999
Called as First Counselor in the Young Women's General Presidency: 1961
Released: 1972
Died: 1 April 1999
Image source: Improvement Era, January 1962
Biographical Articles
Improvement Era, January 1962, Service in the Lord's Kingdom - Recently Appointed YWMIA General Presidency
Deseret News, 4 April 1999, Obituary: Margaret Romney Jackson Judd
Deseret News, 4 April 1999, Obituary: Margaret Romney Jackson Judd
"Service in the Lord's Kingdom." Improvement Era. January 1962. pg. 26-27, 69-71.
SERVICE IN THE LORD'S KINGDOM RECENTLY APPOINTED YWMIA GENERAL PRESIDENCY Florence Smith Jacobsen, granddaughter of two presidents of the Church, now occupies the position of leader of the YWMIA throughout the world. The daughter of Florence Grant Smith, daughter of President Heber J. Grant, and Willard Richards Smith, son of President Joseph F. Smith, Sister Jacobsen has matured with service to the Church of Jesus Christ uppermost in her life. One of her earliest concepts of Church work was her awareness of the great need for leadership. Her first appointment in Church service at eighteen years of age was to teach, with her cousin Edna Boyle Clawson, a class of twelve-year-old boys. There was a group of them—and what one couldn't think of another could. Florence and Edna used to meet weekly to plan their lessons in such a way that they could interest the boys that they would give attention to the lessons. In this class was one boy whom the others tormented and who retaliated in a way that caused disturbances in the class. They finally hit on the idea that if they gave him a position in the class he would come to feel important and needed—and the other boys would have to give him respect in his position. Thus, early in life, she recognized through her own serious application to her problem what parents and teachers have recommended: that people need recognition and love, and that they need to respect others in positions of leadership. As she felt responsible for this boy, one of her aims in the YWMIA work—as in all her teaching—is to awaken a sense of responsibility of the leader to every girl in Mutual and to a new awareness of the possibilities of true leadership. Dynamic and forceful, she will not be content until she enrolls every girl in Mutual. Sister Jacobsen's work in the Church has included activity in every auxiliary organization: Primary in which association she served on the ward board; the YWMIA in which she taught the Junior-Gleaners, actually following Margaret Jackson when Sister Jackson was called to the general board of the YWMIA. Sister Jacobsen then served on the stake MIA board as Junior-Gleaner leader. She herself was a Beehive girl and still treasures the first books given to the girls when this program distributed the paper seals instead of the felt seals in use nowadays. It was a delight when she was made Beekeeper in Yale Ward, and, of course, as wife of the Eastern States Mission president—president of Relief Society as well as of MIA. Following graduation from the University of Utah, she had a most challenging assignment in the business world. Salt Lake Knit was an institution with one hundred employees which had branch outlets in the intermountain west. The pattern maker for the company became ill. Florence, at the age of 23, was pressed into service as pattern maker for this great institution. It was a breathtaking responsibility, but she managed it so well that operators of the businesses complimented her on her ability. Even today Sister Jacobsen can cut patterns freehand on a cutting board. During the early months of her marriage to Theodore C. Jacobsen in the Salt Lake Temple, she was doubly busy—as wife and businesswoman. Her husband was engaged in the contracting business following their marriage, September 23, 1935. He was building a high school in Evanston, Wyoming, rented a home there, and for nine months Sister Jacobsen lived in Evanston. Their first home—one in which they lived for seventeen years—was on Harvard Avenue in Salt Lake City in the Bonneville Ward. Sister Jacobsen has held many positions in civic organizations as well as in the Church. She has been in the PTA of Uintah, Roosevelt, and East High, as her three boys, Stephen S., Alan S., and Heber S. have progressed through school. Stephen and Alan are at the present time serving in the armed forces. Heber is still at home. Stephen, 23, has filled a mission to Great Britain. It was inevitable that because of her rare personality Sister Jacobsen was usually hospitality chairman in her P-TA work. She has entered other civic activities of significance, notably the cancer and Red Cross drives. She has been a county representative for her political party and states that she and her husband are writers of letters to their Congressmen. From her experience as a pattern maker she will make an excellent YWMIA general president because she knows the basic lines on which each girl must build, and she also knows the individual differences that make each girl develop in original ways. Margaret Romney Jackson has the background and experience that make her an ideal first counselor in the general presidency of the YWMIA. She has known hardship and success, and both will bring to her wise leadership and understanding. She was born in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. When the revolution struck that country, her parents, Junius Romney and Gertrude Stowell, took their family and left the country. Thus they were deprived of all they owned. When they came to Salt Lake City, they came with little or nothing except that which they could carry on their backs. Sister Jackson tells of their first Christmas in Salt Lake. The Romney children knew the dire circumstances they were in, and of course realized that they could expect nothing for Christmas. As the evening grew late, their father, Junius Romney, felt that they must have some little thing to buoy up their spirits on this day of days. He remembered seeing a confectionary store with a display Christmas tree in its window. It was sixteen blocks from where the Romneys lived. Brother Romney walked the distance to it through a heavy snowstorm and asked the proprietor if he would sell the little tree in the window. The manager answered, "Well, it is nearly midnight now and I'd have to throw it out right after Christmas. I guess it will be all right." Brother Romney reached into his pocket and gave the man two dollars for it. Then he stood on the corner, waiting for the streetcar, with the snow swirling around him and the little tree tinkling in the wind. Although he had to stand on the platform of the car because of the tree, he knew that the family would have something to remember for Christmas in addition to the peace, charity, and love that permeated the hearts of the members of that family. Sister Jackson is a wonderful homemaker and has as her hobbies both sewing and cooking. She loves the beautiful things of life and has contributed generously in bringing beauty into the lives of her family and friends. She served with her husband, Junius M. Jackson, who was president of the New England Mission from 1955 to July 1959. She was president of the Relief Society and Primary Association and opened the door to member and nonmember alike. As mission mother she extended a welcome to local ministers' wives and through her hospitality won friends for the Church. In fact, one of the wives wrote Sister Jackson a letter, ending it with "God bless you and bless your Church." Prior to the mission Sister Jackson was on the general board, serving in the Mia Maid department. Following the mission she returned to the general board, from which she was on a leave of absence, and was appointed chairman of the Laurels. Before her appointment to the general board Sister Jackson was a teacher in Primary, following her children's enrolment in that association. She also served as Junior Gleaner ward leader in the Bonneville Ward. Interestingly enough, it was Sister Jacobsen who followed in Sister Jackson's footsteps as teacher of this same group of girls when Sister Jackson was called to the general board. Sister Jackson also was a counselor in the Yale Ward YWMIA presidency and a member of the Bonneville Stake board as Girls' Program chairman for a time. Married to Junius M. Jackson in the Salt Lake Temple, September 15, 1931, they are the parents of one daughter and four sons: Marilyn (Mrs. Truman F. Clawson); Richard; Douglas on a mission to Great Britain; John; and David. Elder Jackson has recently been called to head the Genealogical Society of the Church. One of Sister Jackson's most memorable experiences is connected with the youth conference held in the mission field. For the culminating Gold and Green Ball, the young people made twenty-two cherry trees which looked so beautiful in the Cambridge Branch Recreation Hall that boys and girls from a local high school asked if they could use them afterwards. Granted the privilege, the happy students decorated their school gym with the trees. But their joy was short-lived when some visiting firemen told them they could not use the trees since they were not fireproofed. The saddened plight of the high school students did not last too long, for the firemen soon returned with a proposition to make, "If you will let us use those Mormon trees when you've finished with them, we will fireproof them for you free of charge." So the missionary work was pushed forward by the twenty-two cherry trees which the young people of the New England Mission made for their youth conference. Dorothy Porter Holt has served in the YWMIA for the past twenty years in a ward capacity. She has been president in East Ensign, Ensign Third, and Ensign Fourth as well as being Gleaner leader in both wards. She was Mia Maid leader in the Ensign Fourth Ward when called to the general presidency of the YWMIA. She was awarded the Golden Gleaner Award for the great service she has rendered the youth of the Church. Moreover, Sister Holt has served more than twenty years as Relief Society visiting teacher, carrying messages of encouragement to the older women of the wards in which she has resided. She also served in the ward Primary of East Ensign Ward and as stake leader on the Ensign Stake Primary board. Married to A. Palmer Holt in the Salt Lake Temple, June 29, 1932, they are the parents of five children: John Robert, now married, a graduate of the University of Utah, where he was student body president his senior year, and of Harvard. He is residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Thomas A. Holt, at the University of Utah; and three daughters: Susan at East High, Janet at Bryant Junior High, and Nancy at Ensign Grade School. Both sons completed missions in the Central Atlantic States. Brother Holt has served in the bishopric and as bishop of East Ensign Ward as well as in the Ensign Stake priesthood presidency. Currently he is president of the high priests in Ensign Stake. The story behind Sister Holt's given name is interesting. She was less than five pounds in weight when she was born. Her family called her, because of her smallness, Baby Dot. As she grew up, people came to call her Dorothy from the childhood nickname, and her given name of Martha was not generally known. Even when she married, her husband was surprised to see her name Martha on the marriage certificate. Sister Holt comes from two lines of pioneer ancestry. Charles Lambert who worked on the Nauvoo Temple, was her grandfather; and Sanford Porter, for whom Porterville, Utah, was named, was her great-grandfather. She also is entitled to become a Daughter of the Mayflower because one of her ancestors sailed to America on that illustrious ship. Sister Holt's hobbies have been reading and sewing. She has served also as the hospitality chairman of the PTA, and therefore we know that cooking must also be a hobby. The members of the general presidency of the newly appointed YWMIA presidency are really wonderful leaders, organizers, and valiant members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They have expressed themselves as being on the watch for problems of girls in this new and trying era, helping them adjust to situations which are currently appearing, and helping the young women develop their talents to become happy and effective homemakers. They are also eager to have the girls develop their native talents and use them in the YWMIA. The picture of the new general board who will serve under the new presidency will be found on pages 30-31. |
Florence S. Jacobsen
Margaret R. Jackson
Dorothy P. Holt
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