St. George Tabernacle Rededication: A Time to Reflect, Remember, Pay Tribute

Contributed By Scott Taylor, Church News Managing Editor

• 2 August 2018

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speaks Saturday, July 28, 2018, in the St. George Tabernacle in St. George, Utah. Behind him are, from left, his wife, Sister Patricia Holland, Sister Phyllis Snow, and Elder Steven E. Snow. The 147-year-old building was rededicated after a two-year renovation. Photo by Nick Adams, for the Deseret News.  Photo by Scott Taylor, Church News.

• Print
• Share 
  • E-mail
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

ST. GEORGE, UTAH

Huddled below a spiral staircase inside the historic St. George Tabernacle, they pointed out faces featured on a poster-sized 1950 photo of the St. George 5th Ward Primary taken in the tabernacle basement. And they spoke of names and memories in animated tones reminiscent of the childhood friends they were seeing in the image.

“What on earth am I doing with a baseball cap in a Primary photo?” quipped Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as he found himself face-to-face with his 9-year-old self in the photo. He proceeded to easily and quickly rattle off the names of others he saw and recognized in the photo that was found decades later in the belongings of Leona Atkin, the ward Primary president at the time.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles looks at an enlarged 1950 photo of the children and teachers of the St. George 5th Ward Primary. Elder Holland, included in the photo, was nine years old at the time. This photo was taken during a July 27, 2018, private tour of the tabernacle. Photo by Scott Taylor, Church News.

His wife, Sister Patricia Holland, who moved to St. George with her family when she was 16, also listed off those she could identify—and lovingly teased her husband by pointing out a childhood girlfriend.

A St. George native like Elder Holland, Elder Steven E. Snow wasn’t in the photo, having been born less than a year before it was taken. But the Church Historian and General Authority Seventy also recognized a number of individuals, including one who in later years would babysit him.

The photo was just one stop in a small, private tour held the evening before the recently renovated St. George Tabernacle was rededicated. In the Saturday morning service held on July 28, Elders Holland and Snow and Bishop Dean M. Davies of the Presiding Bishopric were featured speakers.

They spoke of their tabernacle memories during the brief tour with local leaders and wives, during the 90-minute rededication meeting, and again later during media interviews. And the three visiting General Authorities welcomed and appreciated the opportunity to revisit a city and building brimming with treasured recollections.

Or, as Elder Holland said, correcting a well-known Thomas Wolfe saying: “You can go home again.”

In their remarks, Elders Holland and Snow and Bishop Davies paid tribute to the city’s settlers, the tabernacle’s builders, the area’s heritage, and the people in the building’s nearly century and a half history who had led, taught, and served from the multipurpose edifice.

The St. George Tabernacle doubled as Elder Holland’s ward meetinghouse and stake center for his first 12 years of life—and he took time early in his morning remarks to point out specific locations both memorable and meaningful to him.

The first was as an infant being brought into the St. George Tabernacle for his naming and blessing ordinance, with his parents still debating on his name as he was carried to the front. (His mother won the naming rights, he added.)

That followed with attending Junior Sunday School and Primary meetings in the basement, having an Aaronic Priesthood interview with his father on a side bench, sitting on the front pew as a new deacon passing the sacrament for the first time, singing a duet with a friend on the rostrum, being brought into the building with Dixie High School teammates to celebrate state championships in football and basketball, and reporting on his full-time mission when unexpectedly asked as a recently returned missionary attending stake conference.

Most of Elder Snow’s tabernacle experiences revolved around stake conferences, although his ward held its meetings there for several of his teenage years while nearby meetinghouses were being renovated and constructed.

“I remember climbing up the bell tower after Mutual and ringing the bell when we shouldn’t have—all those things with exploring the building. We loved this building,” he said, adding, “Of all the buildings save the temple and my own home, this was probably the most spiritual place in the community for me.”

In his public remarks, Elder Snow admitted to carving his initials and date in the side of one of the tabernacle tables as an early teen—only to rediscover them several years later when the tables were moved to a stake center where he was reporting to stake leaders following his full-time mission service.

Elder Steven E. Snow, Church Historian and General Authority Seventy, speaks Saturday, July 28, 2018, in the St. George Tabernacle in St. George, Utah. The 147-year-old building was rededicated after a two-year renovation. Photo by Nick Adams, for the Deseret News.

Sister Holland, who grew up in Enterprise, Utah—a 41-mile drive to the northwest—before her move as a teenager, has her own memories of the tabernacle. “I just remember it was a focal point, even if you’re coming from another community,” she said. “It felt like our tabernacle, and my ancestors who settled in Enterprise had a hand in the meetings here—it was like one big community.”

She added that she spent much of the rededication services mindful of the pioneers who built the tabernacle and those who filled the building in the decades since—“the sacrifices they made, the love they had, the way they taught,” she said.

Even Bishop Davies, First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, cited a strong familiarity with the St. George region and residents. Growing up, he frequently visited his older sister, Carol Ruesch, who moved to St. George with her husband, and who ironically would serve as a waitress to Elder and Sister Holland in their early years together.

Bishop Dean M. Davies, First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, speaks Saturday, July 28, 2018, during a rededication ceremony at the St. George Tabernacle in St. George, Utah. The building was rededicated after a two-year renovation. Photo by Nick Adams, for the Deseret News.

“I think maybe we don’t remember enough in the Church, and a dedication like this is built on memories,” said Elder Holland, adding that meetings and gatherings usually center on something new, like a new temple or a new general conference.

“Here it was,” he said of the rededication, “an open invitation to reflect, remember, and pay tribute.”

The rededication activities allowed the St. George Tabernacle to be recognized for its central role and location in St. George since its 1863 start and its 1876 dedication.

“You’ve got to remember, this was a city of 5,000 people—it never varied. … We knew everybody in town and everybody knew us. It was a community with an emphasis on the commonality,” Elder Holland said.

And while the commonality drew residents together to the St. George Tabernacle, the building held a greater, primary purpose.

“We needed a place to worship—that was first and foremost, and it’s not insignificant that this is the original building to go up, followed quickly by the temple,” he said, adding, “This gave the communion to community—and I think that’s what it was for us as kids. That’s harder to hold in a city of 84,000 now. We shouldn’t lose it; we mustn’t lose it.”

Standing on the steps of the St. George Tabernacle following a brief, private tour of the renovated building are, from top right, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; his wife, Sister Patricia Holland; Sister Phyllis Snow and her husband, Elder Steven E. Snow, General Authority Seventy and Church Historian; Bishop Dean M. Davies, First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric; and his wife, Sister Darla Davies. Photo was taken July 27, 2018. Photo by Scott Taylor, Church News.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speaks Saturday, July 28, 2018, in the St. George Tabernacle in St. George, Utah. Behind him are, from left, his wife, Sister Patricia Holland, Sister Phyllis Snow, and Elder Steven E. Snow. The 147-year-old building was rededicated after a two-year renovation. Photo by Nick Adams, for the Deseret News.

Elder Steven E. Snow, Church Historian and General Authority Seventy, speaks to a full congregation Saturday, July 28, 2018, during a rededication ceremony at the St. George Tabernacle in St. George, Utah. The building was rededicated after a two-year renovation. Photo by Nick Adams, for the Deseret News.

A photo of the St. George 5th Ward Primary, taken in June 1950 in the basement of the St. George Tabernacle. The photo was found in the belongings of Leona Atkin, the Primary president at the time, following her passing. The photo was on display during the late July open house prior to the tabernacle’s rededication on July 28, 2018. A young Jeffrey R. Holland, future Church Apostle who then was 9 years old, is eighth from the right on the lowest row of individuals standing (third row from the top). The grey “34” in front of him is an errant identification number left on this digital copy of the photo, which, during the open-house display, had numbers superimposed on each child's image, with an accompanying listing of names for each known child. Photo courtesy of J. Ralph Atkin.

The original pine trusses cut and constructed by St. George settlers in the 1860s and 1870s are visible in the attic of the St. George Tabernacle. Photo taken July 23, 2018. Photo by Scott Taylor, Church News.

Emily Utt, historical sites curator with the Church History Department, stands in the St. George Tabernacle’s cramped bell tower near the refurbished gears and mechanical workings of the tower clock. Photo taken July 23, 2018. Photo by Scott Taylor, Church News.

The intricate gears and inner mechanical workings of the St. George Tabernacle’s bell-tower clock. Photo taken July 23, 2018. Photo by Scott Taylor, Church News.

Decaying scriptures and other items from a time capsule placed in a sandstone box are on display inside the St. George Tabernacle on Saturday, July 28, 2018, in St. George, Utah. Photo by Nick Adams, for the Deseret News.

One of the spiral staircases in the St. George Tabernacle is shown Saturday, July 28, 2018. Photo by Nick Adams, for the Deseret News.

A view of St. George, looking toward the temple, from the bell tower of the St. George Tabernacle. Photo taken July 23, 2018. Photo by Scott Taylor, Church News.

Less than a half-dozen blocks southeast of the St. George Tabernacle sits the St. George Utah Temple, which was dedicated in 1877, a year after the dedication of the tabernacle. Workers who were constructing the tabernacle would shift their time and talents over to the building of the temple. Photo taken July 23, 2018. Photo by Scott Taylor, Church News.

The All-Seeing Eye and Shield decorations high on the back wall of the St. George Tabernacle were left as-is during the building’s renovation in this photograph taken Saturday, July 28, 2018, in St. George, Utah. Photo by Nick Adams, for the Deseret News.

Rows of empty pews are seen in the St. George Tabernacle on Saturday, July 28, 2018, following a rededication ceremony. Photo by Nick Adams, for the Deseret News.

The St. George Tabernacle is shown Saturday, July 28, 2018, following the rededication of the building in St. George, Utah. The 147-year-old building was closed for a two-year renovation. Photo by Nick Adams, for the Deseret News.

• Church Leaders, Church Facilities