Latter-day Saint missionaries were first sent to Boston, Massachusetts in 1832. At that time, local converts left New England to join the saints in the west. The first LDS chapel in the area was dedicated more than a hundred years later in 1956. It wasn’t in Boston, but across the river in Cambridge. Additional chapels were built in the suburbs around Boston, but a branch of the church wasn’t organized in Boston proper until 1984.

In the late 1970’s four friends, black Caribbean women, decided to take a short vacation to Washington, DC. The group included Lilian Smith from Jamaica, Esther Corbin and her mother Muriel Cadogan from Barbados, and a daughter or daughter-in-law of Esther’s. Besides looking at the Washington Monument and the Capitol, these women visited the Washington, DC temple and toured the visitors’ center.

They were so impressed that when they returned home, they contacted the Church to find out where the closest Latter-day Saint meetings were held. They were disappointed to discover that the nearest church building was in Cambridge. They lived in Mattapan and Roxbury, all the way across the city. They traveled to Cambridge to attend church when they could, and begged for LDS meetings closer to home.

Lilian was baptized in August of 1978. Esther and her mother, Muriel, were baptized in December of 1978. In December of 1980, Muriel received her temple endowment.

Also in December of 1980, Lilian’s husband Joshua Smith was baptized. In March of 1984, the Smiths received their temple ordinances and were sealed to each other in the Washington DC Temple. Local church leaders decided it was time to start holding Latter-day Saint meetings in inner city Boston. Joshua was called to be president of the so-called “Boston Unit.” It was a dependent unit of the Cambridge Ward. At first they met every other week and then started meeting weekly.

I first met these wonderful people in the fall of 1985. My husband and I were members of the Cambridge Ward but were asked to serve in the Boston Unit for a year.

The Boston Unit met in rented space in the Knights of Columbus Hall. There was a meeting room with folding chairs that served as chapel. Hymnals and a table top podium were stored in a cubbyhole. The adult classes and meetings were also held in this room. The rest of the space the church rented was an open party area still littered with peanut shells and cigarette butts from the night before.

Although I was only 25, pregnant and the mother of a toddler, I was called as the Primary President. Few people in the Unit had ever seen a functioning Primary, and even fewer had dealt with Primary since it became a Sunday rather than a weekday program in 1980. I was overwhelmed. I requested Lilian Smith and Esther Corbin as counsellors.

I divided the children by age into three classes, and Lilian, Esther, and I each took a group. We didn’t have classrooms, and we didn’t have materials, but we did our best. This was a completely new experience for Lilian and Esther, and they learned as we went along.

A short time later, the Unit was made the independent Boston Branch. As an unofficial “Unit,” it had no geographical boundaries. People who found the branch meetings convenient attended, but some church members preferred to drive to Cambridge. With the creation of an official branch, people living in the boundaries were expected to attend. We added a few active adults and some children. A longtime church member from Idaho who was in Boston for a year was called as the new branch president with Joshua Smith as a counselor.

The branch quickly outgrew its space in the Knights of Columbus Hall. In early 1986 we moved to space in a mental health clinic in Roslindale. We had a much larger meeting room and several classrooms. The effects of the new space were immediate. Everyone brought their family and friends. Sacrament Meeting was “standing room only” for about three weeks. Then people realized there wasn’t enough space, and our attendance went down to the number of chairs allowed by the fire marshal

The group was very diverse. We included English-speaking people from Jamaica and Barbados, French Creole-speaking people from Haiti, and a large African American family from Alabama. They may have looked somewhat alike, with dark skin, but they were culturally very different. There was a Spanish-speaking family who decided that deciphering English was easier than traveling all the way to the Spanish Branch in Cambridge. There were plenty of long-time Bostonians who referred to “packing their cahs in the packing lot” in the Bostonian accent. We also had a lot of Irish former-Catholics. The “majority” ethnicity changed from week to week depending on who brought visiting family.

It was odd to be the Primary President and have Lilian (age 68) and Esther (age 56) looking to me to tell them what to do. As they learned more about Primary, I urged them to speak up, give me advice, and make more decisions. They said that people had told them that as converts to the church (black converts no less), they should step back and take instructions from those people who had been in the church longer.

I grabbed my scriptures and read to them the parable of the laborers hired to work in the Lord’s vineyard. Even those hired in the eleventh hour were paid the same penny as the others. I told them that since we were all receiving the same pay, we all needed to give the Lord our best. I can’t take the credit, but after that they lifted their heads, lengthened their strides, and hastened the work.

Service in the branch was difficult for me. My pregnancy affected my immune system, and I caught every germ and virus floating around. It was clear stake leaders and some of the branch leaders saw me as a useful tool on loan from the Cambridge Ward. I was supposed to solve branch problems, but not have any of my own.

But my dear sisters, Lilian and Esther, did more and more to care for me. Once they even drove across town to bring me a bag of oranges and hugs when I was very sick. They were the angels who stood on my right hand, and on my left. They were my Aaron and Hur, holding up the hands of a weak and pale imitation of Moses (Exodus 17:11-12).

The children began to really enjoy Primary. One of my proudest moments was when a boy told me I was “lots more interesting than the Kingdom Hall” (Jehovah’s Witnesses).

The church bought property for a future chapel just a few blocks from the mental health clinic, on Mount Hope Street. Attendance at the branch only qualified for a Phase I chapel—a small chapel that couldn’t be easily expanded. However, it was obvious attendance was tied to the available space. The stake president assigned a lot of stake visitors for the next few months, but he told them to arrive late and stand at the back so that they wouldn’t be taking seats away from any of the branch members. These visitors helped to strengthen the branch and were strengthened in return by the members. The branch was approved for a Phase II chapel which could be expanded by knocking out one wall.

At the end of the year, my husband and I returned to the ward we lived in. A couple of years later, we prepared to leave the area entirely. On the last Sunday before our move, we went to Roslindale to a groundbreaking ceremony for the new building. It was a joyful occasion.

I heard the rest of the story through letters exchanged with Lilian and Esther. The chapel on Mount Hope Street was finished. As soon as it was dedicated, attendance surged to fill it. Everyone wanted to bring their family and friends. It wasn’t long before that wall was knocked out and the building enlarged.

In one letter I made a reference to the Boston Branch, and Lilian corrected me to say that the proper name was now the Boston I Ward, also the Boston II Ward, plus the Boston Haitian Branch, and the Boston Spanish Branch. She wondered if I had heard about the planned Boston Temple!

In 2013 I was able to finally visit the completed chapel on Mount Hope Street. As members of two wards and two branches hurried into and out of their meetings, I stood in the foyer and cried to see what the tiny handful of people in the Boston Unit had become. Esther, Muriel, Lilian, Joshua, and other members of their families were modern day pioneers who put heart and soul into building up the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Boston.

photographs: Esther Corbin and daughter, from Esther’s Family Search page

Lillian and Joshua Smith, Ensign, September 1993