What's up with Mahonri Young?

At the Detroit Institute of Arts on Friday, we noticed the name Mahonri Young on some drawings and sculptures. Mahonri? Really? Young? Are you thinking what I am thinking?

Well, Mahonri Macintosh Young (August 9, 1877 – November 2, 1957) was an American sculptor and artist. Although he lived most of his life in New York City, Young is most remembered in Utah as being the grandson of Brigham Young who sculpted the This Is The Place Monument and the Seagull Monument in Salt Lake City. Young is one of the best-known artists from Utah.

Young became associated with the Ashcan School, an art movement which focused on realistic, gritty scenes of everyday life. A Social Realist, Young ennobled the struggle of industrial workers. Characteristic of this theme are "Factory Worker" and "Farm Worker", two sculptures displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The statue of the farmer, a man sharpening his blade, stood at the fair's entrance.

Mahonri sculpted this 1950 statue of his grandfather Brigham Young for the National Statuary Hall Collection at the United States Capitol

Young was especially proud of This Is The Place Monument located at This Is The Place Heritage Park in the foothills of Salt Lake City. Awarded commission to build the monument in 1939 when Young was 62 years old, This is the Place Monument included many sculptures dedicated to the Mormon pioneers. The project proved frustrating for Young, who had to win the contract through an arduous contest. After granted, many of the artistic qualities sought by Young were vetoed by representatives from Utah state government, the LDS Church, and descendants of pioneers. For example, Young wanted pioneer leaders in realistic clothing like they would have worn when entering the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. However, Young's vision of leaders like Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball in suspenders and bloomers was deemed undignified. Instead, pioneer leaders were portrayed in heavy formal overcoats. The monument was dedicated on July 24, 1947, on the one hundredth anniversary of Brigham Young's party reaching the Great Salt Lake Valley.

So next time you see MAHONRI YOUNG, you'll know.

How it All Started

While visiting the Salt Lake City Cemetery, we decided to drive through the Jewish section. We noticed that almost every head stone had rocks placed on top.  We pondered, "What is up with that?"  Thanks to modern technology, we pulled out the Droid and searched the internet for the answer to our question.

While the origin of the tradition is unclear, there are many beautiful explanations.  Here are some of our favorites.

"When the tradition started, grave monuments were mounds of stones.  Visitors added stones to "the mound" to show we are never finished building the monument to the deceased."

"The most common explanation is that placing stones is a symbolic act that indicates someone has come to visit and the deceased has not been forgotten."

"The Jewish custom is not to bring flowers to the graves, but instead to place a simple stone on the gravestone itself. Rather than spend money on flowers ― which do nothing for a loved one ― it is better to give money in the person's memory to tzedakah, which helps to elevate the person's soul.   We place a small stone upon the gravestone as a sign that we were there ― not so the person who passed away will know, for their soul already has awareness. But so that we will know. We, who are physical, need physical acts to express the reality that we are indeed there. The stone is the "calling card" of the visitor. Flowers die, but the small, simple stone, a symbol of eternity, represents our eternal devotion to upholding the memory of our beloved. Our connection lives on and will never die."

We are unable to find our original result but somewhere we read that whenever you visited a place and something stirred you to remember a loved one, you would pick up a stone.  You would keep it with you until you visited the grave of that loved one.  Then you would place the stone on the headstone as a token of the wish that you could have shared that moment with each other.