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The diary of LaRetta Gibbons was purchased by USU Special Collections and Archives on April 15, 2004 from a dealer of historical materials.
E. LaRetta Gibbons missionary diary, 1933-1934. (COLL MSS 288). Utah State University. Special Collections and Archives Department.
Eva LaRetta Gibbons was born on July 25, 1914, in the small town of Garden City, Utah. Her parents, Joseph Weston Gibbons and Lydia Luetta Cook, both also born in Garden City, raised LaRetta and four other children. During the early 1930s, LaRetta studied home economics at Utah State Agricultural College, now Utah State University. In December of 1933, at the age of 19, LaRetta was called to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Serving in the Western States Mission during the Great Depression, she traveled to places such as Pueblo, Colorado and Lincoln, Nebraska. Later, on March 15, 1941, LaRetta married Oswald Ralph Myers in Cedar City, Utah. After settling in Minersville, Utah, they had four sons; Gerald, Fred, Ron, and Max. Thereafter, LaRetta taught school in Milford, Utah. Oswald Myers died on April 12, 1994, at the age of 76. Four years later, on March 13, 2000, at the age of 86, Eva LaRetta Gibbons Myers died at her home in Delta, Utah.
This collection consists of one diary written by E. LaRetta Gibbons during her missionary travels for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the years 1933--1934. The 242-page diary contains a log of LaRetta's daily life as a missionary while serving with another female missionary. The two went tracting, held meetings, taught lessons, visited church officials, and went to the movies. The diary tells of LaRetta's decision to serve a mission, her acceptance to serve a mission, her time in the LDS missionary training center in Provo, Utah (September 1933), her travels and time spent in Lincoln, Nebraska (September of 1933--April of 1934), and her travels and time spent in Pueblo, Colorado (May of 1934--October 1934). The diary ends abruptly on October 20, 1934 with no explanation. In addition, the diary also contains predictions that a fortune teller said about LaRetta (pages 298--300) and a paper insert with the song "Western States Mission Song," composed by LaRetta Gibbons.