World War II created many problems for the Church, even within the United States which was largely spared from the direct effects of war. Military service meant that men available for missionary service were scarce, and except for limited and specific roles, the Church ceased calling sister missionaries at all. Travel was expensive and difficult because trains were needed for military transport, private cars were no longer being manufactured, and essentials like oil, gas, and tires for private cars were strictly rationed. You know all that – maybe, though, you aren’t aware of the rationing and restrictions in effect on building or even renovation of buildings. It was difficult for wards and branches even to obtain the supplies to repair, say, the settling of the concrete porch on the Spanish-American mission home in El Paso which let rainwater leak into the basement, much less finding a repairmen who could do the work when they did finally locate some cement.

You might remember that the Spanish-American Mission was an anomaly among missions. Its geographic territory (Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Colorado) overlapped the geographic territory of other missions; the Spanish-American Mission was responsible for Spanish-speaking members and proselyting in the same areas where other missions cared for English-speaking people. Sometimes (rarely, because there weren’t that many chapels in the Spanish-American mission) that meant there could be two relatively nearby buildings, one belonging to the Spanish-American Mission and the other belonging to an English-speaking mission or stake.

During World War II, that was the case in San Diego. There was a regularly organized stake in the San Diego area (so, it wasn’t part of the California Mission – in those days when a stake was created, it was removed from the jurisdiction of a mission), and one of the wards had a chapel very near to the chapel of the San Diego Branch of the Spanish-American Mission.

The Spanish branch was very small, with a lone Melchizedek Priesthood holder, an elderly man. The rest were women and children, numerous enough to need a branch organization, but too small to provide its own leadership. So Lorin F. Jones, president of the Mission, arranged for one of the members of the Anglo stake to serve as branch president, and he persuaded two young couples to move to San Diego, with the husbands to serve as counselors in the branch presidency. Both husbands and one wife were former missionaries in the Spanish-American Mission, and the other wife was a member of the almost legendary Balderas family. “You can easily imagine the wonderful assistance these four young people are rendering our small branch there,” President Jones noted in the spring of 1945.

The branch, with heavy assistance from the Church, had purchased an existing chapel. It was small but adequate for the numbers in the branch, with an auditorium and a few classrooms on the main floor, and unfinished basement, and, upstairs, quarters for the former church’s pastor. Both of the counselors and their wives occupied the upstairs apartment – a necessary arrangement because housing in a defense region like San Diego was difficult to find, and no new civilian housing could be built during the duration of the war. President Jones had promised that housing to the branch counselors. The two men couldn’t have come to San Diego otherwise, or at least couldn’t have expected to have their wives with them.

Anyway, that’s the setting for an incident early in 1945. The Anglo ward sold its chapel before securing a new meeting house. I don’t know why they sold it before they had somewhere else to go, but I’ve seen it happen in other places in the records.

Leaders of the Anglo ward approached the Spanish branch presidency about sharing their building for whatever time it took them to acquire a new building. The Spanish branch agreed: They would reschedule their Sunday meetings to allow both groups to use the chapel. Because the building was really too small for the Anglo ward, the Spanish branch proposed that the basement be improved to create classrooms there: The Spanish branch would scrounge the necessary materials, but could not provide the labor – remember, the branch consisted almost exclusively of women and children. While it was a difficult expense – they had not planned on finishing the basement anytime soon – the Spanish branch would provide the funds so that the Anglo ward would not be investing in a building they did not own. The ward agreed.

In February, the ward reneged on the agreement. They did not care to remodel the Spanish branch building. Instead of new basement classrooms, they wanted the two young couples living upstairs in the building to move out and turn those rooms over to the ward for the necessary classrooms.

The Spanish branch rescheduled its Mutual program from Tuesday to Thursday because the Anglo ward wanted to meet on Tuesday.

The Spanish branch scheduled its Sunday meetings for the morning, offering the afternoon and evening to the Anglo ward. That wasn’t entirely acceptable to the Anglo Ward – they wanted their Sunday School to at least start during the morning, and they wanted their Sacrament meeting set for 6:00 p.m., so they demanded that the Spanish branch vacate the building by 11:30 – they could come back in the afternoon for their Sacrament meeting if they wanted, as long as they were gone by the time the Anglo ward wanted to meet.

No one – not one single member – in the Spanish branch had a car. They needed to walk or take the bus to Church – which meant they could not practically begin their meetings before 9:15. That did not leave enough time for them to hold both Sunday School and Sacrament meeting in the morning and leave before the ward wanted the building, and making two trips to Church on Sunday was simply beyond the limits of their transportation realities.

Nevertheless, the ward insisted. Despite decisions by both branch and mission presidencies that the Spanish branch must have access to their building during adequate hours, and absolutely must retain control of the upstairs living quarters for the counselors’ families, the ward’s bishop exerted heavy pressure on the branch president (who, after all, was a member of the Anglo ward as well as president of the Spanish branch). The bishop continued to insist, and even went so far as to say he would take the matter over the heads of the Spanish-American Mission: He would call on the First Presidency during April Conference – as a bishop he was one of the few leaders permitted to attend conference, which was closed to the general membership – and since mission presidents were not invited to conference during the war, the bishop would be able to petition the First Presidency without being contradicted by anyone from the Spanish-American Mission. Or so he thought.

“We are most willing and happy to cooperate and share the use of any chapel in the mission with any other group of members,” President Jones wrote to his friend David O. McKay. “We honestly and sincerely feel that the demands of the [blank] ((I choose not to identify the ward or name its bishop here.)) Ward are most unreasonable and unjust, and that they are demanding much more than they would be willing to concede were the tables reversed.”

And where did this insistence on having their own way come from? In President Jones’s view, “Our members are long-suffering in matters like this. It appears to me that on account of our members being few in number, and also on account of them being Mexicans, the American ward feels that our members should accede to any demands made by the ward.”

I don’t have the Anglo ward’s version of the matter. I can’t state without question that racial prejudice was fully or partially to blame. But President Jones certainly felt that bigotry played a role in the ward’s demands, and it seems plausible to me.

There is no doubt about President McKay’s ideas of justice in the matter, though.

“The Chapel belongs to the Spanish American Mission and the Saints of that Branch have the right to choose the hour most convenient for them to hold their services. The [blank] Ward should accept as a favor the hours you grant them to use the Chapel.”

While he doesn’t mention the disposition of the upstairs living quarters, President McKay made it clear, I think, that the women and children of the Spanish-American branch were entitled to use their own building, and that the ward was in no position to make demands or set terms: They were indebted to the branch for any concessions made to them. Period.