Child greatly admired Job’s unwavering faith. He chose to engrave this passage in stone to grant the wish Job expresses in it. Job’s words were already printed in a book, Child explained. “Seeing my work around the yard being done in rock with an iron pen (oxyacetylene torch), I decided to fulfill the rest of Job’s desire and lead his words in the rock forever.”
Child found the huge boulder at the south end of the Salt Lake Valley. “This rock was very pleasing to me,” he wrote, “as I wanted a sort of worn, worm-eaten appearance, which I felt harmonized with Job’s sick and worn out condition.” Child and his son-in-law, Bryant Higgs, created special tips for the oxyacetylene torch to allow it to be used for fine lettering. Two granite cutters worked on the lettering for four weeks. Soft lead was then pounded into the half-inch deep letters.
Friends of Gilgal Garden has restored the lead lettering and the oxyacetylene torch embedded at the foot of the stone.
Hortense Child’s audio interpretation of The Testimony of Job