Tag Archives: suicide

Carlyle D. Marsden (1921-1976) Mormon Suicide

b. December 9, 1921

d. March 8, 1976

Carlyle Davenport Marsden was born on December 9, 1921, in Parowan, Utah. He was the son of William and Della Jane Marsden. He was survived by his widow, three sons and two daughters, 10 grandchildren, two brothers and four sisters.

He had been a music teacher at Eisenhower Junior High School in the Granite School District in Salt Lake, and also taught at Brigham Young University.

He was a veteran of World War II, serving in the Army in the Pacific Theater.

He attended the College of Southern Utah in Cedar City for two years, and received his bachelor degree from Brigham Young University and his masters degree from the University of Utah. He also did graduate work at Claremont College, Occidental and Cal State in Los Angeles, California.

He had filled an LDS Mission in the New England States and had been a member of the bishopric and high council in Pomona, Calif. He had been music regional representative, stake and ward organist, and stake choir director. He had also been Sunday School superintendent in Salt Lake City.

Carlyle was outed in March 1976. This led him to take his own life on March 8, 1976. He was 54 years old.

Carlyle is buried at the Kaysville City Cemetery in Utah.

Carlyle’s grandson Douglas Stewart was a gay Mormon and sadly committed suicide on March 8, 2006, exactly 30 years to the day his grandfather committed suicide.

Affirmation Suicide Memorial

Abuse and Suicide: A Moving Reader’s Response

My post on the church’s culpability in youth suicide has brought this moving comment, which has brought me , quite literally, to tears. I reproduce it here for your consideration, with no further comment – I have no words that would be good enough:

Thank you Terence for posting this thought provoking post. I would not want to comment directly on the Unglo family’s actions, though I have a good idea of their anguish and pain.

All I would say is that sometimes (and more often than appears on the surface) your two threads of thought intersect, tragically.
My wife and I are firmly convinced that young gays and lesbians are far more likely to be clergy sexually abused than their straight peers.

Here is our story, which is the story of our beloved son: Remembering Eric – 2nd Anniversary Of His Death the associated links tell some more about him and us. I know we had to fight my then-Bishop to have Eric’s funeral service in the local church building ~ because ‘the canons’ forbade the funeral of ‘a suicide’ in church. Heaping insult upon injury.

May Eric, and all the other suicide-victims of clergy sexual abuse … rest in peace, and rise in Glory!

sincerely,

John Iliff

Eric’s story” concludes with these word:

It was there in 1935 that he told his students:

‘The one who does not cry out for the Jews has no right to sing Gregorian chant’.

Today, we forthrightly submit that:

‘The one who does not cry out for the victims of clergy sexual abuse has no right to say the Catholic mass nor sing the Orthodox Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom’.