Karen’s narrative continues….
Saturday morning, September 24, we slept in and after breakfast we drove downtown. We parked around Temple Square and walked to the First Security Bank to pick up the free picture of Brigham Young. It wasn’t open, so we browsed around the Z.C.M.I. department store. We went back to Temple Square and toured the entire Museum. It sure is filled with goodies – very valuable things – historical pictures and implements of the pioneer period. At noon, we heard a half hour organ recital at the Tabernacle.
We went into the Assembly Hall on Temple Square. During Conference I guess this is full inside, too – it’s much like an ordinary chapel. We toured the grounds and followed the tail end of a tour into the Tabernacle. We heard the story of it, the pin drop, nail drop, brush of the sleeve and whisper to show the excellant accoustics. Then we heard a record of the choir. We walked to the corner of the grounds to see the Cabin they have preserved and protected which is typical of the pioneers.
Now off Temple Square, we went to the Relief Society Distribution Center to buy more garments. The sign of the Deseret Book Store caught our eye on the street, so we went there. Bought $13.00 worth of books among them the game “Seek” and four other books. Then we hurried back to Temple Square to catch a touring bus to Welfare Square. It’s a great big place. They showed us the dry goods and grocery store, cannery, shoe and shoe repair store, barber shop, dairy, root cellar for 15 carloads of potatoes and the grain elevator. Really impressive. People on welfare can go there with a Bishop’s signature and do grocery shopping and clothes shoppings etc. They even had furniture there and all kinds of homemade rugs. Most of the clothes were made by Relief Society sisters except things that are cheaper to stock wholesale like bras, etc. We were shown a movie of all the Temples before this tour. The people that work in the cannery, etc. are people that need work or elderly people that have nothing else to do. They get paid by food or the one or two meals that they eat during the day.
After we got back to Temple Square, we went to Brigham Young’s home called the Beehive House. It has 32 rooms and they’re all real lush. The guide said he had 20 servants but they weren’t treated as servants – just treated as one of the family. Brigham Young even had a store in his house where his children could buy candy and supplies.
Jim and I then went to several gift shops and bought post cards and souvenirs for ourselves and our parents. We went back to our motel room and called Joe Baker to see if we could visit him and his family. They used to live in the New Orleans Ward while he went to Tulane University. Before we drove to Sandy we ate supper across the street. Fred and Kelley surely got a lot of business from us. We drove to Sandy, which is about 15 miles out of Salt Lake, to visit Joe and Karen. The funniest and most confusing thing we saw on our way there was yellow streetlights – they look like the amber traffic lights. Later we asked Joe and Karen about them and they agreed that they were confusing – in fact so confusing to motorists that they were in the process of taking them all down. The reason they put them up in the first place was because yellow is easier on the eyes than white. Anyway, we visited with Joe and Karen. They gave us a wedding gift of striped sheet and pillow cases. We talked about New Orleans Ward, their home, Joe’s studying, etc. We had root beer and banana bread. They showed us around their home. Her parents came to visit them awhile. We left about 11p.m.
More tomorrow….
Dad