[President Heber J. Grant Diary] Sister Amy Brown Lyman called, and she is very anxious that we make her son-in-law, Alex Schreiner, the organist of the Tabernacle, and Brother Frank Asper his assistant. She feels he is entitled to be the organist, that there is never the same harmony in any business where there is not a head, etc. I told her we had talked it over and over, and had made up our minds and had decided we were not going to make an organist. Alex is certainly a marvelous organist, but we feel that we can not afford to humiliate Brother Asper.
[Source: Diary of Heber J. Grant, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
Such a fraught description. Alexander Schreiner was brilliant and no doubt would have merited being designated lead organist. But while Alex could have gone anywhere and been lead organist, Frank Asper would have been humiliated to be demoted to "mere" assistant. And so the ultimate decision was to avoid hurting Frank, with Alex expected to understand that kindness was to be elevated over pure merit.
ReplyDeleteAmy Brown Lyman was a reserved but imposing woman who did not share the same bedroom as her husband, Apostle Richard Lyman. Around this time, when Amy is concerning herself with getting son-in-law Alex elevated to the position of head organist, Apostle Richard Lyman, yielded to the temptation to be intimate with a Danish convert he had associated with for nearly 14 years and had long hoped to make a plural wife in eternity. See Gary Bergera's article on Richard Lyman in the the Journal of Mormon History, Volume 37, No. 4, Fall 2011, pp. 173 - 207.