I was born in Winona in 1933 and graduated from Winona High School in 1952. I guess I have always thought of Winona as my hometown. My father was Catholic and my mother didn’t know what religious faith she was, but she knew she was not Catholic. As such we seldom went to church. A friend of mine went to the McKinley Methodist Church so after a while I joined the Methodist faith. I have to admit I enjoyed going to the Methodist Youth Fellowship group.
About 1952, the Methodist Youth Fellowship group invited the Mormon missionaries (Elder Dance and Elder Cash) in to talk about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. My brother, Clifford Mathias, and his fiancée, Dorothy Bergsrud, happened to be in attendance at that meeting and were very impressed with the message of the missionaries. They soon started taking the missionary discussions in the home of Leon Peters, who, with his family, lived in an upstairs apartment across the street from our house. Clifford and Dorothy got married in the Methodist Church but soon afterwards joined the LDS Church. The Winona community and Clifford and Dorothy’s friends were not too happy with the Mormon missionaries. My father said if those missionaries come around again he would shoot them. It was a vain threat to be sure, as we did not have a gun in our house. With the harassment that followed, Clifford and Dorothy moved to Minneapolis. Elder Dance and Elder Cash lived in an upstairs apartment owned by Mrs. Mindrom who was a widow. Elder Dance was a senior missionary who had lost his wife so after he was released from his mission, he came back to Winona, married Mrs. Mindrom, and took her back to Ogden, Utah, which caused some small talk as well.
Clifford was quite enthralled with his new found religion and gave me the discussions secondhand. I loved what I was learning but because of the contention at the time, I became what I would call a dry Mormon. I was attending Winona State Teachers College at the time and was dating Helen Ehlers, my future wife. Being excited with the new religion, I told her about it. We decided we would get married after I had completed my Aviation Cadet Training with the Air Force. We were scheduled to get married on Valentine’s Day of 1956; however, her father elected not to give his daughter away so we canceled the wedding. She came down to Biloxi, to be with me the next summer and we decided to elope and get married without the consent of our parents. After getting married, we talked about what church we wanted to go to. Helen was Lutheran and I was Methodist. Helen had many discussions with my brother, Clifford, while I was going to Cadet Training and she was teaching school in Bloomington. Clifford was the missionary for teaching us the gospel. After we got married, I was assigned to Schilling Air Force Base in Salina, Kansas where we bought a trailer house as our first place to live as a married couple. Clifford came down to Salina, Kansas at Easter time and baptized us.
After retiring from the Air Force, we decided to return to Minnesota. After building the house that we now live in, I was called to be the Physical Facilities Representative for the Rochester District. Part of the calling was to locate future chapel sites. The criteria for this task was that the site should have good visibility, be easily accessible, be near an institute of learning (college or high school) and be in a developing neighborhood. I also felt that a chapel would be a good missionary for the church, representing it well and displaying an air of permanency. The house chapel was a good start but I felt that it was time to move on to showing greater permanency. Brother Ronald Putz had the church purchase a building site on top of Garvin Heights which required driving up a 500 foot high dangerous road to get to it. I felt there had to be a better place in Winona for a future chapel. President Dennis Pack was the Winona Branch President at that time–about 1980. When we talked about building a new chapel for Winona, President Pack said, “You will never find a site in Winona where they will let you build a Mormon Church.” I asked him to let me try. I typically like to visit the city planning and zoning office to find out how the city is growing but they did not give me much encouragement for a Mormon Church site. After looking for several months, I finally came across a site advertised for sale by Nels Johnson Construction Co. After high school I worked for Nels Johnson Construction in the summer and on a contract basis on weekends to avoid any union problem while attending college. I tried to find the office for the company without much success. I finally found that Nel’s son, Arden Johnson, was managing the company. I located his home address and went to visit him. I had a nice visit with him and his wife; however, when asking to buy a building site for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints also known as the Mormon Church, his wife said they would never sell any land to the Mormon Church. I politely asked why she felt that way. She said Mormon’s didn’t treat their women well and of course the topic of polygamy came up. The discussion that followed went on for what seemed an hour. We talked about the Relief Society that was managed totally by the women of the church, the primary that was basically managed by the women, and the mutual improvement association where women were very much involved. Then I informed them that Utah was [one of] the first state[s] to allow women the right to vote. In parting, I asked her as politely as I could when was the last time your husband told you what to do, and said men in the Mormon Church are not any different. The next day I got a phone call from Arden saying that they would sell the land that we wanted. It turned out to be a good deal for both as Nels Johnson Construction got the contract to build both the Winona Chapel and the First Ward chapel in Rochester.
Side notes: Elder Cash baptized Clifford and Elder Dance baptized Dorothy. Elder Cash came back to be with Clifford when he and Dorothy were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. During his visit he said he felt his mission was not very successful as the only person he baptized on his mission was Clifford. We tried to count the number of people that are now members of the church as a result of that baptism and came up with about 60 people and counting. Clifford’s grandson Brian Mathias is now one of the organists for the Tabernacle Choir. Clifford was also the home teaching companion of President Nelson when he was at the University of Minnesota.