Edna Michelsen was 14 years old when she heard the news that Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria had been assassinated by a Serbian student at Sarajevo, Bosnia, on June 28, 1914. The assassination ignited World War I, which lasted until Nov. 11, 1918, a period of four years, three months and 14 days. The United States entered the war April 6, 1917; it was the day the 87th Annual General Conference of the Church opened.

Latter-day Saints of European countries and from North America served their respective governments on both sides of the conflict. Most Latter-day Saints serving with the allies were from Utah — which was one of the first states to fill its initial quota for volunteers — and from Idaho. (Please see article on page 5 about Latter-day Saints from Taber, Alberta, who served with the British army.)

"At first uncertain of its proper role [in World War I], the Church eventually helped Utahns oversubscribe to the government's financial quota for the state. By September 1918, Utah had more than 18,000 men under arms, almost half of them volunteers." (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol. 2.)

In a "Message to the Boys in War Service" that was published in the August 1917 Juvenile Instructor, President Joseph F. Smith wrote: "Our country is at war. This regrettable condition has been forced upon us by enemies of representative government and individual freedom. Despotism is endeavoring to gain the ascendancy and to establish its might in the earth. Many of our young men who have been reared in the Church, and taught the principles of the gospel in the Sabbath Schools and other organizations of the Church, have been called to the colors in defense of our liberties and the liberty and freedom of the world. In all probability they will be sent to the front before many months have passed, to take their places in the trenches in the European battlefields and engage in this appalling conflict, the like of which the world has never seen until this day."

The loss of life during the war was incomprehensible: nearly 20 million, including civilians.

Horrible though the war was with its constant stream of news about death and destruction, the image that most vividly stands out in Sister Faux's mind is the day the war ended, on Nov. 11, 1918, the day of armistice, "in the 11th month, on the 11th day, at the 11th hour."

Describing celebrations on a scale seldom witnessed before, Sister Faux said that as soon as people heard the news that the war had ended they "rushed downtown. Sirens were blowing all over; you could hear them around the valley. We all got into my father's car, a Franklin, and went downtown. My father [Fred M. Michelsen] was an executive of the Utah Savings and Trust, which was located at 235 S. Main Street. We sat in the car outside the bank and watched the proceedings, which were all spontaneous. People were shouting. Some were running up to people they didn't know and kissing them. They were running up and down the streets, out into the streets. We had an old cow bell that was about eight inches long that we clanged along with the rest of the people who were doing something to make noise."

In February 1919, the First Presidency sent a letter to presidents of stakes and counselors, high councilors, and bishops of wards and counselors, asking that "special attention" be given "our boys who are now returning from army life." The Brethren asked priesthood leaders to visit the returning soldiers at once, "with a view of trying to help them to secure work where they are out of work, or to get them started on their small holdings in the country settlements. . . .

"We can do a great deal to help them, if we only make a business of doing it. Visit them, preach the gospel to them, and in every way encourage them in all that makes for good citizenship and an independent life."

The First Presidency asked leaders to give "kindest attention" to the "families of those who will never come back." Those families, said the First Presidency, "must not be allowed to suffer for the necessaries of life." (Messages of the First Presidency 5:119-120.)

In 1918, during the climatic year of World War I, an epidemic of Spanish Influenza swept across the world. More than 14 million people died.

"The flu epidemic was terrible," Sister Faux said. "One day people were well, and the next day they were gone."

None of Sister Faux's immediate family died during the epidemic, but several of her friends and neighbors died.

Ezra Taft Benson, who was president of the Church from Nov. 10, 1985-May 30, 1994, had a close call during the epidemic. As a young man in 1918, he left his family's farm in Idaho to enlist in what was the equivalent to a Reserve Officers Training Camp program in Logan, Utah.

Because so many young men had enlisted in the army, farmers were shorthanded for the sugar beet harvest. Many recruits were given a two-week furlough to help with the harvests. Young Ezra's furlough was to begin on a Saturday. However, on Friday morning he had a strong impression that he should leave camp early. He received permission to do so, and arrived home in Whitney, Idaho, about noon.

He was stricken with the flu almost immediately. He received a priesthood blessing from his father and grandfather, and his mother provided constant care. In later years, President Benson said that he felt that the Lord had a hand in preserving his life. On the day that he became ill at home, flu broke out in the barracks in Logan; the young men who had cots on each side of him died. "Why should I get the impression to go home early on Friday?" he asked. "Had I waited, I would have suffered there with the rest of them, and probably passed away." (Sheri Dew, Ezra Taft Benson — A Biography, p. 45.)

In Utah, as well as many other parts of the world, all public meetings were canceled because of the epidemic. "We were kept away from the public," Sister Faux said. "Church meetings were canceled, and schools were all closed. I was a senior at LDS University, as it was called then. It was a high school. I was in my senior year and was to graduate in 1919. School officials decided that the seniors needed to get back into school, so they let us go back to classes with homemade flu masks. We had to wear the flu masks all the time that we were inside the school building. One time a speaker who came to address one of our devotionals said that he had never seen so many beautiful eyes."

Because of the epidemic, no public funeral was held for President Joseph F. Smith, and general conference was postponed from April 1919 until June 1919.

President Smith had enjoyed good health throughout his life. However, in the spring of 1918 he began to fail seriously.

Perhaps one of the most significant conference addresses President Smith gave was at the general conference just a few weeks before his death. In his opening address at the 88th Semiannual General Conference on Oct. 4, 1918, he declared that he had received several divine communications during the previous months. One that he had received the previous day concerned the Savior's visit to the spirits of the dead while His body was in a tomb. This "Vision of the Redemption of the Dead" was submitted on Oct. 31, 1918, to his counselors in the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve and the Patriarch of the Church, and was unanimously accepted.

The vision, now recorded as Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants, unfolded, he said, as "I sat in my room pondering over the scriptures; . . . " (v. 1.)

In Messages of the First Presidency, edited by James R. Clark, is preserved an account by Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., of his father's last few months and weeks:

"There were many days during the summer and fall months of 1918, when he was confined to his room and his counselors came to him with much of the Church business; but whenever possible he was at his desk. . . .

"On the anniversary of the day he was sustained as President of the Church, Nov. 10, 1918, his children assembled to pay him honor and to receive from his lips such counsel as he felt to give. It was the Sabbath day and but three days preceding his birthday anniversary. The children came fasting and in the spirit of prayer. On that occasion he delivered a short address to his children. . . . This was the last time in mortal life that he beheld the gathering of his family, and this was his last address. . . . One week later, Sunday, Nov. 17th, he was taken with an attack of pleurisy which continued to grow in intensity, finally developing into pluero-pneumonia, and he passed away Tuesday morning, Nov. 19, 1918."

Sister Faux remembers well the day the 80-year-old Church leader was buried. "We couldn't assemble anywhere because of the flu epidemic so they didn't have a service for him in the Tabernacle," she said. "I think he is the only president who died since Brigham Young whose funeral wasn't held there.

"His body was carried in a coffin from the Beehive House and placed in a hearse. There was a procession that went up South Temple Street to the Salt Lake City Cemetery. Our father and mother put us all in our Franklin car and we went and watched that procession. The streets were lined on both sides with people watching it. Someone said that the Catholic bishop and others came out to pay their respects as the hearse passed by their church. It was a very solemn occasion. That is one thing that I remember."

President Heber J. Grant was ordained and set apart as the seventh president of the Church on Nov. 23, 1919.

Of the period from 1910-1919, Sister Faux observed that there were some very difficult and sad times, but there also were many days of joy and gladness, particularly when the war ended and when the flu epidemic finally subsided. For her, it was a time of growth and maturing. She entered the decade as a 10-year-old girl, and ended it as a 19-year-old young woman.