A temple for 'a slice of paradise'

If you're not building a temple in Jerusalem, a good second option is Brigham City, Utah. "Greatest people in the world," as we small towners say about our neighbors. My mother called Brigham City "a slice of paradise." But then she also called milkweeds "wildflowers."

For decades we've been known as Utah's Peach City, but since the orchards have been turned into building lots, some of our other personalities are battling to get out. Today, some see us as the gateway to the Golden Spike or the gateway to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. And — because of Alliant Techsystems — we're Rocket Town, the drill team at the high school even being named the Rockettes. In fact, I remember a coach at the high school blaming all those "slow-twitch" muscles of ATK engineers and their kids for his losing season. If he'd put that much creative thinking into his game plans, we might have taken state.

And, too, like most small towns, we have our favorite sons and daughters: President Boyd K. Packer is from Brigham. So was supermarket mogul Dee Glen Smith. Porchia Nelson, who played Mother Superior in "The Sound of Music," was a Brighamite.

But the pride of Brigham will always be President Lorenzo Snow, the "windows of heaven" LDS prophet. President Snow put heart, mind and soul into Brigham City's version of the United Order. And his plan worked better and longer than most. In fact, I suspect his passion for the law of tithing was because he saw it as the last remaining remnant from those years.

In Brigham City, President Snow ran a tight ship — especially when it came to dealings with the bawdy railroad town of Corinne. Local lore says he once excommunicated a Mantua farmer for selling cherries out there. Another story claims several residents moved to Malad, Idaho, because "the snow in Brigham was just too relentless."

Today, President Snow is one of the few LDS presidents buried outside of Salt Lake City. His marker isn't the biggest in our cemetery (that honor goes to John Bott, who — wait for this — made cemetery markers for a living). But the Snow grave is easily the most popular. And his spirit still hovers over the town like light from the Big Dipper.

As for where that new temple will be built, we're all having a ball speculating. Some feel it might go in right above that lovely, old cemetery — up where Harold Felt, a former mayor and funeral director, used to corral his ponies. He went up there to feed them so often he once led a funeral procession to the corral gate before he realized what he was doing.

In the end, however, wherever the temple is built will be just the right place for it. And whether it goes up on the hill above the cemetery or out north by the old golf course or downtown across from the tabernacle, it will still beam a kind light on the residents of Brigham and the graves of folks like Dee Smith, Harold Felt, Lorenzo Snow, my parents, my wife's parents and — one day — the plots where Carol and I will come to rest, awaiting the day when those "windows of heaven" of President Snow will be thrown open for good.