Grandma Henke

In Relief Society today we talked about Family Home Evenings.     I couldn’t help thinking back to the home evenings of my life.    When I was a young girl Monday nights were for families but it was a lot more informal than it has come to be since.    Our family had a big round oak kitchen table that we loved to sit around and play games or do homework while Mom prepared meals or desserts.    Often that is where our gospel discussions took place as well.    I really can’t remember family nights that were actually called to order and started with an opening prayer and song although I can remember many, many times standing around the piano singing with the family to mom’s accompaniment.

The biggest thing that stands out in my mind when I was young was during a stake conference when an apostle was presiding over the conference.   I was a teenager and almost melted and disappeared into the floor when our stake president called me up to the front to talk to the apostle at the pulpit.    I remember thinking I was probably going to pass out before I ever got through it.   I wish I could remember who the apostle was, but I can’t.

He put his arm around me and said, “Sister Edna, can you tell us (waving his arm toward the overflowing congregation) what you did this past Monday night?”

At first I couldn’t remember anything I’d done the last Monday night and then suddenly I did remember and I soooo didn’t want to have to tell everyone!    I knew that the right answer would be that we’d had a family home evening and that I would be able to tell him the gospel topic we talked about … but we hadn’t done that.      Instead, my mother and father and my younger brother, Reed, and I all got our pajama’s on and climbed into their king sized bed to watch Monday Night At The Movies on television.    We laughed and frolic and joked around and snuggled … but we didn’t have a gospel discussion.

I know my parents were sitting on the edge of their chairs when I “fessed” up … but to our delight he was thrilled!    He said that was a wonderful family home evening and probably one we kids would remember for many years to come.    Well, I have remembered it my entire life thanks to having been called to the pulpit during stake conference!      But those are the kinds of memories I have of family nights as I grew up … It was the one night of the week we absolutely saved for family and we had fun at home together.   

When my children were growing up they had started putting out Family Home Evening manuals with ideas for lessons and activities.   I tried … I really did try.   I planned, prepared, found stories and flannel board pictures … really I did want to have meaningful family home evenings.   We would call the group together, have an opening prayer, and it was usually down hill from then from my perspective.     We would ask the child who was going to lead the opening song what we would be singing and inevitably the one that went along with the lesson I had planned would be vetoed and they (including their father) would sing rowdy versions of television theme shows such as The Brady Bunch or Gilligan’s Island.   It is hard to create a learning atmosphere after that.

I expected that the children were supposed to sit on their bottoms on chairs and listen and participate … not shove each other or do gymnastics or wrestle.    I expected that Lynn would act as the bouncer and there would be a semi-reverent feeling.     It seemed like the better prepared I was the more out of hand things got.     I started to really not like Family Home Evenings and in my mind felt like it was more like “Monday Night At The Fights”.     For a long time I failed to see that the kids and Lynn were really enjoying themselves … I was just pretending to enjoy myself and felt like a failure.

Then I got it!    It really was about having quality time together and not having a long lesson so much as presenting a learning experience on one gospel principle.    Somehow they were actually getting something out of it in spite of all the silliness and chaos.  

Now it is just Lynn and I and we are still supposed to have Family Home Evening together on Monday nights.    There is nothing I would rather do than spend a quiet evening with him discussing things that are so important to us both.   

I am grateful it is the thing we do, that Mondays are saved for families and that we can learn together in a “RELAXED” atmosphere.   I’m really glad I finally got it and quit bucking the way my family wanted to do it … it was a good way and now I look back on those nights of barely controlled chaos and have a good laugh at those memories.    I hope my children do.  How many other families can boast that they know all the words to the theme song of Gilligan’s Island?

“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip”

“That started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship.”

“The mate was a mighty sailin’ man, the Skipper brave and sure,”

“Five passengers set sail that day for a three-hour tour. A three-hour tour.”

“The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed.”

“If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost. The Minnow would be lost.”

“The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle”

“With Gilligan, the Skipper too, a millionaire and his wife,”

“A movie star, the Professor and Mary Ann, here on Gilligan’s Isle.”

Closing theme lyrics:

“So this is the tale of our castaways, they’re here for a long, long time,”

“they’ll have to make the best of things, it’s an uphill climb.”

“The first mate and his Skipper too, will do their very best,”

“to make the others comfortable, in the tropic island nest.”

“No phone, no light, no motor car, not a single luxury,”

“like Robinson Carusoe, it’s primitive as can be.”

“So join us here each week my friends, you’re sure to get a smile,”

“from seven stranded castaways, here on Gilligan’s Isle”