Quincy - September 18 2013



Washington Park in the City Square




The Band at O'Griff's - Sister Gentry



LDS ward chapel - Stained glass

 

Washington Park Plaque

Brother and Sister Gentry are our Saturday PM shift coordinators.  They are from Quincy and invited us to come when they could be our guides and to hear Sister Gentry play in the band at O’Griff’s bar and grill.

It was soon obvious to us that Brother Gentry loves the home town where he was born and raised.  He was a convert to the Church in 1980 when he was in the service in Italy.  He spent 21 years in the army.

We first went past a stadium which had limestone rock walls – a WPA project during the depression.  We also passed Al Capone’s home which had basement escape tunnels.

Next we went on the large, impressive grounds of the Veterans Hospital, Home and Cemetery.  There is a nursing home, an Alzheimer’s unit, a library, museum.  There are bison on the grounds and the commandant’s home.

Quincy is known as a city of trees, churches and taverns.  We went to Washington Park in the City Square where the Saints camped when they came across the river from Missouri in 1838 following Governor Boggs’s extermination order.  The people of Quincy welcomed the struggling, destitute Saints .  They took them into their homes, fed, clothed, and nursed them back to health.  We also saw Riverside Park and Madison Park where some of the Saints are buried.

We also saw the plaque the Church put up a few years ago acknowledging the citizens of Quincy for their kind treatment of Church members in 1838.  When the Tabernacle Choir performed in Quincy the year the Nauvoo Temple was dedicated, President Hinckley presented the mayor a check for $75,000 to thank the people of Quincy for their goodness.

We drove in the Park Place area of lovely large old homes.  We also went to the lovely LDS ward chapel.  When they built the building, the members insisted that they move the stained glass window that was in the building they had been using.  It makes a very unique and beautiful chapel.

We had a good meal at O’Griff’s and enjoyed the band.  It was fun to meet Gentrys when they were not dressed in white.

Brother and Sister Gentry are planning to drive a truck and trailer to Salt Lake City the second week of November and are taking boxes for many of the returning home missionaries, including us.  It’s a great service for us and a way for them to visit their grandchildren in Utah.