All Things For Good

On January 18, 1917, at the age of 37 with a growing family, Stephen L Richards was called and ordained an Apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ.  “Though his load was heavy and his health no too robust, Stephen L has been able to keep up his schedule because he knows how to relax.  He bears no scars of this ‘age of ulcers’…Always carefully attired, you will find him of a summer day in soft wool shirt and trousers, both neatly pressed, but casual, walking where sunlight filters through tall Douglas fir or sitting before the snug fire that burns in the grate of a modest mountain cabin.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, Improvement Era, July 1951, 514)

Those mountain cabins began in Parley’s Canyon at Mount Air,then to a cabin near Mack’s Inn where the family played and fished in the Snake River.

“In 1934 at a Sunday School conference, Stephen L suffered a slight heart attack and it became progressively more difficult for him to wade the river and whip the stream as he called it…” (L. Stephen Richards, Jr. 1991). He and his wife, Irene, began looking for a place where the family could boat and troll and found that place at Hebgen Lake where they built a cabin in 1944.  
 
A slight heart attack and health that was “no too robust”, events that would not often be seen as blessings, brought the Richards family to Hebgen Lake.  In the intervening eighty years, the Richards family have built or bought cabins to house generations on Hebgen Lake.  Every summer my family is fortunate enough to spend a week with cousins and family boating and playing on the lake and in the forest.  “It has indeed been a place for regeneration for the soul away from the cares of the world and has provided for the family an unusual identity and love for one another.” (Ibid)
 
“With our trust and faith in God, trials and afflictions can be consecrated for our good…. Lived with faith, trials and sacrifices we would never choose can bless us and others in ways never imagined.” (Elder Gerritt W. Gong, April 2024)