A new monument now stands at the Salt Lake City Cemetery to honor Joseph Standing, a 25-year-old missionary who was shot in 1879 while serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Georgia.
At a memorial service held Saturday to rededicate the monument, Elder Alexander B. Morrison, an emeritus member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, said Standing and his companion, Rudger Clawson, were on their way to a district meeting when a dozen mobsters captured them.
After walking some time, Standing asked to drink at a spring. When Standing stood up, a scuffle ensued and someone shot him in the head. An order was given to shoot Clawson, who crossed his arms and calmly told the mob to shoot. The mob was unnerved and let him go. When Clawson got back, Standing's body had been shot 20 times. Clawson brought the body back to Salt Lake City for burial.
A monument for Standing was erected in 1880, but time and weather took their toll.
So David C. Larsen, an in-law relative to the Standing family, took charge of a restoration project. He researched photo negatives from church history archives so he could make the new monument look just like the original. The monument is 12 feet 9 inches tall and surrounded by an iron fence. Larsen estimated the monument cost $31,000. He said it would have cost $40,000 without the time, labor and materials that were donated.
The Standing family began collecting funds and making plans to rebuild the monument in the spring of 1999, said Craig Standing, relative of Joseph Standing. Members of the Standing family had asked the LDS Church to restore the original monument, which was partially missing.
But Mark Standing, another relative, said that while the church was supportive of the restoration, the responsibility to carry it out was left with the family.
The original monument is now in storage at the church museum warehouse. Another monument to Standing is at the site of his murder, near Varnell's Station, Ga.
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