-----------------------------------------------------------------
Nov. 2011
THE CHURCH
IN ST. THOMAS
Recollections
of Irving R. Wilson 1986
1920 - 1991
This account
is from an interview held April 22, I986. The purpose is to discuss some of Irving’s
experiences and some of the things that led to the formation of the branch in
those early days of the Church, and to introduce some of the people that played
a role in building the Church throughout those years. (Irving Wilson was Norm
Wilson’s brother)
In the early
1950s, (I was in my early thirties), I was operating a small jewelry store on
Ross St. in St. Thomas, Ontario. While trying to make a living, the
missionaries called on me for some watch repairs. They came into my office and
I found that they were from faraway places, which made me curious. They had
answers that I had not heard before. They’d come in and stand around and talk.
I would ask them questions and they would answer, between customers. I was
aware that I felt something. Then they would go on their way.
About that
time, one of my Air Force acquaintances by the name of Les Jordan mentioned to
me that he was looking for a church and was actively studying with someone. I
don’t suppose it is important which church he was studying, but they were
pursuing him in pairs, so I said, “Look, if you’re going to study a church, you
should talk to these missionaries. They have the answers for you. Otherwise,
you’re wasting your time.” He said, “Well, okay, send them around.” So I sent
them over to his apartment. I had been investigating churches along with my
family all my life. We had crossed Canada one and a half times and never found
what we were looking for.
There wasn’t
really an opportunity for me to study the church at that time, as I was working
14 - I6 hour days, trying to make ends meet and ‘keep the wolf from the door.’
There wasn’t a church of this denomination here in St. Thomas, and these Elders
were tracting the city. Anyway, I sent them to see Les and he ended up taking
them to meet his parents. There was another family who’d joined the church in
Holland and lived about I5 miles outside the city on a farm. The Vanderhydes
had two grandchildren living with them, one was a boy about 8 or 9 years old,
whose name was John Pountney.
Well, the Jordan’s
joined the church and they had to drive to London. Then the missionaries were
taken out of the area. In the meantime, my five-year lease was up on the little
store. I obtained another piece of property up the street a couple blocks.
After floating some loans through the bank and a few other places through my
bank manager, I tore down a church that was there and built a jewelry story.
Missionaries had visited me a couple of times. I suppose they’d found my name
somewhere, or the Jordans had sent them to me.
One day,
after the new store opened, I was standing across the street looking at it and I
was thinking to myself, “Well, Wilson, you’ve got it made. You’ve got yourself
a vehicle now, you’ve got a building, you’ve got a mortgage on it, all you have
to do is pay the mortgage off and then sit back and make your living, till it’s
time to quit. Then sell off. The way is paved for you for the rest of your
life.” Then I heard a clear voice in my head say, “What if you died tonight?” I
said, “Hold on, I’m not ready for that yet.” And it repeated, “What if you died
tonight?” I answered with, “After all this? I’m not ready.” Again the question,
“What if you died tonight?”
Just then out of the corner of my eye, I saw
two young men dressed in shirts and ties, wearing hats, I coming briskly toward
me and I knew right then whose voice it was. They walked straight up to me and
said, “We understand there’s a Mr. Wilson who owns a jewelry store here
somewhere. Could you tell us where it is?” I hesitated a second, then pointed
to the store across the street and said, “That’s his store over there.”
"They thanked me and walked across the street into the store. My manager,
Mac McClimont, had been leaning on the counter (his favourite pose) watching us
- and saw them coming. He decided that there must be something funny going on
and when they asked for me, he told them I had just stepped out. So they leaned
on the counter and tried to engage him in conversation, but he was leery and
talked about the weather. Then when I came.in, one of the elders spoke up and
said, “Mr. Wilson just went out and will be back shortly.” I said, “Well, he
just came back,” to which they replied, “Oh”, but catching themselves quickly,
“Oh, fine, now uh, the reason we’re here is to tract this town out.” That was
their words, which were pretty final... They told me they needed a place to stay
and asked if I had any idea where they could find an apartment to rent.
About three
weeks before, a lady had come in to say that she had an apartment to rent. She
didn’t want old men or women. She wanted young men, because they’re cleaner and
gone most of the time and they aren’t a problem, she said. She asked me to keep
her in mind if I found anyone, and I told her I would. Her name was Dora
Daniels, and I retrieved the paper she had given me from beside the phone. I
called and asked her if she had rented the place yet and she said there had
been no one by to look at it. So I asked her if she’d like me to bring them by,
and I took them. They immediately rented it, and were exactly what she was
waiting for. I brought the elders back to the store and called my wife, Rita,
and said, “How would you like some company for dinner.” She replied, “Isn’t that
funny...l went to the store and saw a chicken that I couldn’t resist, so I
brought it home and cooked it. I must have known you were going to bring
company tonight, but I didn’t know who, because you never do either. I’ve got a
big dinner ready, so just bring them along. Who is it?” I said, “Oh, you wait
till you see them.” So we had our first lesson that night.
In those
days you were supposed to be attending church for a year (although there was no
church there) - paying tithing, living the Word of Wisdom and everything for a
year to qualify to join. That was in the early part of 1952. _Within three
months I was baptized, along with my wife Rita (April 10) and it was sort of
miraculous that we were allowed to join that quickly. Elder Warren C Barnett
from Ogden, Utah, baptized me and his companion was Elder Dean Nelsen from
Hyrum, Utah. An Elder Singleton, the District leader was there also. The
District likely would have consisted of everything west of Toronto. He traveled
alone, with no companion. He would show up in the afternoon or evening-on the
Elders doorstep and camp with them for three or four days. He had gotten
married and then was called on a mission, and within one month of the I
wedding, left on his mission. That wasn’t really uncommon in those days.
Dora Daniels
came into the church as result of the missionaries staying at her place. Her
son joined the Church too. We used the swimming pool of the YMCA on the comer
of Ross and Talbot Streets for baptisms, and later held our meetings in an
upstairs room. We used to go to London for Sunday School - actually it was a combined
Sunday School and Sacrament meeting. We met in a small building, but I can’t
remember where it was. President Mills was one of the Q -3- leaders then. He was the Branch President
at the time a chapel was built in London. He was a big fellow. Ivan Inkster was
another early pioneer. Shortly after I joined, I was ordained a Priest. Then,
as now, you had to be a member for a year before receiving the Melchizedek
Priesthood. I had been a member for six months and at a conference in London I
was ordained a Priest. President J. Melvin Toone, who was a Patriarch from
Idaho, was our Mission President. He was a big man - a solid fellow with a lot
of faith. He said he was organizing the London area and was doing something
about it every time he came down from Toronto. He said, “Now, I would like to
present the name of Brother Wilson to be the President of the St. Thomas
Branch. Vote for yourself, Brother Wilson.” I saw that everyone else had their
hands up, so I raised mine.
The “Branch”
consisted of myself, -my wife, Rita, our son Dennis, daughter Donna, and Sister
Jordan and a couple of daughters. There were just a few women and a bunch of
kids. No other priesthood holders. It was some time before Brother Jordan
joined. We had no missionaries either. I was still a Priest, because I couldn’t
be made an Elder for a year - so I was set apart by the Mission President, who
said, “Now Brother Wilson, in setting you apart as a Branch President, I’m
putting a great load of responsibility on your shoulders. You are Branch
President and you have no counselors. You have your lovely faithful wife, and
she will sustain and support you. You are to go forth as a missionary, for
there are no missionaries.” He gave Rita a blessing too. Then he set me apart
as a missionary, a part-time missionary. As often as I was able to find the time
and opportunity, I was to go forth, with or without a companion, to teach,
expound and convert. Anyone whom I should meet, who were the honest in heart
and willing to listen, I should bring into the church. I was to baptize counselors
and officers and members. I’ve never been formally released from that
missionary calling. The Canadian Mission in those days, went down into, I
think, Maysville, New York and east as far as Quebec City. It included Sarnia,
London and as far to the northwest as Sault Ste. Marie. The whole mission had
only 19 missionaries; there was la great shortage due to the Korean War.
So here’s
what I used to do. I would be working in my store and in would come somebody
and I would hear, “There is your first counselor” I’d look at him and say to
myself, “What’ll I do, for goodness sake.”
His name was
Norn Gordon, an engineer on the railroad who came in to have his watch
adjusted. He had a big friendly grin and I stumbled around, trying to change
the subject from what he was talking about to the Book of Mormon, but he up and
said, “Well, I’ve got to feed the chickens,” and left before I could say
anything. So I went around kicking myself all afternoon until the evening.
Finally I phoned him" and said, “When you were in this afternoon, I had a
book I wanted to give you, and I wanted to discuss something with you, but you
left in such a rush that I didn’t get a chance. How about I come out there
tonight?” He said, “Fine, come on out.” So I piled in the car, drove out and
presented him and his wife Jean with the book. I told “them it was the history
of Christ’s dealings with the North American Indians’ ancestors. They began to
read it and I went out there once a week until they were converted and
baptized. He was my first convert and my first counselor.
Then along
came Mr. Tustian, a carpenter. I hired him to help me work on the store, and I
asked him if he’d ever thought of where the American Indians came from. He told
me that he thought about it a lot, because he’d lived among them in Manitoulin.
I told him I had a book I’d let him read. He said, “I’ll read it.” That was
early in the week and the following Monday I called to find he’d read it - one
and a half times! He never went to bed. My goodness, his wife was so mad at me
because she couldn’t get a word out of him he was too busy reading. He hid in a
corner and did nothing but read. When I phoned, he was on his way through it
for the second time. He was a Deacon in the Baptist church- He was now totally
converted and ready to join and become my second counselor. That was about a
year and a half after I had joined. He was the only one who joined of his
family. He would take them to the Baptist church and dump them off and they’d
have to hitchhike rides home with the other members, because he didn’t get out
of church as soon as they did. There were some pretty strong feelings there for
a while, but one by one, the finger of the Lord touched them. There were some
unusual spiritual experiences in that family. One had to do with Sister
Tustian.
Some fifteen
years before, they had lived in Delhi. There was a restaurant on the side of
the road that had a front like a huge red wooden barrel. Brother Tustian had
built it. The first time she met me at her house, a few miles out of St. Thomas,
I came with the missionaries. The two Elders wore black hats and we had
horn-rimmed glasses. She took one look at us and ran. Later on she told us why.
She had a dream that three men with an Oriental religion had come and talked to
her husband in the yard, and he had just turned with us, waved goodbye to her
and walked across the fields towards a forest and never came back. When she woke
up, she knew that these three men, whoever they were, were going to take her
‘husband away. As she saw us coming, she recognized us - we were the ones she saw
in the dream fifteen years earlier. She knew we were there to take her husband
away, so she wouldn’t speak to us. She knew the minute she saw us that her
husband was going to join the Church, and she wouldn’t speak to us or anything.
She was a very hospitable, wonderful woman, but she didn’t have any use for us.
She wouldn’t give us the time of day for a good long time. Now she’s serving in
the Washington Temple.
The kids
came along gradually, one at a time. She didn’t interfere if they wanted to go
to church with their father, she let them go. Then one ('1 ay her youngest,
Molly, came in screaming and yelling. She was a tough little thing and was
shrieking about hurting her knee. Well, she got down to inspect it closer and
there wasn’t a mark on her. She asked why Molly was making such a fuss over
nothing, and then she heard a voice say, “This is what you are doing about my
gospel.” She said to herself, “Oh dear,” and she got up and went out to the
back woodworking shed and said to her husband. “I want you to call the
missionaries. I want to be baptized.” That’s what changed her mind - she’d
heard the voice. So she was baptized. Molly, who was three, had stopped crying
as soon as her mother heard the voice. She picked herself up and went back out
to play. She was a big lady and had the spirit to match.
At 16, Owen
was the oldest of the children and protested, “You’re not getting me into that
church. I’m a Baptist and I always will be one.” Well, he’s out in a field
stoking grain and all of a sudden the whole field disappears and he finds himself
looking down into the basement of the Baptist. Church. He can see all the
stewards of the church, laughing and playing cards, and they don’t play cards
in the Baptist church...at least they’re not supposed to. He sees the Saviour
sitting above, looking at them, and the Saviour looked over at him and shook
His head. So Owen stuck his fork in the ground, said to himself, “That’s it!”
and climbed into his truck and drove home. He just quit in the middle of the
day and said to his dad, “Where’s those missionaries? I want to join the
church.” He was the first missionary to leave from the St. Thomas Branch. That’s
the story of the Tustian family.
It just went
on from there. When it came time to build the chapel, the Lord saw to it that
the people he wanted in the church were out of work. They would come and ask if
they could work on the building. I’d say, “Sure, how much of your wages will
you donate to the building fund?” And they’d say, “Well, this is how much we
need to live on, and we’ll donate the rest.” We paid them a considerable amount
more than they expected and one of the men we hired was George Murray. He was
quite a staunch Catholic and he’d made up his mind that he wasn’t going to get involved.
I came in one morning and walked around the foyer area and saw him working in a
corner. He said, “Good morning” and I answered with, “Good morning, brother.”
“Not brother”, he said, and I replied, “Not brother ...yet.” His mouth fell
open and he had no answer for that. He later told his wife that he guessed he’d
have to join the church. When she asked why, his reply was, “That Branch
President knows something I don’t know. He prophesied that I’m going to join. He said to me, “Not a brother yet” so
I guess I might as well face it.” He joined, over that statement. Isn’t that
interesting? It just hit me to say that.
I served as
Branch President for nine years’, from 1952 to 1961 when I was preparing to
move to Burlington, Ontario. Elder Monson, our Mission President, released me.
He was Mission President from 1959 to 1962. Then Frank Pitcher followed,
(1963-65), Lamont F. Toronto (1965 to 68), Leland C. Davey (1968 to 71), Roy R.
Spackman(1971-74) and M. Russell Ballard (1974 to 77). We finished the building
under President Monson. (He became an apostle Oct. 4, 1963, and "
President of the Church Feb. 3, 2008 after Pres. Gordon B Hinkley passed away.)
When we
started to build the chapel, there were 33 families (about 96 members). Over
one third were out of work and we had to raise close to $15,000. We did it by
growing an acre of Spanish onions at Norm Gordon’s farm every year, and
peddling them on the streets in children’s wagons. They were real beauties.
Apparently they were all tithed, because they were HUGE! Like great big
baseballs. We only had to go and hoe them once and they just popped out of the
ground, they were so big. The restaurants looked forward to them, and the
stores bought them, and we sold them to the store’s customers. We had customers
come out to Gordon’s farm for them every year. We planted the rows wide enough
apart so they could be cultivated by a tractor. It was a well-planned project.
Then there
were the tomatoes. Sparta’s little tomatoes... but they were huge! One tomato
filled a' whole can! What happened was, the Lord had the Adversary working for him
in this case. A man was growing and canning these delicious tomatoes. They were
known all over as Little “V” tomatoes. He had to grow a “Pack” it was called,
store it over the season, and then sell it all by the time the new ones came
along. They had to sit that long before government inspection could get around
to passing them. Well, somebody in “tomatoes” did the polite thing, and made an
arrangement with all the big stores that nobody would buy his tomatoes. That
left him with a Pack sitting there and a new one coming off the fields and no
place to put them. Somebody suggested that he go and see the Monnons, so he
came to see me. We ended up buying his whole stock...all 1500 cases. We sold
10-20 cases at a time to restaurants and so on.
As soon as I
became Branch President, we started meetings in St. Thomas, first at the YMCA and
then at the Orange Hall on Ross Street. We met there for quite a few years.
Then the YMCA burned. It conveniently caught fire on conference day. We were
headed up the street on our way to conference in London, and had to drive right
past it. I guess if we didn’t need it that day - it “was the day for it to burn
down. When we arrived in London, President Toone said, “I feel terribly sorry
that your hymn books were in there and you’ve lost it all.” I said, “No, we
haven’t, not until we know we’ve lost them.” “What do you mean?” he asked. I
replied, that I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that place burns, but the closet
that holds the books was still standing in mid-air with everything intact - not
burned. The Lord could do that and I knew’. He said he wouldn’t put it past me
to have that much faith and I said, “Well, you just watch!” After we drove
home, I got permission from the fireman, now that the fire was out, to go in and
check for our belongings. I climbed the stairs and saw that they were warped
and full of water, so I went up very carefully. The cupboard that held our
things was at the top of the stairs, behind a door off the hallway. The thin
plywood wall had burnt right off, but the closet was okay, and all our books
were "intact. My daughter, Donna, says that she remembers the smell of
those smoke damaged and water rippled pages as we sang from them, until we had
to buy new ones for the chapel. The sacrament trays were made of wood, so that
absorbed the smoke and made the sacrament water in the paper cups (there were
no plastic cups then) taste like smoke until we stopped using the trays. The lectern
that was there was made from a box, and had a lid attached...probably built by
Brother Tustian (I don’t remember) but we kept using that too. They were weekly
reminders of the miracle that had taken place that day.
Prior to the
fire, I would have to go in and set up the chairs on Sunday, as we had no
Deacons. There were no missionaries. Only priesthood brethren were allowed to
open the meeting with prayer, so I would open because we only had women and
children there. Women were able to close the meetings, though. Then I would
have to bless the sacrament and pass it. Then I’d give the closing talk,
because the final talk had to be given by a priesthood brother. I got sick
of hearing myself talk, and I’m sure
the members did too.
When Brother
Gordon came to his first meeting, I asked Elder Stanley Jones, our District I
President (from Picture Butte, Alberta) to come and speak. He had left his wife
and five children, and a farm with about 130 cows, to come on his mission.
Anyway, when he began to speak, Brother Gordon said that a light came in on
that man’s head. It was so bright that it made him blink, and he couldn’t figure
out where it was coming from, because it was a dreary grey day outside. Yet -
there was this light and that did it for him. He said to himself, “That’s it,
I’m going to join this church.” and he did.
After the
fire we moved to the Orange Hall. We renovated the basement so that if you met
by the furnace, at least you were warm. Every time the furnace came on, it
belched a bunch of gas and the teachers got a little high. One of our new
members went down there to see the teacher of his children “in action”. Cheryl
Lynn Scott had a blanket spread out on the floor to cover the dust, and he said
he never saw his kids happier than in that little Sunday School class. He felt
convinced of the value of this church more than if they were meeting in a great
cathedral. We were at the Y from about 1953 until, I think, 1959. By 1960, one
of the members told me that when he joined that year, we were pretty much
established as the church that met in the Orange Hall, as if it was an
extension of the Orange Hall organization or_ something.
In regards
to the church in the community, I would say that people, unless they had heard
some things about it, were for the most part fine with it. We had neighbours who
still maintained a friendship with us after we joined. I tried to stay pretty
peaceful with people. I didn’t get into any religious confrontations with
people. When we had members in the hospital, they were always counseled to be
as “wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.” We went to a lot of anti-
Mormon meetings, as the church became more well known. You could go and listen
and keep to yourself, and learn to live with it, and if you couldn’t - then it
was better if you didn’t go. In one case we baptized the man who was conducting
the meeting. His name was Howell-Harris from London, Ontario. It was at the
Bethel chapel in London and the subject of the meeting was “The Truth about the
Mormons from the Bible.”' About 20 of us were there and we were very quiet and
then they tackled us with, “So, you’re Mormons? What did you think of it?” Our
reply was that it was well handled and if it had been true it would have been
interesting. It was too bad, and we felt sorry for anyone who had to spend
their time talking like this and then having to be responsible for it. So that
piqued their curiosity and they wanted to know what that meant. Well, that was
the fellow who ended up joining the church. Also, the son and daughter of the Y
- minister who came from Toronto and were university students there, chided
their father bitterly in front of the whole congregation for talking about
something he knew nothing about. They said, “You brought us all the way down
here to hear you preach about a lot of things that you don’t even know if they
are true.” We pointed out that if they had shown the front they would have
gotten a different impression and so on. So there developed a certain
anti-Mormon sentiment in those days,
even though it shouldn’t have been a threat to anyone. We kept pretty much to
ourselves and were called “sheep-stealers” once in a while.
After a
short time of having to pick up the beer bottles and clean up the ashtrays and
sweep up the mess on Sunday mornings, we decided that we needed our own chapel.
So we started looking for property. I saw a nice piece on Elm Street. It was in
such a beautiful location, and there was just one house on the back corner. So I
went to talk to him, and found he’d been approached by several others. No way
was he going to sell, because he said he didn’t want a bunch of houses and
garbage cans out in front of him. So I countered with, “Well, you know what is
happening to property taxes. How long do you think you will be able to pay your
taxes on this frontage? The city is going to bring water up along there, and
you’re going to pay for water frontage all along both sides of that.” Then I
showed him some pictures of our chapels, and explained, “Now, this is what the
front of the chapel looks like, and this is the back. We don’t have garbage out
behind, and we don’t have old cars jacked up on cement blocks, or swing sets
for a bunch of kids to kick around on, and so on. _We’ll build our chapel so
that you have something that will not be an eye- sore to you. Why don’t you
think about it for a few days? I’ll leave these pictures and you take a look
out your window and see if you think you’d like to see it out there. Go to your
bank and check out your account, and see if you’d like to see more money in
there, or less due on tax bills.” I called him in a few days and he said,
“Well, I thought about it and I’ll go along with you folks...you seem to be
nice people.” So he sold us the property. If I remember correctly, we bought it
for $4,500.00and then the fellow turned around and donated $5 00.00 to the
building fund. The Church then matched our contribution with about 70% (seven
times our share) and that helped us a lot. Not very long after ‘that, the man
died. He had a weak heart, but his widow still lives there. It’s different now,
because the church buys the property. We
had to go and find the property and then they sent someone to approve it. I
think it was the Mission President that came and did that. Then Elder Mark E.
Peterson came from Salt Lake and turned the sod with us. That was a big day!
President Monson was there. That was1960-61.
We were
building in the dead of winter. In those days the church had a program where
they sent men on missions to supervise the construction, and they also called
young men on missions as ‘building missionaries”. Their missions were
shorter... they were one year instead of the usual two. Our construction
superintendent was 'a Brother Lucien C. Reid from Price, Utah. We released
Brother Tustian as a member of the Branch Presidency, so that he could become
the building assistant. He took care of everything except the payment of wages
and keeping the books. I did that. We started building in the fall and finished
in early summer of the following year.
Brother Reid
was a professional contractor. He did get some financial support from the
church, but we supplied him with some of the things he needed. He must have
left his normal livelihood s to come out and to that. Part of the purpose of
these young men was to give them a chance to learn the building trade. Brother
Tustian eventually went into the supervising program. I think he built the
Kitchener chapel and then went down east and found the people to his liking.
That’s what proved to be his death, actually. He took a spell where he couldn’t
breathe and they called an ambulance. When it came it was actually a station
wagon and they had oxygen but no one knew how to administer it. Instead of
letting him sit up so he could breathe, they tied him to a board and he died.
It was the worst thing they could do and he was dead by the time they reached the
hospital.
I remember
some of the people who worked on the project. One was dear old Brother
Robinson.’ I recall he was a spry old gentleman, likely about 80 years old, who
could just work my legs right off. He would go right up on the roof too. , He
lived to be about 104.
Any church
building cannot be dedicated until it is paid for. Although we didn’t have the
building fully paid for by the time it was done...all but $5,000.00 was paid. I
think it cost in the vicinity of $115,000 -_ $125,000. Today chapels are
costing about $1,000,000.00. And of course as soon as it was paid for, it was
dedicated.
This seems
to be the end of the interview.
P.S. Last
year we sent you an article entitled
“A Chapel
for the St. Thomas Branch”
President
Thomas S. Monson
General
Conference, October 1990
Perhaps you
would like to put them together as a completion to the story.
Mom &
Dad
Grampa &
Grama Wilson
0 comments:
Post a Comment