Oral History Program David Barber Interviewed by Bishop Robert Walker, Mayor Robert Williams and Mrs. Marcelle Williams 27 July 1967 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah David Barber Interviewed by Bishop Robert Walker, Mayor Robert Williams and Mrs. Marcelle Williams 27 July 1967 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Barber, David, an oral history by Bishop Robert Walker, Mayor Robert Williams and Mrs. Marcelle Williams, 27 July 1967, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with David Barber. The interview was conducted on July 27, 1967, by Bishop Robert Walker, Mayor Robert Williams, and his wife Marcelle Williams, in the tabernacle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at Coalville, Utah. Barber Describes the Summit Stake Tabernacle and the paintings he sees inside the Summit Stake Tabernacle DB: In looking over the building as wonderful as it is, I see now a similarity in the color of the ceiling and the walls as to what I remember as a boy and young man. Before the erection and during the erection of this building, the Summit Stake extended east as far as Rock Springs, Wyoming, and south as far as Heber and north as far as Morgan and was all incorporated in the Summit Stake of Zion. And when I was a boy about six years of age my parents moved to Alray, Wyoming, where my father worked as a weigh master weighing the coal as it came from one of the big mines in that coal mining camp. I remember when we would occasionally come down to quarterly conference from Evanston and bring along Bishop James Brown with us. Brother Brown will be remembered by a few of the older people here: there are not too many of them left. The extent of the labors of President W. W. Cluff extended to these points which I have made. I remember as a boy seeing him start out on some of his journeys with horse and buggy wearing a duster coat that is a coat about knee length of light material and light tan color. We would remark that it would be many days before President Cluff would return. I remember as a child, a young boy probably about six years of age, in saving my nickels and dimes so that I could give to President Cluff to help to build the stake house. Though a little amount that I gave along with other children I have continued contributing to the building up until the present time. I remember many years ago, about 1900, helping to finish up the painting of the building. And in passing I 1 would like to mention my good friend, Bob. His grandfather helped in the painting of the interior of this building. BRW: That would be who, Brother Barber? DB: Orson A. Arnold. I would call your attention to the paintings on the ceiling. There is a painting of the Prophet Joseph on the back of the saclarama, the back of the stage, just the same as this one is up on the front to match up with these other paintings around. MRW: This is on the east of the building, the back end of the stage? DB: This picture used to hang in the high council room along with one of Brigham Young. MRW: This is the picture in front of the stage, in front of the curtain? DB: Yes and the picture of Brigham Young to match it is in the Daughters of Pioneers building. "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by the well whose branches ran over the wall." Can you see the branches running around the top part of the border around the wall? MRW: Underneath you mean, mixed in with the border. DB: Yes, the branches running over the wall. Do you get the idea that Joseph was a fruitful bough? You will observe probably that we are standing beneath a huge cross, a perfect cross in the ceiling. You can observe that very distinctly. And in looking the cross over you will find different floral decorations, a border around one side. "Consider the lilies of the field how they grow, they toil not neither do they spin and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them." On the other side of the border, that old serpent, which is the devil, was cast out. And there is the serpent. Bishop, on that side can you see his mouth open with his fangs? 2 BRW: Yes, there is a serpent in each. There is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight serpents in each of the three panels. A total of eight serpent heads and their fangs are hanging. DB: And then you will observe in the corners of each of these blocks or squares here there is a bouquet of flowers. They are not all the same; if you will notice they are different. BRW: Yes, there is a bouquet of roses, there is quite a bit of difference in the bouquets of flowers in each one. Brother Barber, what does this signify, have you ever determined it? DB: Well no, I never did. I just observed it and it is very distinct when called to the attention of someone who hasn't discovered it before. I might say in passing that the architect of the building was Brother Thomas Longsdale Fergenson Allen. He was educated as a Catholic priest and he was an architect. He was converted to Mormonism. There is, of course, as you will observe some Roman architecture in the building. The cross for instance and the trumpets and the lighted candle sticks. BRW: The lighted candle sticks, where do you refer to them? DB: They are like a short trumpet. They are more prevalent in the lobby below. There is a large one in the center of the window. BRW: This is the candle stick here and the trumps are on the opposite edge of the building near the window. DB: Right. Now I would call your attention to the wainscoting. This wainscoting is made of red cedar from the states of Washington and Oregon. Solomon’s temple of old had a wainscoting of red cedar from the Cedars of Lebanon, and that's a similarity of the two, the red cedar wainscoting. 3 You have probably read of the description given in the scriptures of Solomen1s temple, and that's a similarity of this building and Solomon’s temple was the wainscoting being made of red cedar. BRW: Is the wainscoting downstairs also made of red cedar? DB: Yes, but the painting they have had has covered the red cedar, and recently in your remodeling and renovating covered the entire face of the wainscoting in the lower part. Now you will notice on the south that we have a clasped hand, a sign of fellowship and welcome. It was wondered at one time if that shouldn't be the front of the building that south side with the hand welcoming the people as they can®. And there was quite an argument about these two windows, the one over the south and the one on the north that they were wrong that the colors were on the wrong side of the building. For instance, the north side the window is of a grey tone, the glass of it is of grey which is cold, colorless. And the south side has warmth in it. You can see the warmth as you look at the color of the material the window is made of. They had quite a time to determine whether to reverse the windows after they had been in a while, but nothing was done about it. On the north side we nave up at the point of the window at the top an open book. "And a book was opened which was the book of life, and they were judged according to the things written in the book." BRW: Now Brother Barber, on this handshakes, in the cemetery you will see a lot of handshake on old markers. Is there any resemblance at all to the handshake of the Lord? DB: It is Christian custom. It is a token of the priesthood as you well know, and anyone who has visited the house of the Lord will observe that it is sacred. BRW: Now before we get any more on the windows, there are branches on the two wings identical of the cross. Do you know what the representation of the branches are in the cones? There are 4 branches on this side and on this side then inside you have quite a cross section that looks like a berry type of a plant in the plant. DB: I hadn't detected that Bishop and wouldn't be able to state my opinion at the present time. However, before we pass that part of the ceiling, I would like to state that recently I have been visited by members of the Olsen family who did the painting of the portraits on the ceiling. And they tell me that they have the original stencils at their home in the Salt Laice Valley. BRW: Back to the ceiling again. I notice in these four corners there are six designs in there. As you look at them there is kind of a sunflower design; they are different colors also. DB: The sunflower is a resemblance of the moon flower on the west end of the Salt Lake temple, and which was on the temple at Nauvoo called the Seeing Eye. BRW: Now in the cone, do you know any history regarding the cones? The center cone is of course the outstanding cone of the ones. The east cone and the two west cones are alike, but the north and the south cones are alike in difference and resemblance. They all have a bordering flower around it with leaves that make the cone. I was wondering if you know anything specific about the variations in the cones. DB: That makes the distinction. If they were all one kind it wouldn't be artistic according to my judgment. But with breaking into different colors and designs makes it very attractive and ornamental. BRW: Now these you might explain to in regarding the type of lighting that they had in here while vie are talking about the ceiling and the cones. The types of lights that they used were of what? 5 DB: Kerosene lamps and they hung down on a long rope and when you would push the farther one up or pull it down it would reverse the center one. These on the sides had to be lowered from one rope to each lamp. Then the gallery that ran around the building, each side and the west end, there were little pieces of steel pipe inserted in the top of the studdings in the balcony and hung out with a gooseneck over the edge of the gallery so that they would light below as well as above. They were kerosene lamp. BRW: They had to lower these each time they had conference then to fill the lamps then pull them back up so they could hold conference or at night when night meetings were held here. DB: The lights became quite a nuisance by being loose so they would swivel around and sometimes children or young people would turn them clean around opposite to that and then they could blow them out then put them back that way. It gave the custodian quite some work to do from time to time. BRW: Now you might speak of the gold leaf that is on the ceiling. DB: The gold leaf that is on the ceiling is pure gold made from gold leaf. I remember watching them painting. The painter would use a little flat camel hair brush with long hair; would wipe it over their head or hair, thus causing the static to break through and this brush would be applied to the leaf gold and pick up one leaf of gold at a time and then it would be put in its place around the portraits and the borders and decorations of the building. Now I would like to mention before we move too far these windows around the building. Two over there and there were two originally on that side. BRW: This is not the stained glass windows? There is stained glass in them, but it is more or less the light windows. 6 DB: My neighbor as a boy, his name was James Wichery, the father of Bertha Greer, was the glazier that cut all the glass for these windows around the building. Not the colored or the stained glass but he cut all this glass and inserted them in where they belonged. Originally these different colored glasses you see here were all the way around the windows instead of just hit and miss. So many have been broken by the use of B-B guns and flippers and the caddy hocks. Do you know what a caddy hock is? BRW: No, that is before my time. DB: As they were broken out they had to be replaced with just ordinary glass. BRW: I noticed too, brother Barber, in this glass in the window, you take one window and you will see a big design and a little design. Do you happen to know the reason for this? DB: Yes, in my opinion I have decided to call them the priesthood. These colored glasses around the outside and that one frosted glass are priesthood glasses. Twelve of the colored pieces border the one frosted glass or sandblasted glass. There are twelve pieces, three top, three bottom, three down each side. There are twelve deacons in a quorum and they have a superior officer, which are likened unto this center strip in the window section. The Bishop is the president, is he not, of the deacon’s quorum, the supervisor we would call him. The deacons, twelve members to a quorum. The teachers are twice twelve; twenty-four. And the priests are twice twenty-four; fortyeight. Altogether, twice forty-eight is ninety-six elders. The total number in this whole window; forty-eight above the floor and forty-eight below the floor; ninety-six elders. MW: I was just wandering about the glass. The all Seeing Eye is the larger red circle in each of these windows isn't it? 7 MRW: I noticed in the design there is the bird getting a drink of water, and then the star with the square behind it and it's on all the pictures with the crown also. Is there any particular significance to that? DB: I wouldn't know. That is out of my recent observation. I remember, however, the crowns. There was a time when they figured this was going to be a temple instead of a tabernacle. It was thought at one time that they would make a temple out of it instead of just a tabernacle as it was. So there are probably those designs that appear in the decoration of the building that could have been used for either of them. BRW: I was wondering about the portraits wherein we have Brigham Young and Hyrum. This seems to be one of the few places that Hyrum, after his martyrdom, was on the building even though he was never the president of the church he held high offices in the church. There are very few portraits of Hyrum in this capacity. Many people don't recognize who it is as they come in and look at the portraits. Do you know any reason why they used Hyrum's portrait? DB: No, I don't. BRW: Who is this in the portrait on the extreme west and south? What is his name? DB: This is Wilford Woodruff. BRW: This is John Taylor, the one on the North West section of the building. Brigham Young on the north east section, and Hyrum on the south east section. It might be interesting to know that when the painters painted this that all the paint outside the dark colors in the portraits was made of calcimine and it has never been retouched other than the dark colors which is all oil. The castings on there are all plaster castings and had to be inserted. 8 MW: I know there was a question at one time. When I took a class at the university, they were wondering if there were Fresco paintings that is putting the color right in the plaster itself. BRW: No, according to what the painters were saying when they were cleaned they are strictly oil color. You remember you said it was in the early 1900's that these paintings were painted and these paintings have never been touched or changed since that time. DB: It was before 1900 when they were completed. BRW: Was it when they completed the building itself, in other words when they dedicated the building? DB: It was painted on before then, before the dedication. The dedication was May 16, 1899 I think that was the correct date. I have it for certain in the centennial book. BRW: Is there anything else you can see in the ceiling? There is one little thing in the cross itself. It is a complete cross and each pattern is blocked off. There is one little section in the west end and there are two little braces on each side of it. It is not pinched in, there is just a straight line that makes a cross where the braces are and in the end there isn't anything. DB: Well from here, Bishop; let me call your attention to the uppermost part of that window to the left. There is a bird up in the top section of it. It has a green spray in its mouth. When Noah was in the ark, and I 'will point out to you later, a section of the window with eight pieces of glass in it which reminds me of Noah's family. He and his wife and his three sons and their wives, and they were the only ones that were saved from the flood. Noah preached 120 years to his people to repent and 10 times 12 is 120. There are 10 leaves on that spray that the bird has and there are 12s in number all through the window. There are also sections of the window which I shall try and point out that have 15 pieces of glass, and 10 times 15 is 150 and it was 150 days that the ark was 9 afloat. You will also find if you could get close enough to the window to count all of the glasses in that sort of four leaf clover in that top section where the bird is the 150 pieces of glass in that section of the window. I took the time one time, and it took me several days, and counted the pieces of glass in this west window and there were l, 441 pieces of glass in the west window. MW: I was noticing in that window there is a yellow half circle almost like a sun or a moon, does that have any significance? DB: I can't tell which you are referring to Marcell. MW: It is just across from the red Seeing Eye, there are two yellow half circles in each of those arks. I wondered if that was the sun or the moon would that indicate any time of day. Can you see Bishop where I mean? BRW: Yes, I see where you mean. The window is divided into three pieces actually and it is above the clovers there. DB: That's the thing about the three pieces of window there. And then the point of each window has a very conspicuous sunflower with the green at the uppermost point. The four leaf clover at the top of each window has a center there with the sunflower petal and the green. And just above that window that Marcell was speaking of there is a little point above these four leaf clovers that has two points that looks like suns. Before we pass that, and speaking of the bird. A raven was sent out by Noah first when they were on the flood and the raven didn't come back because it was not a homing bird. And after seven days Noah sent the dove out and it came back because there was no place for it to rest and it was a homing bird so it came back to the ark. And after another seven days, you notice how significant seven is in the windows. If you take time to pick out a few sections and count the pieces of glass in it. After seven days again Noah sent the dove out and it 10 returned with the green spray, an olive spray the Bible says, and that spray you can observe having ten leaves on it suggesting to us that the tenth is the Lord's ,and there are ten tribes somewhere that have to be accounted for. Now when the raven shows up in this window is when the window is darkened by shadow or night. The bird is black because the glass is set in lead not putty, putty would turn rather white when it dried. But all these three windows each section of glass is set in lead and in the day time when it is brighter like the afternoon we have now, the dove shows up white. It is quite a thing to consider how a thing like that will change the color of the glass in the window. BRW: Now does the west window have any significance of any priesthood at all? It has little notches around the outside of the window, little blocks. DB: Yes, you notice each of these four center sections where there are diamond shaped glasses in them and there are twelve of them. There are twelve pieces of glass around that sheaf of corn in the bottom. There is four of them there. There are twelve pieces of glass surrounding that. Jesus called twelve and told them, "I have chosen you," and He commissioned them to go into all the world and preach the gospel unto every creature and they would be shepherds of the flocks. I don't know if I can describe it for you and show you the shepherd's crook in the outside. Can you see this one? BRW: Yes, we can see the shepherd's crook. DB: And on this side over here, the north window, at the top of each one of those sections we were discussing on the window, there is much after woven rugs that we find now a days from the Navajos. The hook that they use to hook and grab on to something to raise them out of their condition. Can you see that at the point of the window? With those hooks, they will catch on to 11 anything, instead of a ladder; I have forgotten what we call it in the Navajo. But there is another point in this window that we are looking at now in the west. The triangular part of the window of each side of the four sections has gone up a triangular point, the mark of the compass with seven pieces of glass surrounding it. Seven times Naman the leper was commanded to go dip himself in the river Jordon to heal himself of his leprosy. Seven times Pharaoh's army walked around the walls of Jerusalem before they fell. "How many times shall I forgive he who has sinned against me, Lord? Seven times?" And the Savior answered, "Yea, seventy times seven." These look like a sheaf or a shock of corn, these four right in the bottom of the window. You see the broken leaves of corn that are drooped over, and they are bound together with the piece of golden corn wrapped. Twelve pieces of glass surround them, and the twelve servants of the Lord that were sent out to gather Israel came together and brought their sheaves with them. When the Lord turned against the captivity of Zion, said David, "we were like them born and our hearts were filled with laughter and our tongues with singing and they said unto one another, the Lord has done great things for us whereof we are glad." That is one of the psalms, but I couldn't tell you the number of it. The Lord had done great things by causing that those men who he had chosen went out in all the world and preached his gospel and then had returned bringing their sheaves with them. He that goeth forth reaping bearing precious seeds shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing the sheaves with them. MRW: Is there any significance, Brother Barber, to the red ball that is UP in the triangle right underneath where the dove is? DB: One Lord, One faith, and one baptism. The all Seeing Eye. This is on the west side of the Salt Lake temple and was on the Nauvoo temple as well. 12 MRW: And then on the next, did we decide what those little half-moons are and the suns? Is that the sun going down? DB: That's the sunflower or moonflower referred to in the history we have of the Nauvoo temple. MRW: Now in the framing of the window. There is some little notches and grooves ail the way around the frame of the window. Is this anything specific? DB: Are they all the way around the whole thing or just from where it curves? MRW: Where it curves. DB: Well, they sawed it in the wood so that they could bend it. MRW: Oh that was in the architectural design. I remember you told me one time about the four narks at the bottom of the trunk there in the frame of the window itself. Are they clovers in the wood-work in the frame? DB: The balcony that ran around the gallery part of the building had, oh I don't know how many, decorations the same shape cut out as this large window and then each one of them was divided with one of these smaller trumpets or horns all the way around the outside of the balcony. It was beautiful, and also all the way around the decorated part of the rostrum. The rostrum had two stages like, one they called the higher quorum and one they called for the lesser quorum. But they were beautifully decorated. That is where I watched Brother Orson B. Arnold do the painting. And I might say in passing that one of our good brothers brought in twelve pounds of pork to pay as a donation on the building, and Brother Arnold took it for three days labor. Henry Evans, Frank Evans' father, did the killing of the cattle for the people around here and they would take their turns in furnishing the meat, beef or pork or sheep whatever. It was then divided up so that it 13 could be consumed before it spoiled. And then the next time someone else would kill one and they would divide it and pass it around. And if a man brought a cow to turn in on his share for the building, it had to be converted into cash before brought it. Smaller items, a sack of flour. William Carruth, who built this square block house across by the courthouse, was a carpenter on the building and he took a sack of flour for his day’s wages and they valued the flour. I remember when I was first married and worked at the coal mines up grass creek. The church owned and operated them in those days. The people would come for coal with horse and wagon and at night when we would come out of the mine there would be flour or a can of honey or a bushel of tomatoes or such items and I took a sack of flour for my day’s wages from the platform where they were stored. BRW: This was the medium of exchange the used. Rather than currency they used produce. DB: The greater part of the money which was used in the erection to pay for this building came from the mining camps out in Wyoming. They were operating to full extent out as far as Rock Springs and Almy, Wyoming, which is just north of Evanston five miles. There was seven coal mines down through that country. My father was the weigh master at number seven. He weighed the coal as it came up out of the mine from the men who had dug it and shipped it through. Every night they had the total of how much coal they had produced. We had to walk there was no horse and buggy. We had to walk from Almy to Evanston for special things that we needed. And I remember on one occasion of finding a small parcel by the side of the road which created curiosity with my brother and I. We opened it and it was a plug of tobacco. I'm telling a story on my brother now, I don't know if he will ever hear this or not. He took a chew of the tobacco and it made him so sick that he could hardly walk back home. I had just recovered from a case of typhoid fever and my mother was afraid that ray brother was going to come down with typhoid 14 fever and she called the doctor who was at Evanston five miles away. They used to have a little train that came back and forth from Evanston to Almy to draw the coal in the railroad cars. The doctor came down. He watched my brother Joe and he found out what was causing the sickness when he vomited up sane of the chewing tobacco. MRW: I'm sorry, Brother Barber, I was taking photographs at the time you were speaking about the fruitful bough and the wall. Is there any significance to what looks like a drape or piece of tapestry with the little ornaments hanging down? Is there any significance to this? DB: Well we are always warned to be aware of the adversary, and that old devil which is terrible. And I wouldn't venture to express my opinion as to what that is although I have noticed it. But the angel providence, the fruitful bough and consider the lilies of the field, and there was war in heaven, caused quite consideration with me and have really had an influence with me and those whom I have ascribed this. MRW: I have wondered if at that time, you know Solomon’s temple I think would be very beautiful of course, and when you think of tapestry and think of beauty and the church I know in many of our buildings it has about the same type of tapestry and with that you associate goodness and wealth with some of it. And it is just something that came to my mind as I was looking at it. DB: This west window indicates royalty, gold, power, and influence. I paid a $5.00 gold piece for that lapel pin that I have worn for over fifty years, and the five dollars paid my life membership to the M.I.A. and it is in gold and green. I don't think the Mutual Association knew anything about the colors in this window but it's always struck me that the gold and green pin that I have was adopted for the colors something like that window is done now. 15 BRW: What about the north and south windows. Is there any significance in the design of the windows themselves? DB: I never made a study of those, Bishop. BRW: I notice at the bottom there is kind of an oblong type of design and just above that on the row of diamonds, red diamonds going across the windows, five diamonds in each section of the window. DB: I wouldn't attempt to suggest a solution to that. BRW: Than at the top after the big area of stain glass there is a total of twelve amber round buttons. Then above that the cane of the Navajo. In the clover leaf there is another design. DB: I got ahold of a Biblical encyclopedia and it tells me that the architecture of this building is Gothic. And then I studied windows that is read about them in the book that I had, and got view points from some of the descriptions of windows that were shown in this encyclopedia. And that's the only source of evidence that I have that supplied interest and knowledge toward the building other than my own judgment, and talking with friends and discussing as we have done here today. BRW: There is nothing in the other window. There is one thing that's common in all the windows. The all Seeing Eye is the only thing that marks a resemblance even in design or pattern or color of all the windows themselves. MRW: There is the clover leaf basic design. I guess that depicts the four corners of the earth doesn't it? DB: Yes, you see all the windows have the four leaf clover design and they all three have the design in the top plate of the window and then the two lower, so they are much in common. Some of 16 them have an arrow pointing and others do not. They are much better since they had a good washing recently and the colors look more brilliant than they have done to me for a long time. MRW: Each of the windows, in observing them, has the trumpet. They are supported up the side by the trumpet. Is this significant with the four corners of the earth from the clover leaf? DB Yes, it was the blast - "go ye" - evident of "the trumps shall sound and the dead in Christ shall rise"—quite a declaration. BRW: Back to the all Seeing Eye, you spoke of a ball above the regular windows when you spoke of the priesthood windows. Is this representing the same type of a ball that's in the window itself? DB: Yes, it's in line with the architecture of the building. I don't know whether these people who designed the windows just made them up and it happened to be the same designs that they have woven into the woodwork and the framework through the caps of the windows are hot. I have often wondered if the architect had connection with the artist and the putting together of the window. Now whether the windows were made up in Belgium, I wouldn't know, but the glass came from Belgium. But whether the windows themselves were arranged in Belgium, I wouldn’t know. I remember them coming all crated with lumber and both sides crated with fine excelsior packed in. MRW: Did each section come separately, that is the small sections, and it was just a matter of assembling them? DB: Yes, and you will notice they have been reinforced; this window has, from the outside with a sort of buggy tire iron all the way across. They got so that the winds blew them and the lead was soft material and they were afraid they would blow in. So brother Ern Wilde, who was the blacksmith in town, he proposed that be done and the narrow strip of iron was placed across. I think you can 17 see that dark strip about an inch wide runs all the way across the window, and then there is another one down the window about half way down. BRW: They were inserted later on after they found that the winds were causing a little problem. DB: I was up in the top of the building here one time as a kid and a heavy wind came up. I was afraid that the top of it was going to blow off. When I came down and looked at the structure and the putting together of the materials in the building I knew nothing could move that. That two by twelve red pines bolted together with half-inch iron bolts; no wooden pegs or glue like built in the tabernacle, not this one, it is quite a structure. MRW: There is one thing of interest to me in the culture hall upstairs here. We almost have an incongruent situation on the cross and when you get up there it's painted and so constructed this cross is and then the paint on this side in the design of it, it's the air space for the heat during the summer conferences to go up and out, to create the circulation. Presently, if I recall, it is covered with a gunny sack. BRW: Yes, these areas have been plugged up because there is other means and methods of better ventilation in today’s world. MRW: But to think of the farsightedness they had in constructing at that time. The reason I was thinking about is when the temple was constructed wasn't there big areas in there that President Brigham Young told them to be sure and put in the walls of the temple and nobody knew what they were for, but now it turns out they were for the air conditioning ducts. BRW: I understand that is the case, otherwise they figured it would have taken days to go through a certain section of the wall and they were amazed to find out that the walls were blank in certain areas where it wasn't constructed as strong. 18 DB: They didn't build a chimney in the temple and they asked Brigham Young what they were going to do for a chimney, how they were going to heat the building. He said that will be taken care of, by the heating plant I guess as it was. BRW: Now are all these seats originally the seats that were in the building when they took the balcony out? DB: Yes, those are the original seats. I helped fasten them to the floor. The building was heated with steam and the pipes ran across the floor underneath these chairs, and the chairs would have to be built up a little higher on one end than they would the other as to straddle the pipes. But because the pipes were tilted so the condensation of the steam would run down back into the boiler, some of these we had to Jim up as much as an inch at one end and run to nothing on the other end. It was quite a chore. They were not set together when they came; they all had to be assembled after they got here. I have a receipt book at home that has the names of different individuals that paid 15.00 for a seat: they bought the chair - William Fox, Joseph Fisher, Charles A. Callis. Charles A. Callis and Frank Evans rubbed by hand all the brick on the outside of the walls of this building. Most of them were made here on the spot. BRW: When they excavated the foundation they kilned the brick and made it right on the spot. Now it was my understanding of this there was a lot of quicksand underneath the foundation of this to. DB: They found the same trouble then as what the sewer people just found. Not only this building but the courthouse. On the northeast corner of this building they struck quicksand. They had to haul rock and dump in the quicksand to drive the pilings to firm it up. MRW: Maybe a little bit of resume might be in order here on the bell, on that where they were originally going to put it. 19 DB: Well the bell was quite a new thing at that time many years ago and originally it was intended to put the bell up in the belfry of this building. But by the time they got it here, the building had progressed so to the extent that it was quite a job to get it up there with all the little runways that run along here to go up in the tower and ladders to climb to get it up to the top, so they gave up the idea. They built a belfry out here in the corner of the lot here in back of Bullock's and Alme Smith homes where Bill Warner lives now. They built a belfry out there and the bell was put up on that for a while and they used to play with it. They discontinued it anyway because of someone ringing it all the time when it wasn't necessary. Until finally they put it out as rubbish and it was contributed and given to the collectors of scrap material in World War I. It finally got broken, cracked, like the Liberty Bell was cracked. But I have a picture that shows the bell by the side of the building out here. There was always a pile of stones laying close to it where children running by would grab a stone and throw it at the old bell and turn and look to see if it broke it any worse. But the old bell didn't do us much good. MRW: Was there ever any audio signal or audio mechanism put in the belfry in the top of the church here at all? DB: No. MRW: It has always been vacant, just a home for pigeons such as it is now. That would be nice, in reminiscing when I was in Europe during World War II, after the war specifically, you could hear the bells tolling for miles and miles and miles from the church on Sunday morning. It is wonderful. DB: There used to be a good bell on the old rock school house up where the Moore's Motels are now. The old rock school house was built in 1865. Brigham Young spoke at its services at the old building one time. As a boy, I used to run with other boys over in that neighborhood- the Faddis 20 boys, the Wright boys, Booths. And this bell was so attached that anybody could ring it at any time of the day or night. All they needed to do-was open the front door and reach in there, the big rope hung down, it would hit them in the face almost, and they would grab that and ring it. It was a signal for fire and it got to the extent where it was more of a plaything than anything else and it was not useful because someone was ringing it all the time. They got on to the code that they had established for fire in a certain location and it was not useful but detrimental. That bell is on the monument of the Daughters of the Pioneers have built over there now. MRW: I had never thought of a false fire alarm with three dings and two dongs like we used to get called in on the telephone. It was several years ago that we would get false fire alarms called in and we would have the fire department running all over the county and no fire. BRW: The history has never been written down on that building. MRW: The building is down now - brother Sorenson - they have completely rebuilt it down at Pioneer Memorial Park in Salt Lake. DB: Yes, that's right. BRW: In general respects, a little bit about the platforms that were down stairs. You spoke a little bit about the platforms of the lesser Priesthood and the greater priesthood and the organ loft and the type of organ that was there, which would be very interesting, and the pillars that are still there in the chapel. DB: There are two classrooms now at the end of this hall, Bishop, we always called the organ room. There was a coal stove in there and it was easily heated and most any organization needing an extra room at the tire they could easily make a fire in that coal stove and heat that pretty good 21 sized room up. It's two classrooms now as I said. And below that was a vestry room which is now the kitchen. A room that had a door to the outside to the south and there were steps running up from it into the organ room. So the two of them could be easily accessible. And they had coal stoves in them and we used to have some of the classes of the Summit Stake Academy here in these two rooms at the back, the organ room and vestry. And we would go back and forth from Cluff's Hotel up the back way to Cluff's Hotel into the hall and have some of our classes until they finally built that old building down by the railroad yards where we had the Summit Stage Academy. The organ was set into an opening that had been left in the building of the building just a little bit lower than this floor here. There was the base of the organ and it went up to the lower part of the ceiling border. It was pumped by hand. It was a big reed organ was what it was but it was pumped by hand until later years it had an electric motor and blower put on it to furnish the air for the operation of it. Brother Charles A. Callis delighted in telling a story that one of the general authorities were talking here at conference time, by the way a session of the church general conference was held in this building. Anyway, Charlie Callis. quit pumping. Of course the organ quit playing and it disturbed everybody. And they gave him quite a name afterward. Brother Callis finally became a member of the council of the twelve, an old friend of mine. BRW: This organ had to be pumped by hand. Do you remember what type of pump it was? DB: It took a good size man. MW: Bellows, it had big bellows. DB: It had a lever about five feet long along and down this way and those big bellows were over there. If you got too much pressure on it there were escape holes in it that would spring the flap covered with a piece of pig skin that would open up. The organist had a signal on the keyboard to 22 indicate when the pressure was going down and a signal also that they could let the organ pumpers know that she needed more air. BRW: Did you ever pump these bellows, Mr. Barber? DB: Many, many times. MRW: I remember them in the back room up there with the arm coming out. We used to pump as kids years and years ago. MW: We used to have Sunday school classes in the back. DB: That old organ when it was torn out was taken up and stored under the grandstand at the fairgrounds. I don't know whether it's still there or not. I never did hear tell of anyone taking it away. BRW: I heard it was still intact, but where it is I don't know. Somebody told me they had it, is this true? Do you know about that? MW: I wouldn't know anything about that. MRW: I haven't ever heard. BRW: How many manual was it? MRW: On the console it was either three or four wasn't it? DB: It was decorated by big brass pipes on each side of it not over the top. From the keyboards up the center and up each side of it but they were just decorations. BRW: Something similar to what the assembly hall and tabernacle has, just the big decorated pipes but it was nothing but a reed organ. 23 DB: There was a man living in the county who was considered at that time a wealthy man. I remember President Cluff approaching him after one of our stake conferences out here in front of the building about a little help on the pipe organ we were going to get for the church, and he said "Well Brother Cluff, I don't come to church very often, I'm not much of a church man but I'll give a thousand dollars." "Oh we don't heed that much brother so-and-so, we don't need that much. "Well, he said, take five hundred then? So he gave five hundred dollars to the purchase of the organ. The organ was put in place back there after all of these chairs were screwed to the floor. And all the seats were on the rostrum and the velvet cushion like that they used to cover the top of the rostrums with was all sparkling new. The organ came and it was a heavy machine in those days and pretty hard to handle. Everybody wondered how in the world they were going to get it up onto the space up there. Someone purposed that the shortest way to do was to bring it in the south side doors and then there was just a little turn to make to go up the three landings to put the organ in place. But there wasn't room to turn it in between these iron pillars that are now supporting this floor; they formally supported the gallery floor around here. They didn't have room to turn the organ to get it to go up in there, so they built a platform from that front door all the way around, over the top of all these chairs and up to the base of the organ and rolled it up on short pieces of pipe an inch at a time. MRW: I remember it used to have a beautiful tone to it. DB: John W. Simister used to make it talk, he was a great organist. BRW: John W. Simister, is this Leon's dad? DB: No, his granddad. 24 MRW: And remember when they used to have the choir and sister Judith Beard would lead it and George Robinson, who just moved away, would be singing in it, and Brother Barber used to be one of the leaders and he had a great voice in singing. DB: They put on quite a number of operas in those days. Pied Piper of Hamblin and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. That still draws a crowd wherever it’s shown, Snow White. And we used to have choir contests. One of the contest songs that we had was what the Dutch people sang last Sunday night "Let the Mountains Shout for Joy". They sang it as their opening song last Sunday night here. It reminded me so much of the contests that we used to have with Park City, Henefer, Kamas, Coalville. We used to have big contests at fair time. MRW: And didn't the choir participate at Christmas time many years when they had a big community Christmas program right here in the church, usually Christmas Eve or a couple of days before. DB: Many times I've been a wise man and all I had wrapped around me was a chenille table cover. This was about the only costume we had wrapped around us and tie a scarf around the waist. MRW: And some used to wear those tapestries they hung on the wall as decorations, I recall them. DB: Yes, we had some good tines then. It was our only place of amusement until they built the opera house. John Thomas Hudson and I think Grant Bullock built the opera house. The first play they had in the opera house was McCarthy's Mishap, and old McCarthy sure did have some mishaps in that play. Almy Eldridge was a member of the stake presidency with President W. W. Cluff, and he had his wife with him on the front seat. It was a little more than she could take and she said, "Almy, I'm going to get up and go out, I can't stand that any longer." And he said, "tut, tut, tut, tut, Cyrinthy, I paid a dollar to see this show and I'm going to stay and see it. So he stayed and she went. 25 MRW: That was the only building I ever remember that had the dance floor that tipped down so you could watch the cinema or stage play and then tip back up to a horizontal position so you could dance on it. MW: It had spring to it. You could dance and about bounce right out. DB: Those coil springs set around under the end of every floor joice that run the way this is here and then right through the center of it was a big axel and it was supported back from the axel. When they wanted to have a show they would raise the back end and the east end would go down see and then when the show was over with, when you wanted to dance, they would raise it up level, put a big piece of timber underneath for supports and that was a great place to dance. MRW: When you would dance on it would go down, and if you happened to be going down when it was earning up sometimes it would just about flip you on your head until you got in rhythm. It was like riding a horse. Are there any pictures that you know of Brother Barber of the opera house? BRW: The only one that I know of is in the D.U.P. building. It isn't a single picture, it's a picture of the city itself and it shows the location of the opera house. DB: It was built first as sort of an open air pavilion. It was only boarded up half way around the outside and so many people would go down and stand around and drive their horse’s right up to the side of the building and look in at what was going on, as it was built for a dance hall first. They couldn't stand that so they put the wall ail the way up and crowds didn't come like they had been doing so they had to have something other than the dance so they made it into an opera house. There was some mighty good shows coming. BRW: What happened to the opera house? Was it just torn down, or did it burn down? 26 DB: President Joseph E. Bears bought the land down there. The church bought it in the first place from Brother Beard and we had no use for it, the high school had their dance facilities up to the school and there was no more use down, there for a dance hail so we sold it to Joseph Beard and it finally got pulled to pieces. MRW: It would have made a wonderful building for a modern restaurant now with the way the generation now is doing in going back to these older buildings and preserving them for certain things. Brother Barber, while we're here can you reminisce a little bit about the old Relief Society building that used to be located down on the property west of Bullock Motor Company where their service station and garage is now? MW: They called it the old dormitory or something for awhile DB: That milliner store was run by Margaret E. Salmon, which was her maiden name, a fine person. It was first on the corner of the courthouse yard there. It was a brick house where the Salmon people lived, and on the north side of their home she had a little building there where she sold women's hats and aprons and such dainty things as women need. When they built the courthouse, that had to be moved and they moved across the street on the corner where Bullock's motor is now and she continued business there for many years. May Rhodes and Nell Rhodes were daughters. Nell is still living in Salt Lake too and she sent word that she would like to see Gerald Bullock and I. May Rhodes and Nell ran a little opposition competitive to Mrs. Salmon. But that was a long way back. MRW: I remember when I was Boy Scout age that's where we held our scout meetings was down in that building. We used to have some gay times. We'd have the openings ceremonies here in mutual and then we would go down there and on the way brother El L. Hansen used to have a 27 real fine garden and after scout meeting he would be missing his carrots and cabbage. It was usually in the fall. We were great scouts. BRW: Back to this building, I was just thinking, Brother Barber, is there any specific reason for the designing in these towers outside east of these cones upstairs. On the outside of the building. In other words you've got about three steeples on each end. Do you know of any story about that? Mow of course we know the assembly hall is built basically after the same pattern and the building in Brigham City is built on the same idea more or less. DB: The architecture of it is Gothic and if you get a picture of gothic architecture and the definition of Gothic is more beautiful than useful and that's what the building was for many, many years was more beautiful than it was useful and probably what's turned out now it’s still more beautiful than useful. There's lots of things that we need in it that we haven’t got isn't there. BRW: Well that's true, but you would never find this kind of a building anywhere else in the world. DB: You are going to be surprised, I think, before long to see something really new and different about the photograph of this building. I got a hold of one that showed it as that being the front of the building and it slipped out of my possession, and I'm going to find out though where it is. MRW: Is that the one, you brethren, you have it and there will be six copies of it here Tuesday and then the original I'm going to have put in plastic for you and we'll return it back to you. I showed it to the Bishop when he was in the bank. And we'll have the six copies so you will have a permanent one in addition to this original. 28