Barnard N. Madsen - The Truman G. Madsen Story: A Life of Study and Faith

Photo credits
Photo by Charles Warren Turner. Used by permission.
Courtesy L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602.
BYU Photo/Floyd Rose. Used by permission.
Wikimedia/public domain.
2016 Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
All other photos appear courtesy of the Madsen family.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Madsen, Barnard N., author.
Title: The Truman G. Madsen story : a life of study and faith / Barnard N. Madsen.
Description: Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book, [2016] | ?2016 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016003791 (print) | LCCN 2016005607 (ebook) | ISBN 9781629722061 (hardbound : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781629734484 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Madsen, Truman G. | MormonsUtahBiography. | Mormon scholarsUtahBiography.
Classification: LCC BX8695.M2566 M33 2016 (print) | LCC BX8695.M2566 (ebook) | DDC 289.3092dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003791
Printed in the United States of America
Lake Book Manufacturing, Inc., Melrose Park, IL
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Mom and Dad

And he shall plant in the hearts of the children
the promises made to the fathers,
and the hearts of the children
shall turn to their fathers.
D&C 2:2

For a comprehensive list of Truman G. Madsens published works,
see http://bit.ly/trumanmadsenworks.

For additional content, go to trumanmadsen.com, click on 'Log in,' and enter password 'TGM2016'.

Key to Abbreviations:

TGM = Truman G. Madsen

WIT = Wheatley Institution Transcript (transcripts of interviews conducted by the Wheatley Institution at Brigham Young University

It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiancefor a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light.... Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You dont have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see.

Marilynne Robinson

Truman G. Madsen ended his mortal life a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather; a faithful friend, confidant, and counselor; a gifted writer and respected speaker, teacher, and scholar; an inspired patriarch; and a tireless and articulate advocate of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

But to fully appreciate where he finished, its important to know where he started and what happened along the way. To have real value, the story of his life should tell how he became. That is the story I have undertaken to tell: about his inner life, private choices, and personal experiences (many unknown outside his family circle) that led him to the subjects of his study and faith.

Although Truman did not keep a daily journal (except on his mission), he kept extensive journal files that filled twelve boxes, and the papers in those files have been the primary source for this bookwhat he intentionally chose to preserve as a journal for his posterity.

In keeping with a both/and theme of study and faith, I have written the book in two sections. Section 1, Enter to Learn, details the heritage, environment, and relationships that led to his important choices of study and faith. Section 2, Forth to Serve, addresses how he chose to apply his learning in faith, and carries forward twin themes of sacrifice for family and for the kingdom.

To bear good fruit, a tree needs both good roots and good branches. It needs both nourishment from rain and soil and light from sun and sky. The roots-and-branches motif used throughout this book is thus intended to symbolize the tree of (Trumans) life, including the heritage of faith preceding his own faith, the past as prologue, and the unity in his life of study and faith. Truman combined both roots going deep and branches extending toward the light.

While the facts about his public life and his published works are available elsewhere, knowledge of the man is essential to a knowledge of the [speaker and] writer. He made the task easier by the candor of what he wrote and kept.

There shall be a record kept among you. Truman was a record keeper. In reviewing his journal files, I uncovered nuggets reflecting both his heights and depths. And I have shuddered to think how this book would have turned out without a particular note or letter or document he took the time to write or save.

These include a Life Sketch and a handwritten one-page outline of his personal history, his missionary journal, hundreds of letters (including his mission call, correspondence to and from his father and with his mission president, acceptance and rejection letters for graduate schools and jobs, letters of encouragement to shipwrecked souls, and letters from well-wishers), dozens of significant documents (including a stake conference talk he gave as a deacon, a jail visitors pass, and an annotated mission map of Prince Edward Island), autobiographical papers for a speech class at the University of Utah (including self-analysis about his upbringing and philosophy of life), multiple funeral sermons (including those given for his ancestors and those he later gave himself), significant telegrams (officially announcing his pilot brothers war status, and advising about Trumans exam results at Harvard), a transcription of his mothers Radcliffe journal (expressing her hopes and fears), and memoirs of his father, Axel, that Truman assembled (after tape recording and then transcribing).

I am also deeply indebted to Marcy Brown and Liz Thomas, interviewers for the Wheatley Institutions Living History project. They asked careful questions a biographer should ask, and Trumans responses, given near the end of his life, helped form part of the backbone of this book.

Truman G. Madsen was born in a hospital a block away from where he spent the majority of his premission life, and he is buried in a cemetery among his ancestors a mile east from his boyhood home. But beyond the limited personal geography of his birth and burial, when he was converted, Truman ranged through the whole world for more than sixty years tirelessly bearing witness of the living Christ, the Prophet Joseph Smith, and living apostles and prophets.