Big News! › Forums › AUXILLIARY › Youth › younge women
This topic contains 2 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by 
-
AuthorPosts
-
hi.. ummmm well i have a question for you… my name is Jenna and i just became a Laural. wen i tell my non member friends this they ask me w3hat it means.. unfortunatly i dont kno. soooo as a knowledge value i have decided to research the meaning of the names Mai Maid, Beehive and Laurel, then present it to my younge womens class.so i was just wondering if you had any information on this that you could give me or some places or books i could look at to find this… thankyou and i hope i kan hear from you soon.
-
Here’s some articles I found — they don’t directly answer your question, but have some info….
It’s my suspicion that the name “Junior Gleaners” was just too outdated for use anymore. There seemed to be a predeliction for naming the YW groups after cutesey outdoorsy stuff (Beehive, Roses, Laurels), and I expect Laurel was just another in a string of those related terms. A laurel is a flower, jic you didn’t know.
Beehive, of course, is related to the terms bee-related terms favored by Brigham Young, like Deseret (Hebrew for honeybee), etc. He wanted everyone in the church to be busy and industrious like bees.
The MIA in Mia Maid is a throwback reference to the Mutual Improvement Association, the grandma organization of our present Young Women’s group. Weekly youth activities are still called “Mutual” after this organization’s name.
Now and Then
A Century of Young Womenby Lisa M. G. Crockett
Assistant EditorLisa M. G. Crockett, “A Century of Young Women,” New Era, Jan. 2000, 24
At the turn of the century, Young Women were called “Young Ladies” and were members of the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association. This is how it was back then: girls didn’t begin attending Mutual until they were 14; instead of the New Era, they read the Young Woman’s Journal; and instead of Beehives, Mia Maids, and Laurels, the girls were simply called Juniors and Seniors.
Although the Young Womanhood Recognition award didn’t come into existence until 1976, Young Women have been given the opportunity to make and achieve goals throughout the century. In 1915, the Beehive program (which was, for a time, the activity program for all girls ages 14 through 20) began with a list of goals for the girls to achieve. Here are a few: “sleep out-of-doors or with wide-open windows; refrain from candy, chewing gum, sundaes, and sodas for at least two months; clear sagebrush, etc., off of a half acre of land; care for at least two kerosene lamps daily; know the proper use of hot and cold baths.”
Also, in keeping with the name of the program, girls were invited to “care successfully for a hive of bees for one season and know their habits.”
At the turn of this new century, goal setting is still at the heart of the Young Women program, but the goals look a lot different. Michelle Evans, a Laurel from Sunnyvale, California, for instance, doesn’t know much about bees. But working toward her Young Womanhood medallion has taught her several useful skills she will use for the rest of her life. She recently organized an all-day activity for the priests and Laurels in her stake and the neighboring stake. There were countless details to remember: things like food, games, speakers and music. But the centerpiece of the day was a service project to clean up a small church (of another denomination) which had suffered massive damage in a tornado.
“It was a lot of work to get the whole day organized,” says Michelle, “but I’m so glad I did it. I learned to delegate responsibilities and plan ahead.”
Times have changed. A young woman today probably wouldn’t “snowshoe 25 miles in any six days” to fulfill a goal like the girls of generations ago. She’s a lot more likely to make a meal for her family, care for a younger sibling, read her scriptures daily, or learn a piece on the piano. But the goal of learning to make the world a better place through service and self-improvement hasn’t changed one bit in the last 100 years.
Gospel topics: Church history, goals, Young Women
[photos] Michelle Evans organized an all-day service activity for her stake as part of her Laurel project (top right). Dressed to look like Ruth of old, young women attend a Gleaners banquet in Hunington Park, California, in January 1930 (lower right). In the 1930s, Beehives and their leaders enjoyed their girls’ camp at Brighton, Utah (lower left).
-
Here are some more of those funny 1916 requirements:
Quote:In 1916 every female over fourteen was a Beehive girl until she entered Relief Society; there were no Mia Maids, Gleaners, or Laurels. The following are twenty out of the three hundred seventy-three requirements possible for a Beehive girl to earn her awards:
1. Care successfully for a hive of bees for one season and know their habits.
2. Give the distinguishing characteristics of 6 varieties of hen and cattle and tell the good and weak points of each.
3. Exterminate the mosquitoes over an area of 1/2 mile square by pouring a little kerosene on the surface of all standing pools of water twice each month during April, May, or June.
4. Make two articles of underwear by hand.
5. Cover 25 miles of snowshoes in any six days.
6. Learn to float in Great Salt Lake and propel yourself 50 feet.
7. During three consecutive months abstain from candy, ice cream, commercially manufactured beverages and chewing gum.
8. For one month masticate your food so thoroughly that it slips down without any visible effort at swallowing it.
9. Successfully put a new washer on a faucet.
10. Care for a least two kerosene lamps daily.
11. For three months take care of milk and cream from at least one cow and see that the pails, pans, strainer, and separator are thoroughly cleansed.
12. During two weeks keep the house free from flies or destroy at least 25 flies daily.
13. Have your toilet moved to an isolated place in the garden.
14. Whitewash your toilet inside and out.
15. Know and describe three cries of a baby.
16. Without help or advice care for and harness a team at least five times; drive fifty miles during one season.
17. During 2 summer months clean ice chest thoroughly twice a week.
18. Discover ten reasons why the Columbine should be made the national flower.
19. Clear sage-brush, etc. off of one-half acre of land.
20. Know 6 blazes used by Indians.
TIMES HAVE CHANGED!
Source: Becky’s World of “Son” Shine – she says she got these from the YW Resource Room in Salt Lake City
-
AuthorPosts
