Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Albin Wyoming.

Churches of the West: St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Albin Wyoming.:   

St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Albin Wyoming.

 

This is St. Joseph's Catholic Church in the tiny town of Albin.  Presently, Masses for this community are being heard in nearby Carpenter, rather than here.

Tuesday, March 21, 1944. Dear John.

The first in print use of the term "Dear John Letter" appeared in a UPI article entitled Hollywood Girls Gain Weight on Tour in Africa.¹   It was clear from the use, which was a quote from one of the increasingly corpulent Hollywood Girls that the term was in the common vernacular at the time.

We've touched on the topic of wartime marriages and breakups several times before, but my ability to link them in is restrained, as I can't find them all.  We haven't done one on wartime romantic relationships in general.  As our Fourth Law of History details, War Changes Everything, but like a lot of things surrounding World War Two, this topic is subject to a lot of myth.  According to one scholarly source:

Marriage rates rose in 1940-41 and peaked in 1942, only to slow down during the war and rise to even higher levels in 1946. Divorce rates followed a much smoother pattern, increasing from 1940 to 1946, then quickly declining in 1947.

World War II and Divorce: A Life-Course Perspective by Eliza K. Pavalko and Glen H. Elder, Jr.  

Frankly, looking at it, the Second World War didn't impact divorce nearly as much as commonly believed.  If it is taken into consideration that World War Two came immediately on the heels of the Great Depression, and that the ages of US troops in the war was higher than commonly imagined, it makes sense.  Consider:

While the Great Depression did lower marriage rates, the effect was not long lasting: marriages were delayed, not denied. The primary long-run effect of the downturn on marriage was stability: Marriages formed in tough economic times were more likely to survive compared to matches made in more prosperous time periods.

Love in the Time of the Depression: The Effect of Economic Conditions on Marriage in the Great Depression, Matthew J. Hill.

Indeed, that short snipped is revealing.

There were a lot of marriages contracted before soldiers went overseas, and some people did marry very quickly, which is probably balanced out by a lot of people who were going to get married anyhow getting married before they would be husband deployed.  Also, according to The Great Plains during World War II  by Prof. R. Douglas Hurt, there was an increase of pre deployment pre marital contact, although the book relied solely on interview data for that claim.  Having said that, a Florida academic, Alan Petigny, has noted that "between the beginning of World War II in 1941 and the inaugural issue of Playboy in 1953, the overall rate of single motherhood more than doubled".²

That the war had an impact on behavior in regard to relations outside of marriage is well documented.  Prostitution was rampant in every area where troops were deployed, with it being openly engaged in locations like London.  Examples of illicit behavior aren't very hard to find at all.  The length of the war no doubt contributed to this.  Nonetheless, traditional moral conduct dominated throughout the 1940s and after it, with the real, and disastrous, changes really starting in the early 1950s.

That "Dear John" letters weren't uncommon makes a lot of sense, however. The majority, but not all of them, would have been written by single women to single men, i.e., by girlfriend to boyfriend.  Those relationships were not solemnized and largely unconsummated, if we use those terms.  The war was long and accordingly the separations were as well.  Young women in many instances would have aged a few years, as the men would have also, but in conditions that were dramatically different than the men.  The women were, to a large degree, temporarily forced outside their homes, if they fit into the demographic that would have remained at home, but in conditions that were considerably more stable than the men.  If they went to work, they could have remained at one employer for years, whereas the soldier boyfriend may very well have constantly been on the move. Workplace romances certainly aren't uncommon now, with around 20% of Americans having met their spouses at work (Forbes claims its 43%).  Some large percentage of Americans have dated a coworker.  Given the long separations, a young woman meeting a man at work, or perhaps at church, or in her group of friends, was undoubtedly a common occurrence during the war, as it was never the case that all men were deployed, even though a very large number were.

FWIW, the Vietnam War is associated with the highest rate of "Dear John" letters, even though troops deployed for only one year in the country.  This undoubtedly says something about the change in economic and social conditions from the 1940s to the 1960s.

On a personally anecdotal level, I think I've met three people, now all deceased, who married during the war prior to the husband deploying.  One of those marriages failed, but the other two were lifelong.

The 20th Indian Division completed a withdrawal to the Shenan Hills. The 17th Indian Division was conducting a fighting withdrawal.

The Japanese were accordingly engaging in a very successful offensive in northeast Burma.  The war in that quarter was far from settled.  Be that as it may, as that was going on, the Western Allies were advancing in the Pacific ever close to Japan itself, which Japan was proving unable to arrest.  The Japanese situation, therefore, was oddly complicated in that in order to really reverse the tide of the war, they would have had to taken Indian entirely, and then knocked China out of the war, neither of which was realistic in spite of its recent battlefield successes.

As that was going on:

The Aerodrome: 21–25 April 1944. First Helicopter Combat Rescue: 21–25 April 1944.

We don't think of helicopters in World War Two, but they were starting to show up, and in one of their classic roles.

US and Australian troops linked up on the Huon Peninsula.  

Fighting in New Guinea, while going in the Allied direction, was proving endless.

The Finnish parliament, in a secret session, rejected Soviet peace terms.  Secret or not, the Finnish rejection hit American newspapers that very day.  That the Finns and Soviets were talking was very well known to everyone.

The papers were also noting the German invasion of Hungary, and there were rumors that Hungary was going to declare war on Germany, which proved far from true.  The Hungarian situation must have caused some concern, however, in Finland.

It was the first flight of the Japanese kamikaze rocket plane, the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka (櫻花)

The first flight was an unpowered test.

It might be noted that there's a real logic failure with this design.  If you can build a powered rocket suicide plane, you can build a rocket powered drone.

The ice jammed Yellowstone broke over its banks in Miles City, Montana.

The Trappist Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit was founded near Conyers, Georgia.

Footnotes:

1. The "girls" were Louise Allbritton, an actress who would have been 23 years old at the time, and June Clyde, who would have been 35.

Allbritton married a CBS news correspondent in 1946 and retired from acting.  She remained married until her death in 1979.  Clyde, who was a pre code actress and dancer, was married (1930) and also remained for the rest of her life. She passed away in 1987.

2.  World War One, which was comparatively short, does not seem to have impacted behavior and marriage rates nearly as much, but it did cause a very notable boom in overseas "war bride" marriages anywhere American troops were deployed, including Siberia.

There were, of course, war brides as a result of World War Two, but that's another story.

Related items:

Yeoman's Laws of History

Father Arne and the Greatest Failure of the Greatest Generation

1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Baby Boom Generation, Great Migration, It was because of World War Two, mehr Mensch sein, trends, World War II (Greatest) Generation, World War Two, Yeoman's Fourth Law of History

Friday, June 19, 1942 . James Dougherty and Norma Jean Baker marry. The Second Washington Conference commenced. The Germans execute Eliáš,

1940s, 1942s, Commandos, Czechoslovakia, Infantry, Marilyn Monroe, Personalities, Rangers, Second Washington Conference, Special Air Service, Special Boat Service, Teenagers, Yeoman's Fourth Law of History

Last prior edition:

Monday, March 20, 1944. Landings, port stops, potential halts.

1940s, 1944, 1944 at the Movies, Eastern Front, India, Italy, Monte Cassino, Movies, Operation Cartwheel, Operation U-Go, Ukraine, World War Two

Churches of the West: Churches of the West: Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, Casper Wyoming

Churches of the West: Churches of the West: Our Lady of Fatima Catholic ...: 

Churches of the West: Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, Casper Wyoming

Churches of the West: Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, Casper Wyoming: This Church was put in place in the early 1950s due to the expansion of the City of Casper, and has an unusual history. The church it...

Our prior entry, done quite some time ago, lacked an interior shot.  I could have simply added it to the old post, and I likely will, but here it is as a separate entry. More detail on the Church appears in the original entry.

 

Sunday Morning Scene. Churches of the West: Saints Peter and Paul Mission, Haleiwa, HI

Churches of the West: Saints Peter and Paul Mission, Haleiwa, HI:

Saints Peter and Paul Mission, Haleiwa, HI

Photos from a moving vehicle are always difficult, so this only gives you a glimpse of this Catholic mission church in Haleiwa, O'ahu, Hawaii.

On the island's northeast shore, this Catholic mission church was built in 1953 and is served by St. Michael's Parish.

 

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Jude Catholic Church. Kapolei, O'ahu, Hawaii.

Churches of the West: St. Jude Catholic Church. Kapolei, O'ahu, Hawaii.: 

St. Jude Catholic Church. Kapolei, O'ahu, Hawaii.

This is an interior shot of St. Jude's Catholic Church in Kapolei, O'ahu, Hawaii.  The large simple structure was built in 1998-99 and is slated to be replaced by a large church architecture structure once funds allows.

Monday, September 6, 1943. Churchill at Harvard.

Churchill visited Harvard and received an honorary degree.  While there, he delivered this speech:

The last time I attended a ceremony of this character was in the spring of 1941, when, as Chancellor of Bristol University, I conferred a degree upon the United States Ambassador, Mr. Winant, and in absentia upon President Conant, our President, who is here today and presiding over this ceremony. The blitz was running hard at that time, and the night before, the raid on Bristol had been heavy. Several hundreds had been killed and wounded. Many houses were destroyed. Buildings next to the University were still burning, and many of the University authorities who conducted the ceremony had pulled on their robes over uniforms begrimed and drenched; but all was presented with faultless ritual and appropriate decorum, and I sustained a very strong and invigorating impression of the superiority of man over the forces that can destroy him.

Here now, today, I am once again in academic groves – groves is, I believe, the right word – where knowledge is garnered, where learning is stimulated, where virtues are inculcated and thought encouraged. Here, in the broad United States, with a respectable ocean on either side of us, we can look out upon the world in all its wonder and in all its woe. But what is this that I discern as I pass through your streets, as I look round this great company?

I see uniforms on every side. I understand that nearly the whole energies of the University have been drawn into the preparation of American youth for the battlefield. For this purpose all classes and courses have been transformed, and even the most sacred vacations have been swept away in a round-the-year and almost round-the-clock drive to make warriors and technicians for the fighting fronts.

Twice in my lifetime the long arm of destiny has reached across the oceans and involved the entire life and manhood of the United States in a deadly struggle.

There was no use in saying “We don’t want it; we won’t have it; our forebears left Europe to avoid these quarrels; we have founded a new world which has no contact with the old. “There was no use in that. The long arm reaches out remorselessly, and every one’s existence, environment, and outlook undergo a swift and irresistible change. What is the explanation, Mr. President, of these strange facts, and what are the deep laws to which they respond? I will offer you one explanation – there are others, but one will suffice.

The price of greatness is responsibility. If the people of the United States had continued in a mediocre station, struggling with the wilderness, absorbed in their own affairs, and a factor of no consequence in the movement of the world, they might have remained forgotten and undisturbed beyond their protecting oceans: but one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilised world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes.

If this has been proved in the past, as it has been, it will become indisputable in the future. The people of the United States cannot escape world responsibility. Although we live in a period so tumultuous that little can be predicted, we may be quite sure that this process will be intensified with every forward step the United States make in wealth and in power. Not only are the responsibilities of this great Republic growing, but the world over which they range is itself contracting in relation to our powers of locomotion at a positively alarming rate.

We have learned to fly. What prodigious changes are involved in that new accomplishment! Man has parted company with his trusty friend the horse and has sailed into the azure with the eagles, eagles being represented by the infernal (loud laughter) – I mean internal -combustion engine. Where, then, are those broad oceans, those vast staring deserts? They are shrinking beneath our very eyes. Even elderly Parliamentarians like myself are forced to acquire a high degree of mobility.

But to the youth of America, as to the youth of all the Britains, I say “You cannot stop.” There is no halting-place at this point. We have now reached a stage in the journey where there can be no pause. We must go on. It must be world anarchy or world order.

Throughout all this ordeal and struggle which is characteristic of our age, you will find in the British Commonwealth and Empire good comrades to whom you are united by other ties besides those of State policy and public need. To a large extent, they are the ties of blood and history. Naturally I, a child of both worlds, am conscious of these.

Law, language, literature – these are considerable factors. Common conceptions of what is right and decent, a marked regard for fair play, especially to the weak and poor, a stern sentiment of impartial justice, and above all the love of personal freedom, or as Kipling put it: “Leave to live by no man’s leave underneath the law” – these are common conceptions on both-sides of the ocean among the English-speaking peoples. We hold to these conceptions as strongly as you do.

We do not war primarily with races as such. Tyranny is our foe, whatever trappings or disguise it wears, whatever language it speaks, be it external or internal, we must forever be on our guard, ever mobilised, ever vigilant, always ready to spring at its throat. In all this, we march together. Not only do we march and strive shoulder to shoulder at this moment under the fire of the enemy on the fields of war or in the air, but also in those realms of thought which are consecrated to the rights and the dignity of man.

At the present time we have in continual vigorous action the British and United States Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee, which works immediately under the President and myself as representative of the British War Cabinet. This committee, with its elaborate organisation of Staff officers of every grade, disposes of all our resources and, in practice, uses British and American troops, ships, aircraft, and munitions just as if they were the resources of a single State or nation.

I would not say there are never divergences of view among these high professional authorities. It would be unnatural if there were not. That is why it is necessary to have a plenary meeting of principals every two or three months. All these men now know each other. They trust each other. They like each other, and most of them have been at work together for a long time. When they meet they thrash things out with great candour and plain, blunt speech, but after a few days the President and I find ourselves furnished with sincere and united advice.

This is a wonderful system. There was nothing like it in the last war. There never has been anything like it between two allies. It is reproduced in an even more tightly-knit form at General Eisenhower’s headquarters in the Mediterranean, where everything is completely intermingled and soldiers are ordered into battle by the Supreme Commander or his deputy, General Alexander, without the slightest regard to whether they are British, American, or Canadian, but simply in accordance with the fighting need.

Now in my opinion it would be a most foolish and improvident act on the part of our two Governments, or either of them, to break up this smooth-running and immensely powerful machinery the moment the war is over. For our own safety, as well as for the security of the rest of the world, we are bound to keep it working and in running order after the war – probably for a good many years, not only until we have set up some world arrangement to keep the peace, but until we know that it is an arrangement which will really give us that protection we must have from danger and aggression, a protection we have already had to seek across two vast world wars.

I am not qualified, of course, to judge whether or not this would become a party question in the United States, and I would not presume to discuss that point. I am sure, however, that it will not be a party question in Great Britain. We must not let go of the securities we have found necessary to preserve our lives and liberties until we are quite sure we have something else to put in their place which will give us an equally solid guarantee.

The great Bismarck – for there were once great men in Germany – is said to have observed towards the close of his life that the most potent factor in human society at the end of the nineteenth century was the fact that the British and American peoples spoke the same language.

That was a pregnant saying. Certainly it has enabled us to wage war together with an intimacy and harmony never before achieved among allies.

This gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance, and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship. I like to think of British and Americans moving about freely over each other’s wide estates with hardly a sense of being foreigners to one another. But I do not see why we should not try to spread our common language even more widely throughout the globe and, without seeking selfish advantage over any, possess ourselves of this invaluable amenity and birthright.

Some months ago I persuaded the British Cabinet to set up a committee of Ministers to study and report upon Basic English. Here you have a plan. There are others, but here you have a very carefully wrought plan for an international language capable of a very wide transaction of practical business and interchange of ideas. The whole of it is comprised in about 650 nouns and 200 verbs or other parts of speech – no more indeed than can be written on one side of a single sheet of paper.

What was my delight when, the other evening, quite unexpectedly, I heard the President of the United States suddenly speak of the merits of Basic English, and is it not a coincidence that, with all this in mind, I should arrive at Harvard, in fulfilment of the long-dated invitations to receive this degree, with which president Conant has honoured me? For Harvard has done more than any other American university to promote the extension of Basic English. The first work on Basic English was written by two Englishmen, Ivor Richards, now of Harvard, and C.K. Ogden, of Cambridge University, England, working in association.

The Harvard Commission on English Language Studies is distinguished both for its research and its practical work, particularly in introducing the use of Basic English in Latin America; and this Commission, your Commission, is now, I am told, working with secondary schools in Boston on the use of Basic English in teaching the main language to American children and in teaching it to foreigners preparing for citizenship.

Gentlemen, I make you my compliments. I do not wish to exaggerate, but you are the head-stream of what might well be a mighty fertilising and health-giving river. It would certainly be a grand convenience for us all to be able to move freely about the world – as we shall be able to do more freely than ever before as the science of the world develops – be able to move freely about the world, and be able to find everywhere a medium, albeit primitive, of intercourse and understanding. Might it not also be an advantage to many races, and an aid to the building-up of our new structure for preserving peace?

All these are great possibilities, and I say: “Let us go into this together. Let us have another Boston Tea Party about it.”

Let us go forward as with other matters and other measures similar in aim and effect – let us go forward in malice to none and good will to all. Such plans offer far better prizes than taking away other people’s provinces or lands or grinding them down in exploitation. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

It would, of course, Mr. President, be lamentable if those who are charged with the duty of leading great nations forward in this grievous and obstinate war were to allow their minds and energies to be diverted from making the plans to achieve our righteous purposes without needless prolongation of slaughter and destruction.

Nevertheless, we are also bound, so far as life and strength allow, and without prejudice to our dominating military tasks, to look ahead to those days which will surely come when we shall have finally beaten down Satan under our feet and find ourselves with other great allies at once the. masters and the servants of the future. Various schemes of achieving world security while yet preserving national rights, traditions and customs are being studied and probed.

We have all the fine work that was done a quarter of a century ago by those who devised and tried to make effective the League of Nations after the last war. It is said that the League of Nations failed. If so, that is largely because it was abandoned, and later on betrayed: because those who were its best friends were till a very late period infected with a futile pacifism: because the United States, the originating impulse, fell out of line: because, while France had been bled white and England was supine and bewildered, a monstrous growth of aggression sprang up in Germany, in Italy and Japan.

We have learned from hard experience that stronger, more efficient, more rigorous world institutions must be created to preserve peace and to forestall the causes of future wars. In this task the strongest victorious nations must be combined, and also those who have borne the burden and heat of the day and suffered under the flail of adversity; and, in this task, this creative task, there are some who say: “Let us have a world council and under it regional or continental councils,” and there are others who prefer a somewhat different organisation.

All these matters weigh with us now in spite of the war, which none can say has reached its climax, which is perhaps entering for us, British and Americans, upon its most severe and costly phase. But I am here to tell you that, whatever form your system of world security may take, however the nations are grouped and ranged, whatever derogations are made from national sovereignty for the sake of the larger synthesis, nothing will work soundly or for long without the united effort of the British and American peoples.

If we are together nothing is impossible. If we are divided all will fail.

I therefore preach continually the doctrine of the fraternal association of our two peoples, not for any purpose of gaining invidious material advantages for either of them, not for territorial aggrandisement or the vain pomp of earthly domination, but for the sake of service to mankind and for the honour that comes to those who faithfully serve great causes.

Here let me say how proud we ought to be, young and old alike, to live in this tremendous, thrilling, formative epoch in the human story, and how fortunate it was for the world that when these great trials came upon it there was a generation that terror could not conquer and brutal violence could not enslave. Let all who are here remember, as the words of the hymn we have just sung suggest, let all of us who are here remember that we are on the stage of history, and that whatever our station may be, and whatever part we have to play, great or small, our conduct is liable to be scrutinised not only by history but by our own descendants.

Let us rise to the full level of our duty and of our opportunity, and let us thank God for the spiritual rewards He has granted for all forms of valiant and faithful service.

It'd be a different Harvard if he visited it today.  He'd probably draw protestors upset with he history of British colonialism.

Konotop was taken by the Red Army.

The Tirpitz and Scharnhorst left for a raid on Spitsbergen.

The British 8th Army took Palmi and Delianuova.

A large US Army Air Force raid took place on Stuttgart.

A derailment of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Philadelphia resulted in the deaths of 79 people and 116 being injured.  An Amtrak train would derail at the same spot in 2015, resulting in the death of 8 people.

Saturday, April 14, 1923. Waiting Dates, Young Couples, Racist Organizations Where You Wouldn't Expect Them.

It was Saturday, and the Saturday Evening Post chose to run an illustration of a woman waiting, presumably on a date.

The Country Gentleman illustration depicted a young couple applying for a marriage license, with a caption below that would be regarded as racist today, but which was still common for complete independence when I was young.

The Lansing-Ishii Agreement which had defined Japanese and American spheres of influence in China was abrogated after six years of being in effect due to Chinese objections regarding the agreement.

The Tribune reported on a tidal wave in Japan, and Irish plots against the British, but the really shocking news was the visitation of the Ku Klux Klan to the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Casper at 15th and Popular Streets.  There is no church there today, that location featuring a gas station, two apartment buildings, and a traffic island..

An Emmanuel Baptist Church still exists in Casper, but it's in North Casper today.  I have no idea of there being any connection between the two or not.

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming

Not the best photograph, by any means, we admit.

Emmanuel Baptist Church in North Casper, Wyoming.

Apparently the same group had visited the Baptist church located at 5th and Beech street earlier.  That Church structure is no longer there either, but a subsequent structure built in 1949 remains, however it is no longer a Baptist Church.

First Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming

This is the First Baptist Church in Casper, Wyoming. It's one of the Downtown churches in Casper, in an area that sees approximately one church per block for a several block area.

This particular church was built in 1949, and sits on the same block as Our Savior's Lutheran Church.

Changes in Downtown Casper. First Presbyterian becomes City Park Church, the former First Baptist Church.

I debated on whether to put this entry here or on our companion blog, Lex Anteinternet.  In the end, I decided to put it up here first and then link it over. This will be one of a couple of posts of this type which explore changes, this one with a local expression, that have bigger implications.

When we started this blog, some of the first entries here were on churches in downtown Casper.  These included the First Presbyterian Church and the First Baptist Church, with buildings dating to 1913 and 1949 respectively.  First Baptist, it should be noted, has occupied their present location, if not their present church, for a century.

Indeed, while I wasn't able to get it to ever upload, I have somewhere a video of the centennial of the First Presbyterian Church from 2013, featuring, as a church that originally had a heavy Scots representation ought to, a bagpipe band.  Our original entry on that church building is right below:

First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of which are separated from each other by City Park.

The corner stone of the church gives the dates 1913 1926. I'm not sure why there are two dates, but the church must have been completed in 1926.

Well, since that centennial, First Presbyterian has been going through a constant set of changes, as noted in our entry here:

Grace Reformed at City Park, formerly First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

This isn't a new addition to the roll of churches here, but rather news about one of them.  We formerly posted on this church here some time ago:

Churches of the West: First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming: This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of whi...

People who have followed it would be aware that the Presbyterian churches in the United States are undergoing a period of rift, and this church has reflected that.  The Presbyterian Church, starting in the 1980s, saw conflict develop between liberal and more conservative elements within it which lead to the formation of the "moderate conservative" EPC.  As I'm not greatly familiar with this, I'll only note that the EPC is associated with "New School Presbyterianism" rather than "Old School" and it has adopted the motto  "In Essentials, Unity; In Non-Essentials, Liberty; In All Things, Charity. Truth in Love.".

The change in name here is confusing to an outsider in that this church is a member of the EPC, but it's no longer using its original name.  As it just passed the centennial of its construction, that's a bit unfortunate in some ways. 

We'd also note that the sought set of stairs is now chained off.  We're not sure why, but those stairs must no longer be used for access.

The changes apparently didn't serve to arrest whatever was going on, as there's a sign out in front of the old First Presbyterian, later Grace Reformed, that starting on February 23, it'll be City Park Church.

City Park Church, it turns out, is the name that the congregation that presently occupies another nearby church, First Baptist Church, will call its new church building, which is actually a much older building than the one it now occupies, which is depicted here:

First Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming

This is the First Baptist Church in Casper, Wyoming. It's one of the Downtown churches in Casper, in an area that sees approximately one church per block for a several block area.

This particular church was built in 1949, and sits on the same block as Our Savior's Lutheran Church.

What's going on?

Well, it's hard to say from the outside, which we are, but what is pretty clear is that the rifts in the Presbyterian Church broke out, in some form, in the city's oldest Presbyterian Church to the point where it ended up changing its name, and then either moving out of its large church, and accompanying grounds, or closing altogether.  I've never been in the building but I'm told that its basement looked rough a couple of years ago and perhaps the current congregation has other plans or the grounds and church are just too much for it.  At any rate, the 1949 vintage building that First Baptist occupies is apparently a bit too small for its needs and it had taken the opportunity to acquire and relocate into the older, but larger, church.  It can't help but be noted that both churches have pretty large outbuildings as well. Also, while they are both downtown, the 1913 building is one of the three very centrally located old downtown Casper churches, so if church buildings have pride of place, the Baptist congregation is moving into a location which has a little bit more of one.

While it will be dealt with more in another spot, or perhaps on Lex Anteinternet, the entire thing would seem to be potentially emblematic of the loss that Christian churches that have undergone a rift like the Presbyterian Church in the United States has sustained when they openly split between liberal and conservative camps.  The Presbyterian Church was traditionally a fairly conservative church, albeit with theology that was quite radical at the time of its creation.  In recent years some branches of that church have kept their conservatism while others have not and there's been an open split.  As noted elsewhere this has lead in part to a defection from those churches in a lot of localities, and a person has to wonder if something like that may have happened here, as well as wondering if the obvious fact that a split has occurred would naturally lead to a reduction in the congregation as some of its members went with the other side.  We've noted here before that the Anglican Community locally not only has its two Episcopal Churches in town, but that there are also two additional Anglican Churches of a much more theologically conservative bent, both of which are outside of the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming.

A person can't really opine, from the outside, if something like this is "sad" or not, but it's certainly a remarkable event.  We've noted church buildings that have changed denominations of use before, but this is the first one where we've actually witnessed it.  And in this case, the departing denomination had occupied their building for a century.

In both instances, the small KKK group was there for the odd purpose of noting something they approved of.  

On the changes in the linked in article, while I'm not completely certain, I believe that no congregation is presently using the old First Baptist Church, and the old Presbyterian Church continued to undergo denominational changes.  It's something affiliated with Presbyterianism in some fashion, but I don't know how.

Amalgamated Bank, the largest union owned bank, forms.

The National League of Women's Voters voted against endorsing the League of Nations while simultaneously urging the US to associate with other nations to help prevent war, a mixed message.

Friday, December 22, 1922. A radiant heater will be appreciated.

Bureau of Miners Christmas Tree, December 22, 1922.

 

BLEU, the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union, was created.  

The Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec in Quebec City, originally built in 1647, was heavily damages in an early morning fire.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: South Goshen Community Church, Yoder Wyoming

Churches of the West: South Goshen Community Church, Yoder Wyoming:  

South Goshen Community Church, Yoder Wyoming

 This is the South Goshen Community Church in Yoder, Wyoming.  I don't know much about the church, which bills itself as "non demoninational"  

Yoder is a very small town south of Torrington.

Wednesday September 17, 1941. Destruction.

Äyräpään kirkko, oikealla maantie. Äyräpää 1941.09.17 (Äyräpää church, road on the right. Äyräpää 9/19/1941).  The church was a Lutheran Church, that being the predominant Chritian faith in Finland.  This village was ceded to the Soviet Union following World War Two and nothing of it exists today.

On this day in 1941, Werner Heisenberg and Danish scientist Niels Bohr had some sort of conversation about something.  According to Heisenberg, it was about atomic weaponry. According to Bohr, it wasn't.  Both men, who knew each other well, were attending a conference.

Bohr would flee to the United States, through Sweden, and then the United Kingdom, in 1943, as the Germans tightened their restrictions on Danish Jews.  In the US he'd be involved with the Manhattan Project but was not one of the physicists who was stationed with the project.

The U.S. Army dropped paratroopers in maneuvers for the first time, that event coming in the war games in Louisiana.

More on both of these can be found here.

Today in World War II History—September 17, 1941

Also in the item above, on this day the Germans began the deportation of Jews out of the formal Reich.

The USS Hornet was in dry dock.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.

Churches of the West: First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.: 

First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.

This is the First Baptist Church in Rock River, Wyoming.  The Baptist church in the tiny town was founded in 2010 and obviously used a commercial structure for its basic design.

 

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.

Churches of the West: First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.: 

First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.

This is the First Baptist Church in Rock River, Wyoming.  The Baptist church in the tiny town was founded in 2010 and obviously used a commercial structure for its basic design.