Main Content
Following customary Folsom family ritual, the chairs were placed with their backs to the table, ready for the morning prayer, but there was a feeling of depression as the family knelt by their chairs to ask for Heavenly Father’s guidance and care during the day and to utter thanks for their food. As the chairs were turned toward the table, the father was in no mood for eating and asked to be excused. He was under great mental stress while making a decision. Recalling the joy he had found in his work when first appointed, now he realized that he could no longer give wholly of himself and his talent if he could not find happiness in so doing.
"Let my cry come near before Thee, O Lord, give me understand according to Thy word." - Psalms 119:169
In finally deciding to resign from his duties as Church Architect, his greatest concern was that the responsibility would return to Truman O. Angell, who was admittedly suffering physical distress. Nevertheless, at his request William H. Folsom was released from duties as Church Architect during the April 1867 General Conference, but he was sustained along with Truman O. Angell, Jr., as an Assistant Church Architect, with Truman O. Angell as Architect. There would be plenty of work for all three men. When called upon to address the congregation, Folsom stated that at the time of his appointment as Church Architect he thought it would be much easier to direct others in the decisions at hand than to force himself to the point of exhaustion to accomplish a given task, but he had arrived at the conclusion that he was mistaken; there were just as many problems as there were people involved in the various undertakings. He felt that the supervision of the erection of Church buildings was just as much a mission as proselyting the Gospel (condensed from report by Ramona Cannon in the Juvenile Instructor).
While speaking in a meeting held September 4, 1867, in Ogden, Folsom remarked that he had ever found God faithful to the promises made to his people inasmuch as they had been faithful in performing their duties. At this same meeting President Young requested carpenters to take their tools and go to Salt Lake to help complete the New Tabernacle for October Conference (Journal History).
Although men responded to the call and the Tabernacle was "closed in" so that conferences were held there each April and October beginning October 6, 1867, the building was not ready to be dedicated for another eight years! This delay was caused when it became obvious almost immediately that a balcony was needed to more adequately accommodate the large conference crowds. Architect Truman O. Angell designed the balcony along with the other interior details and supervised the remaining construction.
Dedicatory services for the Tabernacle were held in connection with the October Conference, October 9, 1875. People came from all over the Territory to participate and to hear Elder John Taylor read the dedicatory prayer for their great house of worship. A glorious sense of fulfillment must have resounded in the hearts of those stalwart Saints as they sat in this beautiful, new, acoustically “perfect” building, listening to a well-trained choir singing to the accompaniment of the huge, nearly completed organ! Through the years the world has continued to acclaim the Tabernacle, the Organ, and the choir for their beauty, quality and uniqueness. But they were precious to the Latter-day Saints as expressions of religious idealism created by a struggling Pioneer ancestry!