Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's November 2, 2020. It's the eve of the 2020 election here in the United States of America. We covered that this weekend on Mormon Stories podcast. And today we are super excited for someone who I've literally wanted to interview for, I would say, at least 26, 27 years.

John Dehlin [00:00:31] Today we're interviewing someone that I would consider a living legend within Mormonism and his name is Lynn Packer. I became aware of Lynn Packer when I was a student at BYU because he broke. Lynn Packer was a journalist in Utah who broke the story that Paul's done.

John Dehlin [00:00:54] Former Mormon general authority who was beloved and super world famous and super well known within Mormonism for his gripping, compelling stories about going to war and playing professional baseball. You know, his tapes were sold at every Deseret book and he was beloved and super inspiring to all the Mormon youth and adults. When I was growing up in the 80s. Well, it turns out that Paul H. Dunn had made up several of the stories that he told for dramatic effect. And it was none other than Lynn Packer, who was the investigative reporter who uncovered this fact that led to Paul H. Duns being put on emeritus status as a general, as a beloved general authority.

John Dehlin [00:01:41] But not only did Lynn Packer do this in Utah, but he also did this as the nephew of Mormon apostle Boyd K. Packer. And that was also intriguing to me. And you know, Lynn experienced some consequences for his journalism, you know, in this regard and others, because sometimes Lynn's journalism didn't make the church look as good as the church wanted to look. Lynn was also involved in many other important stories, including the Mark Hoffman bombings, the Ted Bundy story, many, many others. And then recently his name resurfaced because he is doing investigative work into Tim Ballard, founder of Operation Underground Railroad, the, the child sex trafficking, you know, nonprofit that claims that it, you know, rescues children who are being trafficked and sold into sex slavery.

John Dehlin [00:02:40] And Lynn has discovered what he believes are very significant problems with Operation Underground Railroad and Tim Ballard's management of it. So this is going to be a multi part series. This is going to be one of those extensive Mormon stories interviews that covers multiple hours.

John Dehlin [00:02:58] And today we're not going to be digging into the Paul Dunn stuff or the Ted Bundy stuff or the Mark Hoffman stuff or the Tim Ballard stuff. What I wanted to do was do kind of just an overview of Tim's life. So we're going to be focusing today on sort of Boyd K. Packer and the Packer family growing up, I believe, in Brigham City, Utah. We're going to talk about how Boyd K. Packer became an apostle, what it was like to be in the Packer family, what it was like for Lynn to be the nephew of Boyd K. Packer, and how Lynn's journalism career kind of grew and advanced in parallel as Boyd K.

John Dehlin [00:03:41] Packer was working up and up the ranks within, within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And we're going to end today by just kind of giving that overview of Lynn's story and Boyd's story. We will, you know, talk briefly about, you know, the, the Packer thing or the Hoffman thing or the Ballard thing, but we're not going to dig into any of those. We're going to save that for a future episode. So that is what we are covering today.

John Dehlin [00:04:10] And we, of course, are live streaming on both Facebook and YouTube. So we welcome any of our listeners who want to ask questions, make comments, particularly about, you know, journalism in Utah, about what they know about Lynn, and then, of course, any questions or comments about Boyd K. Packer, because this is someone who has kind of an inside view into, you know, big parts of Boyd Kid Packer's life.

John Dehlin [00:04:34] So that is what we're doing today. And Lynn Packer, thank you so much for joining us on Mormon Stories. Are you okay with me referring to you as a living legend or does that make you uncomfortable?

Lynn Packer [00:04:45] Probably,

John Dehlin [00:04:49] but at least you're just gonna have to live with it.

Lynn Packer [00:04:51] Yeah,

John Dehlin [00:04:54] because. Because really, you're breaking that story with Paul Dunn dramatically impacted my life at a very important time. And I think it was a particularly courageous thing to do, both as a journalist in Utah and as the nephew of a super powerful Mormon apostle. So hats off to you. All right, so, Lynn, let's begin. Should we start with the a background on the Packer family?

Lynn Packer's Family Background and Early Life

Lynn Packer [00:05:24] Sure. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:25] Okay, so let's, let's begin there. Take it away, Lynn.

Lynn Packer [00:05:29] Okay. I was born into the church. I was born a Mormon in Brigham City. I was born a week after D Day, so it was during the war. And I have a twin sister. And we, our first home was on Main street in Brigham City.

Lynn Packer [00:05:54] My father was in the military. My. All my uncles but one back then, they exempted the oldest, who had to stay with the family business, from the military. So it was at a time when my mother initially raised the two of us and my older brother at home, Boyd. My uncle Boyd was just entering the military at that time. He wanted to be a pilot and he was a bomber pilot, and he was assigned to the Pacific, but it was after the war ended.

Lynn Packer [00:06:31] His older brother, my Uncle Leon, was a bomber pilot. He was in the thick of things. He flew out of Great Britain and did bombing runs over Germany. And so as I'm like 2 and 3 years old, they're all coming back. And what's interesting is that most of my uncles all came into the same business. They all began working for Packer Motor Company.

Lynn Packer [00:07:02] So Packer Motor Company became the economic epicenter of the Packer family. That is, my grandmother, grandfather. My grandfather was still with the company at that time, but was in the process of retiring. And so all these uncles were working together and all of them more or less active in the church.

John Dehlin [00:07:31] So take us. Take us back a bit and tell us a bit about. Let's just say what you know about boy Boyd and your father's parents and kind of like what their upbringing would have been prior to the sons going off to war. Does that make sense?

Lynn Packer [00:07:48] Yeah. The. The first I became aware of who my uncles were and who they were. Boyd and Donna, they were married in 1947. I was three. Soon moved down the street. They were on the same street about three blocks from where I lived.

Lynn Packer [00:08:13] And four of the uncles and aunts lived on that same street. So we were in close proximity in terms of all having something to do with the Chrysler dealership. It was a. Became a Chrysler dealership, Packer Motor Company, and we all lived in the same proximity, and then another group lived on the east side of town. We began in the LDS 3rd Ward in Brigham City, or was in that area. And the others were all in the Brigham City First Ward.

Lynn Packer [00:08:51] Now Grandma and Grandpa Ira and Emma, and that's how they're spoken of in the family, as the head of the extended family. They initially lived in Korin. Grandpa did quite a bit of farming, but he was mostly a blacksmith.

Lynn Packer [00:09:10] And a lot of the kids were born in Corinne. It was. They. It was under humble circumstances. I don't believe they had indoor plumbing in the sense that they used an outhouse. And that's how they grew up. And then my great grandfather had a blacksmith shop in Brigham City. And eventually Ira moves to Brigham City.

Lynn Packer [00:09:40] And it was a time when blacksmith started to transition to repairing farm equipment and then automobiles. And so Ira, my grandfather, was the one that first opened up a dealership, or not a dealership, but a. A car repair shop on Main street in two different locations. But he ended up in one location that's very near the Brigham sign, the arch that goes over Main street in Brigham City. And that became where a lot of the uncles, my dad and uncles began working.

John Dehlin [00:10:18] And for those who don't know, is northern Utah, probably, I would say an hour and an hour north of Salt Lake City.

Lynn Packer [00:10:26] Yeah, it's right.

John Dehlin [00:10:27] The turnoff before you go to Logan or Cache Valley. It's right there. It's known for really good peaches and probably for other things as well, but it's just that exit. Right. And it was also known for the Indian placement. There was a huge school for Native Americans there.

Lynn Packer [00:10:49] Yeah, the Intermountain School was there.

John Dehlin [00:10:51] And I think we're going to talk about that when we talk about Boyd's life. Right, right. Yeah. So those are some of the things that. But there I have listeners that have, like, never been to Utah and have never been Mormon. So I just wanted to let people know kind of what we're talking about. But it's kind of a sleepy, rural Utah town right off the freeway before you go into a canyon that takes you into northern. Northern Utah and then Idaho. Correct.

Lynn Packer [00:11:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:16] Okay. So what do you know about kind of the upbringing of your. Your dad and Boyd and what their family situation was like growing up?

Lynn Packer [00:11:27] Yeah, I don't know if you can bring up. Maybe I sent you a photo of the downtown Main Street. I said, well, I'll just tell you a little bit about. You can go back to the first one and tell you.

John Dehlin [00:11:39] Okay. So for those. Just for our listeners, really quickly, we. Lynn, for those who joined us on Facebook or on YouTube, Lynn was generous enough to provide some really nice photos. So you'll be able to enjoy this if you're just listening in the audio. But if you want the enhanced experience of checking out some videos, we'll be flashing up some photos from time to time. So tell us what we're looking at here, Lynn.

Lynn Packer [00:12:04] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:12:05] Just remember to describe things for our listeners who are joining us just throughout.

Lynn Packer [00:12:08] Yeah, yeah. What you see is a photo of mom and dad, Lowell and Lavenna, and the three kids. And Dad's holding me and Mom's holding Lynn. Linda. So it's Lynn and Linda. And I included a copy of my birth certificate. Certificate showing the back, because back then they would designate godfathers. And it was my Uncle Al and Uncle Boyd. Al was married at the time. Boyd wasn't as my godfathers. And then that's how I got my middle name. Kenneth is after Boyd's middle name. The. The packers had sort of this thing about using middle names. My brother that is seen in the photo. He's Richard Leon Packer.

Lynn Packer [00:12:56] He got his middle name from Leon. And dad admired both Leon and Boyd. Leon was older. Boyd was about five years younger. And still dad saw that he was. He was unusual, that he was gifted and really involved, and so he admired him. And so that's, that's how I, I got my middle name.

John Dehlin [00:13:24] And let me ask you about that, Lynn, really quick. Just because I'm, I, I'm a curious guy sometimes. So when I grew up, I didn't have a godfather. So that. And I, I kind of associated that with Italians and the Mafia. In the movie. Tell us what it meant to have someone designated as your godfather back. Back then.

Lynn Packer [00:13:43] It was. It certainly, as far as I know, it's not a Mormon tradition. And I'm not sure why they did it. They. But. But, but they. They did. And I never got any explanation other than those. We. We honored those two and. And Boyd by using Kenneth as my middle name. And then later, Boyd named one of his boys Kenneth, who I know very well and who was at BYU at the same time I was.

John Dehlin [00:14:20] Does that mean. Does that mean that your dad and Boyd were kind of close as brothers, potentially?

Lynn Packer [00:14:26] Yeah. I think the whole family was. Was fairly close. When, when you have a big family like that and they didn't have a lot of money, they struggled financially, and all of them had to work and, and help out. And my Aunt Verna, who was the oldest, was very talented, and she worked. In a second, you'll bring up a photo of downtown Brigham, and she worked at J.C. penney's, and she would help, you know, help with the finances. Dad told me that she bought the first suit that he ever. That he ever had.

John Dehlin [00:15:11] Tell us. Tell us what this next photo is of.

Lynn Packer [00:15:13] Okay, that's the immediate Packer family under Ira. And so what you see in the shot is Ira at the bottom and Emma, my grandmother, next to him. And then you see the. The boys and the girls. And my father is at the upper left.

Lynn Packer [00:15:37] Boyd is just below him. And my Aunt Verna, who I was very close to, is next to him on the left. Bill, who was the youngest. He was the youngest in the family. It was Boyd next to youngest. And then Bill, who would have probably been, I don't know, 15 or 16 at the time. I was very close to.

Lynn Packer [00:16:01] To Bill. And. And then Leon, the one who was the bomber pilot during World War II, is to the right. He's the furthest to the right. And just above him to the left is Ron, who was the oldest and who stayed back because he had to help run the business, run the shop. And so he, he, he helped with that.

John Dehlin [00:16:29] So a couple things that stick out to me about this photo is everybody, it looks like a. I mean, it's a good looking family. Everybody looks really formal and nice. Even the kids have like handkerchiefs in, you know, ties, suits, white shirts. Even the kids have handkerchiefs. All the boys have handkerchiefs in their pockets. All the women's hair or, you know, very, very nicely done. All the boys, you know, hair is parted and kind of slicked back. It's. It's a very handsome looking and kind of formal looking family. Is that. But also everyone looks happy.

Lynn Packer [00:17:06] Yeah, I think they, for the most part were. And the handkerchiefs, I made fun of that. About two or three years before Boyd died, we were at a family get together and I was making a PowerPoint presentation about some Packer Motor history. And so that was one of the slides I used. But I put red circles around the handkerchiefs and sort of made fun of it as Boyd really had a sense of humor. And you had rib him about stuff because there was another shot that I used that I think is in this sequence where he also, a few years later has. Has the. The same thing. So anyway, so that's the, the family. And then if you could go back to the photo of downtown.

John Dehlin [00:18:00] Okay.

Lynn Packer [00:18:02] I think it's like that, that one, that's a key photograph. This was probably taken in 1956 and it's the immediate main part of downtown. And the. And so at the left, for those who are listening, they're familiar with Brigham City and the Brigham City sign. My only uncle who lived in Brigham who did not work for Packer Motor maintained that sign. And you would often see his truck there with ladders going up because he was a sign painter. And he also constructed neon signs. And part of the sign is neon, so he would keep that in repair.

John Dehlin [00:18:44] And the sign says, welcome to Brigham Gateway, world's greatest game bird refuge. I didn't even know that about Brigham City.

Lynn Packer [00:18:53] Yes, there's. It's famous for the bird refuge out west. And I believe the sign a few years before that said world's largest. And that was brought into question. And I believe my uncle, probably at the direction of the city council, changed it. So it's the world's greatest instead of the largest. Then to the right, you see Packer Motor Company as it was downtown.

Lynn Packer [00:19:25] And the signs that are on the building were done by. By my Uncle Mac, who was the Sign painter. So I guess he, in a way, he did some work for Packer Motor. And to the right of that, you'll see the Western Auto Supply Company. That's where I bought my first single shot 22.

Lynn Packer [00:19:50] To the left of Packer Motor was a bottling company where they bottled local soft drinks. Then the JC Penney store where everybody or I bought schools for years. And then the Capitol Theater was one of two theaters in Brigham where we had a tradition for years of the kids getting 25 cents to get admission to go to the movies. And then it was, I think, 15 cents and we had 10 cents to spend on candy.

Growing Up in Brigham City

Lynn Packer [00:20:19] And then beyond that, that you can't see, is the. The Brigham City Courthouse. Now, above Packer Motor, where I have the arrow, was the apartment where Grandma and. And grandpa were living. So as kids, when we went to visit them, you would enter either by a side entrance just outside of going into the. To the motor company, or you'd go into the motor company and go up some back stairs. So it was another reason we were always around Packer Motor, because we'd go there to. To visit the. The two of them and have really, really fond memories of visiting grandma and grandpa up there. Grandpa was easing into retirement.

Lynn Packer [00:21:06] He would eventually have dementia, but as he retired, he was working. My first memory of him was he was working some and then he went into retirement. And they would put puzzles together. You could walk in at any time. The grandkids could come in and were always welcome.

Lynn Packer [00:21:26] And the one thing that really stands out is there was always the really strong and really good smell aroma of coffee, because grandma always kept a pot of coffee going because not only did they drink coffee, but at least two of my uncles did. And because they were just downstairs in the shop area, they would take their breaks up there. They would go out. Okay, a cup of coffee.

John Dehlin [00:21:57] Okay, so I have to ask a couple. So first of all, I just want to say we have a listener. Valerie writes, the main street just looks, looks just the same today, just different businesses in the buildings. I never knew there used to be a JCPenney here. So we have some listeners from Brigham City that are appreciating the history. But you can't just throw down that, that coffee thing without an explanation because, of course, Mormons today are forbidden from drinking coffee. They can't even, you know, go to the temple and see their own daughter get married if they're drinking coffee. And you're telling me the parents of Boyd K. Packer regularly had a coffee pot brewing? Wait Was that your. Your parent, your grandparents or who was it?

Lynn Packer [00:22:41] Yeah, my grandparents. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:43] How is that possible?

Lynn Packer [00:22:44] Yeah, he would have dropped in all the time with them, with them having coffee and so what were they?

John Dehlin [00:22:51] Faithful Mormons, though? You said they were faithful Mormons, right?

Lynn Packer [00:22:53] Yeah. Remember that the word of wisdom was not strictly enforced until later. So they, they begin life where you can drink coffee and even, you know, President David O. McKay, who was president at the time, everybody knew he drank Sanka coffee. That was, that was, I think was the same, but maybe non caffeinated. But anyway, more than this was in

John Dehlin [00:23:20] the 30s, then someone's asking when. So you're talking in the 30s, they would have been drinking coffee.

Lynn Packer [00:23:27] My grandparents?

John Dehlin [00:23:28] Yeah.

Lynn Packer [00:23:29] No, it was up until that was. They. They. They always had coffee.

John Dehlin [00:23:34] So that's 20s, 30s, 40s, all throughout

Lynn Packer [00:23:37] that time into the end of the 50s. Grandpa died in the. Just mid to late. Well, late mid-50s. And then during that time period, Packer Motor moved to a new facility on South Main Street. And the apartment that you see in the photo, if you bring the photo back up, which one? The, the. The photo.

John Dehlin [00:24:07] Okay. Okay, there you go.

Lynn Packer [00:24:09] The. The top part that you see there was all raised. It was all taken off and it was converted into. For a department store. I think it was a Sprouse Ritz or something. Well, first Thiol had temporary offices there as the move was made from that facility to the one on South Main. And then Sprouse Ritz had it. So it was a department store for many years, but without the apartment. My cousins and I assisted when the apartment was.

Lynn Packer [00:24:39] Was demolished. For whatever reason, it may not have been able to pass inspection. I'm not sure why they did it. But then grandma, who was then alone, moved to a home that they remodeled for. Up near the cemetery in.

Lynn Packer [00:24:57] In the eastern part of town. But back to the coffee thing. More than once, when we went up there as kids to have an apple or a banana or something, she would lecture us and say, now you kids, just because we're drinking coffee doesn't mean that you can drink coffee. So we got. So what's that about? Pardon?

John Dehlin [00:25:19] How would they justify that?

Lynn Packer [00:25:21] Well, I don't know. That's just what we were. That's just what we were told. And so we were never. My parents didn't drink coffee. My father didn't. If he went up for a break, he would have had a glass of milk and some cake.

Lynn Packer [00:25:36] But at least, like I said, two of my uncles would go up and have their breaks. And sometimes we'd be there when they. When they came up. But I saw it as really a great thing. It was part of the extended family, just being together, doing things together. And it was not only unusual to have so many uncles working at Packer Motor, but then to have the heads of the family, Ira and Emma, living right above the dealership. And that's where Boyd spent a lot of his time. If we talk a little bit later about his raising race, racing pigeons. He was into birds. That's where he had his pigeon coops, or whatever you call them, was upstairs above Packer Motor. Behind. It was behind the apartment.

Packer Family Traditions and Church Culture

John Dehlin [00:26:38] Real quick, Lynn, listener Jeffrey writes, how about beer? Basically, I guess my question would be, what were beer and wine in moderation, also allowed back then?

Lynn Packer [00:26:49] Not. Not that I know of. There. There was. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but Mormons would. Would make their own root beer. Are you familiar with that?

John Dehlin [00:27:02] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. With the dried ice, right.

Lynn Packer [00:27:04] Yeah. And my dad did that all the time. And we had a family get together once, and Boyd was joking about that, about the fact that some people allowed it to ferment a little bit too long. And so it would. Apparently there would be some alcohol in it.

John Dehlin [00:27:24] Interesting. Okay. But beer and wine, as far as, you know, wasn't allowed.

Lynn Packer [00:27:29] Well, it wasn't allowed. I. I did have. One of my uncles did. Did drink. And that was. That was widely known.

John Dehlin [00:27:38] Okay. Okay. So what's. What's next in the. In the narrative?

Lynn Packer [00:27:46] Let's see. You probably could move to the next photo. You may want to just sort of move along, and I could tell you a little bit about.

John Dehlin [00:27:52] Yeah.

Lynn Packer [00:27:53] What they meant. Okay, here's the Packer family. This is, again, the extended Ira Packer family developed traditions. And one of the traditions was early on, when there were few enough grandkids that we would spend Christmas Eve above the garage in grandma and grandpa's tiny apartment, and we would all get together and exchange gifts. They would draw names before. Prior to that, and open those gifts.

Lynn Packer [00:28:28] And this is one time that really stood out to me is when the uncles got together and gave Grandma and grandpa a Christmas tree that had money. Like, I think it was dollar bills all over it. And that was a lot of money at the time. And you see Boyd here, he probably put it together. Probably was his idea.

Lynn Packer [00:28:53] And you see one of Boyd's sons sort of excited. I'm right behind Boyd. His arm is covering up my face and cousin's behind. And everybody remembers this. And we had a Packer get together at the Lion House just a year ago last December, between Christmas and New Year's, four cousins and Donna Packer was there, and she retold the story about this Christmas tree because everybody remembered it, and they wanted to hear the story again because it's the one gift that stood out all the years we did this.

Lynn Packer [00:29:34] And after a while, there were too many grandkids, and of course, Grandpa died and Grandma moved to the house. And that's when the tradition shifted over a few years later to where the adult cousins and uncles and aunts would have an annual Christmas dinner at the Lion House.

Lynn Packer [00:30:05] And that was every year up until the time that there was a time where Boyd said his family was getting too big to really participate. And that's when that tradition ended.

John Dehlin [00:30:19] Okay.

Lynn Packer [00:30:21] I wanted to point out something that was really unusual, and to me, it was really fulfilling to me growing up, that this was one of the last remnants of an extended family keeping together and keeping close. Everything under Ira and Emma.

Lynn Packer [00:30:45] And at first, what cemented this relationship was Packer Motor with all of the uncles who worked there and the leader, because Grandpa was getting old, it was still a company that he had formed, but the leader of that became Leon when he got out of the military.

Lynn Packer [00:31:11] So Leon was president of Packer Motor. He was the head new car salesperson at Packer Motor. And so every. Everybody looked up to Leon that he was the one. He was the. The. The one who was sort of running the show in terms of Packer Motor, and also helped with these traditions of these get togethers that the family had. Frequently.

Lynn Packer [00:31:40] They had the Christmas Eve one that they had. And then initially on Easter, probably the Saturday before Easter, we would also have a big celebration. The whole family would meet, and it would be just like a gigantic picnic.

Lynn Packer [00:32:01] And those began out at Little Mountain. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but Little Mountain is west of Brigham today. You go past it on the way to Thio, they would be there. And then they held some of them at Blacksmith Fork Canyon. That's east of you and Logan.

Lynn Packer [00:32:21] They. They held at least one at the ranch of Donna Packer, Boyd's wife. Her father had a ranch in Wyoming. One of them was held there. And then the Packer family, again, as an extended family, bought a camping ground east of Brigham City just before Manaway. So as you're taking that drive you talked about from Brigham to.

Lynn Packer [00:32:52] There's a camping area there, the Box Elder, I think they call it campgrounds. But you drive up their ways, and there was a multi acre camp ground or site that the family bought and built a restroom facility. And on the 4th of July, that's where the annual meeting would take place. And several of them would go up and maybe camp out two or three days. And then on the primary day, usually on July 4, there would be a sort of a fireside that, that where everybody gets together. And the highlight of that is Boyd would give a talk, he would give a speech and, and would, you know, the messages could vary.

Lynn Packer [00:33:41] Sometimes you hope to get a little bit of inside information about what was going on at 47 East South Temple. And like I said, they were really enjoyable because remember, these are cousins we had grown up with. We knew them really well.

Lynn Packer [00:33:57] It was, I think, a fantastic tradition. The family still owns that property and some of them still do get together, but it's not like it was years ago.

John Dehlin [00:34:11] Brilliant. Let me get in some comments of some listeners. We've got some fun comments. So one of our dear cyber friends, Jaina Powers, writes, I was Peach Queen in Brigham City in 1972-1973. Your dad, Boyd K. Met me and my attendance at the office of the first Presidency. We delivered fresh bushels of peaches to them. I have a picture of me and President Lee in the president's office. So, Jana, thanks for sharing that. That's a fun little story.

Lynn Packer [00:34:39] Okay, before you go on.

John Dehlin [00:34:41] Yeah. I don't want to get. I don't want to. I like following the chronology, so I don't want to get too.

Lynn Packer [00:34:46] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:34:47] Out of the chronology. We can come back.

Lynn Packer [00:34:48] I want to tell my, my Peach Queen story.

John Dehlin [00:34:51] Okay.

Lynn Packer [00:34:52] Okay. You'll come up to the slide in a second, but you don't need to go there right now. Where Boyd's Donna, she was a Peach Queen. But my Peach Queen story, and it relates to Brigham and knowing about Peach Days and the parades and the.

Lynn Packer [00:35:10] All of the fruit stands and, and all of that. Is that the. When I first was hired by KSL in 1968, I was made capital correspondent. It was a quick and big promotion to do that. And I covered the capital and that's when Rampton was governor.

Lynn Packer [00:35:34] And what would happen is. Is that. And we were assigned to the Capitol. That's. That was your beat. And so you would always be aware of guests who came to visit the governor meetings, that they had press conferences. That's where I first met Robert Redford was that year when he came there to announce he was buying a ski resort in Provo.

Lynn Packer [00:36:00] So anyway, the Peach Queens, just like this Peach Queen who went there did the traditional thing. They took the peaches to the governor's office and then they would go over and deliver them to the president of the church.

Lynn Packer [00:36:19] And so when they came to the. To the governor's office, that's back when we shot our own film. And I shot 16 millimeter film of them delivering the peaches to the governor. And you just do a short story about that. And then when they were finished, they said, well, we're going over to give President McKay a bushel of peaches.

Lynn Packer [00:36:41] I said, well, I'll go with you. I'll go with you. And so I did. So I went over there and we went over. I think it was in the Hotel Utah. I think his apartment was up above in the Hotel Utah, wherever it was.

Lynn Packer [00:36:57] We went there and we come in and I come in with the peach queens with my camera and Claire Middlemass was there to receive them and she about had a cow. A reporter was there and President McKay was across the room sitting on a couch and they presented the peaches to him and I shot the video and I had my tape recorder with me because we usually tape recorded the interviews.

Lynn Packer [00:37:28] And I sat down next to President McKay and I think I'm the last reporter who ever interviewed him. He died sometime later, but I don't think he ever did any interviews during that time. And it became immediately apparent to me that he had dementia and that was being kept a secret.

Lynn Packer [00:37:51] And Claire Middlemass was beside herself. I, I mean, I just, I didn't know that. I wanted to get my scoop. I was there, so I wanted to ask. And I asked him a couple of questions about world affairs, thinking, okay, we're going to get some insight from the President of the church about world affairs. And he was just clueless about what was going on.

Lynn Packer [00:38:12] And, and that was the first. I realized that when they get older, and this has happened on several occasions and it's happened since, that they basically try to keep it quiet that they're really not at the helm anymore.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] That's a great story. And Claire Metalmist is super important because she's the one who donated her diaries or records such that Greg Prince could write his biography on David O. McKay. And I even think this recent interview I did with Matt Harris about Ezra Chap Benson, if I'm remembering right, a lot of what we know about is that Benson is also. At least some of it is due to Claire Middleness. I could be wrong about that. But anyway, that's great. So thanks for Jayna for sharing that And I love those anecdotes, Lynn. So keep those coming really quickly. This will be fun for you. I think one of our listeners, Larry. Larry Lawrence. Judy Camp writes. Larry Camp here. Good to see Lynn. He taught a communications class I took at BYU in 1981 or 1982 as BYU faculty. Go pretty normal, dude. And I mean that in the best possible way.

Lynn's Career at BYU and Family Photos

Lynn Packer [00:39:36] I think it was 82. Is that when I started teaching at BYU. And again, we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. But no, let's.

John Dehlin [00:39:46] Let's save it. Let's save it.

Lynn Packer [00:39:48] Brought it up, because he brought it up, is that I was brought in to teach journalism basics. Is what had happened is BYU had developed a reputation for being an anchor factory. That is a factory for turning out anchors, television newscasters, the ones who sit behind the anchor desk.

Lynn Packer [00:40:12] And they did. It was great. They got a lot of publicity and they put a lot of anchors out there, but they wanted to turn out actual reporters. And because, especially because a lot of anchors were known to be airheads, just people who look good and were pretty and could speak well and nothing more.

Lynn Packer [00:40:31] So I was brought in to teach the basics, which I did. I taught the journalism basics. But because it's byu, all the instructors there are encouraged, I would say pressured to always be sharing their testimony, talking about spiritual experiences, no matter what you taught.

Lynn Packer [00:40:55] And I avoided doing that. And maybe that's why he perceived me a little bit as being normal and, and not trying to be an institute teacher at the same time I was teaching journalism.

John Dehlin [00:41:07] That's awesome. All right. Well, we appreciate all the comments from listeners and viewers. Okay, Lynn. So as we go back to the slides, I wanted to just kind of. Well, I wanted to hear what you wanted to say about this slide, about the Marble family. And then I wanted to make an observation. So go ahead and talk about this slide and why. Describe it and tell us why you included it.

Lynn Packer [00:41:30] Okay. What you're saying is, is my grandma Marble, that was their last name, with Horace next to her and their three kids. My mother is sitting on her lap, and my aunt, and then my Uncle Arthur, and then over to the right, you see the grandkids of that family.

Lynn Packer [00:41:54] And the point I want to make here is that there were no traditions on that side. There was never an attempt to have. There were get. You know, we had picnics and such once in a while, but nothing consistent. No built in traditions. And you can see it's a really small clan of grandkids because There were only three kids. My grandfather, I think was almost maybe 30, but certainly 20 years older than my grandmother. It was an unusual marriage.

Lynn Packer [00:42:29] And one thing that stood out is Arthur, the one standing in the back, the one son that they had, is. He left the church early and moved to California where he was a schoolteacher. And it was always something of a mystery to us why. Why would somebody who's raised Mormon leave the church like that? He married, my aunt, was non Mormon.

Lynn Packer [00:42:52] We had a good relationship with him. And one time he sent one of his daughters to live with us for a year because she was getting into some difficulty in California. And he wanted her to have it, you know, be in a more stable neighborhood and family environment. So she came to stay. So we were close that way, but no traditions. And this was in sharp contrast. And so I identified very little with this family and just almost everything on the Packer side, Grandma Marble was great. She remarried, moved to a farm near Deweyville, north of Brigham. We would often go up and visit. They had cows, pigs, chickens.

Lynn Packer [00:43:49] We would go out and help gather eggs. And Grandpa Pete that we called him, never had a tractor. He had two plug horses, I think. What were their names? I think Star and Dime or something. They had two names. And often he would set the grandkids up on the horses while he was out plowing the field. That was our ride on horses, helping milk cows. He milked cows by hand. Really hard worker. And so that was the experience on that side.

John Dehlin [00:44:25] And what. What I've been thinking about now lately, and this isn't something I want to dig into, but I just want to touch on it and then maybe come back to it as people are now leaving the LDS Church in droves. And I would say I agree with Marlon K. Jensen that, that the church is experiencing its greatest levels of apostasy since Kirtland because of the Internet and Google and, you know, all the different things.

John Dehlin [00:44:52] It's still a lot of people who leave the church just marvel that people can stand the church and the church can maintain so much of its power and its money and its influence when in, you know, let's just say in 2020, there's so many reasons, there's so many now exposed problems with the church and, you know, so much perceived vulnerability. But what I see is it looks, you know, as you show this contrast between the Packer family and the Marble family, it basically shows that if a family unites, if a family has traditions, if the family has a strong religious upbringing, and if the family has vast connections that are probably, you know, community connections, that are probably greased and aided by the support of a predominant religious tradition.

John Dehlin [00:45:52] It leads to. It can lead to family unity, to great childhoods for the youth, to great financial and social and cultural opportunities. And this interwovenness of family with tradition, with religion, with business creates this really tight. So kill some can be fatal to some, but for others, it can be an incredible scaffolding or skeleton upon which to build a really fruitful, healthy, successful life. If by success we mean big families, financial success, social status and power and progeny. Right. And posterity. Is that a fair conclusion to glean from what you're sharing so far?

Lynn Packer [00:46:53] Well, I think it is. I mean, society has so many problems. A lot of them are with the family. And of course, that's one of the things that the Mormon Church is about, is family first, emphasis on the family. And I think that some people could look at some of what the Ira and Emma Packer family did to try and remain cohesive, to support each other. You can't completely recreate it because the economy has changed so much and how unusual it is that all so many uncles would work together in one business.

Lynn Packer [00:47:33] And then as I was explaining, Leon was over that. And the initial thing that held the Packer family together and made it that way was the business. It was economic. But then we'll get into it. As Boyd has more success in leadership positions in the church, it morphed the. The mantle was passed from sort of Uncle Leon, who was president of Packer Motor, over to Boyd and he became sort of the leader of the family and the spiritual leader. And so how often is it that someone would have a member of the family become prominent in the Mormon church or something else that would be admired by so many people in the family and who could help keep it together?

Lynn Packer [00:48:23] Because we'll get into this in a minute. Because Boyd played a crucial role in maintaining the Ira Emma extended family traditional and kept it from breaking off into the nuclear families sooner than it inevitably had to. And this is a good point to tell you another story about Boyd and how it fit in is this would have been about trying to think of when this occurred, maybe 1961 or something. One of the events that the family had, Boyd wanted to hold at his father in law's ranch in Wyoming.

Boyd K. Packer's Early Character and Interests

Lynn Packer [00:49:10] So the family as a group had to travel a lot further and, and stay longer because they had to stay there at this ranch. And it was going to culminate by having actual church services, not just a fireside, but actual church services on a Sunday at this at this ranch.

Lynn Packer [00:49:32] And this really stood out in my mind because of what Boyd said during the meeting and why he wanted to do it and have a sacrament meeting. I think I gave the two and a half minute talk. The sacrament was passed to this group. And we're outside, we're, you know, sitting on log benches at this meeting. And the one thing that really stood out is Boyd said, this is the way it's going to be.

Lynn Packer [00:49:57] And so you think, what do you mean, this is the way it's going to be? It's going to. The church is going to transition to patriarchal order where heads of families will replace, I think replace, not just supplement bishops and the ward unit, and it becomes a family unit. And indeed, to a great extent, the Packer family had done that. It could. It could do that. It really stood out in my mind.

John Dehlin [00:50:29] You're saying it was Boyd's vision that sort of his manifestation exactly, of family is going to become the infrastructure for the church.

Lynn Packer [00:50:38] Exactly. Remember when he was first rising up the ranks, he was with a bunch of what I call young Turks down at BYU and in the seminary system that had visions of where the church should go. And this was part of his vision. It never happened. It was. You can see that it was unrealistic. But for somebody in the Packer family that looked. Yeah, why not? Because the, the, the organization was there. The close kinship was. Was already there. And who knows, had he become president of the church, he may have moved it in that direction because he was such a strong believer in the family and worked hard to preserve this. This collection of relatives who met regularly and had from. And, and had from day one and were all doing it under the Ira and Emma banner.

John Dehlin [00:51:43] Yeah.

Lynn Packer [00:51:44] And.

John Dehlin [00:51:45] And tying it back to the modern day. There are just so many people that are like, how can anybody believe in the LDS Church in 2020? But the truth is, when you're in one of these types of families, and let's face it, these families are the backbone of Utah Mormonism and Idaho Mormonism and Arizona Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:52:04] It's not just a matter of, do you believe. It's our business is tied to the church and the community. Our family is tied to the. Our reputation is tied to the church and the community, our reputation, everything. So it's not. It's not just a matter of somebody like, oh, stumbling on the CES letter, reading about Abraham, Book of Abraham and Book of Mormon historicity, losing their faith. It's like for them to even be open to the church not being true, they have to be willing to disappoint generations, to disrupt the family model, to disrupt, you know, to disappoint grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles and siblings, to stain the family name and to jeopardize probably significant family business.

John Dehlin [00:52:52] That's all interwoven with the church and the church members. And that's what I think for in my opinion, this is the backbone of Mormonism that keeps the Mormon Church relatively strong in a time when so many other churches are just withering away.

Lynn Packer [00:53:07] Yeah. And remember too, that, and I think this is important is that that Brigham City was the. Was probably the church's main prototype for the United Order. And Brigham City was one of the, maybe Orderville and Lehigh or something. But Brigham City really led out on actually achieving to a great extent the United Order.

Lynn Packer [00:53:35] And it was absolutely a socialist economic movement. And some people could call it communist in the economic sense, because communism started out as an economic movement where the means of production were owned by the workers and not by rich capitalists.

Lynn Packer [00:53:53] And so it succeeded for a long time in Brigham City until it just sort of collapsed going into statehood. And we were all aware of it growing up. About two blocks east of where I lived was the old town thing that had been shuttered.

Lynn Packer [00:54:14] And we used to sneak in, we found out a way to get in and there was a stuff being stored there and it was full of old carriages and old, seems like military like vehicles. And that was the tannery that was one of the major projects of the United Order.

Lynn Packer [00:54:30] There was a woollen mill that still exists. The, the tannery has been torn down, but the woolen mill still exists, although it was gutted by fire. Everybody knew it was there. Everybody knew what it was. As I said, I. We lived on first west along with several other relatives on the same street.

Lynn Packer [00:54:51] And before Boyd left Brigham City, just before he left, he bought a piece of property at the far end of first west that had fruit orchards coming back to the cherries and peaches thing. And he restored an old two story building and that was a United Order farm. And there was still at least one or maybe two mulberry trees on that property where they raised silkworms and tried to, to produce silk besides the, the wool. They weren't very successful at it, but they, but they tried. And so my grandparents, you know, they're aware of all of this. I mean, this, this ended right as, you know, as, as their lives were beginning.

Lynn Packer [00:55:47] And so it was. Everybody was aware of it in Brigham City. And I think what happened with Packer Motor was Sort of an outgrowth of that a little bit, where you have a bunch of brothers who jointly own the business and run it and work at it. Oops, we lost. I lost your audio for a second.

John Dehlin [00:56:14] Yeah. Oh, sorry. I was on mute. So let's maybe. Let's jump back to the story. Do you want to pick up with Boyd's pigeons? Is that. Is that next in the story?

Lynn Packer [00:56:22] Yeah. Okay, so here's Uncle Boyd, and he's. Remember there was that apartment on Main street above Packer Motor, and here he is behind it. It was sort of a hodgepodge construction back there because it had been built and rebuilt several times. And you could go back outside on the roof and in the vicinity. And that's where he raised his.

Lynn Packer [00:56:47] Raising racing pigeons. And so one of the newspaper articles there shows him. Winning a prize for having the grand champion racing pigeon. And it was one way he socialized with other young kids as they were sort of in a club. And he was like, I think it says secretary of the club at one point.

Lynn Packer [00:57:17] And Boyd was known to not be having. He was not that active in the church. He was not at that point. He was not a gung ho Mormon. He was into his pigeons and into his artwork. He started. I think that's when he started carving birds and eventually becomes widely known as both a painter and one who. And carving all of these different birds. And a few years ago, there was a display of his bird carvings. And then, I think now, BYU I haven't been to it, but I think BYU at the museum has a room or an area that has a lot of his artwork and.

Lynn Packer [00:58:04] And carvings. And my Aunt Verna that I told you that I was really close with, she had one of Boyd's paintings in her house that I saw all the time. And it was Jesus at Gethsemane, and Boyd had done two versions of it. I think the one she had was the best.

Lynn Packer [00:58:25] And I asked Boyd before he died, I said, what happened to that? And he said, he. Eventually the family. Her family returned it and that he had it. I don't remember what happened to it. It was a painting I would like to have had because I saw it over so many years and admired it.

John Dehlin [00:58:45] Nice.

Lynn Packer [00:58:46] So.

John Dehlin [00:58:47] So it sounds like Boyd was kind of a sensitive, artistic young man, sort of.

Lynn Packer [00:58:54] We'll get into that. He. He. With. What photo are we on? We're coming up to one that I want to show.

John Dehlin [00:59:01] Okay. So we were on Boyd's pigeons.

Lynn Packer [00:59:04] Hey, there's. He's with the pigeons. And. Okay, the next One is. That's just another one. That's another one that shows him. This is now behind Packer Motor. And I don't know why this particular photo was shot, but he here again, he's with his pigeons. And behind it you see one of Packer Motors wreckers. Packer Motor was known for being one of the main towing services in Box Elder county, throughout the county.

Lynn Packer [00:59:37] And dad was on 24 hour call and I would often go with him. Now this is way before I ever went with him. This is one of the first records they had, a series of wreckers. And one of Boyd's stories is taking the only vehicle that he had to take Donna out on some date was with one of the wreckers. I think it was the generation right after this one, although it could have been this one.

Lynn Packer [01:00:05] And so he takes her on a date because he didn't have a car, they didn't have a lot of money. And it was a while before even grandma and grandpa had a nice car because they were not particularly well to do.

Lynn Packer [01:00:19] But then I think if you go to the next slide, thinking about. Oh, yeah, okay. This is one of my favorite photos of Boyd. I call this his Frank Sinatra pose. And Boyd considered himself, I think at this time as sort of a. I don't know if you call it a. A ladies guy.

John Dehlin [01:00:44] He, he.

Lynn Packer [01:00:45] He was known to date really good looking girls. And I think he was known by them to be sort of a hot catch. And I know that Boyd was really aware of Frank Sinatra because years later I was. I was over Boyd and Donna's house. I was making a video about this sign. You see this Chrysler sign here? I'll tell you more about it in a minute. I was making a video about the origin of this sign.

Lynn Packer [01:01:22] And I had shot a video interview of Boyd, but I needed a little bit more. So I went over to his house with a tape recorder and asked Boyd some more questions. And Donna was there. And then we started talking about music.

Lynn Packer [01:01:35] And Boyd was aware of everything that Frank Sinatra had done. It was clear that he had followed music and continued to follow it. And Donna was back there. You should be talking about classical music or church music. And Boyd was so aware of, continued to be so aware of Frank Sinatra that he brought it up. He said, there's one Frank Sinatra song I don't like.

John Dehlin [01:02:03] Strangers in the Night. Strangers in the Night.

Lynn Packer [01:02:06] That would be close, but there's one that's closer my Way.

John Dehlin [01:02:11] Oh, yeah, for sure.

Lynn Packer [01:02:13] Because Boyd was against people doing it their way. It was supposed to Be. It's supposed to be the church's way. And so he, he pointed that out. There was one Frank Sinatra song he didn't like, and I didn't even have to ask. I mean, I knew because I knew him.

John Dehlin [01:02:33] So this is a, this is a question you probably can't answer. And I'm just noticing that we as Mormons are so, like, we're such a leadership worship culture, so we're all like, we want to. You know, whenever I do a podcast that involves like, the most popular podcast of all time that I've done is with Christine Jepsen Clark, because she talks about her, you know, her dad, Malcolm Jepsen, who was Boyd K. Packer's best friend according to the, you know, Jepsons. And, you know, everybody wants the inside skinny on apostles and general authorities, you know, even you. I'm bringing you on because of your book with Paul H.

John Dehlin [01:03:09] Dunn. You, you know, some would say you brought a general authority down. You know, we've got this, I'm just, I'm aware that we've got this obsession with general authorities culture, and that's part of the problem, but here we are, and it's just so interesting because it's power and all that sort of stuff. So I'm going to ask you a question you probably can't answer and may not know and may or may not want to answer. But, you know, Boyd K. Packer becomes, you know, so notorious in progressive and post Mormon crowds, you know, because of that ultimate talk on Little Factories, which I want to wait and talk about later, you know, because of his incessant harping about homosexuality, it's led so many progressive and post Mormons to wonder, was he gay?

Boyd Packer's Military Service and Personal Life

John Dehlin [01:03:54] Was this sort of classic religious leader who was. Had internalized homophobia and homo negativity, and so they couldn't shut up about the gays because inside they were one. That's one question. Another question is, is it possible that he had sexual experimentation as a kid and that somehow had bad experiences or experienced a lot of deep guilt? And so because of some of these childhood experiences, or I should say adolescent experiences, then that, that, you know, this morality and this purity, sexual purity and aversion to homosexuality somehow becomes like his, you know, his mallet? I don't know if you can speak to either or both of those, or none of them, but I at least wanted to ask the question about what you may have known about his adolescence in that way.

Lynn Packer [01:04:47] Well, the rumor came up, so I should talk about it. In my opinion, he wasn't When I worked at ksl, he wasn't.

John Dehlin [01:04:57] Wasn't what?

Lynn Packer [01:04:57] Was not. Was not. Was. Was not gay. I can see where they get it because if you sometimes the thing that you're so that you talk about the most, you may, you may have that problem. But I had two really key discussions with Boyd about his two most prominent speeches about. About gays. And we can get into this later and probably should get into it later.

John Dehlin [01:05:28] Yeah, I'm just asking about his adolescence. Does his adolescence inform these questions at all?

Lynn Packer [01:05:33] No, I don't think so. And the other thing is based on these discussions and understanding better where he's coming from, his. His stand is abhorrent. It is dead wrong, and it goes against science and it's totally faced. Faith based. And it's something that is really, really hurting the church today.

Lynn Packer [01:05:56] And when he gave the speech a few years ago, I thought that he was just popping off, that he wanted to make a statement before, before he died, that he, he wanted to express how important it is. And then a few years later, Dallin Oaks comes back and says stuff that's even worse. So I think he was just. He was one who was willing to give that speech. He was willing to put that out there. But no, there wasn't anything in his youth as to whether he was moral before he got married. I have no idea.

Lynn Packer [01:06:35] I was never close enough to him to have any discussions like that. But I was really close to another uncle who was in the military who once told me, he said, we were talking one night and he said, and we had a lot of deep discussions. I was really close to one aunt and one uncle above all the others. We were having a discussion one night. He says, lynn, I'm not going to the celestial kingdom.

Lynn Packer [01:07:03] He was active in the church. He eventually became a bishop. And I said, why is that? He said, because of things I did in the military. And so he, he would have. And. And I didn't ask for detail, but I think it had to do with sexual morality. And, and so maybe six sex workers

John Dehlin [01:07:21] or something like that.

Lynn Packer [01:07:22] Pardon?

John Dehlin [01:07:22] Sex workers or.

Lynn Packer [01:07:24] I wouldn't say that. My guess would have been that he just. He dated at that time who were not opposed to premarital sex. That was my guess. We didn't go into any great detail. I mean, there's only like a couple of sins that, that the church considers really bad that keeps you out of the celestial kingdom. And it's ridiculous that the premarital sex can be one of them. But. But that's, but that's the church, and that's how he felt. And I figured when he later advanced in the church, I thought, well, he's been able to, to get some sort of forgiveness with it. But those were different times.

Lynn Packer [01:08:09] We cannot be too judgmental about these, especially men. There are a lot of women who did too, who went through World War II, went into the military, and they were taken away from home. And having been in the military myself and served overseas, I know of all the temptations that exist and some yield to them. And whether I sort of doubt the boy did, but I have no idea. I was not there.

John Dehlin [01:08:40] Sure, sure. But, but he was. What you're saying is this. You know, sometimes I. I even think I may have heard that he was like a shy kid who was picked on a lot. What you're saying is he was kind of a ladies, ladies man in a Mormon youth sort of way. He's popular with the girls.

Lynn Packer [01:08:57] Totally. I think that's totally it. The reason he was picked on is because he had polio, which, which crept up in his old age because he, you know, he just didn't have the leg strength as he got older because if you have polio, then arthritis sets in when you get older. And so, as you know, he was confined to a wheelchair later on. But I think that's one of the reasons dad admired him, is because he could date all the hot chicks and it was clear that that's what he was doing. When he married a peach queen, it was clear to me he could have the pick of the litter.

John Dehlin [01:09:39] Fascinating. Okay, so back to, back to the photo. We've got. We've got Boyd loving Frank Sinatra. What should we talk about his, his service in the war next?

Lynn Packer [01:09:51] Yeah, you could go to the next shot. It's just a shot of Boyd's flight crew. He served in the Pacific. He was there at the same time Paul Dunn was. But where Paul Dunn actually saw a combat situation, he wasn't that engaged in combat, but he was there when the fighting was going on.

Lynn Packer [01:10:18] Boyd arrives after that. And that's where Boyd had the experiences that led to this change that where he becomes someone who's mostly interested in girls and mostly interested in pigeons and a very active kid, really good looking kid.

Lynn Packer [01:10:42] And then he starts getting serious and he, he made that switch during this time. Usually a lot of soldiers find Jesus when they're think they're about to die, when they're about to do a landing on a Pacific island or do an attack or something like that.

Lynn Packer [01:11:02] But he was away from Home and in essence, found or discovered his interests in religion while he was serving overseas. So when he comes back from the service. Wait.

John Dehlin [01:11:17] Really quick. Really quick, Lynn, so you've already said this, but I just want to be clear. For some reason, I thought that he was a bomber pilot in. In World War II.

Lynn Packer [01:11:27] He was. But. But he didn't drop bombs. I mean, he was a bomber pilot.

John Dehlin [01:11:31] Okay, but.

Lynn Packer [01:11:33] But he. He did not. He didn't. It wasn't like Uncle Leon, where he was bombing actual targets and being shot at. The dangers that Boyd faced were the typical ones you do in the. In that area is. Is bad storms and bad conditions. He was never. He was never in combat.

John Dehlin [01:11:55] So when you're a bomber pilot, what do you do if you're not dropping bombs?

Lynn Packer [01:12:00] Well, when the. When the war ended, remember, the machinery had been set in place to attack and fight in Japan, and the decision had to be made, are we going to actually launch the attack? And so they're sending bombers and troops and everything over there to invade Japan. That was the plan. And then somebody came up with the idea is, what if we bomb the hell out of them with. With a nuke? That if. If we use an atomic bomb and see if we can actually save lives by taking all these lives through atomic bomb hits. And they did that.

Lynn Packer [01:12:41] And so the war then quickly ended after the second bombing, and you have all this machinery ready to go over there, and. And he was on his way to doing over Japan what Uncle Leon did over Germany. But it.

Lynn Packer [01:13:00] And so you. You. You wind down and you do other things. He. He may have shipped men and cargo. I don't know what. But he wasn't dropping bombs.

John Dehlin [01:13:11] Okay, that's great. Okay. So he comes home

Lynn Packer [01:13:17] when he. Yeah, he comes home. And. And the initial thought is that he. He is going to work at Packer Motor. And he begins working at Packer Motor, and he does that part time while he starts going to Weber where he. He meets. Well, he met. He knew who Donna was in high school, but he actually starts really dating her at Weber and I guess partly in Brigham City when they move back and forth. And then in 1946, a lot of things happen. Near this time, Boyd is working part time as an accountant for Packer Motor. He was not mechanically inclined.

John Dehlin [01:14:06] He wasn't a salesman. I was going to ask if he

Lynn Packer [01:14:08] was a salman salesman. He didn't grab wrenches like dad, and he didn't do that. He. He was working. He was smart, and he was working in accounting and deciding what he wanted to do. And I think he decided fairly early that he was not going to join all of these other uncles and work at Packer Motor, which he could have done. So he's, he's going to school part time at Packer Motor and he, while he's there. And this is in 1946, and this is pretty important is up until that point, Packer Motor had been an auto repair facility.

Lynn Packer [01:14:52] And like a lot of companies like this, after the war, automobile production started to get back going again. And there was a demand for cars and a demand for dealerships. And so they, with Leon and Ira, they obtained a Chrysler dealership. So they were going to be sell Chryslers and they didn't have a lot of money and they, and they had built sort of a really small showroom at that, at that shop on Main Street. It was really small, short room, but had a picture window pointing out to Main Street. So if you're walking down the street, you can look inside and see a Chrysler or Plymouth sitting inside the, this tiny little showroom.

Lynn Packer [01:15:45] And they needed a sign, they needed a Chrysler sign. And they could not afford one of Chrysler's metal signs or neon signs. So Boyd said, I can make that. He's out of the military, he's working there part time. So he makes the Chrysler sign. And that's what you saw in the previous photo next to Boyd. Remember the shot you go back to, the one right there is, he is leaning up against the wall where a few years later, the sign that you see on the right was hung on the wall for several years.

Lynn Packer [01:16:23] And he's the one who made that out of plywood. He just carves it out of plywood and then paints it. And it looks just like one of the metal signs, but it's, you know, crude because it's, it's not metal and, and it's all hand carved. And that's the Chrysler sign. And that hung in that position next to where he is for years and years and years. And at some point somebody took it down and put it above the paint shop where it sat for years more. And so now you can go to the, to a slide coming up.

John Dehlin [01:17:03] So Don, just to make the point, his wife was a peach queen. She was among the most beautiful women in Brigham City.

Lynn Packer [01:17:09] Yeah, she was.

John Dehlin [01:17:11] And by the way, I'm just gonna notice that in 2020, you know, we've just become so modesty obsessed that like shoulders and anything above the knee is, is viewed as immodest here. Boyd K. Packer, you know, ultimate girlfriend slash fiance slash Wife. She's like in a. In a bathing suit next to girls. You know, at least one girl in a bikini showing her midriff.

Lynn Packer [01:17:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:40] Like, these are totally different standards of what modesty. You know, what, what acceptable modesty is.

Lynn Packer [01:17:48] Yeah. And. And I, I made fun of that. This is the slide. This slide that you're looking at is the one that I showed to Boyd and Donna and other family members at this get together a couple of years before Boyd died. And I took a lot of liberties when I did the PowerPoint. I had the words hubba, hubba come up and. And sort of did a jab at them. And. And of course, Don is watching this and she blushes a little bit and. And Boyd is. Is laughing away all the, The.

Lynn Packer [01:18:27] All of the Packer uncles, Tola Tate told a lot of dirty jokes. They were all funny. And they could all tell jokes well. And I am sure that Boyd even laughed at some of them. I'm sure once he started moving up in the church that they dialed it all back, but they. They never dialed it back while I was growing up.

John Dehlin [01:18:54] So sexual jokes about women, basically.

Lynn Packer [01:18:57] Yeah, funny, you know, that's what she said. Sort of jokes that all of them had sharp sense of humor, as did Boyd. He was sometimes so funny, and he never showed it when, when he was. Every once in a while he would say something a little bit funny in a speech and smirk a little bit, but he never laughed out loud like he did when you were just engaged with him. A few on one.

John Dehlin [01:19:29] Got it.

Lynn Packer [01:19:31] So, okay, going ahead, a couple slides.

John Dehlin [01:19:35] So Donna was a looker, as they. As they called them back then.

Lynn Packer [01:19:38] She was. She was. I mean, us little kids were in great admiration because we had these uncles marrying these really good looking women. I don't know how they all did it. I achieved it, but I don't know how we did it.

Lynn Packer [01:19:54] So here it is, 1947, and I told you about that showroom. And the bottom picture is a shot taken from inside the showroom out. So you can see on the left, the Shell gasoline pump on the left, that's outside. And on the right you can see Boyd's sign hanging on the wall.

Lynn Packer [01:20:16] And that's the sign I depict next to that. And then you see it on the outside. And so, boy, this is his artistry at work. Leon probably said, hey, Boyd, we. We need a Christmas tree in the showroom. We need something on the window that's really Christmassy. And so he. He knocks that out. He was. He was.

Lynn Packer [01:20:36] He was really good. I mean, he was. He was a. You wouldn't ever call him a great artist, but he was just really good.

John Dehlin [01:20:47] Okay, great.

Lynn Packer [01:20:49] And so then the next slide. Okay. This is one of the funnest moments I ever had with Boyd, is because the Chrysler sign, as I said, was put above the. The paint room at the downtown Packer Motor. And then when they built the new Packer Motor on South Main, it was a much larger facility. It had a paint room, and it had a storage facility area above the paint room. And somebody moved that sign there and covered it up with a lot of fenders and all kinds of stuff. It was hidden back there.

Lynn Packer [01:21:36] Virtually nobody knew that it was there. So I thought, okay, losers weepers, finders keepers. I loved that sign as a kid. I remember looking at it being it represented Packer Motor, their ingenuity, and getting the dealership going. I love that sign. I considered it the most important piece of Packer memorabilia because of its ties to the company and Boyd getting back from the war. So I took it home and cleaned it up. And my brother, who is a woodworker like Boyd and was inspired by Boyd to become a woodworker because of what Boyd did. We restored it. There were some problems with it that we fixed up, and we restored it.

Lynn Packer [01:22:24] And then I put it in my garage in Farmington where it sat for another few years. Well, we were having another one of these ubiquitous, never ending packers get togethers in Perry, Utah, at a church. And I thought, you know what? It's time the boy knew that this sign still exists. He didn't know that. He thought it was gone. And so I have him go into the chapel area. We were meeting in the assembly hall and said, I want to show you something and bring it in. And I have my camera and I shoot that. And he was so delighted and pleased to see it.

Lynn Packer [01:23:05] And you can see that look in his face. And then I have him sign it. And so he had made it 53 years before. This is when he sees it, he signs it. And I still have it today. I have it hanging in. We've moved to Kaysville, and I have it hanging in my new.

John Dehlin [01:23:26] Well, you got to keep it. You didn't give it to him.

Lynn Packer [01:23:28] Oh, he and what army would have taken this sign away from me? Not his sons, not anybody. I. I found it, restored it, claimed ownership of it. I think at some point I could either donate it to the museum at BYU or to the. There's a Brigham City as a museum. So at some point it will be put there because it's also, you know, a real part of Brigham history, as the Packer family gets a Chrysler dealership that. That, you know, and eventually became a Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealership.

John Dehlin [01:24:12] Awesome. Okay, so let's go. So. Yeah. What's the next part of the story?

Lynn Packer [01:24:19] Okay, the next shot you see, I just threw that in because this is Boyd in the. The past few years. And I took this shot myself right after I showed him and Donna this slideshow that had a lot of funnies in it about the sign about him. And the family members were gathered here at the same thing. And I had a. I had a projector in the screen, and I showed it to the rest of the family. So that. And I had the sign there because a lot of them had never. Had never seen it. And so that was. That was the last time. And he got a kick out of it. He. He likes stuff like that.

John Dehlin [01:25:06] I love it. Okay, so I guess it's time to talk about his meteoric rise, huh?

Boyd Packer's Rapid Rise in the Church

Lynn Packer [01:25:12] Okay. This was, like, amazing. This was. Things don't happen like this in Brigham City. We have somebody come along, and he was. You would probably say he was destined to do something. He was a ball of energy. He.

Lynn Packer [01:25:34] He. When he. Right after he got married, he. His father in law, Bill Smith, who was the. In the first bishopric. We were all living in the same vicinity. Is that Bill Smith, Donna's father? His father in law was in the first bishopric that I can recall. I probably was five at the time. He and Bishop White was the bishop. I knew who Bishop White was because that's where we got our milk. We went years before we ever had homogenized pasteurized milk. We just went down to Bishop White's, who had finished milking the cows three blocks west and would bring it home and drink it.

Lynn Packer [01:26:21] And he also supplied Ira and Emma with their milk. And so things happened really quickly. Boyd became very involved, and he was made chairman of the committee to build the new 7th Ward meeting house on 1st west down the street from.

Lynn Packer [01:26:43] From where I live. And back then, and this is clear in my mind, it was a big sacrifice to build these wardhouses. The church would match funds, but you had to raise the rest. And there were. And Boyd had organized just countless bake sales and fundraisers to get the money to do it.

Lynn Packer [01:27:07] And the other thing that was different is that they used as much labor of ward members and volunteers that they could get. And so dad would be down there working on the building, and I'm sure Boyd was working on it and other ward members doing what you didn't need to have a licensed contractor to do, and it took a long time to build.

Lynn Packer [01:27:29] So you knew that it was going up. You knew that it was a big sacrifice. And then to top it off, back then, the actual president of the church would sometimes show up to the dedication of these buildings.

Lynn Packer [01:27:43] And so President McKay came to dedicate the building, at which time he would have met with Boyd because he was chairman of the committee and made news in the newspaper. Everybody knew about it. It was a big event in town when the president of the church comes to Brigham City at the same time and you can move ahead, see. What slide are you on right now?

Lynn Packer [01:28:11] Okay, well, go back one, just for a second. Part of his rise was that he. He became a teacher at the Box Elder High Seminary, which is the same building I took some seminary in years later. And he was on the Snow Carnival Committee. He was a jc. He was just doing everything. Like I said, he was a ball of energy and had leadership ability.

Lynn Packer [01:28:41] And he was also named to a committee on the Intermountain School for coordinating activities with the students there who were Mormon or who were being proselyted to be Mormon. And then you go to the next slide. And this was the biggie is he ran for Brigham City Commission to be a commissioner, and he was the youngest ever. And he was elected as a Democrat. Democrat.

John Dehlin [01:29:13] So Boyd K. Packer was a Democrat.

Lynn Packer [01:29:15] He was a. He was a Democrat. This is all an interesting story. And I. More. On more than one occasion, I would rib him about that because I knew that he was. He didn't want anybody else to know because he had switched party allegiances to where he was. Not only would have considered himself a Republican, but a very conservative Republican.

Lynn Packer [01:29:42] And the way I think this came about is, is that most of my uncles were Democrats. Leon was, Bill was. And I think he just followed in line. But most important, my Aunt Verna, who was the oldest, suffered from crippling arthritis and she was confined to a wheelchair. And she lived on first west down the street from us.

Lynn Packer [01:30:08] And she was really smart and really engaged in politics more than anybody else in the family. And so what she was, was a worker for campaigns, and she worked on congressional and gubernatorial campaigns. She was an organized. She was always on the phone.

Lynn Packer [01:30:28] I was very close to her, knew that she was a Democrat. But my father was an outlier. My father was a Republican, and he always talked up Republican politics, talked about voting Republican. And so the first campaign that I really had a complete awareness of was in about 1956, when Eisenhower was running against Stevenson. And I remember going up the main street to the Eisenhower office, was on Main street, one of the little offices. And I got, I like badges and stickers. And I wore the badges on my coat and I put stickers on my bike and on my briefcase that I took to school so had I like Ike stickers while all my other uncles were Democrats.

Lynn Packer [01:31:21] And I think that's why Boyd ran as a Democrat. But I think he could have run in either party and won because he was this upcoming sort of star, was good looking kid, really engaged, taught seminary, was working with the Indian program, married the Peach Queen. I mean, that's like a perfect candidate. And he won. So he was the youngest, I think he still holds the record as being the youngest ever to be elected. Then after that, Leon, the older brother, he ran and was involved as a Democrat and won. And Bill, who was the youngest in the family, he later ran.

Lynn Packer [01:32:05] And Bill was more active in the party than Leon was, continued to be active. And I was very close to Bill and he would basically preach Democratic politics. And so by time I realized that I'm a Democrat, I'm not a Republican, that the foundation was already there because of Bill and all that he would say about the two party system and, and about the Democratic Party and because of my aunt, who I really admired was involved in Democratic politics. So outlier. And then Boyd, of course, becomes more conservative in his political views.

John Dehlin [01:32:59] So something that occurs to me is that towards, you know, middle and end of his life, Boyd is kind of famous for being the curmudgeonly. The reputation is that he's this harsh, curmudgeonly, grouchy, strict, stern, disciplinarian, almost hateful type of person, or at least that's what people perceived him to be based on my discussions with people. But you don't get, you don't get to become super popular, marry the, you know, marry the Peach Queen, get elected office by being this grouchy jerk. So his person, his core personality must have been different than the perceptions about him. And actually I have a close family member that knew and worked with Boyd K. Packer, who told me he was actually a very delightful person, which is very different than the perception.

Lynn Packer [01:33:56] Yeah, yeah. One of the points I wanted to make is, is that Boyd and I could not be further apart on issues like gay marriage, whether being gay is a sin, you know, whether gays choose to be that way. Like I said, we've had at least three discussions about it over the years. I can tell you this, he doesn't hate gays, but it comes off that way. And, and because of what he says, I think he deserves to be painted with that brush and people to suspect that he's hateful. He is just so doctrinaire. He is just so far right wing on the doctrine. He is just so far faith over reason and faith over science. That, that just is the position that he got in. And the very last conversation that I had on the phone is when he made the speech in, what was it, 2010 or something? Do you remember that one?

John Dehlin [01:34:57] Yeah. Was that the one where he said that why would a loving heavenly father do that to, to his children, meaning make them gay? That it must be a choice because they certainly. It couldn't certainly be a biological thing.

Lynn Packer [01:35:10] Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. And see, and he knew it was particularly important to me because I have a son who is gay, who is transgender, which is widely known in the family. And so he knows that I'm sensitive about that and would have been sensitive about the speech. And so he was not prepared for all the blowback he got after that speech.

Lynn Packer [01:35:38] I mean, because this issue is becoming more and more important. And you had the legislation coming up about gay marriage, which is extremely important, and the church never should have opposed. All of this is coming together at the same time. And so after that speech, I don't remember how much time went by. I could look at my daytimer and see he calls me on the phone.

Lynn Packer [01:36:04] And when Boyd calls you on the phone, when he was always working out of his office, it was always the secretary. Oh, is this Lynn? Yeah, this is Lynn. This is Elder Packer. Secretary, are you free to talk? Yeah. And then he would put you through. And then later when he works more out of home, Donna would make the calls. So he'd get a call and Donna would say, are you free? Boyd would like to talk to you. So boy comes on the phone and he wants to talk about this, this, and it's clear he is hurt and doesn't understand all this negative stuff coming back.

Lynn Packer [01:36:38] And generally, what I say to Boyd isn't going to change anything. I generally somewhat deferential to what he says, but I could not help at this time. And I just finally said, boyd, on the issue of gays, you are dead wrong.

Lynn Packer [01:36:59] And he, he did not debate it, he didn't argue it. He just let me say it. And I'm sure I didn't change his mind, but I, I thought that was something I needed to say because that's what I, I, I believe.

Reflections on Boyd Packer's Legacy and Influence

Lynn Packer [01:37:15] And I, as He gets closer, you know, to. To passing, and you know that he's not going to last a long time. I had thought and toyed with the idea several times of going and meeting with them and saying, boyd, do you really want this to be your legacy?

Lynn Packer [01:37:34] Of all the things you've said, all things you've done, this is going to be the thing that people remember most. And I. I never had that conversation, and I don't know that it would have done any good. I think it's sad that that is mostly what he'll be remembered for. But then, you know, that's a bed you make and you lie in it.

John Dehlin [01:37:56] Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, that's fun to hear, that perspective. But. But going back, like, I. It sounds like. You mean, you know, we're going to get to your story about how you actually, I think, are you fired from byu and we. I don't want to get ahead, but I'm just saying, like, once you become a journalist and you take down Paul Dunn and, you know, you start doing stories that could even be perceived as harmful to the church, you could imagine you no longer ever having a relationship with Boyd K. Packer and him never talking to you again. It sounds like he didn't cut you out of his life.

Lynn Packer [01:38:34] No. I think especially John, with what's going on today. I think this part of the story is really important because what you've got going on now is you have these sides who are polar opposites. You have the people who are faith based and those who are science based. And we could be talking about whether you wear a mask for coronavirus or not. And there's now hatred, especially by those who believe that it's, for example, wrong to wear a mask because of coronavirus and they hate the other side. You're taking away my liberties. You're destroying the country by doing this.

Lynn Packer [01:39:13] What this shows is that in some occasions, people can have extreme differences, like I did on the gay issue, and still be able to have a conversation. Nobody. There's no venom being spilled during these conversations. You're having sane conversations. And that was Boyd. I mean, there's times when he's yelled at me.

Lynn Packer [01:39:40] Like once when I was on my mission, he yells, you know, fall into line, get in shape, all of that. But it was. There was never any hatred associated with it. And that's just not him. I know some people would like to think, okay, he's that way because he hates us. He's.

Lynn Packer [01:40:01] He's just a hardliner. And people who are hardlined Whichever side they're on need to figure out a way that they can discuss without having to convert the other one to the other side. I never thought I could or wanted to bring Boy over to my way of thinking.

Lynn Packer [01:40:20] And. And even though he never brought me over to his way of thinking, I was never, like, locked out or, you know, and probably the last two or three times I talked to him, he called me. I didn't place the call. And one of those was about the gay issue I talked about. One of them was about Paul Dunn that we'll get into some other time.

John Dehlin [01:40:45] Yeah, so I guess we. I guess when. When some of us feel hurt by the church or. Or feel like the church is hurting others, we do. You know, whether it's Bednar or Holland or, you know, Oaks or Nelson or Packer, you know, we tend to want to demonize these people as, like, subhuman, as monsters, as. Just as. As. As monsters. And I guess what I love so far about this story, I always love dispelling false falseness, false things, and dispelling false stereotypes to. To make people deeper and richer. And it just sounds like you're saying he, He. He was more civil and more reasonable than maybe even a lot of us today are in terms of being able to tolerate and support differences versus just divide things up and then to separate into your camps and shut people out.

Lynn Packer [01:41:43] Yeah. I don't want to downplay how hard Corey was on the basic doctrine, but he was defending the doctrine. He was not. He was not doing it because he hated anybody. He was doing it because he thought this is so important. It's so important for people to learn the truth, to get baptized, to go to the temple, to do all these things so they can reunite as families that he would always emphasize. Emphasize reunite as families on the other side.

Lynn Packer [01:42:14] And he was just a deep believer in it. And my father and other uncles had some of the exact same traits. This was like. All of them had tempers to the. To the last one. All of them had tempers.

Lynn Packer [01:42:33] They. All of them did not get along. And there were many times when the. These economic. Bonds that pulled them all together were very difficult. My one uncle eventually was just got upset enough that he left the business that he didn't want to work at Packer Motor anymore. Most of them did stay.

Lynn Packer [01:43:00] So there were. There were tensions. They. They all had tempers, something I did not inherit. My dad had a temper. They all did that. And they all had this really, like, spiritual quality where they had a strong belief that they were being Guided by the spirit that they prayed and they got some sort of communication. My dad was exactly like that. That's the way, boy. And it's just. And it was. It's. It's. It's why this divide is going to be so difficult to overcome. Because you have people on the right that's on your viewers left. You have people on the right who are conservative hardliners, and you have people on the left who are liberal, often Democrats, free thinkers, believe in science and all that.

Lynn Packer [01:43:52] The big difference is, is the one side believes that they're being directed by God, that God is on their side. That's what makes it really difficult.

John Dehlin [01:44:02] Yeah, that's always the problem. That's always the problem. Okay, so let's. I guess this is the next photo in your sequence.

Lynn Packer [01:44:11] Okay, here's. Here's for people who are just listening. This is Grandpa Ira and Grandma Emma. They're at Boyd's house. This is the house on first west in Brigham, just down the street from mine. That was on First West.

John Dehlin [01:44:28] Someone's asking where on First West?

Lynn Packer [01:44:31] It's directly across the street from the Seventh Ward building that Boyd supervised. And this would be near the time he was doing that. And you see Boyd probably is holding Alan, who is four years younger than me, and the other is probably Kenny that grandma is holding. And that's like about a shoot. I should know the exact year. I know everything about cars. I'm one of the packers who liked mechanics and learned some of that. And it's probably about a 50 Chrysler that's behind them. Scott looks. Yes, Utah place. They were colored that way. But this is the house that the Donna's father gave them as a wedding gift.

Lynn Packer [01:45:20] So they moved into this house, a new house, early on. So he married into money when he did this, he didn't have any. He didn't struggle as much as some of my other uncles and aunts did. And I have strong memories of this house because in the basement, Boyd had set up a shop, a wood shop, and he had one of the first jigsaws that I'd ever seen.

Lynn Packer [01:45:49] Dad. My dad sought everything by hand when he built stuff. He built sheds and coops for rabbits. And he always used the handsaw. And I first learned how to use handsaw. I did. It was a long time before I used a power saw because he couldn't afford it. And he had a jigsaw. And Boyd would take a nephews down there.

Lynn Packer [01:46:13] And I remember my brother and I going down there, and he would saw out little cowboys and horses out of like half inch pine. And he would almost like, he would just sketch them out and saw them out really quickly. And we would play with them with. With what he had cut out. And you could see what a skilled worker he was. And it's one of the things that inspired my brother to go into woodworking. And that's what he did for a living, is creating plans and doing elaborate pieces of woodwork. A couple of which he did for Boyd and for Boyd's house.

John Dehlin [01:46:52] Nice. Okay,

Lynn Packer [01:46:58] so this is the 7th Ward building. This is the 2nd Ward building that I attended. The first one was the Third Ward that I attended. And then this was The Brigham Street 7th Ward, the one that Boyd supervised. And you see the headline. It's big news. President McKay coming to town. We must have skipped past the slide. Maybe I would have to look over at my slides that showed the Third Ward. Let me just go over there and see if I can scroll it up. One of the slides showed the Third Ward building. I thought,

John Dehlin [01:47:41] is there something significant about the Third War building? Yeah.

Lynn Packer [01:47:45] Did I leave that one out?

John Dehlin [01:47:48] Maybe you can just describe it.

Lynn Packer [01:47:52] Can't believe I would have left that out. But anyway. Oh, no, it's coming up. That's right. I took things a little bit out of order, so I'll just talk about it when we get to it. But this is the Second Ward. I spent most of my youth growing up in this ward where I was a deacon and then a priest. And then right before my mission, they divided it and we went back to the Third Ward that you'll see in a couple of slides. That was a historic ward in. In Brigham City. And a lot of people around the church know about it because of the stained glass window of the First Vision. So anyway, you can go on to the next slide. Okay, so here's where. Where Boyd's career goes off as a rocket and this stuff.

John Dehlin [01:48:46] Hey, Lynn, let me ask you. Your video stopped. Can you maybe click stop cam and then start cam again in the bottom left screen? Because for some reason your video. Your video stopped.

Lynn Packer [01:49:00] That it did. That

John Dehlin [01:49:04] I'm going to just share while we're waiting for you to come back online. I'm just going to share a comment. Jaina writes not a lot of comments on this interview, but John Dehlin, I'm finding this interesting, I'm sure in part because I lived in brigham from ages 55 to 16 and my father worked at Thiocol until he retired. Thank you. Great job. Thanks, Shane. I really appreciate this. I really like Cecilia's comment. She writes, I agree we have to be able to discuss with the other side purely for understanding instead of convincing them to our side.

Lynn Packer [01:49:44] Yeah, that's a really good comment.

John Dehlin [01:49:46] Yeah. And I, I think we need more of that. And that's frankly why I did the episode on Democrats and Republicans and Trump supporters and, and Biden supporters, because we just really need to get beyond that of polarization or we'll never really understand each other. And so, so, yeah. And then, and then, of course, yeah,

Lynn Packer [01:50:10] I tried to start the cam and it just wouldn't start, start up again.

John Dehlin [01:50:13] Yeah, I may, I may remove you and then have you add yourself back. So I'm just going to remove you really quick, go back and add yourself like you did. And, and while we're waiting for, for him to return, Aim writes, I think there aren't too many comments because it's a life story kind of episode, not so much issue driven. And honestly, I, I, I thought about that. I knew that Lynn had a lot to tell about history. And this is a different type of Mormon stories podcast. I hope it's okay to people, but in my view, sometimes it's fun not to just be focusing on the controversy and the negativity.

John Dehlin [01:51:00] You know, we've, we've done a lot of that in the past few years and, you know, we'll always have some of that and the truth claims and stuff and the faith crisis stories. Sometimes I just like hearing people's stories, hearing the history, hearing the good and the bad.

John Dehlin [01:51:18] Sometimes they think that's meaningful. And with Lynn, he's got so much of a rich story and a rich understanding. I just want to do that, Lynn, today. So I hope that's okay with you guys. I hope you'll forgive us. And most of all, I really hope that we can get Lynn's video back. Video froze.

Lynn Packer [01:51:37] Okay, do you have audio yet?

John Dehlin [01:51:39] I have audio and we'll just continue with audio. But your video camera isn't showing for some, some reason.

Lynn Packer [01:51:43] Yeah, I don't, I don't know why, but maybe we can just talk about the, the images that come up, if you can still bring those up.

John Dehlin [01:51:55] Yeah, definitely in your video. You started your video?

Lynn Packer [01:51:59] Yeah, I restarted it.

John Dehlin [01:52:01] Okay. Okay. We'll just go to the, we'll just go to the. So now, now it's time to, to just talk about Boyd K. Packer's ascent. Yeah.

Boyd Packer Becomes an Apostle

Lynn Packer [01:52:11] So, so this caught everybody by surprise, that somebody could go from being a seminary teacher, not an administrator at the high school in Brigham City and suddenly skyrocket to being supervisor of LDS seminaries. It was a really big deal.

Lynn Packer [01:52:34] We, I was probably 10 or 11 when this happened, so I was totally aware of it happening. I became aware at that time of his friendship with Ted Tuttle because again, with Packer Motor being downtown when Boyd and Ted would drive to meetings up in Idaho or Logan, when they would, they would always stop at Packer Motor when they came back through, probably go up and say hi to Grandma and Grandpa. And I remember at least on one occasion being there when Boyd and Ted come walking in. I'm introduced and they say they're out on church business. They were very close together. And of course the, the rocket never turned back to earth.

Lynn Packer [01:53:25] It just kept going up. He becomes an assistant to the 12. And later, when I was in Vietnam, a newscaster in Vietnam had access to the teletype machine. The first I knew he had been named an apostle was reading it off the teletype in, in Vietnam. So this is the time where the sort of the leadership of the family switches over largely from Leon over to Boyd and it segues from being largely economic based around Packer Motor to being spiritually based around the church with the same extended family staying intact and if anything, being strengthened.

John Dehlin [01:54:14] So you can, and I'm curious, I'm curious if maybe you'll get to this, but normally you have to kind of catch the eye or build a relationship with another current apostle or general authority and that kind of facilitates your rise. Do you have a sense? And if you're going to get to it, I'll want to wait. But who was his sponsor?

Lynn Packer [01:54:37] That's a good question because. Because you would think because of the big deal the 7th Ward was and President McKay himself coming there, that that would sort of be the link. But the. My understanding is, and he probably has talked about it, is that it was through Spencer W. Kimball because he was very involved in the Native American church programs and Boyd was again, when he got involved with something, he was all in is that one thing I remember is that there needed to be a chapel built for the Indian school. And I think it was sort of like a chapel and maybe a seminary building as well.

Lynn Packer [01:55:26] And I used to once in a while we'd go down there to play pick up ball in that building. And that's the building I had my wedding reception in when I got married. And that building was built similar to the Seventh Ward, where I remember as a kid going up there and pounding nails in the, in the flooring, the, you know, the sheathing, the underlayment above the. The joists.

Lynn Packer [01:55:57] So there must have been volunteer work on that. And he probably, based on his experience with the 7th Ward, did that. And I guess this is part of what caught the attention of Spencer Kimball, who later became president.

Lynn Packer [01:56:12] And. But. But a lot of it was his. I think he probably had ideas of improving seminary. He taught, and he probably had ideas that resonated with everybody. And because he was bright and articulate and passionate about what he did.

Lynn Packer [01:56:30] And another thing that's important needed youth. I mean, the system is designed that old guys are always leading the church. And I think they needed youth, and they were looking for youth. And for the longest time, Boyd was the youth leader, not leading youth, but the young leader that the youth admired. And I heard that over and over again. It's good to have somebody young, because he was young, was really young to do something like that. He was supervising guys, probably many of them twice his age.

Lynn Packer [01:57:04] And so he eventually gets older. And when Paul Dunn comes along in about 1964, 10 or so years later, he sort of takes that over. And Paul Dunn is not only younger, but is also a professional baseball player and a war hero. So he taught void in that sense. But by then, Boyd, you know, you get old and you don't have that image anymore.

John Dehlin [01:57:36] Got it? Okay. So he gets in the seminary.

Lynn Packer [01:57:40] So he leads the. The seminary. And what happens next is. And is another connection is that during the same time period, he decides he needs to get his doctorate. He had his bachelor's at Weber or whatever he got there was your school for a while, but he finished up at Utah State. I think he got his master's there.

Lynn Packer [01:58:02] He needs to get his doctorate because there was that. That's what seminary teachers wanted to become, theologians. They wanted to be educated, and they were going to universities outside of Utah to get this education so that it had credibility. And this is one of the clashes that came up that I learned about years later, is you had those who were intellectuals and those who are anti intellectual. And Boyd comes and sides with the sort of anti intellectual, but you still need a doctorate degree. So he goes to BYU to get it, and he has to move down there.

Lynn Packer [01:58:47] So he has moved from that first west house that you saw further down the street to an old home that he's restoring that's on some acreage, and it has historical significance because it was part of the United Order.

Lynn Packer [01:59:04] And that's the farm that had a mulberry tree. And so the first I knew that they were trying to grow silkworms. Is when I went down to that farm and was shown a huge mulberry tree and said that used to. They used to try and have. And. And foster the silk industry here. And so Boyd had gone to a historic site.

Lynn Packer [01:59:26] He wanted acreage where his kids could work, because he was. He believed in teaching kids to work and did a great job with his kids doing that, and you want to do that. But all of a sudden, he gets this calling, Just gets the calling. And so he's basically going to abandon this fruit farm and this house. And so he eventually moves to Linden. And I think he built a house there where he had some acreage there and could have some horses and cows or something. He.

John Dehlin [02:00:01] He.

Lynn Packer [02:00:02] He goes down there, but he still has the farm in the fruit farm in Brigham. And I think at that point, he's not certain he's not going to come back to Brigham. So because we're an extended family, we had callings within the family, sort of. I had several of them. And one of them was. It was like a calling. It wasn't like so much, do you want to do this? This is what you need to do is my brother and I were put in charge of running his farm for the next two years while he was in Utah county going to byu. That meant that we would go down and irrigate and cultivate and, you know, get rid of the weeds and do the best that we could running it.

Lynn Packer [02:00:49] And then when harvest time came, the Hispanics came up from Texas and Mexico. You organized the picking, and then you haul all the stuff to the cannery, because there was a cannery in Perry, Utah. So we did that for two years.

Lynn Packer [02:01:05] And one of. And I had to learn how. I was. Didn't have a driver's license, but I learned how to drive the tractor and to cultivate and to haul stuff around with the. With the tractor, as did my brother Richard. And we did that.

Lynn Packer [02:01:21] And one of the experiences I had was that that Boyd needed to work on something. He was always just sort of, you know, you need to fix this. You need to do that. And he would come up and help once in a while, and one time he came up on a Sunday, and.

Lynn Packer [02:01:40] And I was sort of thought, well, okay, are we going to work at the farm at the fruit orchard on a Sunday? And yep, we had a task to do. And so we went down there and the two of us did it. Whatever it was, it sticks in my mind.

Lynn Packer [02:01:58] This is just a little thing. But we came back to the house, and he was hungry, and he bites into an apple and then he gets a salt shaker and shakes salt on the rest of, on the, you know, the apple and bites into that and said we've been working hard and sweating and we need salt. And since I'm one that doesn't hardly ever use his salt, I, that sort of stood out. I don't know if that's true or wives tale but that's what he did on that particular, on that particular day.

Lynn Packer [02:02:26] After the couple of years it was clear he was not coming back. He was going to be moving to Salt Lake and moving up in leadership of the church. So at that point Leon, remember the, the president of Packer Motor took on the task of subdividing the property and the fruit orchard completely disappeared. It was subdivided and turned into housing. And, and so that ended that. And, and it wasn't, it had become economically unfeasible, unproductive. It was too much work for too little production. There were too many really big, really well run fruit farms in Box Elder county that you just couldn't compete with them.

John Dehlin [02:03:20] Hey Lynn, what I'm going to ask you to do, if you don't mind, I'm going to ask you to go ahead and jump out and reboot your computer and I'm guessing that your video is going to just start working again, that it's some type of glitch. And while you're doing that, I'll just talk to the audience, take comments and we'll wait for you to come back because I really don't want to go another two hours without your video. Is that okay?

Lynn Packer [02:03:42] Computer needs to be completely rebooted.

John Dehlin [02:03:45] I think that is the only way.

Lynn Packer [02:03:46] Let me just try here for just one second to unplug and replug in my camera and see if that makes any difference. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:03:55] And while you're doing that I'm going to take take some comments really quick. Jaina, we're so glad you're with us. Jaina writes my favorite is always people's stories. I love human experiences. Thank you Jaina. We're, we're so glad that you're enjoying this. Jay Smith writes for me. The Apostles story is a cautionary tale of what can happen when the human ego, egos drive for success, relevancy and leadership mix with the dogmatic theology and that's a. And we'll be getting into that more JAY Smith but that's a really good point.

Lynn Packer [02:04:32] Okay, that didn't work so I'm going to go ahead and reboot and it'll take me about this. I have an imac and it takes about three or four minutes to do it. You'll see me on the other side and then you may just want to resend the link. I think I've got it, but I'll try that.

John Dehlin [02:04:52] Okay, thanks Lynn. We'll include a few more comments. I, I really if any of you have comments or questions you want to ad now, I'd love to hear it. So Amy Jane writes an interesting comment. Amy Jane writes, oh, I so disagree with the narrative that any on the right are motivated purely by religion or the spirit and those on the left are the only science based free thinkers. There are other reasons people support candidates on the right that has nothing to do with any religious beliefs. And there's plenty of meanness coming from those on the left as well. And yes, we don't want to turn this episode into a political one, even though it is the day before the election.

John Dehlin [02:05:36] But Amy Jane, you're right. There's good reasons to be Republican, good reasons to be Democrat. They're nice people and mean people on both sides. And it's certainly not, certainly not so monolithic. My dear friend Martine is in the house. Hey Martine. She, she mentions that Stuart did a co op at Thiocall when they were first married in the mid-70s. Yeah, Thiocol is up there near Brigham City.

John Dehlin [02:06:04] It's a place where they build or test rockets as I understand it. And there's also an atk, I think, that does some of that stuff. So when the government started getting into rocket building and rocket testing, that part of northern Utah became an important part of the, the industry. And I just found it interesting that, you know, I, you know, some of my neighbors in Cache Valley drove in in carpool buses from Logan back through Sardine Canyon to ATK or Thiokol. You know, that's like a 30 or 45 minute commute and they would do that every day for work.

John Dehlin [02:06:43] They just lived in Cache Valley. There's also a very robust program at Utah State University and there still is for space for satellite building, for rocket technology. That's something that I don't think everyone knows is that Utah State University has a lot of space engineering at Utah State University. And that's one of the really cool things about Cache Valley.

John Dehlin [02:07:11] So that's nice. Celinda writes Watch Challenger on Netflix for a little history on Thiocall. That's a great tip, Celinda. So thank you so much for sharing that. Saxy Saxy writes Yes, I enjoy the Mormon and Utah history accounts. That's what reporters do.

Lynn Packer's Career in Mormon Journalism

John Dehlin [02:07:36] So. Yeah, and, and we're going to be getting into, we're going to be getting into Lynn Packer's story about his involvement. And just for those who don't know, I'm going to go ahead and just repeat why we're interviewing Lynn Packer. He, he isn't necessarily a name that's super well known right now, but for me, he played a really instrumental role in my life.

John Dehlin [02:08:04] Because I mentioned this earlier, but I'll mention it again. When I was at byu, you know, we all grew up to adore Boyd K. Packer. We all, sorry, we all grew up to adore Paul H. Dunn. Paul H. Dunn was this sort of legendary Mormon general authority who was extra special talented at speaking to the youth, at telling these cool stories about being a professional baseball player, about being in the war, about saving his buddy who was dying in a foxhole or about his buddy who died in the foxhole and how he told him, you know, tell the youth of today to believe in God.

John Dehlin [02:08:45] You know, that was, you know, Polly Stone was just the man. And you know, you loved some of the apostles, but you really loved Paul H. Dunn. And it was just such a shock to hear at BYU that, that a general authority had been lying to us all this whole time and telling significant lies. And, but even more interesting than that was to be asking who, who would have the guts to go after and investigate a Mormon general authority? Because it wasn't like it was obvious that he was lying. You know, Polly Stone was lying in a way to where you wouldn't have known it.

John Dehlin [02:09:29] He was lying in a way to where it would have been hard to discover it. But if it weren't for the, the tenacious investigative journalism of Lynn Packer who actually did the investigation, you would have never found any of this out.

John Dehlin [02:09:46] And, and so Lynn did this and then there was this huge scandal. You know, the articles were published in Sunstone and you could, you could go to the BYU library and you could pull out, you could go to the Sunstone magazines and you could pull out the issue on, on boy on, on Paul H. Dunn and you could read it.

John Dehlin [02:10:07] And that was a really fascinating, brilliant way. And I, I just want to say that Mormonism really is suffering right now from a lack of journalists. The Salt Lake Tribune is in decline. The Salt Lake Tribune might be dead in a few years. They just announced that they're no longer going to be publishing a print version. They've gone to a non for profit model because, because frankly, they can't survive in a print journalism world. The Deseret News has taken over. The Deseret News has become a dominant newspaper in Utah and in Salt Lake City. And so the Salt Lake Tribune is dying and it doesn't have the financial support that the Mormon Church has given the Deseret News.

John Dehlin [02:10:58] And so, you know, and because frankly, I'm just going to say this too, that the Salt Lake Tribune is now owned by an active, believing Mormon. We've, I feel like the hard hitting journalism of the Salt Lake Tribune has diminished since, you know, you know, just over the past months and during the time that, that Paul, I think it's Paul Huntsman took over. And I don't know if that's true. That's just my impression. You may have a different perspective.

John Dehlin [02:11:27] But, but, but, you know, real hard hitting Mormon journalism is, is in decline and podcasters are trying to fill that role. I try and fill that role. RFM tries to fill some of that role. But we, but, but we are really hitting an age where you would think that, that the hard hitting journalism on Mormonism would be higher than ever, but the truth is it may be lower than in decades and decades. And that really makes me sad. And one of the reasons why we brought on Lynn Packer was to, was to sort of highlight a real cutting edge during his day, hard hitting investigative journalist.

John Dehlin [02:12:09] And, and, and so I think it's worth honoring and it's worth making a shout out and a call to those who are within the sound of my voice, who can listen and just say, how do we, how do we as a community keep Utah from becoming a one paper town?

John Dehlin [02:12:26] How do we do it? How do we resurrect hard hitting journalism in, in Utah? It's a problem and I don't know if the answer is to save the Salt Lake Tribune. I'm not sure can we still rely on the Salt Lake Tribune to do hard hitting stories when it's shepherded and led by an active believing Mormon. Even Peggy Fletcher Stack, who is herself a legendary journalist.

John Dehlin [02:12:53] Many would say that Peggy Fletcher Stack's journalism over the past several years has become softer and softer to the point where this last general conference, Peggy Fletcher Stack does an interview with Sam Brown about nuanced views of how Joseph Smith could have translated the Book of Mormon in a more spiritual and supernatural way.

John Dehlin [02:13:18] Even, you know, interviewing Sam Brown on Mormonland, you know, a real progressive kind of neo apologetic approach to Mormonism. And many would just say, what does that do with journalism? How is that journalism at all? How is that relevant? How is that hard hitting? How is that moving us anywhere in an interesting or an important direction? How is that anything other than sort of devout active Mormons merging their faith with journalism in a way that waters down journalism and takes the space of other types of stories that could be really relevant or interesting or important? Why not investigate the church's finances, Salt Lake Tribune? Why not investigate abuse or censorship or, you know, the many different types of cases and do investigative journalism, not just make Sam Young, you know, do the hard work of calling the church out on and, and interviewing people who are victims of sexual abuse.

John Dehlin [02:14:22] Why isn't the Sally Tribune doing that? But they're just bringing Sam Young on, interviewing him, covering the parade and then moving on. Where is the hard hitting journalism that we used to have within Mormonism? It's kind of gone and it kind of makes me sad.

John Dehlin [02:14:37] And, and so that's why we're bringing on Lynn Packer and that's why I'm making this call. I don't know if the answer is to say the Salt Lake Tribune. It certainly has done enough in the past and Peggy herself has done enough in the past to warrant, you know, our, our support.

John Dehlin [02:14:56] But, but is the current Salt Lake Tribune and Peggy Fletcher Stack doing enough? I don't know. I'm interested in your thoughts and feelings on that as we're waiting for Lynn Packer to rejoin us and back. But right now his camera isn't working. Hey, Lynn, can you hear us?

Lynn Packer [02:15:15] Yeah, I can hear you and I know my camera is working because I, I can see it on the monitor that I have, but for some reason the platform doesn't like it.

John Dehlin [02:15:30] Okay, so maybe what we'll do, I'm going to go ahead. I, I really want to get video. We're going to risk losing some of our audience at this point. So, but what I'm just going to do is I'm going to stop this feed and, and then we're going to start a new feed because I really want to get your video, Lynn, because I think this is a historic interview. Is that okay, Lynn?

Lynn Packer [02:15:52] Yeah. So you want me just to close out and then.

John Dehlin [02:15:55] Yeah, close out everything. I'll shut this whole down and then, and then we'll, we'll start back up and I'll just ask the listeners if you guys will just watch Facebook or YouTube in the next 15 to 20 minutes. This is a good time, listeners, if you want viewers to go to YouTube or go to Facebook, the Mormon Stories podcast, Facebook page or the YouTube page for Mormon Stories podcast and click on the subscribe, but also the notification alarm bell. And that way you'll always be notified when these live interviews come on.

John Dehlin [02:16:25] And that, that way we can keep our audience high. But we're going to go ahead and end this feed now. We're going to ask you guys to watch for the new episode. And as soon as it comes up, I hope you'll join us. And I hope we can get as big or, or, or bigger audience once we restart. Is that okay, Lynn?

Lynn Packer [02:16:43] Yeah. And then you'll just send me a new link, right?

John Dehlin [02:16:45] I'll send you a new link. It'll be in about five minutes.

Lynn Packer [02:16:47] All right.

John Dehlin [02:16:48] And listeners, thanks so much, so much. And, and Lynn, thank you so much for your time so far and I'm really looking forward to the next part of the story.

Lynn Packer [02:16:55] Sure.

John Dehlin [02:16:56] All right, thanks, everybody. Please join us again in like five, 10 minutes for, for the next part of Lynn, Lynn Packer story, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for your comments and questions, and we'll see you all again on the flip side on Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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