Guest Post: Honoring Music Contributed by Relief Society Sisters for the RS Anniversary

by M M

The Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is celebrating its 182nd anniversary this year. As ward music leader, I am selecting hymns to honor the important contributions of members of the Relief Society to the church. I have cultivated a program that features text and/or music created by Latter-Day Saint women. I am also including brief biographical information about these incredible women to be printed with our program for that Sunday. It is important to know their names and acknowledge their stories.

The list of hymns is not comprehensive of all hymns composed by Latter-Day Saint women. Fortunately, our current hymn book features many songs by women. The hymns selected for this program span multiple generations, to amplify the connection between women of Relief Society throughout time. I acknowledge that there are a limited number of hymns featuring women of color in our hymn book, and I hope that future iterations of our hymns of worship will feature more diverse perspectives.

The following program will be part of the worship for my ward on March 17, 2024:

Opening Hymn: #33 “Our Mountain Home So Dear” features poetry by Emmeline B. Wells. She was the 5th president of the Relief Society. She also worked as an editor for the Women’s Exponent, which was a periodical created for Latter-Day Saint women to publish their important thoughts. She was friends with Susan B. Anthony and advocated for women’s right to vote. She also headed a church-run grain-saving program, which proved to be incredibly helpful during WWI.

Sacrament Hymn: #195 “How Great the Wisdom and the Love” uses text by Eliza R. Snow. Snow was the second president of the Relief Society, and she was also known as “Zion’s Poetess” for her powerful poetry. She re-established the Relief Society after the Saints moved to Utah, and she also helped organize the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association (predecessor to the modern Young Women program).

Intermediate Hymn #310 “A Key Was Turned in Latter-Days”(1) features both text and music by members of the Relief Society. Jan U. Pinborough wrote the music. She also contributed to the text of the hymn “This is the Christ.” Charlene A. Newell composed the music. She also composed songs in the children’s songbook like “The Commandments” and “He Died That We Might Live Again.” This hymn honors the power of the creation of the Relief Society. Of the Relief Society founding, Joseph Smith said, “I now turn the key to you in the name of God and this Society shall rejoice and knowledge and intelligence shall flow down from this time.”(2)

Closing Hymn #220 “Lord, I Would Follow Thee” utilizes text by Susan Evans McCloud. She acted as a docent at the Beehive House in Salt Lake City for multiple decades. In 2004, she was honored to receive the Reed Smoot Citizenship Awards Business Woman of the Year Award. She is a celebrated writer who has published novels and poetry and written scripts for television and film.

Should you like to celebrate Relief Society and women of faith in your ward or family, feel free to use the program I have created. If you feel inspired, I would love to know of other hymns that you would include.

(1) This hymn is generally only sung by women in the church. However, there is nothing musically in it that prevents men from singing it in their own octave. Furthermore, for the verse where the singers refer to one another as “sisters,” the men are given an opportunity to experience what women feel when they read “mankind” and “men” but are told that it refers to them as well.
(2) Joseph Smith, in Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief Society (2017), 14–15.

M M is a professionally-trained opera singer and voice teacher. She is passionate about poetry and cooking, and she lives in the Pacific Northwest with her wonderful husband and pet turtle.