Plus, the Church purchased the Kirtland Temple, other historic sites and manuscripts. See a list of everything the Church purchased from the Community of Christ.
Crawling Together in Basements: Historians Preserve the Kirtland Temple, Other Church History Sites
Emily Utt isn’t afraid of mud or mold.
She’s willing to crawl around tiny, claustrophobic 19th-century basements, an endearing trait for a historic conservation specialist. That she considers it a vital part of the job of a historic sites curator is disarming, the sort of thing that earns respect and makes her likable. The sort of thing that creates bridges of understanding, you might say.
The great respect leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have for the Community of Christ and its leaders was on display during a news conference Wednesday where Utt and two other Latter-day Saint historians talked about the Kirtland Temple purchase.
“This is one of the most sacred sites in the church and has been so beautifully and carefully cared for by some of the people that I admire most in the world,” Utt said. “I am excited at the possibility of helping take this building into its next chapter.”
That raised a follow-up question, so I asked her to say more about those Community of Christ historians she admired. Utt works in Salt Lake City but travels to Latter-day Saint historic sites often. That includes Kirtland and Nauvoo, where both churches preserve places rich in history.
That’s how basements came up.
“I have loved my relationship with Community of Christ,” Utt said. “Whenever I have visited and gone out and worked on these historic spaces that we’ve owned, I always call them and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to be crawling around a basement. Do you want to come with me and share what you know?’ And I will go crawl around their basements.
“So there’s been this beautiful, shared knowledge and understanding, and we’ve been learning a lot from each other.”
Utt, in her role with the Historic Sites Division of the Church History Department, will be spending a lot of time examining and evaluating the Kirtland Temple and its preservation needs.
While the property has changed hands, she said she will continue to rely on Community of Christ leaders and historians. That includes Elder Lachlan Mackay, a Community of Christ apostle, its Historic Sites director and a great-great-great grandson of Joseph Smith.
“In the future, I won’t be able to do these buildings the justice they need without the help of the people that know this building so well,” she said. “I don’t know the Kirtland Temple as well as Lachlan Mackay, and if I want to do even half as good (of a) job as he’s done, he’s going to be on speed dial for me for the next 20 years, just to understand that place.
“I can’t imagine us not working with them to preserve these places moving forward.”
Latter-day Saint historians have spent the past six weeks writing the scripts for the new tours the church will provide beginning on March 25 at the obtained properties, said Matthew Grow, the managing director of the Church History Department.
“I think for those of us who love history, there’s a great lesson in the relationship between the two churches that once was marked by a lot of animosity, a lot of tension,” he said. “It was really, I think beginning in the 1960s and 1970s and moving forward, it was a love of the shared heritage by those who loved history in both churches that broke down those barriers. The animosity or tension began to dissipate.
“It was in the sharing of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. It was in the care of historic buildings and the way we interacted on the ground in Kirtland, in Nauvoo. It was the way we shared documents back and forth in the Joseph Smith Papers (Project). It was the way that we lent our own expertise, sometimes, to preserve documents that they own. There’s something about that love of the shared heritage, that love of that sacred history, that healed some of the old tensions and wounds.”
Good timing: the Church News published a story a few days before the Kirtland announcement about President M. Russell Ballard’s visit last summer to Kirtland and Nauvoo. The great-great grandson of Hyrum Smith talked about his family ties to the Restoration and the importance of the church history sites. The photos are stunning. President Ballard said, “If we ever lose sight of our forefathers and those who made it possible for us to have what we have, we will have lost something that is irreplaceable. What a blessing for us to be sitting in the Kirtland Temple, and knowing what we know about our purpose of life — who we are, why we are here, and where we will ultimately go.”
Emily Utt, historic sites curator with the Church History Department, explains the significance of an item from the time capsule retrieved from the Salt Lake Temple capstone to Presidents Dallin H. Oaks, Russell M. Nelson and Henry B. Eyring on May 20, 2020. (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
