Life History of George Peter and Tryphena Mayer Brimhall Garff

Distributed to all recipients of the Garff Education Scholarship, which is awarded at Brigham Young University-Hawaii to a student seeking a degree in education with the intent to be a teacher.

This scholarship honors George Peter Garff and Tryphena Mayer Brimhall Garff, husband and wife, both teachers by profession who served teaching missions to Laie, Hawaii, and were faithful, devoted members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all of their lives. Of their nine children, three taught professionally. All nine children remained valiant in the Gospel all of their lives.

George was born in 1870 in Draper, Utah, the eldest of twelve children. Tryphena was born in 1870 in American Fork, Utah, the ninth of ten children, her oldest brother being George Henry Brimhall who served as president of Brigham Young University in Provo from 1904 to 1932.

George and Tryphena were both trained and certified as teachers before they met. Tryphena began teaching at age 16 in Lakeshore, Utah (near Utah Lake), where she said she followed the advice of educator Karl G. Maeser: “Never, never go before your class without asking the Lord for help.” And she never left the school at night without a prayer to guide her. She also taught three years in Spanish Fork, three years in Provo and then two years at the Brigham Young Preparatory School where she met George who was a hall superintendent there.

George was the son of Danish immigrants. His father helped push a widow’s handcart across the plains and later helped two other groups of Saints across the plains in wagons. George had his first teaching assignment in Bluffdale, Utah, at age 21. All grades met in one room and he was paid $55 a month. He subsequently went back to school at Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) where he was a football hero, and then attended Brigham Young Academy.

They were married December 19, 1895 in the Salt Lake Temple. George was then teaching in Davis Country. In February of 1896, they received a mission call to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) which they did not hesitate to accept and subsequently left by train for Portland in May of that year. From there they took a steamer to Honolulu, and horse and buggy to Laie where they were given a room in the mission home as living quarters.

They both accepted teaching assignments, George having 27 students and Tryphena 40. In addition, George kept the accounting books for the mission, a store and the sugar plantation; helped run the store and a mill; served as Sunday School superintendent; and was a counselor to President Samuel E. Woolley who presided over the Hawaiian Mission for 24 years. Tryphena also helped in the mission kitchen, did much sewing, served as a counselor in the Relief Society and as Primary president. They attended early morning and evening prayer circles, enjoyed walks along the beach as recreation, worked long hours, suffered illnesses, struggled with the Hawaiian language, and both served short missions to Maui.

George was called to serve in Maui for three months were he baptized nine members and labored in 29 settlements. He was also asked to go to Molokai and meet with the Saints in the leper colony at Kalaupapa. He fasted three days in preparation for this meeting in which he was blessed with the gift of tongues and was able to speak with power in the Hawaiian language which to that point had been every difficult for him.

Tryphena, who had given birth to their first child, Minnie Rachel, at Laie on December 7, 1897, was called to accompany Sister Woolley to Maui for two weeks to visit the Relief Society sisters there. She took her new baby and completed that assignment but thereafter, her health was poor and she did not fully recover. President Woolley suggested to the Garffs that they accept a release and return home so Tryphena’s health might return. They left Laie on November 9, 1898, having participated in many healings, miracles of preservation from storms and untold hours of labor teaching and helping the Hawaiian people of that area.

Subsequent years found them in Wallsburg, Utah, where George was principal of the Wallsburg School, ran a store and served as bishop. Tryhena also taught in Wallsburg and bore five more children. George served as stake superintendent of religion classes for the Jordan Stake when they tended his father’s Draper, Utah, farm while his father served a mission to Norway. They also lived in Lehi, Farmington and finally Salt Lake City, Utah, where George died at the age of 58 on February 21, 1928. Tryphena lived to the age of 91.

Their lives were lived in faith. Never wealthy, they found richness in life through their family, service to their God and serving their community with teaching and civic participation. George worked diligently in every community in which they lived to improve the conditions there. He organized athletic teams (he was once encouraged to play baseball professionally), singing groups, and musical programs. They both lived with courage and purpose and taught their posterity to love and serve our Father in Heaven by their example and through their unwavering testimony.