Up In Flames

Family Shrine Now Only a Memory

On a Sunday afternoon in February of 1973 I met a beautiful young woman from Dallas in the foyer of the Longfellow Park chapel at 2 Longfellow Park, Cambridge, Massachusetts (thanks, Joel and Diana for the introduction!) It was the beginning of beautiful friendship. From just the two of us that afternoon in the Cambridge chapel, we now have a family of 23!

During those heady days in Boston, we associated with mentors like L. Tom Perry and Richard Bushman and become friends with scores of others who have gone on to do great things.

Ann and Jamin, of course, also fell in love in this building. Spencer was a member the ward. Joseph lived in Boston, and Holly, though never a resident there, often visited and attended Church at Longfellow Park. And Ada and Lizzie have visited the shrine. (Ada, remember when we stayed at the Dean's House and you wanted to be married to the butler when you grew up?)

A visit to this family shrine was de rigueur on every trip to Boston, so it was a sad Sunday indeed last week when the Longfellow Park chapel was destroyed by fire. Though gone, its memory and influence lives on!





P.S.: An interesting footnote - The stake conference broadcast which the members were watching before evacuating the building included Pres. Henry B. Eyring, Jr., Elder Robert D. Hales, and Elder Bruce R. Porter, all of whom attended Church in the Longfellow Park chapel as students at the Harvard Business School.