For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. (2 Nephi 25:23)
One summer Sunday in 1982, our Relief Society president asked for volunteers to glean carrots at the stake welfare farm northeast of Rupert, Idaho. I raised my hand.
We began at the bottom of a freshly tilled hill so tall I couldn’t see the top. The air smelled of moist soil and chopped carrots, and we set to work in our assigned rows with cheerful determination.
By the time I reached the top of the hill, my sunglasses had slipped off my sweat-slick face. My knees and ankles ached from keeping me upright in the soft dirt, and the heavy, carrot-filled canvas bag slung over my shoulder made me long for an aspirin.
As I stumbled back down the hill, I heard a gruff voice.
“Pick that up!” On the road below me, a man dressed in overalls pointed at my feet. “You stepped right over it!”
He sounded offended.
The tip of a bright orange carrot peeked up at me. I snatched it from the ground and limped back to my car, glaring at the farmer.
An equally exhausted sister limped along beside me. “Do you know who you are glaring at?” she asked. “He’s the farm manager. You know—Norman Seibold?”
“The guy who served a mission in Nazi Germany and rescued a group of LDS missionaries trapped there?” I choked out in horror.
Had I offended our town’s formidable County Commissioner and local legend?
A year later, my husband, Quinn, and I attended a fireside where Brother Seibold spoke. He expressed himself well and was an excellent storyteller.
I lingered after the meeting, thinking it would be great to interview him for an article. I hoped he wouldn’t recognize me as the scowler and errant carrot gleaner he’d met at the farm.
I set my jaw, drew a deep breath, and blurted out my request. “Would you be willing to talk to me about your missionary experiences in Nazi Germany?”
He looked down at the floor, then back up at me. “Yes, I guess that would be all right.”
He didn’t sound mad about the carrot incident at all.
After my first interview with Brother Seibold, I wondered how I could verify the hair-raising story he’d recounted. “Do you have contact information for the other evacuated missionaries?” I asked.
He shook his head and shrugged. “I’ll tell you this, though.” He jabbed a finger at me. “You better make sure you get this right, or people will think you have bubbles in your brain.”
With no idea how I would find the other former West German missionaries, I was beginning to think I already had bubbles in my brain.
At the Church Archives, I found a folder of four conference talks delivered in 1940. The folder also contained a partial list of the evacuated missionaries’ names and hometowns.
With the list in hand, I scoured old phone books and contacted school districts and alumni associations. It felt like being back on that farm, trudging uphill in loose dirt and digging for carrots.
Some former missionaries refused to talk to me. I learned later that West German Mission President M. Douglas Wood and Elder Joseph Fielding Smith had warned them not to speak about the evacuation. Even after 40 years and a world war, many missionaries still heeded that warning.
Finally, one man agreed to give his account, and we became great friends.
Later, he confided that after his mission he served in the military, fighting against those he had once taught. After battles, he would walk among the German dead, searching for people he knew.
As he spoke, he wept, and so did I.
Another evacuated missionary, Vern Marrott, asked for the phone numbers of my bishop and stake president to verify my trustworthiness before agreeing to speak with me.
Brother Marrott met me on his front porch and pumped my hand, repeating, “I knew you would come! I always knew you would come!”
At that moment, the floor beneath my feet shook. I knew I was supposed to be there to witness his experience.
He led me into his living room, where all his family had gathered to hear his amazing account for the very first time.
Another time, Quinn and I were on our way home from camping when I felt a familiar spiritual impression to “pay attention.” As we drove through a tiny town, I asked Quinn to stop. I jumped out and ran into a gas station to ask for a telephone book. It was beaten up and yellowed. My heart pounded as I turned the thin pages, my finger tracing each column. On the last page, at the bottom of the last column, was the name Grant Weber.
I may have traumatized all the bears in the surrounding woods when I screamed, “I found another one!” and ran back to the pickup.
It took over five years of searching for and interviewing fifty of the eighty West German missionaries before I could begin compiling an account of the 1939 evacuation. Researching the story was arduous work, but I know it was led by the Spirit.
I began outlining the manuscript by creating a list of companions, their hometowns, and the German cities they were assigned to in August 1939. I put together a timeline and laid it over a map of Germany, using a roll of craft paper that stretched all the way down our hallway and from floor to ceiling. I grouped the missionaries by their traveling companions and traced their routes to the borders of Holland and Denmark.
As I assembled the manuscript, I included accounts of ocean crossings, the ships, and the ports. I used photos the missionaries lent me and created a section about their lives after their missions.
I suppose that could have been “The End” of the research, but it was not. Even now, 45 years after the release of the book, Mine Angels Round About, I still hear from my missionaries’ children, grandchildren, cousins, and in-laws who continue to add to the stories. The movie, released in 2024, has now been shown all over the world.
I am so grateful for the sweet people who contributed to the evacuation project. And I am especially grateful for the numerous truths I learned from them along the way.
My work on the carrot farm taught me three lessons about research and writing:
- Glean with determination.
- Keep climbing the uphill field, trusting the equally determined Farmer is guiding us to the end of the row.
- Even when we don’t know the outcome, we must keep going and keep expecting a full bag of miracles.
Terry Bohle Montague
Author