As a wartime safety measure, and to conserve gasoline, tires, and other resources that otherwise would have been consumed by those coming to Conference, the Tabernacle was closed during World War II. Conference attendance was restricted to General Authorities, stake presidencies, and bishops – not their wives, no auxiliary leaders, not the general public. I read a note the other day indicating that even A. William Lund, assistant Church historian, was not permitted to attend
General Conference routinely included gatherings of various kinds that the public may not always be aware of; one of these “side” meetings was usually a meeting in the Salt Lake Temple for the very officers to whom the 1942 April Conference was restricted … it was a much smaller Church then.
Perhaps because everyone in the Tabernacle on Saturday was also invited to that Temple meeting on Sunday, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., counselor in the First Presidency, gave directions for the procedures to be followed on Sunday. I’m reproducing them here because they give such a concrete reality to this moment in the past – we seldom read such prosaic instructions. The nuts and bolts of the past always intrigue me.
-ooOoo-
J. Reuben Clark, Jr.:
Tomorrow morning, brethren, as we have already told you, we are to meet in the temple. We ask you to come fasting. You will enter the temple enclosure n the regular way as if you were going into the temple, through that little gate by the little house over on Main Street. The brethren will be there in the morning to welcome you at 9:20, when the gate will be opened. You will enter the temple itself by the southwest door. There will be brethren there who will show you how to get to the upper floor.
I do not speak of this very often. I do not like to, but I am getting to the age where stairs are a bit troublesome. Now there may be some of you also to whom climbing stairs is a little difficult and you would not do it just out of choice. To those of you who are like myself, I would say when you get inside the west door of the Temple if you will turn immediately to your left you will come to an elevator. A man will be on the elevator who will take you up to the fifth floor. I would like to urge those of you who do want to take the elevator to come early, because the elevator is small, carries only a few at a time, and it will therefore not be possible to move a great group of you with any considerable expedition.
Remember as you enter the temple, and I am sure you will remember, that you are entering a holy place. We would like you to go immediately to the top floor where we will have one of the brethren at the organ playing soft music for us while we wait for the time to commence the meeting. We ought to be in our seats by 9:50 because they will begin broadcasting from the Temple at 10 o’clock sharp. The broadcast will be the usual one on Easter Sunday morning. it will consist of a short service by us in the Temple, then the controls will go to the tabernacle where the Tabernacle Choir will give its regular Sunday morning broadcast; then Elder Stephen L Richards will give the Church of the Air ((The Church of the Air was a coast-to-coast CBS radio network program; ministers of various denominations were invited to present sermons. It was common for the LDS Church to be invited to broadcast during April or October conferences, which perhaps gave us more than our share of Easter invitations.)) Easter sermon, which will likewise be broadcast from the Tabernacle. We shall hear it in the Temple so that that will be part of our service. When that is over the controls will come back to us, and we shall go forward with the rest of our service, until 12 o’clock, when we shall go off the air. We then count on recessing for thirty minutes, that we may rest and go to the lavatories. We will explain about them to you tomorrow.
Please, brethren, come fasting, and with a fast-day spirit.
After the recess tomorrow we shall re-assemble at 12:30 when we shall have a Fast meeting. The quorum of the Twelve will administer the sacrament to us; then we shall have testimony meeting. You brethren will be asked to take up the time in bearing your testimonies, rather than, may I say, in preaching sermons. There are a lot of you and you cannot all be heard under the best circumstances, but we hoe that the spirit of testimony will rest upon you, so that no time will be wasted. We know that we shall have a glorious time. That meeting will end when it seems right to end it.
Now, brethren, it will be necessary that all of you have with you in the morning your tickets of admission. You will understand that we cannot run the risk of anybody going who should not be there.
Let me go over it again if I have made a mistake: The gates into the Temple will be opened at 9:20. Those who wish to use the elevator ought to get there at that time or as soon thereafter as possible. You all ought to be in your seats by 9:50. Our broadcast from the Temple will begin at 10 and run until 10:30, when it will be taken over by the Tabernacle Choir, which will hold it for thirty minutes, until eleven; then another thirty minutes will be used for the Church of the Air; then the broadcast will come back to us in the Temple at 11:30, and we will go on there until 12. Then we will be off the air. After that we will have a recess for thirty minutes until 12:30. We will re-assemble at 12:30 and have our testimony meeting, where you brethren, I repeat, will be the ones to bear your testimonies. The sacrament will be administered by the Twelve, and Brother Clawson will arrange for that in the morning.
Have I made it clear, brethren? Is there anything else?
From report of Sunday’s meetings:
Testimony Meeting
Between the hours of 12:30 and 4:00 p.m. a testimony meeting was held in the assembly room, fifth floor of the Temple, at which all of the General Authorities of the Church were present. Presidents of Stakes and their Counselors and Presidents of High Priests Quorums from the various Stakes of the Church were also in attendance. There was a rich outpouring of the Spirit at this meeting. Forty-three testimonies were borne, and very many of those present were disappointed that there was not sufficient time and opportunity for them to participate.
I love that. I had been aware of some conference sessions in the temple, but I had not thought about them being broadcast live from in the temple.
Broadcasting from in the temple made me think about the recent broadcast announcing the new First Presidency. The meeting appeared to be from the south visitors’ center (I could see the temple out the window), but they repeatedly referred to the meeting as being “from the temple.” I would’ve taken that phrase to mean that they were in the temple, not just in temple square, or in a nearby building.
For the testimony meeting why does it mention both stake presidents and presidents of stake high priests quorums? Currently, the stake president is also ex officio the high priests quorum president. Was that not the case previously? I guess I’m not aware of the history of that, and now that I think about it, I don’t know of anything in the Doctrine and Covenants that provides for it, as there is for the bishop being priests quorum president.
The broadcast on Tuesday announcing the new first presidency appeared to me to be the room in the the SLC temple annex that is on the ‘worldly’ side of the recommend desk. I have been to a couple of family weddings where my responsible but as yet unendowed daughters waited there with cousins in similar situation until the sealing itself was accomplished. So the room IS in the temple but not in a room used for ordinances, and does not require showing a recommend to enter, although people are expected to be in Sunday attire and well behaved.
I think LauraN is right about the location of the Tuesday morning broadcast–it appeared to have been held in the building just east of the Temple Annex, which has a wall of windows on its south side, through with the northeast corner of the temple is visible.
And that’s an interesting question Left Field raises about High Priests Quorum Presidents. I knew a very young stake president who used to tell people (outside his stake) who asked about his calling that he was “the president of the high priests quorum in his stake.” People would nod and say ok and not bother him with more questions or comments about how young he was, etc., etc.
I know where you mean, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve been to the Salt Lake Temple. I think they didn’t show a long enough view out the window for me to orient myself, and the giant window in the south visitors’ center (where they used to have the font) was what came to mind. I don’t think of the annex as being in the temple, though. But I guess it’s more “from the temple” than the visitors’ center would be.
“From the temple” just seemed strange when I could see the temple out the window behind them, and potentially misleading for people not familiar with temple square, or listening without video.
Am I remembering correctly that conference was held in the temple during the flu epidemic of 1918?
(Not personally remembering, of course…)
The Conference Reports record for that conference indicates that it was held as usual in the Tabernacle and Assembly Hall. That booklet does not mention all the “side” meetings that were normally held (for mission presidents, patriarchs, stake presidents, etc.) While there were flu cases as early as September, the epidemic didn’t really take off until the days following the October 4-6 Conference.
(Didn’t we bump into each other in the Saturday afternoon session, Left Field? I coulda sworn that was you …)
My interest in the SL temple’s architecture/engineering leads me to wonder precisely what it was about the fifth-floor lavatories that needed to be “explained about”.
LOL, JimD!
Prior to correlation (I don’t know exactly when the change was made – in the 60’s or 70’s I believe), the calling of president of the high priest’s quorum was distinct from stake president. The book Priesthood and Church Government discusses the calling some.
In my personal opinion, it makes a great deal more sense to have combined them.
I was wondering the same thing, JimD!
Maybe they were going to explain that all the lavatories would be available to the men in the conference, since there would not have been any women in the temple that day.
I’m impressed that the average testimony was under 5 minutes. Especially given the setting and the audience.
Jimd, giving a serious answer to your not-so-serious question, I suspect things weren’t nearly as straightforward in that building back in the day. A quick search through James E. Talmage’s description of the Salt Lake Temple in “The House of The Lord” only mentions lavatories in the temple annex (down the stairs, through the temple basement, and down the passageway to the annex, not convenient). Things may have been renovated in the ensuing years, or Brother Talmage may have left this very important detail out of his work.
I remember now, Ardis! We had a nice chat about Brother Talmage’s address.
I was thinking kind of the same thing as Seth. I’m not intimately familiar with the building, but the Assembly Room takes up the whole floor except for the towers. The corner towers are staircases. The center west tower had elevators, and the center east I think is probably mostly a corridor between staircases. There can’t be much room for lavatories. In fact, from the descriptions and drawings, I don’t know where one would be on the council room floor below. For a big crowd, people might’ve needed directions to the various facilities in the building.
Regarding the assembly room on the “fifth floor,” I’m a little confused. I would count the baptistry, creation room, and garden room as the first floor. Then…
2. World, terrestrial, celestial, and sealing rooms
3. Council rooms
4. Assembly room
5? Balcony of assembly room
There is a sub-basement with mechanical equipment (I surreptitiously took the elevator down there once to poke my head out and look around), but I wouldn’t count that as a floor. Perhaps they count an intermediate level with cross-corridors between the celestial and council room levels (that long staircase in the front of the world room comes to mind). I suppose there could be an elevator stop there. Maybe that’s the third floor. I’d give my left arm for a master key and a few hours to explore the building…
After checking, I see that the following conference was postponed until June 1919. I probably got the 1919 postponement and the 1942 relocation mixed up in my head. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that there might have been another instance of conference in the Salt Lake Temple. But probably not. I’m pretty sure general conference was held in the St. George Temple at one point, so that may be swirling around in my skull too.
I’m looking at the model of the Salt Lake Temple in the South Visitor’s Center, and my guess is that the celestial room counts as the third floor, but it’s hard to say since it’s a partial cut-away.
(There are additional pictures on other websites, but the ones in the link at the Mormon Newsroom don’t have the reflections from the case.)
I love this kind of behind-the-scenes minutiae, too. It makes me appreciate the reality of history.
My best guess is that the “third floor” is just two rooms in the two center towers a half-level up from the ground floor. In the east tower, there’s a sealing room accessible from stairs in the celestial room. In the west tower, a long staircase from the terrestrial room leads into a corresponding elevated space in the center tower, used by officiators in the terrestrial room. The east tower has no elevators, but the elevators in the west tower likely have a stop at this level, which would have to be numbered 3. The remaining floors are probably numbered based on the elevator floor numbers.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. At least until they give me my master key and let me wander around the temple.