Comments on: “Making Available to Faithful Members” (1952)

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 17:04:34 +0000

There *was* a Millennial Star edition on that, and lots of earlier (especially during the war years) articles that show how beloved that building was. I keep meaning to write something about it — and I will, if you or Alison or someone else doesn’t beat me to it (hint, hint!)

By: Anne (UK)

Anne (UK) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 16:44:37 +0000

I’m really late to this one, but my tummy did a little flip when I saw the address: 149 Nightingale Lane. For years this was a big old Victorian house called “Ravenslea” which served as Mission HQ for the Church, especially prominent during the war years. I remember the old house well as I walked past it twice a week as a pre-schooler en route to visit my aunt. By the late 60′s the house was demolished ( there’s a Millennial Star edition devoted to the history of building, so loved was it) and the Wandsworth Chapel was built, which was where I was baptised as a teenager in 1977, met Alison who served her mission there a few years later, and married there in ’86.

Completely irrelevant to the subject matter though

By: Alison

Alison — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 20:39:58 +0000

Thanks, Ardis, for sharing the announcement and also to Mark for the context. It certainly shows how much we take what we now have for granted.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 20:12:24 +0000

Thank you for that summary, Mark; it really helps to have the perspective. So much we take for granted.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 18:07:56 +0000

It may be difficult for us in 2012 to appreciate what an extraordinary thing that was in 1952–just seven years after the end of the Second World War, the Korean War still a year from its end, the Cold War dividing the world in two more starkly than ever.

There were no commercial jet aircraft to take people from New York to London in seven hours–about the best you could do was take one of Cunard’s fast liners from New York to Southampton–in five days. Long distance telephone service was lousy, and expensive. Believe it or not, there was no Internet. No satellite TV. No satellites, for that matter, except the moon and all the ancient states of central and eastern Europe.

There were no stakes of the church in Europe–the first was nearly eight years away in autumn 1952. Temple recommends were still being countersigned by General Authorities. There was no temple “film”–all the temples in use up to that point used live actors (which presented special difficulties in a multi-lingual environment like continental Europe).

So, the decision to build a temple in Switzerland required the consideration of all of those issues–and the choices made in that process have had a profound effect on the church in the last half century.