There are several things going on in this schedule that might be unfamiliar to 21st century readers:
First, it was not common for multiple wards to share a single building, until after the post-WWII baby boom made it impossible for the Church, even in Utah, to keep up with the need for new buildings. As the boomer children grew older, Primaries and Sunday Schools grew so large that it was sometimes necessary for a ward to hold two sessions – in effect, divide the crowds in half and run two complete Sunday Schools or Primaries
The teachers and presidency/superintendency of the auxiliaries generally held a 15-minute prayer just before the general meeting, where announcements and business occurred, as well as a prayer.
In meetings where the Saints separated into classes and quorums after opening exercises, there was generally also a closing exercise – everyone would return to the chapel or main meeting room. This had changed by the time I have any memory, so I don’t know what they might have done in closing exercises beyond have a closing song and prayer. Closing exercises, incidentally, were part of the reason for all those piano marches that used to be found in the Children’s Friend and the Primary songbooks: an orderly return to the chapel helped create the desirable atmosphere in a way that running and general mayhem would not have done.
Before the consolidated meeting schedule, Sacrament meetings were generally held in the late afternoon or early evening – except that Fast and Testimony meetings were held much earlier in the day so that the fast was not prolonged unmercifully.
So, combine all that activity in one building on Sundays, and there might be a need for scheduling suggestions, like this one from 1959, from the general Church.
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[I’m emailing you a Meetinghouse-Finder/screen-shot/Word-paint map to go along with this if you care to insert it]
We juggled several wards in several chapels during the 1960s and 70s in the rapidly-growing Eastside Suburbs of Seattle (East of Lake Washington). Just before we arrived, members met in a community center in Juanita just down the hill from where we lived. By the time we arrived in 1961, there was a nice, little chapel on Rose Hill between Kirkland and Redmond on the borders of Bellevue. Eventually, the Kirkland and Bothell Wards split and there was not enough room so that church was sold to build a new one on Rose Hill – this was all close to Lake Washington High School likely for Seminary purposes although members went to several different high schools. In ’66 or ’67 we triple-shifted, I think with the Bothell, Kirkland and Bellevue First Ward in the Bellevue chapel. I was only a kid but it seems rather complex and it was a ways to drive to church.
Then, in 1969, the new chapel was finished on Rose Hill and the Bothell and Kirkland Wards were split to make three – the new one was the Redmond Ward, pre-Bill Gates, but generally full of Boeing Engineers, so already tech-oriented. This is all pre-consolidated meeting schedule, so I don’t know how we did it.
I mapped out our route to Bellevue 1st Ward. You can also see the old and new chapels on Rose Hill about half way there. And the knock-me-over-with-a-feather, Finn Hill Chapel next to my Jr. High within walking distance of our home.
We sometimes went to church dances in the Shoreline Building in the Seattle Stake. It was actually closer than Bellevue. there were no chapels on the Eastside north of Redmond when we left in 1974.
We started in the new Seattle East Stake. I was baptized in the Burien, Seattle Stake Center as there was no fount to be found on the Eaststide until the Seattle East Stake Center was built which was renamed the Bellevue Washington Stake. And now I understand there is a Kirkland, Redmond, and Bothell Stake as well.
Thanks! They failed to mark Finn Hill on this map. It’s the big, oval-shape mass of land squeezing the northeast end of Lake Washington just below Bothell. Kirkland is due west on Redmond, on the Lake.
Under Plan I, it appears that the First Ward’s priesthood opening exercises would interfere with the Second Ward’s fast meeting. So even this schedule had not worked out all the kinks.
I would have attended priesthood in the ’70s pre-consolidation, and only part of that would’ve been in buildings with two wards. But I vaguely remember that on fast Sundays, Priesthood Meeting got displaced to the cultural hall to accommodate the other ward’s F&T Meeting.
There may have been a few things that were sufficiently common practice that they didn’t bother putting the details in the schedule. It may have been understood that Priesthood was in the chapel only on non-fast Sundays.
I’m on the high council of a married students stake here in Provo — we have ten (count ’em!) ten wards that share one building. True, the building does have two chapels, and we don’t have to worry about YW/YM meetings (or youth Sunday School classes), and Primary for each ward pretty much occupies one room, but it is still a marvel of planning and coordination. 🙂
I can’t recall off the top of my head exactly which one it was, but i’ve heard a recording from one of the 1936, 1938, or 1939 (though it probably wasn’t 1939) general conferences in which J. Reuben Clark, Jr. remarks approvingly of two wards in Southern California sharing a single building. The context of it all made it clear that this was an unusual circumstance, and it sounded like (though i couldn’t be sure) that it was a temporary arrangement until one of the wards could raise enough capital to build their own, but there it was—just wanted to mention an early instance of this happening.