HISTORICAL RESUME FOR FRIENDSHIP MANOR DEDICATION
December 10, 1967
By Hugh W. Gillilan, Minister
First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City
It is my great pleasure to give a brief resume of the history of Friendship
Manor. It would be impossible to recount here all the significant events in the
development of this project, or even to begin to accurately reflect all of the
joys and travails experienced by hardy souls who persevered to reach the supreme
satisfaction of this day. For all of us who have been intimately involved in the
development of this retirement community, however, the satisfactions of our
present tenants, the splendor of this building, and the pride in a long effort
successfully concluded are ample reward for our half-dozen years of labor.
Friendship Manor had its origin in the mind of Dr. Robert Conrod, former
professor at Westminster college and member of our Board throughout the past
years of development. After much exploration of possibilities, conversations,
and correspondence, Dr. Conrod on Nov. 30, 1961, broached with me the proposal
for a modest-sized retirement project as we stood and talked informally in a
parking lot at Westminster College. It was agreed at that time that the
leadership and congregation of the First Unitarian Church should be involved in
the proposal. After several exploratory meetings were held, a Committee on
Housing for the Aged was formed early in 1962 at the Unitarian Church. As ideas
expanded it became obvious that broader base of sponsorship would be needed. The
Rev. Frank Blish was consulted and he with William Hook of the First
Congregational Church spearheaded the efforts of persons in that church to join
with the delegation from the Unitarian Church. Mr. Hook subsequently became the
President of Friendship Manor Corporation and Mr. Blish has most effectively
assumed the managership of this project.
Members of the original Board of Trustees worked diligently to interest other
churches of the area in our proposed building, and we were most gratified when
Congregation B’Nai Israel (Congregation Kol Ami) and the Utah Association of the
United Church of Christ joined in the sponsorship of Friendship Manor.
In our early Board meetings, it was necessary to pool the substance of our
pockets to pay for our secretarial assistance. All of us have appreciated the
project’s improved financial status! Many of the Board members have met in
approximately 100 formal sessions and the officers of the Corporation have
probably met in an equal amount of extra meetings during the last six years. The
name of Friendship Manor was originally suggested by Charles A. Hauptman at the
time a pioneering American spaceship was carrying the word “Friendship” rapidly
around the globe. We all agreed that friendship should be at the heart of our
concerns.
Monumental steps in development were taken in the selection of the firm of
Ashton, Brazier, Montmorency & Associates for architectural services and the
Robert Chuckrow Company of New York City as our general contractor. We are much
indebted to these two firms for the comfort, beauty, and utility of this
building.
The ground-breaking ceremony was conducted two years ago on December 13, 1965,
and the excavation for the basement began shortly thereafter. My family has been
among many avid but non-official supervisors of construction for the first
bulldozer activity to the last movements of the towering crane and the
finishing work of artisans inside.
And now, here we are for this splendid occasion, tenants, employees, Board
members, civic representatives and friends, all happy and proud of what has been
accomplished.
From this auspicious beginning may the contribution of Friendship Manor to the
larger community continue to grow through the years giving solace and substance
to the reality of human friendship.
I would like to close with experts from Carl Sandburg’s poem, “Skyscraper”;
By day the skyscraper looms in
the smoke and sun and has a soul.
Prairie and valley, streets of the
city, pour people into it and they mingle among its twenty floors and are poured
out again back to the streets, prairies and valleys.
It is the men and women, boys and
girls so poured in and out all day that give the building a soul of dreams and
thoughts and memories.
(Dumped in
the sea or fixed in a desert, who would care for the building or speak its name
or ask a policeman the way to it?)
Elevators slide on their cables
and tubes catch letters and parcels and iron pipes carry gas and water in and
sewage out.
Wires climb with secrets, carry
light and carry words, and tell terrors and profits and loves--curses of men
grappling plans of business and questions of women in plots of love.
Hour by hour the caissons reach
down to the rock of the earth and hold the building to a turning planet.
Hour by hour the girders play as
ribs and reach out and hold together the stone walls and floors.
Hour by hour the hand of the
mason and the stuff of the mortar clinch the pieces and parts to the shape an
architect voted.
Hour by hour the sun and the rain,
the air and the rust, and the press of time running into centuries, play on the
building inside and out and use it.
By night
the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars and has a soul.
Telephone:
801-582-3100 ♦ TTY: 711 ♦
Fax: 801-583-0412