Dwight is feeling grumpy, we all are busy with stuff, but when I ran across these photos, which are very poor in quality, I thought perhaps you might enjoy seeing them. If I remember correctly, the film these photos was on got wet (or something), but Mother felt the recording of the dismantling of the Penrose Church should be preserved. So, through the ripples in the film, see if you can imagine where Dad and Uncle Norman took out tubs and tubs of honey comb. Even though the front steps are hard to pick out, I remember spending hours on them. And I suspect we all wish we had the tin ceiling tiles. Wonder if we could find them in the dump piles across the river?
14 comments:
Don't you think that the process of tearing down the church left Mother with mixed feelings? I am glad that you kept these photos, rippled or not. Steve can tell a story or two about the coming down of the church.
Something sad about this church building coming down. Too many echos of hymns sung,babies blessed, sermons preached, weary farmers and families seeking solace on Sunday mornings, fiddles playing at country dances until morning, sacrifices made, tears shed. I can still see, hear, and feel them all.
I am NOT grumpy. We do not air our private feelings on a dignified family blog. Thank you.
Remember that Dad in his later years had dreams that he was required to rebuild the old church? I also remember when someone started a fire in the pot belly stove for a Saturday night dance (in the days when the church house was only used for that purpose and for a place for voting), and the chimney and roof caught fire. We noticed it, called the Powell fire department, and they came all the way out to Penrose to douse the flames. Later, it was discovered that Penrose was not the part of any fire district. That was corrected later, so that no one would be left out, but I sometimes wonder that if it had burned down, if the L wing on our house might not have been built. We used to go over with Mother's key and "play" on the old out-of-tune piano, and read the books, or bring some home to read. The interior of the church always seemed like a special place. Ann, so glad that you have these pictures - history continues.
Dwight, do you think you could clean up these negatives with your MAC? Is that ok to ask on a dignified family blog? I was merely quoting you when I said you were grumpy. Personally I think that just adds a little human touch to an otherwise amazing collection of how we lived, etc.
Father and I took the good tins from the ceiling and nailed them to the top of the loafing shed. We then sealed and painted them with aluminum roofing paint. Father was very proud of the fancy design. It didn't last for long though, a few days later a monster wind strom ripped the intire roof off and carried it all the way to the road. Then they went to the dump.
Father had a near life changing experience while tearing down the church. The roof had been cleaned down to the trusses. Dad decided to go work on the demolition in the middle of the day by himself. He had taken a large iron bolt out of one of the trusses wich served as a lynch pin. The truss toppled over creating a domino affect. Everything toppeled, one after another. The first one going right over father's head. Mother was terrified she had seen all of the remaining roof standing one minute and all gone the next. Father's description of the incident was that it all went,"whoosh."
Did I relay these tales before and if so are they similar?
No,all brand new to me, and a little amazing. Answers the question of what happened to the embossed tin ceiling, and I remember a photo of the roof in it's demolished state. Thanks for bringing us up to speed on the stories.
What interesting pictures. It's kind of eeery seeing the skeleton of what was once such an importante part of the history of Penrose; and gave me a few memories of my own. I wanted to be able to play the piano so badly, and I would try to plunck out church hymns on the old piano there. I have an old Book of Mormon from the books that were there, and I used it in my B. Of M. class my first year at BYU. The stories in the comments are really interesting. So, an icon of Penrose was gone, and Penrose still seems empty without it. I'm glad for the good piture that we have of it. I, too, dream about the church, it's usually about some occassion that is taking place there.
I worked on the pictures a bit but nothing I know about could resurrect anything; there just aren't any pixels there, to speak of. Maybe if I were more of an expert at photo restoring I could reconstruct. However, I'll watch for stuff that may make them a bit stronger. The tin ceiling was probably worth a ton of money; that stuff was very rare.
I keep having a recurring dream that there is a secret and luxurious room or chamber in the upstairs in this building. Now I'll never know. There used to be two outhouses; then there was only one, co-ed. Imagine the sanitation for sacrament, etc.
I think in an earlier post Steve and I talked about spending election day at the church with Mother. My memories are much more of mischief and of the books. Somehow I think both Judy and Steve were involved in some of the mischief, altho in the earlier post, if I remember correctly, Judy hinted at the fact she wasn't a part of that). Among the books I have that are stamped Penrose LDS Church is Song of Years, which is still much loved by Judy and me, and others?(I have the original which Judy signed over to me in exchange for the aqua stuffed poodle Elizabeth gave us both after her first year at Laramie).
You went before you came to Church and waited afterwards. Simple.
That would save half of the traffic in and out of Sacrament meeting. Before is a novel idea. I think we should go back to the more primative mode.
Dwight told me he was a man of few words. What do you think?
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