The Penrose Church no longer was used for LDS church meetings after sometime in the 1930s. I remember going to Sunday School and sitting on little chairs out in the front yard during the summer months during our class time. Grandpa Wasden was branch president, and bishop, of the Penrose Branch and Ward for, I think, 13 years or so. For awhile, we attended Church sporadically in Byron, about five miles away. Then we began attending church in Powell, 12 miles the other way. I don't remember if this has been posted. It is a scan of a page from the Powell LDS Ward history booklet. The top photo is a home where LDS members first met in Powell. The next move was to the Boy Scout Cabin, the tiny log building on the left. The Boy Scout cabin remained in this location until a couple of years ago or so (this year is 2010) when it was moved and a new Chamber of Commerce building built on this location. The bottom photo of the IOOF hall shows the "church" that I most remember, because the LDS Powell congregation met here until the summer after I graduated from high school. In 1949, the congregation was able to purchase two or more surplus barracks from the Heart Mountain "Relocation" Center where Japanese were incarcerated during WWII and used the materials to build the first chapel that the Powell LDS people could call home, complete with a classroom wing. This building still stands today and is in continual use as an Elk's lodge building and for other community events. Last summer (2009), our Powell High School Class of 1949 held its 60th reunion banquet in this hall. It was only slightly amusing to note that the bar for the lodge is located where the LDS Bishop's office was originally located. I have attended and visited many modern and extravagant LDS, by comparison, to the IOOF Hall, LDS church buildings as we moved around the country. But my memories of Church and what it has always meant to me throughout my life took root and were nourished by a group of humble farmers here in this building, in what we called the "Eye-Oof" hall. I never really needed much else.
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I remember the Boy Scout log cabin - If my memory is correct, when classes came, a curtain of some sort divided the adults from the children. There weren't very many members in those days. (And to think that today there are two LDS Church buildings and the Institute. Our first building that was all our own - the barracks that became a Church, was later augmented by purchasing a house to the east of these buildings, which became the Junior Sunday School. This building is the one that I remember so vividly - the newer brick church on 7th was built after I left home.
I wish we had a picture of the Byron chapel. I remember it had a lot of steps going up into the front door, and there was a basement where I went to S.S. class. The main thing I remember about class was playing Drop the Handkerchief.I remember sitting in the chapel seeing Grandma sitting behind a rope that ran across the front,she led the music. Grandma and Grandpa took us kids to church in Byron quite a bit of the time. When we moved to Ralston we went to the boy Scout building in Powell, which was a branch, with Ivin Lynn as branch president. It was one room that was divided for classes by pulling curtains across, which didn't do anything about sound. And of course there are a lot of memories of the "I-Oof" hall. We were then made a ward and Ivin Lynn was bishop. Even though it wasn't a typical L.D.S. chapel the barracks building was all ours and was the building I went to the year I taught in Powell. And Ivin Lynn was still bishop. I echo your sentiments of what the memories have meant in my own life as well.
This is such a good reminder for us and for the generations to come. I think the humble efforts of church members at that time were lovingly received.
P.S. I can remember dropping Dwight at the Boy Scout log house, and thinking he was lucky to be in a house like Abrham Lincoln's. Does anyone know the origin of that building?
I have a funny vague memory of the log building. I have a little stronger memory of the "I-Oof" hall. I have a very strong memory of the excitement when we moved into the white church/barracks. That was a neat time. And then when the newer brick church was built, Dad put in hours and hours helping to build it. Didn't he also make the sign that was above the doors of the white church?
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