| Show Brighan Young early President of the Church when visiting in Mount Pleasant noted the limited accommodations of the Social Kall Recognizing the pressing need fornew larger meeting house he admonished Church members to do something about it So in January of 1865 meeting was called for the purpose of discussing ways and means of erectingnew tuilding To finance the project resolution was adopted assessing each person over 18 years of age 10 In addition tax of three percent was levied on property to help out And so the meeting house which eventually was to become the North Ward Meeting House was born The bullding which originally hadbalcony was remodeled in 1914 Even so it had only three xooms in additien to the chapel proper--the Relief Society Hall and two rooms up the stairs and above that hall one fairly large and one rather small Church-goers occupied long mahogany benches inside the chapel facing the pulpit and elevated stand for authorities and choir members Because of the lack of individual room space my Sunday School class sometimes convened in make-shift areas of the chapel with long heavy curtains being drawn to make for partial privacy found it hard to be attentive to my teacher however whencould hear voices coming from other classes nd there were times when my Sunday School class was set up in the chapelvestibule wherecould see the rope which had been pulled to sound the bell in the belfry bell alerting everybody that Sunday School would start in exactly half an hour The bell was rung again promptly at tenclock as the doors were closed for the opening exercises Whenwas eleven years old the Sunday School Superintendency presented me withbook entitled The First Christmas by Lew Wallace Inscribed on the flyleaf is the following Christmas gift from the North Ward Sunday School for attending every Sunday School session and not being tardy during the year was very proud of the award My parents had been taking me with them to Sacrament Meeting in the old meeting house at twoclock on Sundays long beforewas baptized and confirmedmember of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints The Baptismal bullding behind the Tithing Office and near Pleasant Creek has long since gone butcan still remember the small unpainted frane structure The font in the center with wooden steps going down was filled with water from the creek preparatory to the baptismal ordinance was frightened when it -135 |
