Two Temples in Salt Lake City

Clarissa Chase Weiss’s heritage was that of a strong “pioneer family” (see blogpost: From Quaker to Latter-day Saint) but she fell in love with a handsome Jewish boy from Salt Lake City named Simon Solomon Weiss.   Isaac Chase’s great granddaughter, Clarissa Chase, didn’t have the same kind of deep belief of the Temple’s eternal importance.  She chose a different path from that of her Mormon ancestors.

Simon S. Weiss

Claire’s grandmother, Josephine Streeper Chase, was in Salt Lake City the day the statue of the Angel Moroni and capstone were placed on the Salt Lake Temple in 1892. That same year, Claire’s mother, Emma Amelia Croft Chase, was married in the Logan Temple (March 2, 1892).  These women loved the temple and all it represented.   Mrs. Chase and was very concerned as she watched her eighteen year old daughter’s growing interest in this Jewish boy, Simon.   

Simon’s Orthodox Jewish mother, Annie Weiss, was likewise concerned about their relationship.  “Hannah” had come across the ocean in 1903, with Simon and his two brothers when he was 6 years old.  Annie’s husband, Max, had left Belarus to seek a better life in America eight years earlier.  First they lived in Vernal/Roosevelt area, but she wanted to be closer to the synagogue—her Jewish Temple. 

Montefiore Synagogue-1957
M. Wise (probably our Max Weiss) of Vernal bought a pew in Congregation Montefiore Synagogue on September 4, 1904.  Brooks, Juanita, History of Jews in Utah & Idaho, p. 141.

So in 1907 my husband’s great-grandfather Max Weiss built his wife a home in Salt Lake City (828 Washington Street) and continued to build his business in Northeast Utah.  Imagine commuting between Vernal and Salt Lake in the early 1900’s. 

The Montefiore Synagogue in Salt Lake City was the center of Grandma’s life, and she was so happy when her oldest son, Abraham, was married to Lizzie Benchick in the “proper Jewish way” in their Jewish Temple (Montefiore Synagogue) by Rabbi Zorach Bielsky.

Michael & Hannah (Max & Annie) Weiss Family

Standing L to R:

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Benchick Weiss, husband, Abraham (Abe) Weiss,

Simon Solomon Weiss, Samuel George Weiss

Front L to R:

Annie (Hannah) Wahrhaftig, Morris Weiss, Max (Michael) Weiss

But Simon didn’t feel the same way about his mother’s Orthodox Jewish beliefs. As Annie watched her son fall in love with Clair, the beautiful Mormon girl, she was deeply concerned about his choice.

In 1918, the Jewish boy and the Mormon girl decided to elope.  They each knew that they couldn’t get their family’s permission to marry outside of their respective temples, so they planned to get married at the City/County Building. 

Salt Lake City and County Building

Claire tells about her wedding day in 1918 in a video interview in 1981 at the age of 81:

The temperature was so that my new high heels sunk into the asphalt on Main Street.  It was so hot!  And then we went not to the Hotel Utah or the bridal suite or anyplace like that, we went to what was really a tavern then, a businessman’s hotel that used to be on the south side of 2^nd So. Between Main and West Temple called Killen Hotel.  And he got a room and we took all our things up there and got dressed and went down to the city County building and got married.  The County Clerk signed our marriage license.  We were just married by the County Clerk of Salt Lake County in the old City/County Building.

Marriage Certificate from June 5, 1918

And we walked out and as we started walking up the hall of the Justice Building and ran right into my Uncle Milton Croft, my mother’s brother.  And he said, “What have you kids been doing?” 

We were caught in the act.  So we just said, (Si said), “I just registered for the draft and Clair and I just got married.”

“You didn’t!”

We said, “Yes we did” and I showed him my wedding ring.

And he said, “Now, I want you to do this.  I want you to go straight home to your mother—right now—and tell her.”  And so we did.  We said, “We will.”

First we went right up to my mother’s and walked in the house and Si said, “Mrs. Chase, Claire and I got married.”

“You what?”

“Claire and I got married.”

And my mother (Emma Amelia Croft Chase) broke down sobbing, sobbing, sobbing and she just kept sobbing so you couldn’t even talk to her.  She just kept sobbing, sobbing.

And my husband, Simon said, “Mrs. Chase, don’t cry, please don’t cry.  I love Claire and I’ll always take good care of her.  I’ll never forsake her.  I will always take care of her and treat her wonderfully and you’ll like me for it.”

So we finally go her calmed down enough so we could leave after an hour or two.  We were there about two hours trying to calm her down.  My father (Frank Leslie Chase, on the other hand, gave his blessing.  He said, “I hope you’ll just be as happy as can be.”  Because we HAD gotten married. 

Clarissa Chase Weiss-about 1976

I’m sure it nearly broke the heart of Mark’s Jewish great-grandmother to see her son Simon marry out of the Jewish faith.*   Simon Weiss and Claire Chase’s union was among the first Mormon-Jewish marriages in Salt Lake City.   In 1918 it was quite rare to have interfaith marriage.  Today, many of their descendants are less active or non-members in the Mormon faith and know very little about the Jewish faith of their fathers. 

How thankful I am for Holy Temples and for those who sacrificed so much to build them. 

When I take part in the ordinances inside these Holy Temples I remember the pioneers who sacrificed so much to build these grand “houses of God”.

 

Mark and I like to tell our children that we had a “Temple Courtship”:  He proposed to me in the Manti Temple, gave me my ring in the Provo Temple, and we were married in the Salt Lake Temple.

It is my belief that what goes on inside these modern Holy Temples truly matters.  It is, however, what goes on inside of you that matters most.  It is a decision to have an eternal “forever family.”

Carved in stone on east side of Salt Lake Temple-Holiness to the LORD

Outside the all LDS temples on the east side is carved these words:

“Holiness to the Lord-The House of the Lord.”

May we and all the Weiss descendants seek the sacred ordinances and blessings found inside the Holy Temples of God.

=======Notes on Jewish and Mormon views on intermarriage=======

*All branches of Orthodox Judaism view intermarriage as wrong and refer to intermarriage as a "Second Silent Holocaust."

According to the Torah, Jews should not intermarry because their children will turn to other religions. "You shall not intermarry with them: do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. For you will turn your children away from Me to worship other gods..." (Deuteronomy 7:1-3).  (see Lisa Katz, Jewish View of Intermarriage.) 

LDS.org references these passages regarding a man and a woman of different religious beliefs and practices:  You shall not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites: Gen. 24:3   If Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, what good shall my life do me?: Gen. 27:46; ( Gen. 28:1–2; ) Israel shall not marry the Canaanites: Deut. 7:3–4;  We would not give our daughters unto the people of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons: Neh. 10:30; If a man marry a wife not by me, their covenant and marriage is not of force when they are dead: D&C 132:15;

LDS.org says:  To be exalted in the highest degree and continue eternally in family relationships, we must enter into “the new and everlasting covenant of marriage” and be true to that covenant. In other words, temple marriage is a requirement for obtaining the highest degree of celestial glory. (See D&C 131:1-4.)