Prayer Answered With A Wedding Cake ...

1950 - Experience about faith and prayer that my grandmother, Grace Peterson Johnson had when her son, Carl was on his mission. (Excerpt from Arlene Younker’s History, given to Carolyn Deborah Murray Swiss, 29 October 2010.)

When I was growing up in North Logan, cake decorating was a rare skill, and even more rare was anyone who could afford to pay to have it done.

Elder Carl G. Johnson, front,

Stockholm, Sweden Mission

But when a girl in town got married, Sister Glenna Crookston would always decorate the wedding cake. It was her gift to everyone who was a member of the girls chorus, which she directed, and the chorus included practically every girl in town.

When Don and I were engaged, my mother was not sure that she could bake the cake, so we asked around about who we might hire to do it. An older Peterson couple [actually Gus Johnson & his wife Grace Lillian Peterson] had just moved into North Logan. They had previously owned a bakery and said they would be glad to do it.

Grace hesitated to give us a price up front because she wouldn't know the actual cost of the cake until she had measured and weighed the nuts, fruits, etc. We had very little money, so cost was a major concern for us.

When Don and I went to get the cake, I took all the money that I had available with me. I thought she would probably ask at least $10, which was more than I had, so I decided to ask if I could pay her what I had with me and then go to the bank for the rest of it out of my savings account.

When she said, “Would $5 be too much?,” I knew the huge cake was worth far more than that and was so relieved that I emptied all the money I had in my purse out on the counter. It was $6.85. Sister Peterson was happy with that amount.

Sister Crookston decorated it and it was a beautiful cake. We were married Christmas Day, 1950. Shortly after our wedding, we moved away and were gone for nine years.

Some time later, we moved back to North Logan and had lived there for several years when we become acquainted with Carl and Alva Johnson.

One evening I went to the Temple to pick up our son, Norman, and some others who had gone to do baptisms for the dead. As I waited in the temple entrance, Carl and Alva Johnson and an elderly lady came out. When they introduced her as Carl’s mother, Grace, she told me that she was the one who had baked my wedding cake and asked if I knew the whole story about that cake.

At the time of our wedding in 1950, Carl had recently gone on a mission to the Northern States, waiting for his passport to Sweden.  He had written that it was bitter cold and that he really needed some warm underwear. Grace had no money and said that she knelt by her bed that night and asked the Lord to provide a way for her to earn some money for her son's needs.

The very next day, Mom and I came to ask about the cake. After I had paid her she bought three pair of long winter underwear and went to the post office to send them to her missionary son. The total cost of the underwear and the postage was exactly $6.85.