Blog #64
By Kevin V. Hunt
At the funeral for her father, Everett H. Belcher, all of the nine Belcher siblings were assigned to speak to a different subject about his life.
Above: Sister Verna Belcher and Elder E. H. Belcher
Brother Belcher had thought out his funeral and had picked the subjects he wanted shared in his service. My wife, Lou Dene Belcher Hunt, was assigned “Saving the Coolidge House”. She was really baffled about this request. She knew little about the place. She said, “I didn’t know enough about the Coolidge House to talk about it. I wanted to talk more about my personal relationship with my father so the Coolidge House seemed ‘kind of our there’.”
That was back in July of 2004. Now twenty plus years later, Lou Dene says, “Looking back, and with events that have happened since, I wish I had talked with him more about the place. There is much that I would or should have asked him.” Sister Hunt said, “I did come up with a little bit about the place (with help from Dad!).
This is what Lou said in her talk about her father:
“I have a brown bag, because this is going to be a brown bag talk [in the tradition of her father].
We had an apple orchard on our place when we were growing up and my Dad didn’t like us to waste apples. And if he found a half-eaten apple, he would make sure you finished it core and all. My Dad made us pick all the apples and put them in the cellar to keep. We could eat as many apples as we wanted to as long as we ate the ones with the brown rotten spots first. I have a poem that I will read to you about our apple eating days.
We brought them from the cellar, The apples with the spots.
Of the good ones left behind, by tomorrow some would rot.
“Bring the apples that are spoiling”, our mother used to say.
“We’ll always eat those first, and I’ll pare the spots away.”
In the evening by the fire, we had story and we had song,
And we had rotten apples all winter long
We ate a lot of rotten apples. One year my Dad had us can all our apples at the church cannery. And this was a big family project. And we canned a lot of applesauce before we were finished. We figured my parents could feed us a can of apple sauce each and every day and it would last them 3 years. That was a lot of applesauce. Like in the church movie “Johnny Lingo and Mahana, the eight-cow wife”, my Dad offered 5 cases of applesauce when you got married. This was a great family tradition and we had a lot of fun with this. I was a three-case applesauce wife. I guess we had eaten all of the applesauce over the years. I don’t have the original can, but I have pictures out there on one of the tables. This is the applesauce.
“My husband and I tried to carry on this tradition with our family. We have had 3 girls get married and when their husbands came to town, because our last name is Hunt, we have offered their husbands 3 cases of Hunt’s Tomato Sauce. We have kept it in the family. So, they have enjoyed their tomato sauce.
“Like the story of the rotten apples my Dad didn’t want any of us to get spoiled or go rotten and he did this by keeping us very busy working, a lot. We grew a garden each summer. We had to prepare the soil, plant the seeds, weed and water, and the water was often a late-night irrigation. We grew a lot of corn in our garden, and we would sell it at the end of our lane at 50 cents a dozen. We would use the money to buy our school clothes and one year we used it to add to our church’s building fund.
“We had a lot of family traditions growing up. Much like the tradition of the applesauce we had the tradition to read scriptures, go to church, pay tithing, and have family Home Evening. As the book of Mormon says, “they were taught in the tradition of their fathers[DKB1] .” We to were taught in the tradition of our father. We were taught to work hard and trust in the Lord. Thank you, Dad, for these traditions.
“And in closing my Dad wanted each of us to talk about his accomplishments. When my Dad was serving in Nauvoo on a mission. He took it upon himself to save the Joseph Coolidge House that was going to be torn down. Its foundation was rotten, like all the rotten apples that he saved growing up. My Dad saved the Coolidge house, and I have a picture of it right here.
Above: Vintage photo of the Coolidge House (before the time of Elder Belcher)
It was turned into a craft house with candle making, barrel making and pottery and this now houses missionary couples. Good job, Dad.
“A month ago, when we were visiting my Dad, he told us what he wanted us to talk about at his funeral.
Finally, my husband said “Don’t worry Gramps, all your accomplishments will be sitting in the benches in front of you. And there you are, a whole chapel full of his posterity. My Dad was very proud of his family. He told me many times that he was blessed with a wonderful family and he said, “How could a person be so lucky to have every member of his family active in the church?” We are following in the footsteps of our father. I am thankful for a father who believed in us and taught us the ways of the Lord. I am thankful that my Dad can be reunited with my mother. What a grand reunion that must be. They have both blessed my life and that of my family. I love you Dad. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.”
Little did Sister Hunt realize that the Coolidge House would impact her life personally 20-plus years later.
Sister Hunt and I came to Nauvoo in April 2024 to serve as “Site Missionaries”. We were assigned to live in the historic home of Simeon A. Dunn at the SW corner of Hyde and Parley Streets. This home is located “kitty corner” to the Coolidge House (on the NE corner).
Above: Sister Lou Hunt standing in the drive between the Dunn Home (on left) and the Coolidge House (on the right)
So, we literally look at the Coolidge House and think about it many times a day as we go to and from our house. It is such a beautiful place and seems so majestic. And the German writing on the place is interesting and intriguing.
One of our favorite sites where we serve with our tours is the Family Living Center.
This is a place of joy and happiness for children (and adults who get to act like children). It really is a FUN place. In the place, we give “hands on” demonstrations on candle making, bread making (though COVID killed the actual bread making demo), wool and spinning, looms and weaving, packing the wagon to go west, barrel making, and rope making.
And of particular interest – in at least a snippet of the Belcher tradition, we also get to talk of and demonstrate the Belcher perfected art of brick making. We talk of brick-making in general in Nauvoo and often the kids get to “throw their own brick” by pressing Nauvoo clay into a small mold box. Though not in the script, Sister Hunt almost always gets to share the historic story of the souvenir Nauvoo Brick which all Nauvoo guests get to take home. It is so fun for her to say, “My dad started this brick and designed the imprint.” This comes as an initial shock: “Yeah, right …” but then by the end of her presentation about him and bricks, the folks are in total awe and say, “Wow! That is just so cool!” She makes sure that each guest leaves with a small brick in hand.
The Family Living Center of today with all of its craft demos got its start from the Coolidge House here in Nauvoo. Elder Belcher did not build the Coolidge house, but the place owes much to the efforts and vision of Elder E. H. Belcher. He literally saved the house from the demolition ball.
ABOUT JOSEPH WELLINGTON COOLIDGE
Joseph Wellington Coolidge
31 May 1814 – 13 Jan 1871
Joseph Wellington Coolidge (1814-1871) was born 31 May 1814 in Bangor, Hancock Co., Maine. He was the son of John Kittridge Coolidge and Rebecca Stone Wellington. He married Elizabeth Buchannan on 17 Dec. 1834; participated in plural marriage. He was baptized before Jan. 1838. He was a member of the Nauvoo Legion and on the Council of Fifty in Nauvoo along with Wilford Woodruff. He died 13 Jan. 1871 in Coonsville, Mills Co., Iowa.
BACKGROUND HISTORY OF THE COOLIDGE HOUSE
Joseph W. Coolidge built this house himself in 1843. This is the date shown on the outside of the house. He was from Maine and was a cooper, carpenter, and building contractor. He lived in the front part of the house and used the other part for his shop. He was a trusted friend to Joseph and Emma Smith. At Emma’s request, he became the administrator of Joseph’s estate three months after the prophet was killed. He asked to be released from that duty in the spring of 1846, to go west with the main body of the Latter-day Saints.
THE COOLIDGE HOUSE AFTER JOSEPH WENT WEST
The next owner of the place was Johann George Kaufmann. He made the house into a hotel. He painted the quaint German saying on the front of the house. The lettering (by translation) says, “This house is mine, and yet not mine. For him who comes after me, it will also so be. I have been here. Whoever reads this will also have been here.”
So, kind of odd … what does it mean? Maybe it reminds us how temporary our hold is on earthly possessions. Local tradition gives it a meaning of hospitality … and since the house was a hotel when Mr. Kaufman had it, that would be appropriate.
The place was remodeled to be a restaurant sometime after 1932. In the 1970’s Nauvoo Restoration acquired the house.
THE COOLIDGE HOUSE BEFORE RESTORATION
Collidge House in 1975 – Photo taken by Kevin Hunt as a young missionary in Nauvoo
It is no secret that I (Elder Hunt) served in Nauvoo as a young missionary – literally 50 years ago in 1975. While here then, I took a photo of the Coolidge house. It was then still in pretty good shape. Something must have happened to it before 1980 when Elder E.H. and Verna Belcher, my wife’s parents, came to serve in Nauvoo. Elder Belcher describes the building’s state when he was here serving in the Lucy Mack Smith home and the Brickyard.
SAVING THE NAUVOO COOLIDGE HOUSE
The Account by Elder E. H. Belcher as dictated to his grandson, John Bollwinkel
“One day the President [Dr. J. Le Roy Kimball] came by the Lucy Mack Smith home – where I worked – and said he wanted me to look at a house down on the next corner. It was the Coolidge home. It was a big beautiful white lumber home. Most Nauvoo homes that survived from the Pioneer era were brick. Most lumber buildings had gone by the wayside years ago. But this one had been kept up, but the whole wall at the top had rotted out and the roof was sagging and was loose and the ceiling was in bad shape. He said, “Go down with me and see what we have to get out before they bulldoze the house down.” He said, “If someone gets in there it is going to fall down and kill them.”
“So we went down there, and that is when I could see what a beautiful building it was and what beautiful workmanship. Oh man, it just haunted me. So this was Friday night when we went down there. And Saturday morning early I went up to the president’s house and told him “I cand shore it up, I have moved buildings and I know I can shore it up – so it won’t fall down and can use some lumber to get it stabilized.” He said, “Ah Naw, we are going to tear it down.” Then I coaxed and coaxed him, and I must have stayed there quite a little bit and he couldn’t get rid of me.
“And he finally said, “Well go ahead.” So, I went down and tore the siding off of about 5 feet high wall where it was all rotted off. Then I doubled up the timbers and stabilized them and so forth on that whole side. And about 5:00 that afternoon the President came driving by and he drove by slowly and looked and looked and of course, I had this whole side off up about four feet up. And the next morning they had priesthood meeting before we went to work. I woke up in the night and in my mind, the hole kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and I was about to get out of bed and go down there.
Above: The back (east) side of the Coolidge House while under Belcher restoration efforts
The next morning the President said, “I’m telling you to get down there and either tear it out or patch it up.” I said, “Just hold off and don’t get too excited – just hold off, just hold off.” So, he said “OK”. So, I went back and got that taken care of and then I got to another part of it and worked on it and I worked on one then and another part that needed fixing. And again, I was using material that wasn’t meant for that project. And the project manager was having fits all the time. “It will never stay, because they will have to see what the original foundation was and the architectural and the historical background and that everyone is upset with what you are doing with it. You should go through the right channels. It has to goes through a 2 year process before you can start on anything.”
(John “I remember you calling Vern for your house jacks?”) “Yaw, I had to have them to jack up that wall. I’ve got a picture of the mission president jacking up one of those jacks. I keep a going there and the roof was a saggin’ and I got it straightened up and had part of the plywood on and I decided to get started shingling and try to get it closed in. [Note: We would love to have that classy photo but we don’t who in the family might have it.}
“I couldn’t get any help there because all the other missionaries all said it was a waste of time because they said they were just going to tear it down. Everybody was down on me. (John “What was happening to the brick yard while you were doing this?”) I was fixing the building at night and on my spare time and the slower part of the year and the likes. I couldn’t get anybody to help me. One guy finally agreed to help me. And so he was the one that was helping me to get the building ready.
“When we got ready to put on some shingles on the part that I had to rebuild, I finally got 5 missionaries to help put on the shingles. We got the scaffolding all up there and got it ready and got up there and started putting on the shingles and here comes the project engineer. He said, “You don’t know how far those should come out and you don’t know what kind of a corners to have under that and you haven’t researched the details and you are just wasting your time and we are still going to tear it out.” And he made a big to-do about it, and you couldn’t tell the guys now you just keep on shingling. And he was about to shut it down.
“I said “Well we have got a hole up there and it doesn’t matter, the roof’s going on anyway or the storm will get in. So I lined up some plastic and fixed it so it wouldn’t leak. And I kept plastic on it for about six months. And by that time I got all the other done and got it up so I could go ahead on the shingles and we went from one thing to another like that and we keep going along. In fact this one brother who came there was a finish carpenter when he came there. I was showing him around and he was looking around and he said “Boy this is a beautiful building. I sure would love to work on this.” I said, “Well we will give you plenty of opportunity, you come around and you can help us.” And it went on and he never came around and he never showed up. I finally seen him and said, “I thought you were going to come and help.” And he said, “I didn’t want anything to do with that, that’s the worst thing that has happened since the saints left here.” So you could tell the missionary scuttle butt that was going around from then on.
”So we just kept going and that’s when finally the president cane by and said, “Don’t let them stop you, don’t let them stop you.” So then they asked us to stay another six months and another six months to finish all these projects, it was great. We stayed for two and half years. And the first carpenter stayed with me all the way and it wasn’t quite finished when I left, and he stayed and finished it up.
Above: Back side of Coolidge home – after Belcher restoration – and as it looks in 2025
“What a beautiful mansion – and a complement to the original builders and to Joseph Coolidge [who also built Joseph Smith’s mansion House – in the same architectural style and of the same white slat wood.] And in spite of all the odds, the restoration was completed. Beautiful white pine was used on the frame of the building because the Saints didn’t have streams to harness for power to be able to saw lumber and also the pine wasn’t too available in the area. Arrangements were made by the saints to use a sawmill located up the Mississippi River and East – on a tributary towards Chicago – and where Chicago had obtained a lot of their lumber.
“Beautiful white pine located there was sawed and then placed on the ice in the winter. They shaped a barge by bowering holes and putting small piles down through it to tie it all together. When the ice melted the barge began to float down the river into the Mississippi and then on to Nauvoo. This was some of the lumber that was used in the Coolidge Home. The floor joists had two-inch holes irregular in them indicating where the small poles tied them together to make them into a barge.”
Above: Coolidge House 2024 from view looking out from the wagon ride
SOME INTERESTING PHOTOS OF THE CURRENT COOLIDGE HOUSE
Above: Look at this lovely woodwork color in the current Coolidge Home (Upstairs apartment) … we think this remodel was completed after the time of Elder Belcher
Above: Cut-out of wall from downstairs apartment looking upward to upstairs of Coolidge house
(John “So what happened to the Coolidge house?”)
DEMONSTRATING CRAFTS IN THE COOLIDGE HOUSE
A few months ago, Sister Hunt and I met a local worker in the Facilities Maintenance area of our sites (an emmployee named Jodi). She grew up in Nauvoo and remembers coming to the Brickyard. She remembers Elder Belcher saying that he wanted to find a way to engage young children more in Nauvoo – and so he wanted to start craft demonstrations. Wow! So cool.
Elder Belcher continues: “One brother – wanted to get coopering or barrel making going. He thought it would go well with my brick making that was going over so well, but the president said that we didn’t have any place to do it. So I was pushing to get this building for that. So I took one of the carpenters down to the barrel making place [somewhere south of town)and he got the idea of the barrel making. It is still there.”
“And I got rope making, barrel making and pottery making in there.
“Then in a few years I noted that President Hinckley went back there and dedicated the Coolidge House.”
Today – in 2025, the Coolidge House is home to two senior missionary couples. There is a downstairs apartment and also an upstairs. An outside door and immediate stairs lead to the upstairs unit.
In another record, Elder Belcher said, “Before our mission was completed, and due to the enthusiastic reception of the brick making demonstration, I approached the President and expressed the hope that other crafts – such as potters (which was, like the bricks, made of clay) and barrel making. The barrel was the shipping container of the past. Barrels will roll to relocate them and they will stack to store. They can contain liquids or slats to ship solid commodities.
“The President was sympathetic to the idea, but indicted he didn’t have an available building to demonstrate them in. I pursued the idea a little further and found what one of the missionaries was a potter. He located an older gentleman who was a cooper or barrel maker. I checked around with the Nauvoo missionaries for anyone that might be interested in learning the old barrel techniques from the old gentleman cooper. Two of the missionary couples expressed some interest. Arrangements were made to visit the old cooper where we were taught the fundamentals of taking the rough lumber and fashioning it into a barrel.
“One brother, Elder Harold Ericlson, was intrigued with what we had learned and felt he could master it. After much practice he found he could make a barrel, then the major part of the problem still existed – the need for a building where the skill could be demonstrated. A unique opportunity presented itself. That’s about the time the time that the President asked me to check out the Coolidge building.
“So, we finished the restoration of the outside of the Coolidge Home. And then as we needed a place for the crafts, I of course thought of the inside of the Coolidge House as a potential place.”
CRAFTS IN THE COOLIDGE HOUSE AND BEYOND
For many years after Elder Belcher began demonstrating crafts in the Coolidge Home, the demos continued. This was to the delight of all who came. Now there was a place to help children enjoy more the charm and Spirit of old Nauvoo.
The Family Living Center is located just west of Nauvoo’s Main Street (at White Street) behind the Cultural Hall and the Scovil Bakery. It is a very large facility with plenty of room for all of the crafts displayed there. As in all of Nauvoo, the pioneer skills are demonstrated by missionaries (young sisters and senior missionaries) in period costume.
Sister Hunt and I have often been assigned to serve in the Family Living Center. We and the other missionaries strive to learn all of the skills. But we each kind of have our favorite stations. My own personal favorites are rope, barrel and bread making.
Most folks who come here are surprised at the facility and all that it has to offer. It is the perfect place for parents to come when their children are tired of all of the more adult tours. Children love the demonstrations and it is fun to watch the adults as they slowly let their hair down to also enjoy the magnificent place.
The Family Living center is on the “must see” list for many school field trips in the fall and mid-Spring. School teachers have come to recognize the great opportunity the Center affords their students.
It is interesting that even Google can’t seem to pinpoint when the Family Living Center was constructed. My own guess is that it was about 2002 – about the same time that the Nauvoo Temple was reconstructed. The time frame really doesn’t matter. What matters is that the place is there.
In the busy summer season, there could be as many as a dozen missionaries on duty at the center. Missionaries enthusiastically greet the many people come. Folks of all ages come but families with children – young and teens enjoy it most. Kids love dipping candles as pioneer children and families did in the 1840’s.
Barrel making or “coopering” is a fun activity for all. When I teach at this station, I begin by telling folks that to be a journeyman cooper, one needed to be an apprentice for SIX YEARS. Wow! I tell my guests that “I am going to teach you all that I know in about five minutes – but you will soon see that there is a lot more to the trade than what I can teach them.
At the beginning of the demo, I say, “Someone famous was a Cooper!” I give the folks a minute to digest this and then say, “Joseph Smith, Sr. was a cooper … so that probably means that young Joseph spent some time in the cooper shop.” People are amazed at this.
We teach the guests how individual “staves” were created out of long boards that are cut to be about 1” x 16 or 20″ (depending on the barrel size). Then these staves are formed with both concave and convex angles on each. The carving is done on a “bench” that is called a “Schnitzel Bank”. (Hmmm … That sounds very German!)
This is kind of like a saw horse. The person demonstrating sits astride of this bench with their feet pressing against a moveable “pedal”. And when pressed, this becomes a vice to hold the stave into tight position as it is carved with straight, concave and convex draw knives.
“Tradition” has it that this “Schnitzel bank” came from the old Coolidge House. Okay … now we are getting somewhere. As Sister Hunt and I have looked at the bench, it seems clear that this was used by long-time missionaries in the Coolidge House. My own personal opinion is that it was made by none other than Elder Belcher himself. (I will have to ask him about it the next time that I see him!) I then reach into a tall barrel and for the children, I slowly pull out … you guessed it … a string from the old “barrel of monkeys”. This brings a smile to the adults – who can remember such simple and wonderful games of their youth. The kids just kind of give me funny looks, “Like, what?” (You had to be there – 40 years ago … but the “barrel with the monkeys is actually still available in stores.)
Above: Elder Kevin Hunt showing “barrel of monkeys” in the barrel making demonstration in the Nauvoo Family Living Center
Next, I sit the participants two to a bench to put together a barrel. I say, “You will soon see why it takes two people to do this.” I then demonstrate the art of barrel making and then turn the folks loose to implement their new skills. And yes, they too soon learn “why is takes two people” – one to hold the staves up and the other to put them into the metal rings.
To make rope, six strands of twine are strung between two parts of the apparatus (two strands together strung on a wheel with hooks – on one end – and a twirling gig on the other end. Participants get to spin this gig at various speeds until the whole “sled’ on the other end – moves about two feet – from one blue tape to the next.
Then once this milestone is reached, the twine on the hooks is secured and the wheel is twirled rapidly by one or two people (usually kids) to twist the now three strands together into one rope. Again, the “sled has to move another two feet to get fully twisted together. Then the dads and grandparents get to practice their old Boy Scout skills as they get to whip each ends of the rope (so that it can be cut off of the gig). Often now, the Boy Scout in the folks has long since departed (especially now since Scouting is not as vibrant – at least in the LDS Church – as it once was). I enjoy teaching this skill to the dads and then hand them the small string so that they can teach the skill to their kids. (A teaching skill I learned in my old Scouting Woodbadge courses.)
I have fun with folks at the “packing the wagon” station.
This was not a station in the Coolidge House – but it is fun. There is a list posted on the wall – called the “Bill of Particulars” and using the list, participants find those items (like 1,000 pounds of flour, etc.) in the adjacent shelves and they pack these items in the wagon for the trek west. And when the wagon is packed, we invite young and old to join in on a parade around the wagon as they gaily sing, “Pioneer Children sang as they walked, and walked, … and walked.”
I also enjoy teaching bread making – probably in honor of my mother – who made lucious bread two or three days every week for years and years. COVID stopped the making of real bread, but we can still share the mechanics of how it is done – in the old oven. People just have to use their smelling imagination.
Above: Elder Hunt doing bread demonstration
The Pioneers had a challenge to make bread. They had to first start a fire in a nearby fireplace. Fire was also built in the brick oven – to fill it to capacity. The oven would have to be “pre-heated” with the fire until it burned down to coals completely. The coals were then removed from the now hot oven. Corn meal was sprinkled in the oven – and on a large paddle on which the bread dough was placed – so that the dough would not “stick”.
Above: Cooking fireplace at bread making station in Family Living Center
And as the oven was heating, water would be heated on the big fire. Hot water would be placed in a large bowl and this would be placed inside of a wooden “proofing box”. And during all of this, the bread dough would be created. Then a container of dough would be placed in the proofing box along side of the hot water.
AFter ten minutes, the dough would be punched down. And after the second 10 minutes, it would be punched down again and the water bowl would be replaced with more hot water from the fire. The 10 and punch, 10 and punch routine be repeated. The dough would be formed into loaves, rolls, or whatever and then placed in the prepared oven. Quite a process but I am sure that the bread was fabulous!
Once for a mission activity, we actually cooked bread using the above method and it was so great!
Sister Hunt likes to teach candle making and of course, brick making. At the candle making station, kids enjoy dipping candles into the hot wax to enlarge the candle. She is also good at the fibers and spinning station.
AN ENDURING LEGACY OF ELDER BELCHER
Well, it is sure amazing to review and remember the ongoing legacy of Elder E. H. and Sister Verna Belcher certainly left their mark on Nauvoo … and in so many ways.
One blessing to me is their daughter who got adopted into the Nauvoo blood. Now it runs in her veins.
As a review … They served for two and a half years in the Lucy Mack Smith home. 30 months in one little house! That alone is unbelievable. We work in 28 different sites and get moved around to a new house every day. This means six different homes in a single week. We love this.
Sister Verna Belcher at the Lucy Mack Smith Home
Then there is the brickyard and the creation of the Nauvoo brick. He was challenged by the Lucy Mack Smith arrangement and he researched brick making. Then he created the brick yard – across the street from Lucy’s place. And soon thereafter, he created the Nauvoo brick. And this has been a mainstay for all Nauvoo visitors for over 45 years now.
And then there is the Coolidge House. He literally saved this grand building from destruction. And in this building, he began demonstrations of various pioneer trade skills. Those skills were presented for many years in the Coolidge House. And then 20 or so years later, those same skills were transferred to the new Family Living Center. The trade demonstrations continue even to this time and generations of guests come there to enjoy them together.
Above: Sister Lou Dene Belcher Hunt and Elder Kevin Hunt in front of the brick kiln built by Elder E H Belcher
His daughter, Lou Dene, my wife, AKA Sister Lou Hunt … is now here in Nauvoo as a senior missionary. She has been a dedicated advocate in the greatest of the Belcher (and Hunt) tradition. Great job, Sister Hunt!
So amazing. We are grateful to this great man and his supportive wife. They truly did leave a heavy mark and a lasting legacy that will continue on for many more generations. Thanks, Elder Belcher!
So great to be on the Nauvoo trail behind Elder Belcher. We have to run to keep up with him.
On the Nauvoo Trail 