Néstor Curbelo: The Latin American Andrew Jenson

Abstract

It was the longest hour of Néstor Curbelo's life. He had time to question why he was in this dangerous predicament and seriously doubted whether his quest to document the history of the church in South America was worth the cost. However, these thoughts were interrupted by sounds that brought him back to the reality of his precarious situation. He could be killed. The most disconcerting sounds were the cries of women. Though a gun was put to Néstor's head several times during this ordeal, he recognized what was happening to him was awful but others were suffering more.It was 2005 and Néstor Esteban Curbelo Armando was in Peru working on a project to document the history of the church for the Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library and BYU Television International. He had forty interviews of local members on video cassettes and thirty-five rolls of 35 mm film (1500 photographs). The final product of his work would be a three-volume set of documents for the library and a twenty-five-minute film to be shown over BYU's international channel. He finished his work in Ica, Peru, and was going to the southern city of Tacna, the location of one of the early branches of the church. He would then travel sixty kilometers to the nearest city with an international airport, Arica, Chile, just over the Chile/Peru border. Border regions in Peru at this time were particularly dangerous because criminals knew travelers had cash and valuables and police protection was seldom adequate. Nevertheless, Néstor felt he had no other options. He boarded the bus and outside the city of Nasca was partway to his destination when the bus was stopped by several young men with weapons. All the passengers were forced to the ground with threats and gunfire.Near the end of the hour-long ordeal when Néstor realized he would likely not be killed, he became cautiously optimistic and bold. He identified one of the men who seemed a little more humane and cautiously talked to him, explaining why he was in Peru. He told the young man that his cassettes were used and consequently of no monetary value to them. Néstor proposed they take the cameras and leave his video cassettes, rolls of film, and papers. The young man looked inside Néstor bag, questioned him further, and walked away with the bag muttering swear words. Néstor anticipated the worst. A few minutes later, with his head facing the ground, he heard someone approach and then a thud. The robber took the cameras leaving Néstor with everything else. Néstor felt blessed and lucky. After a couple of additional challenges getting to the airport—he had no money nor passport—he returned home to Buenos Aires, Argentina, sobered but unharmed. The volumes for the library were compiled and the documentary for BYU Television International delivered a year later.Having lived in South America his entire life, Néstor knows little about the early assistant church historian Andrew Jenson. He never read his diary nor used Jenson's Journal History of the Church.1 He has little notion of Jenson's travels throughout the world collecting documents and writing church history. Having known Néstor for almost thirty years, I see in him the same drive and passion for the history of the church as I imagine Andrew Jenson had. Something in them created a love of both history and the church that consumed their lives. They traveled extensively researching church history from established congregations in large metropolitan areas to remote small branches. Both faced danger and challenges historians seldom face far from the safety of archives and libraries. Similar to Jenson, Néstor will leave an important legacy on the history of the international church as few others have. Like Andrew Jenson, he did it without a college degree or the credentials or training the history profession considers necessary.2Though I am telling the story of Néstor Curbelo, he is representative of numerous men and women in the international church who are largely responsible for what is known about the history of the church far from the center. Without much help or encouragement from the Church History Department in Salt Lake City, these amateur historians with limited financial and administrative support and occasionally confronting danger, save documents, conduct oral histories, take photographs, and write histories. Even with noteworthy new programs established worldwide by the Church History Department in the second decade of the twenty-first century, most research on church history in the periphery will continue to be done more by amateurs and faithful members than professional historians. Their stories should be recorded, remembered, and appreciated.3Néstor was raised in the small town of San José, Uruguay, the youngest child of Juan Esteban Curbelo Martinez and Aquilina Armando Quezada. During his early formative years, he lived outside the community, enjoying the freedom and solitude of rural Uruguay. His father owned a small plot of ground where he raised a few milk cows. Néstor first attended a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meeting when he was thirteen but became a serious investigator only years later. He spent time as an active but unbaptized participant in the church. Though he developed a testimony early, it was only after he became interested in an attractive young member from the neighboring city of Florida, Rosalina Goitiño Ramírez, that he became serious. He was baptized on July 13, 1969, after being informed that she only dated members. His decision to go on a mission (Argentina North Mission, 1970–1972) was also influenced by the same young lady, again suggesting she would only marry a return missionary. His mission was a life-changing experience, strengthening his commitment to the church with the added benefit of helping him learn English. It also awoke in him a desire to travel since the mission included much of the interior of Argentina with its variety and diversity of cultures.After his mission, Néstor and Rosalina married and they explored possibilities of an education at BYU or moving to Ecuador. Rosalina became pregnant with their first daughter and the immediate challenge of supporting a family changed their plans. With limited employment possibilities in Uruguay, they immigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where there were more immediate job opportunities. Néstor found work as the janitor at the seminary and institute building located in the suburb of Belgrano. He and Rosalina experienced several years of challenging economic times, as four additional children were born. He did not earn much but his salary was generally enough to provide the necessities of life for their young family.4It was not long before a professor in the church's Seminary and Institutes Department recognized Néstor's talents. William Sill had an important influence on Néstor's religious thinking as well as his interest in history. Dr. Sill was a missionary in Argentina who, after his mission, married Nelida Salinas, a native of the city of San Juan in central west Argentina. Sill graduated from BYU and completed a PhD in vertebrate paleontology at Harvard University. He taught at Yale University but gave up a promising academic career in the United States to move to San Juan where he organized and headed the Paleontology Department at the Universidad Nacional de San Juan (National University of San Juan). His most noteworthy accomplishment was shepherding the development of the nearby Ischigualasto Provincial Park, first into a national park and eventually as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sill's clandestine activities helping students to leave the country before being arrested by the Argentine military during the period called the “Dirty War,” eventually forced him to leave San Juan in 1978 to avoid being arrested. He moved with his family to Buenos Aires where he taught at the church's institute. Dr. Sill left Argentina in 1979 for his own protection and taught in the United States until 1983 when it was safe for him to return.5Before leaving for the United States, Dr. Sill organized a special institute project on the history of the church in Argentina. He contacted the Church Historical Archives and received information that he used to do a research guide for students. He taught methods of historical research and oral history and had the students select a topic for research. Néstor sat in on some of the discussions and developed his own project. As the building custodian, Néstor had responsibility for the book and magazine collection in the institute and this further motivated his interest. He purchased a tape recorder and conducted several audio interviews of early members in Buenos Aires. The institute soon purchased a video camera and from then on all of Néstor's interviews were videotaped.Néstor's interest in history began in high school when he became obsessed with the history of Uruguayan soccer. He collected and organized all the newspaper articles and other materials he could find on the topic. At the same time, he learned how to take photographs and develop film. He began doing paid photographic jobs that provided him with needed cash. He also took photographs of events in the church, primarily conferences. Later in Argentina, leaders asked him to serve as the official photographer at many church events. This responsibility meant he was at most major church functions and became acquainted with leaders of the church, many becoming his friends. His collection of photographs is large and unique, visually documenting the history of the church in Argentina and Uruguay over a forty-year period. Néstor continues to be proud of his collection on Uruguayan soccer.Dr. Sill asked Néstor to teach an occasional institute class and before Dr. Sill left for the United States, on his recommendation, Néstor was hired as a full-time instructor. Among the classes taught was one on the history of the church. He was already familiar with early U.S. church history due to a Sunday School class he taught in his branch in Uruguay, using as the text Joseph Fielding Smith's Essentials in Church History. He stated: “It was both a spiritual and intellectual experience. I learned a history that was fascinating and at the same time contributed to a conviction that this was the Church of Jesus Christ.”6 He immediately recognized the focus of the text was almost completely on the church in nineteenth-century United States with almost nothing on Latin America.For the final classes of the course, the outline suggested a section for local church history. Since there was limited information of the history of the church in South America from which to create these lessons, Néstor used some of the research of the students in Dr. Sill's project. These essays, though good, did not provide enough information required to teach the class and he realized it was necessary to do his own research. He began by interviewing early members in Buenos Aires and copied their photographs and documents. Institute supervisors were supportive of his activities and provided copying assistance. He located significant documentation about the beginning of the church in South America including a copy of the original “Manuscript History of the South American Mission (1925–1935),” in part typed by Elder Rey L. Pratt one of the first general authority missionaries to Argentina. His research lead to the writing of two outline histories for the students.7His activities led to a call in 1985 as the South America South Area historian. The organization of area presidencies occurred in 1984 and the second president was Elder Thomas Fyans, former president of the Uruguayan Mission. Elder Fyans loved history and felt it important to have an area historian. Néstor was given an office close to President Fyans and an annual budget of $2,000. That financial assistance allowed him to accelerate the collection of documents and increase the number of interviews conducted. He did not get time off from his institute responsibilities so most of his history activities happened during his vacations. Beyond doing historical work, Néstor was occasionally asked to do videos used by the area presidency in member conferences.8Néstor held numerous ecclesiastical leadership positions in the church in Buenos Aires. He served in high councils and as a counselor in a stake presidency before being called as the stake president of the Belgrano Stake in 1986. Consequently, during this period, most of his free time was taken up by this church calling; through he did continue to do oral interviews when possible. It was after he was released as stake president (1996) that he more actively concentrated on history. He was aided in this activity when he was called as the public affairs director for the South America South Area. In this role, he was expected to attend most of the important activities in the area and visually record through photographs and video much that happened. Part of his responsibility was to edit the area local news (Noticia Locais) section of the church magazine, La Liahona. Under his direction, these monthly sections included not only reports of current events but also historical articles written by Néstor. The Noticias Locais during his time includes a wealth of information on the history of the church in South America. He wrote numerous articles for the Church News (Deseret News) and occasionally published articles in the Ensign. The consequence of these two joint callings was that he was present at and wrote about most of the important events in the South America South Area for thirty years.During this period he published his first commercial volume, Historia de los mormones en Argentina: relatos de pioneros. The book was a combination and expansion of the two texts written for his institute students.9 It was eventually made available to members at cost in the area distribution centers. The book was written for members and could easily be read, understood, and appreciated. It had limited historical narrative and focused on the description of major events, including a chronology of early history. The volume had an emphasis on prominent leaders, many of whom were American general authorities, mission presidents, and missionaries. The important feature of the volume was the inclusion of a large number of photographs. It was not academic on purpose, and included limited analysis and avoided controversy. Néstor understood how most members approached the past and was able to provide just enough history that members appreciated the information provided in the book.10He wrote similar volumes for the other two countries in the area, Uruguay and Paraguay. These volumes are similar to the Argentine publication with one major difference, they include more stories of the early members and less focus on the American leaders. His research methods were different. He took short research trips into these countries doing numerous interviews in different regions of the country. He developed a method to obtain the best stories without spending time on less productive interviews. Consequently, these later volumes have more biography, a focus on different regions of the country, and less general history of the church in the country.11I met Néstor when he came to my BYU office during his visit to general conference in April 1988. We exchanged publications and unpublished writings and maintained a regular cordial relationship through his visits to Salt Lake City and my trips to Argentina. In 2000, I was given a leave of absence from BYU to write a book on the history of the church in South America. I was a widower at the time and my children were not living at home so I decided to write the book in Argentina during the summer of 2001. Néstor rented me a room in his home and I spent over three months mostly in that room. He was researching his volume on Uruguay and invited me to come with him to Uruguay on weekends to assist in the interviews. We would generally spend a day in one city doing interviews, taking pictures, copying documents, and then travel to the next city in the evening. We were so busy that most of our meals were eaten in the late evening at food stands in city parks, often the Uruguayan popular chivito sandwich. We had many memorable experiences but I am certain I will never get out of my mind the poetry and music of the famous Gaucho musician José Larralde, to whom we listened from the car tape recorder during those trips. I will also never forget the large beautiful Uruguayan moon over the landscape. I learned to appreciate this small but important country in South America.We learned different techniques of oral history and the collection of documents from each other. It was a delightful time of learning for me since we spent so much time talking about the history of South America from an international point of view.Since that experience, Néstor and I have spent hundreds of hours talking about South America, church history, and our goals and plans. Many of those discussions included ideas about how church history should be written. Néstor recognizes he is not a university-trained historian but sees himself as a storyteller. He writes for the members not scholars. He realizes that the attraction for most members is not just the narrative but the combination of stories, details, and photographs. His published histories are strong on image. He is faithful to the church and has avoided most controversies, though he recognizes the issues and challenges in LDS history better than most. He is modest and does not recognize that all he has learned by doing history is probably more valuable that what he would learn at a university.As Néstor approached retirement age, he wanted to spend full time on the history of the church. He retired early in 2006 after thirty years with the Church Educational System and took a lump sum retirement payment that gave him financial freedom for a few years to pursue his dreams. Since that time until 2016, Néstor worked on a variety of projects, most directly connected to Brigham Young University. The result has been the creation of a collection of historical documents and oral histories from all over South America.Néstor's favorite medium became the film. During his years as director of public affairs, he produced videos for the church and wanted to do more. The expansion of BYU TV in 2008 lead to the creation of a channel focused on Latin America in which some of BYU's shows were translated into Spanish and Portuguese. In 2009, the channel began producing original content. Néstor was ready to take advantage of their needs. He negotiated contracts to produce several documentaries on the church in Latin America for a series entitled, “Pioneros” (Pioneers). They were initially dubbed in English and Portuguese. With time, the quality of his work improved to the level that he received three nominations and one Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter. His films were prepared on a much lower budget than other programing at BYU television because they were produced in Argentina. As the budget at the channel shrank, the amount offered to Néstor was reduced and it became a challenge for him to do the same on less and less money. By 2018, thirty of Néstor's Latin American documentaries were shown on the channel.In conjunction with the documentaries, he worked with the BYU Harold B. Lee Library. Néstor developed a valuable collection of documents and photographs housed in the historian's office in Buenos Aires. The concept of digitizing historical documents was gaining popularity in the early years of the twenty-first century and I recognized the research value those materials had for students and faculty at Brigham Young University. Some were available in the Church History Library in Salt Lake City but most were not. The Harold B. Lee Library and the Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University, with the approval of the South America South area presidency, financed several projects to digitize selected documents and publications. Those projects provided numerous BYU Latin American studies majors the experience of working and living in Buenos Aires on one-month paid internships.Most of the digitized documents are in four different collections housed in the Harold B. Lee Library.In 2015, Néstor deposited his videos used to do his latest documentaries outside of Argentina in the Church History Library and are not available in the BYU Harold B. Lee Library. Also included in the collection were photographs taken during the previous five years in the various countries. That year I spent three weeks with him in Buenos Aires, going through the collection helping to prepare them to be sent to Salt Lake City. During this visit, I conducted a ten-hour video interview with Néstor recording many of his stories and ideas. A copy of the interview is in the LDS Church History Library in Salt Lake City.On June 6, 2015, in Provo, Utah, Néstor received the prestigious Leonard J. Arrington Award given by the Mormon History Association. This award is presented annually “to a scholar whose contributions are truly outstanding for distinguished service to Mormon history.” Néstor was surprised and honored by the recognition. It was a long-overdue acknowledgment for all who work on the history of the international church.13Andrew Jenson is an important example to church historians and archivists. He had a passion for travel, the history of the international church, and the gospel. He loved collecting stories, data, and images. He had a few conflicts and struggles with the First Presidency, church historians, and others who occasionally questioned his activities. He was constantly looking for money to support his work and travels. Nevertheless, he persisted and left an important legacy for the history of the church. What we know about the early history of the church we owe in part to his dedication and love of history.Néstor has had similar challenges. He had some financial backing beyond BYU but always worked with a minimal budget. His favorite refrain, “I always get applause but no money,” highlights his challenges. He struggled to understand why historians and those who finance them focus so much on the early history of the church in the United States, but so few attempt to understand the international church. He and his family, particularly his wife, Rosalina, have sacrificed much for the history of the church in South America. Because of his efforts, however, researchers have documents, interviews, and photographs on this slice of the history of the international church. He truly is South America's version of Andrew Jenson.