Life History of Serge J. Lauper
I was about sixteen, and we were living in Sugarville, when my mother told me about a Church meeting that I should attend. The Church used to have travelling meetings in various communities, similar to chataquas. Mother persuaded me to go because she thought that I should develop more interest in the Church. I count that meeting as the first time that I really got interested in thinking about Church leaders and the Church generally.
I rode my horse to Hinckley, Utah, about ten miles from our place in Sugarville. Melvin J. Ballard had come to that little farming community for two days of meetings. He was not an apostle at that time, but he was one of the Church's best orators. He was also a singer, and he had a great following for his music.
One of the things that has never left my memory is his testimony of his visit with the Saviour. I was very skeptical about that, but I listened to him, and he made a great impression on my life. He was the very first Church leader who impressed me. Years later I met him again when he set me apart for one of my priesthood offices.
My mission president, Charles A. Callis was the next man of real serious consequence with Church affiliation who impressed me. I have already spoken of his influence.
In the early 1930s, when I was living in Oakland, some travellers from the Church brought the very beginning of what later became the Church Welfare Plan. The two men were Marion G. Romney and Alonzo A. Hinckley. Now Hinckley was a family acquaintance because he had been a stake president in the Hinckley area. He was the one who signed my first recommend to go to the temple.
President Hinckley was staying at our home in Oakland. He misjudged the time of the departure of his train, and so missed it. As there was only one train a day, he spent the day with us. Our daughter Georgia was just a baby then, and she was having some difficulty with her vision. She had some early crossing of her eyes. While he was there, we arranged to have him and Brother Romney administer to her. Brother Hinckley made the promise that she would overcome her problem. I would say that this prophecy did come true. She was able to go for many years without any glasses. Like most of us, she has glasses now.
J. Golden Kimball came out to Oakland with the Stake President, W. Aird MacDonald. I had very recently been put in as bishop of the Dimond Ward, and I found out that the ward had no money and was actually bankrupt. The ward was in debt. As proof of that, the Saturday before the second Sunday that I officiated as bishop, the water department turned off the water because the bill had not been paid. There were no working bathroom facilities or any other water. So early on, I did the janitorial work myself, until I got better acquainted with the ward and found out which people I could get to help me. My wife even helped me a little. I was working there in the Dimond Ward chapel with two deacons when W. Aird MacDonald brought in J. Golden Kimball, a character-plus in the Church.
J. Golden Kimball was the kind of a fellow who would be warned not to swear by the President of the Church before he got up to speak. He was the kind who might say something like, "Now, I'm going to talk to the people that all you others have missed." He was quite a character.
He came to Oakland, and he saw a new bishop cleaning the chapel, and he really exploded. He said that such a thing was terrible, terrible, terrible. He told the stake president how wrong it was that the bishop should be in that position. I never forgot that.
The next man of importance who crosses my mind is John Longden. He was one of the members of the Seventies Quorum and a very sweet man. He and two others stand out in my memory for their personal consideration. He was staying in our home while he was here. I can still hear him say, "Now, Bishop Lauper, I want you to tell me about your family. How are things going? How are you getting along with your wife? How is your business?"
Now it's true that nearly all the General Authorities have made cursory remarks about how things were going, but Brother Longden was really interested. He had taken the trouble to learn some of the family names, and he asked about each one. I never forgot it.
I might as well mention the other two, of all the conference visitors, who showed such an interest: Harold B. Lee--then an apostle rather than president of the Church--and President David O. McKay. They would take me off to the side. I have a little office where we would sit down and go over some of these personal matters.
Another important man in my life was Stephen L. Richards. When I first met him, he was a member of the Council of the Twelve. He's the one who sent for me at a stake conference in Oakland after the meeting had started. Brother Richards sent word down to me, during the songs, to come to the stake president's office. W. Aird MacDonald, the stake president, and Eugene Hilton, a counselor in the stake presidency who had known my family, were there, along with Stephen L. Richards whom I did not know. They introduced me and President MacDonald said that I was to be the bishop of the Dimond Ward. Richards turned to me and asked a couple of questions. I said yes. Then he turned to me and said, "Well, let's set him apart." "No, we can't do that. We have to present him to the people." It was done so fast. My only reaction was that it would please my mother. That's about all I had to say.
George Q. Morris has been gone many years now. Morris was a quiet fellow with interests in the Morris Headstone business of Salt Lake. I had known the name for a long time, but I did not meet him until he came to California. Conferences were held every three months, four times a year, and they were made up of lots of meetings. Conference began on Friday night with an officers' meeting, went on to preliminary meetings on Saturday, and many meetings on Sunday including early officers' meetings, public meetings at 10 and 2, and an MIA meeting. We had finished this whole series of meetings and it was late Sunday night when we came home. One of the first things Brother Morris asked was where the radio was. "I want to see how the fights are going." I know now that some General Authorities think that it is rank heresy to have the radio or TV on on Sunday, but here was dear old Brother Morris who wanted to know how the fights were going. It really surprised me.
Oscar A. Kirkham comes to mind as one of the gallant characters of the Church days. He was recognized as one of the speakers of the day. He always had a gathering of young people, and he had favorite subjects such as marriage, courtship, and love.
LeGrand Richards will be remembered always as the great missionary bishop of the Church and as an apostle. We had some personal experiences, many in connection with building the Sunset Ward meeting house of the San Francisco Stake which I have already spoken of. I had another very personal experience with him, many years after building the chapel when he calmed down the wild-eyed bishop who had gone to Salt Lake to complain about the building program. In subsequent years he had become one of the apostles of the Church, and he was one of the visitors here.
We had finished our morning meeting. I was the first counselor then and the president of the stake was J. Bryan Barton. Barton's son Willard was a very active and sometimes abrasive young man who had been urging that we have basketball standards erected in our recreation room. I had never accepted that program because I was anxious that we keep the building in very good condition. I did not believe in the idea that we should field a basketball group. My girls were not athletic, and I never was myself. So I was not interested in basketball and held back. All the years that I had authority, we never installed basketball standards.
Between conference meetings on this occasion, I looked down to the recreation room which extended from the chapel itself, and I saw Willard Barton, LeGrand Richards--our conference visitor and an uncle of Willard because his mother was a Richards--and one of my counselors who, I discovered, had been sympathizing with the basketball faction. I was called down to the recreation room, and so I walked down to see these three men. All the way down I knew that these other two men had been talking to Brother Richards about basketball, and I was getting more angry all the time. As soon as I got into talking range, Bishop Richards said, in his cute little way of putting his head on one side, "I'm told that there's a man in this stake that thinks more of a building than he does of a boy." I answered that he was talking about something about which I had fixed ideas. I told him we had discussed the plans for the building with his building committee and that we had not included a gymnasium or locker rooms and that I was not in favor. Basketball could easily be played at a school in the neighborhood. As long as I had anything to say about it, there would be no basketball in our recreation room. I was furious about them ganging up on me, and before I had finished my talk, both Willard Barton, and especially my counselor, slid away. Only Brother Richards and I were there at the finish. He looked me in the eye and started shaking his head, and then he too, walked away.
The subject was brought up by local people a few times, but no General Authorities said anything about it. I have to say with sadness that my counselor was a traitor, double-dealing and working against me.
The following exchange was with Albert E. Bowen who was a member of the Council of the Twelve. We were holding a stake conference in San Francisco the Sunday following our General Conference in Salt Lake. I was on the train returning from Salt Lake, and I had noticed that Brother Bowen had gotten on the train, and I knew from a previous letter, that he was to be our conference visitor. We never worried when we had a single visitor. We always were very concerned if we saw two coming because that indicated some major change.
Brother Bowen did not know me, but he must have made some inquiries as to whether there were any LDS people on the train. Church officials had subsidized fares, and I guess he found out by that means. Otherwise I can't imagine how he found out that I was on the train.
He left his compartment and came looking for me in the chair cars. We had a long, long talk during the many hours of the twenty-hour trip. One of the things that I will never forget was when during one conversation I turned to him and said, "You know, Brother Bowen, I wonder why it is that so many of the General Authorities' children don't remain faithful to the Church." I had overlooked in my mind that we had on our high council one of his sons. His son was a good man, fine looking and well educated, an attorney, but as my dad used to say of some horses, he was slow in getting into the harness. He did not dive into the work. He was not energetic about his assignment. I had hardly finished my question when Brother Bowen gave me a fierce look. I later figured that he thought I was talking about his son, which I was not doing, although the comment could apply. Then he said in a soft voice, "Well, Brother Lauper, the kingdom of heaven does not come by inheritance. You've got to work for it."
Clifford E. Young was the visitor at conference when a newly returned missionary, Crawford Gates, made his report. This young member of our stake was telling his missionary experiences. Without too much warning, he began to call the saints to repentance. He was doing so in a serious and heart-felt way. Other young people have taken on the guise of a prophet and started to ex toll the congregation, but I didn't think that Crawford's message was too strong. But I remember that Clifford E. Young shook his head and asked, "Who is this young man?" He thought he had gone too far. It's kind of funny when I think of what has happened since, how Crawford has become my son-in-law.
Adam S. Bennion brought his wife when he came to be our conference visitor, and the two of them stayed with us. We were pleased to have them because they were very cultured and highly civilized people, as well as very church-minded and spiritual. He talked to me about his work in the schools. He also wrote books. He shared with me some of the manuscript of the book he had written about Matthew Cowley.
Matthew Cowley was one of the orators of the Church, but he had had an alcohol problem in his earlier days. He was a man who had gone to the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific. The native members there had wondrous stories to tell about him. Matt Cowley could talk to God. One of the islanders brought his dead baby, who had died during the night, and told Cowley to make him well. And he did. Adam S. Bennion was working on the book while he was here. He shared some of the stories with me, and I thought they should be included.
I think of the visitors we had in those days of four conferences a year. That's something that never could happen again, now that there are so many stakes. The general authorities liked to come to San Francisco. The city was a place that had a beckoning call for some of them. Over the years we had a wealth of people from Salt Lake come here. We were the right distance from Salt Lake not to get offended at what their sons and daughters did or what their wives' gossip was. We always saw them at their best. I always thought that San Francisco was fortunate in that.
I'd have questions of various conference visitors, including Brother Bennion. I'd have a chance then to question a general authority directly. If the topic did not pertain to the stake but to the Church generally, the general answer was, "That's a very interesting question with much merit for consideration. It's something that I'll take up with the brethren." The brethren would very seldom come out with an answer. On the other hand, two of the brethren, in whom I have less confidence, were a bit too forthright about explaining things. I thought they always said more than I wanted to know.
I had a very serious confrontation one time with Delbert Stapley. At the time he was one of the newer members of the Council of the Twelve. He came to our stake as a conference visitor with a whole bundle of statistics. He had pages of statistics. He knew everything about us from a statistical standpoint. He started in on us in our early meeting with the stake presidency, and then he went on with the high council, and then when we held a conjoint meeting, he went on with a very strong statistical approach. He told us where we were short and outlined all our failings and the things we needed to improve upon. I remember that I thought that the whole conference was very depressing. I was very much annoyed and angered by what had happened.
Stapley was staying at the Mission Home on Buena Vista where we had property. I knew he was staying overnight and would be leaving Monday afternoon for Hawaii. I called him to see if I could have a personal meeting with him. I felt very badly about some of the things that had happened in the meeting. I had been the stake president for about four years then, and some of my department heads and presidencies of quorums had been reproved. The bishoprics had been given some strong scoldings. I thought that the whole thing was bad. I wondered whether I had the wrong spirit. I told my wife that I did not know whether San Francisco would have a new stake president in a week or two or not, but I was going to see Brother Stapley. She told me that I shouldn't go, but I felt that I had to see him.
He granted me an interview in the Mission Home, the former home on the Compton Estate, right on the brink of a hill overlooking San Francisco. I wish that the church still owned that property. I think we should be like the Catholic Church, always buying property and never selling. But the land was sold.
The housekeeper let me in, and I was standing in the room when he walked in. He asked me to be seated, but I said that I would rather stand. Then I told him that I thought we had had a very disappointing conference. We knew, every one of us knew, some of the things that we had not accomplished. We knew where we stood on the statistical records of the church. We knew that many things were lacking. But I could not see any virtue or value in having him belabor the whole thing. I said that if there was something wrong, it was with me. The Church members were good people, good bishops, good high councilmen. If the Church leaders wanted to make a change, they should come to me, not to anyone else. San Francisco was a rough stake, but we were trying. We had changes all the time, people moving in and out.
I was, of course, out of order to criticize a general authority, and I realize it now. But that was the way I felt, and so I told him.
He listened. After a bit, he said, "Well now, Brother Lauper, maybe I had the wrong approach. I thought I was helping, that I was giving you the guidance that you needed. I've been a stake president, and that was the way I used to do it in Arizona."
Apparently he did not turn in a bad report about me. I still went on for three more years as stake president. I guess I was wondering all the time whether this interview was the end for me. I had one other similar confrontation with Henry D. Moyle. About that I will only say that he was in charge of the welfare farms, and he wanted our stake to buy and run one. I told him early on that I'd had experience in farming, and that a farm could not be run by remote control. People had to be on the job. Stake members could not be counted on to come and water and weed and harvest when needed. Professional people had to be there. I was not interested in running a farm. For our welfare project, we would manufacture woodwork, and we would make clothing, and we did.
He was disappointed in me. He was the one who was present and who had his hands on me when I was made stake president. I always felt that he wanted me to do his bidding so he could make a record.
J. Bryan Barton was a wonderful man. He was the second president that I had worked under. I was first called to work as a counselor under Claude Peterson, a brother to Mark E. Peterson of the Council of the Twelve, when I was the bishop of the Sunset Ward.
The call came this way. I was called up to the stake president's office. The visitor was the same man who had set me apart as bishop in Oakland, Stephen L. Richards of the Council of the Twelve. He knew me, and he had been discussing the call with Stake President Claude Peterson and George Schiess who was the first counselor. Elder Richards had determined that this should be the office for me, and he asked what I thought about it. I very quickly and honestly told them that I did not think that there was any higher job than a bishop so far as the people of the church were concerned. Bishops were closer to the people. I remember he was rather affronted by that. He said that I should remember that stake presidents put in bishops. He was an important man in my life. He set me apart as the bishop of the Dimond Ward and again as bishop of the Sunset Ward and later on as counselor in the stake presidency.
Soon after I was made stake president, the former President, J. Bryan Barton died in my arms, right there at the pulpit. We knew that he had not been well, and we had some premonitions of problems, but we certainly did not expect anything as serious as that. He had been released, and we were holding a party in his honor. He was speaking, thanking us, when he gasped and died.
The Stake Presidency asked me to make a recommendation about my successor as bishop of the Sunset Ward. I'd had off and on again, good and bad experiences with Floyd J. Griffiths, who had gotten offended years before because he wasn't called to be the bishop. He let his wife and family go to church alone for about a year, and then all at once he reported that he had been in the wrong and was ready to try and make amends. We first started him out in the genealogical and welfare work which were tough positions, but he kept on working. He was put in as the Sunday School Superintendent, and he did a good job. He worked hard and did everything that he could. So when I was made a counselor in the stake presidency, I suggested that he succeed me.
Theoretically, when a bishop is called to the office, he has the authority and freedom to release all the ward officers and call a new group to replace them. A stake president does not have that freedom of movement. He first has to meet with his counselors and then with the high council. Then he has to go to the bishops of the wards about making changes. Anyway, we had need of a new bishop for Sunset Ward, and we presented Floyd J. Griffiths at the high council meeting. This proposal met with serious opposition from J. Cyril Johnson and Ray T. Lindsay, and I later found out that their wives too, were very much opposed to the call. The husbands immediately took exception to making Griffiths bishop. So the matter was postponed. At the next meeting we found out that the feeling was even stronger. I was in the stake presidency, and for five months I was also bishop of the ward because they did not take action to release me. This strange situation was kept somewhat quiet.
The problem with Floyd Griffiths, who ran a beauty parlor, turned out to be that he used to tell dirty stories to some of his patrons. The charges were never brought out at the time. Church members who went to have their hair done there felt that they could not accept this man as their bishop. From everything that I could see he was willing to work hard, and he did not persist in his stories as far as I know. I only heard of the problem years later when Agnes Lindsay told me. She was a close neighbor, and no one is a hero to his valet. Griffiths was finally approved, and he went on for about four years as bishop.
Alma D. Sonne was a huge man, about 6'6" with a frame to match his height. He weighed well over 300 pounds. He came to San Francisco on several occasions. His son lived in Palo Alto and was stake president. He later became Temple President in Oakland. Sonne was the man who, with Spencer W. Kimball, was present when I was released as stake president. They were the two visitors. I have a picture of them on the wall of my little study. My two counselors on the extreme right and left with Brothers Sonne and Kimball in the center. There are two interesting things about that picture: the contrast in size between the huge Brother Sonne and the small Brother Kimball is one thing. The other thing is that I look at that picture on the wall and see that I am the only one of the five left alive. I have been the only one for some years now.
I did not know Nicholas G. Smith too well, but he spoke at my father's funeral. He was not an apostle at that time. He was very capable and sincere, and also an excellent speaker.
I'm going to spill the beans about one of our conference visitors. Brother ElRay L. Christiansen brought his wife when he came as a conference visitor, and they stayed with us. They had moved into their bedroom, and my wife Jean, as she usually did, asked their preferences as to food. She wanted to give them a breakfast they would enjoy and wanted to know when it should be ready. General authorities were usually very easy guests to take care of, not too fussy or difficult.
When Jean asked what they wanted for breakfast, she suggested a number of possibilities: hot cakes, sausages, bacon, eggs, cold cereal, hot cereal, biscuits--a wide range of choices. When she finished, Brother Christiansen told her that all of that would be just fine. She came out of the room, somewhat chagrinned, and asked me what she should do. I told her to do just as she wanted. As I recall it, she prepared everything she had mentioned. The breakfast was really something. She covered the table with food, and the Christiansens ate every bit of it. To this day I don't know how they ate so much.
Claude Nalder was bishop of San Francisco Ward for about twenty-five years. He was ambitious, it can now be said, to be president of the stake, and was very disappointed when Stephen L. Winter was called to the position. Nalder had established himself as The Bishop in this area, and when anyone wanted to know something about the church, he was called on. Even some of the general authorities thought of him as the place to start. One time during a conference, President Heber J. Grant was staying with him. That evening Mrs. Nalder, with a lot of ambition, prepared a sumptuous feast. When the time came to eat, President Grant really disappointed her: he wouldn't eat anything but bread and milk.
Brother Hugh B. Brown was in charge of all the military bases in the United States and even the world in the early days of the war. This was before he was a member of the Council of the Twelve. One of things that I remember about him is the series of stories about service men all over the world.
He had an affliction that was not generally known. You couldn't notice it from the stand. One whole side of his face was paralyzed. When he started to eat, he would have his napkin in one hand to his face. He could not tell whether he had food on his face. He had tic douloureux, which brought so much pain to the nerves in his face, that the doctors were forced to cut the nerves on one side. His name, Hugh B. Brown, is really Hugh Brown Brown. His mother was a Brown before she married his father.
Howard W. Hunter and I started out as M-Men together. In his early days he had a musical band of his own which used to perform on passenger boats. He later went to college and became a well-known attorney and stake president in Southern California. He was an early protege of Henry D. Moyle and became one of the general authorities himself.
Brother Hunter has been head of the Council of the Twelve now for some time. I was very saddened to see how his wife Clair wasted away the last three years of her life with terrible cancer, and now Brother Hunter has been immobile for the last few years. He still takes his part in conference, but he is in a wheel chair. The church authorities seem to have an enduring power; there's no question about that.
Others who have come to visit us include S. Dilworth Young and his wife, Thomas E. McKay, Milton R. Hunter, A. Theodore Tuttle, and Leslie Stone, who was later a general authority as well as temple president in Salt Lake. He was a contemporary stake president with me in Oakland. I've had several special interviews with Eldred G. Smith who was the patriarch of the Church. I've had several of Sterling W. Sill's books, and he autographed one which I've always prized which says "To Serge J. Lauper with admiration." Marion D. Hanks, who was in the military service with my son-in-law Crawford Gates in Hawaii, was always a welcome visitor. Those two young men dated girls side by side.
James Paramore enlisted me early on as one of the representatives of the special fund raising program for the Church school, Brigham Young University. It always seemed a little bit suspicious to me in the sense that we fund-raisers were not to talk directly to the Church members. We couldn't make announcements at any Church meetings, but we were to go to inactive members and non-members who might want to contribute to BYU. I had this assignment shortly after I was released from the stake presidency. Supposedly I didn't have much to do then. The Church called on me through the mission president, after interviewing me to see if I was acceptable. Then Brother Paramore, who headed the operation, came to see me. My wife and I worked at it for a year and a half, and I raised a few thousand dollars. My visits were from San Rafael, through San Francisco, and as far south as Santa Cruz. I would call on people, spending quite a bit of time on it.
Robert L. Backman, a more recent acquaintance in the general authorities, interviewed me as a patriarch. My grandson Brick served his mission under Enzio Busche and was a good friend of his daughter.
Joseph Anderson was rather an interesting character in my life. I saw him over the years, from the first time I went to Salt Lake as a bishop in 1932. He was the secretary for the first presidency under President Grant. I became acquainted with him because he lasted as one of the general authorities who is now on an emeritus basis. He is well into his nineties now. I have one of his books in which he details his time with the church presidents.
I have had the remarkable experience of having had in my home George Albert Smith, David O. McKay, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Spencer W. Kimball, and Ezra Taft Benson. Three have slept in my house and most have eaten there. I have had experiences that could not be duplicated now with the vast growth of the church. There is no way a current bishop or stake president could come to know so many of these leaders.
At a very critical time in my life, I had contemporaries who were stake presidents in neighboring stakes, O. Leslie Stone in Oakland-Berkeley and David Haight in Palo Alto. At my wife Jean's passing, I had personal telephone calls from both of them from Salt Lake. The head of the Council of the Twelve at that time, Ezra Taft Benson, wrote me a very nice note which I have always treasured.
My association with O. Leslie Stone was always on a very high level. He was early on put in as head of the church welfare of the region. He chose David Haight and myself as assistants. That gave me the nice experience of working with all the other stakes. Included in our group were stake presidents from Stockton to Reno. We had an interesting group.
When I was first in the stake presidency, the boundaries reached down to Palo Alto, and I had a conference assignment there. At that time, Ruby Haight was president of the Relief Society or the Primary. I remember that I took my family down there. I think we had two of the girls at home. After conference, Ruby invited me and my family to their beautiful Palo Alto home to dinner. That was my first acquaintance with David B. Haight. He was then head of all the Montgomery Ward operations in the eleven western states. He did not have a close connection to the church then, although his wife was very active. He was playing golf with business officials on Sunday. But he was a most courteous host on that day, and I enjoyed meeting him very much.
Several years later, during the war, David Haight was an officer in the South Pacific. He thought over his life during one harrowing and dangerous experience en route to the South Pacific. The airplane was flying blind, and he didn't know if he would ever get back. He decided that if he ever got out alive, that he would change his life. He pledged his life, that if he ever did return, he would do more in the Church.
I mention that in connection with an experience coming back from general conference. In the same plane with me was Richard Sonne, one of our new bishops in Palo Alto, part of the San Francisco Stake. I had had something to do with calling him to be bishop. On the way back, he came to sit by me and said that he needed a new counselor. He had a man in mind, David Haight, and he wanted my opinion. I said that would be fine, I supported the choice 100%. I knew that if Haight would accept, he would do a good job. I had met him and knew his capacity and his wonderful wife.
Sonne was later temple president when I was a sealer, and we have since recalled this discussion. Sonne asked me if I remembered discussing calling Haight as a counselor. I noted that he had gone a long way since. Shortly after being made counselor, he was made bishop. After that he was quickly stake president and soon President McKay stunned the non-church public in Palo Alto by calling Haight as the president of the Scottish mission. At that time he had been elected to his second term as mayor of Palo Alto. After coming back from the war, he had quit his job at Montgomery Ward and opened a couple of hardware stores. He was well-liked in all local political circles, and the people there didn't see how they could get along without him. The local political leaders decided to go to Salt Lake and tell this Mr. McKay that the invitation to go to Scotland was all wrong, that people in Palo Alto needed him there. Haight told his Palo Alto friends that they didn't understand; he had already accepted. While he was on his mission, he wrote me a beautiful letter saying how often he thought of me and the happy times we had together in the Bay Area.
When released from the Scottish mission, he was put in charge of the corporation of contributors to BYU. From there he was called to be an assistant to the Council of the Twelve, and after that, a member of the Twelve. So I have watched the steady progress of David Haight. All of his ancestors were strong in the Church. He is a man of great ability, a very capable fellow. I've always admired him and enjoyed my close friendship with him.
In 1981, I had been released from the stake presidency for some years, and the fortieth anniversary of the dedication of the Sunset Ward chapel was coming up. I didn't know that I would be around for the fiftieth anniversary, so I said to myself that I would see if we could have some kind of a celebration put together. I remember that I woke up very early in the morning, and I could not get back to sleep. I made the resolve that if I could get David Haight as my pivotal speaker, that it would work. So as soon as I thought it was reasonable, I got him on the phone and told him what I had in mind. He was very enthusiastic in support. He said that the idea was wonderful, and that he would be glad to come. If he had been less supportive, I would have pulled back because I knew that I had some obstacles ahead. He said to write a letter to Spencer Kimball who made the assignments about where to go.
So I went to my bishop and asked him to go to the stake president, knowing as I do how the protocol goes. I found after weeks had gone by that nothing had been done. So I asked if I could be the chairman and began to make plans. We did have a very interesting meeting, and we got permission from the San Francisco City Police to close off two streets. We parked in the middle of the street for two blocks, because the chapel has no good space for parking. Back when the building was put up, there were lots of places to park, but all that has changed. The Sunset Ward building had always meant a lot to me, and I was grateful to have President Haight come on that occasion.