Members of the Leeds 2nd and 4th wards of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints recently held a programme of events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their chapel building in Leeds 15.
Completed in September 1966, the building was a labour of love taking around 18 months to be completed by a group ofvolunteers from the community. Two of the volunteers were Ivan and Janet Dunne who met whilst working on the chapel building and ended up getting married a few years later in the completed Chapel. Ivan had come down to Leeds from his home town of Durham to work full time on the Chapel doing the joinery work and Janet, who was just 16yrs old at the time was helping with painting, sweeping and other labouring jobs. They married when Janet was aged 19 and Ivan aged 22 on the exact spot where they met! Janet said “My parents adored Ivan when we met him and he has been a really good husband and father. We have 4 sons and 7 grandchildren with another due shortly. We still live within sight of the Chapel and Ivan runs the youth club there.”
Another volunteer Francis Kendall worked part time on the building back in the 1960’s and his son Mark was the first baby to be blessed in the new chapel. Mark is now a Bishop of the Leeds 2nd ward.
The weekend of events to celebrate the anniversary included speakers who had worked on the build, music performed by the choirs, and food – in particular meat and potato pie followed by apple pie which was a reminder of the food regularly served by the sisters to those toiling all day on the building work 50 years ago. The events were rounded off with an afternoon of activities for the younger members of the community including a bouncy castle and visits from the Fire & Rescue Service complete with fire engine, and the Police force.
