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CHURCH SERVICE

Late nineteenth-century rural America was feeling the rise of industry. Men and families were attracted away from their farms to work in factories, mines, and railroads. In the few years after the Union Pacific included Montpelier in its line, that city became a place of economic and social rivalry between the agrarian Mormons and the rail-working “Gentiles.”  In hopes of improving a deteriorating situation, Wilford Woodruff Clark was called to move from his Georgetown home and become Bishop of the Montpelier Ward.

As Bishop, he came to rely upon the assistance of his wife and children to help carry on his numerous obligations:

"In those days when tithing was paid in kind, it took two days each week to collect and distribute the goods."¹

"As Bishop, he spoke at more funerals in Bear Lake Valley than anyone else.²

"One evening a General Authority called on him at home and asked how he was getting along as Bishop. In reply, he added, 'This is the first evening I have been home this year.'”²

"Shortly after their removal to Montpelier for W. W. Clark to become the Bishop, his wife was installed as Relief Society President. One day a report came to her that a young couple had their baby born in a wagon box five miles up the canyon and needed immediate help. Aunt Millie, unable to leave, dispatched my mother (Maggie Phelps) to the scene with medical supplies in a pole buggy driven by me. The mud was deep, and the boulders were heavy; we would not have progressed