The Church that Gradually faded Away

This Church was my family's church: the RLDS. 

It was the church of both my father and my mother, but I know so little about my father's family, I will not say much about them.

The RLDS church was formed after the death of the leader of the LDS church, Joseph Smith, was killed in 1844. 

The period between the LDS and RLDS is complicated, and I will not go into that. But will begin when Joseph Smith III became the president of the RLDS, in Lamoni, Iowa. Record-keeping was poor before the Computer arrived, but under his leadership, the church grew. But not as much as the LDS under Brigham Young, which was always a much larger church.

My mother's father's family was in Nova Scotia, but one daughter of that family immigrated to Boston and married into a rich family there, the Fishers (who were RLDS). She sent for her brother to teach at the Fisher's Business College. 

At the same time, another family (he Fairclouphs) immigrated from England and one daughter enrolled in the Fisher Business College. They were very RLDS. This daughter married her instructor at the college (Albert Sanford) who taught Shorthand. 

They bought a new house in a suburb of Boston, Summerville, where my mother was born. 

The RLDS church peaked out in the Fifties when I attended Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa. 

I went on to the U of Illinois and became an Electronic Engineer. And dropped out of the church.

The rest of my family dropped out too, but gradually, and in a complicated way.