Some background about Sproulie in this Account:
Early History of the Gospel in Bakersfield, California
By Jack Stancliff
In order to give a history of the Lord’s work in the early days here in Bakersfield, I am going to try and set down a few things I remember. Obviously, I wasn’t around in the early days, so what I present here is what I remember my folks ( Clifton and Talitha Stancliff) and family sharing, including my brother Leo. Others who shared memories with me include our Uncle Arthur Stancliff, Hugh Denio, and Jim Bone. Also, having had the privilege of spending a year with Uncle Willie Jamieson while I was in the work, he shared a few facts as well.
Irvine Weir was with George Walker and William Irvine when they came to America in September of 1903. Irvine Weir came out here to California in 1904 and contacted Clyde Brownlee in Long Beach. Clyde was the father of Harry Brownlee, who later went in the work (1934). Clyde tried to help Irvine with the gospel work, but Irvine himself was confused on some points. The gospel really got started in earnest when Willie Jamieson came to California. Jim Bone remembered it as September of 1905. Uncle Willie and Irvine Weir had their first mission together, according to Jim Bone, in September of 1905 in San Luis Obispo, and that was where Bert and Retta Waite heard the gospel and professed. Their home was the first open home in California. They were the parents of Eva Waite, who later married Jim Bone.
In November of 1905, according to Jim Bone’s account, the workers moved to Paso Robles and set up a tent on the northeast corner of Thirteenth and Spring Street. It was there that the Hills, McPhails, Weibes, and others professed. On Christmas day, a few miles up the Salinas River at Lake Isabel, twenty-five people were baptized. In April of the next year (1906), while the tent was still up, they used it to hold the first convention in California and perhaps in America. That was the year of the major earthquake. The workers were gathered at Paso Robles, waiting for William Irvine, but William was detained in San Francisco, helping with the fires etc., after the quake. They waited until he arrived to hold the convention. The earthquake occurred on Wednesday, April 18, and the convention began on Sunday, April 22.
Two people from the Bakersfield area made their start in those days. One was Benjie Denio. She was the wife of John Denio, the oldest of the original Denio boys. John professed forty-five years after Benjie (in 1951), when Gladys Porteous, Hazel Pierce, and Isabel Boyd had meetings in a portable hall on Truman and Birdie Denio’s place.
The other person from Bakersfield to profess at Paso Robles was Jake Compher. Jake was the father of Pauline Denio and grandfather of Justin Denio. Justin married Florence Middleton, and they had the meeting in the home where my folks and I went before I went in the work. The other children of Bill and Pauline Denio are Bernice Severson, Evelyn Huddle, and Mel and Jim Denio. Jake had a difficult life because his wife was opposed to the Lord’s way and made Jake sleep in the chicken coop at times. Jake would frequently go up to Balance Rock in the mountains to a cabin my folks had and would find a little peace there.
The next convention was at San Luis Obispo in January of 1907. It was after that convention that Willie Jamieson, Jim Martin, Elisabeth Jamieson, and Esther Hanson went to Oregon. Irvine Weir, Walter Slater, Edie Weir, and Florence Langworthy then came to the Bakersfield area.
As chance would have it, one day in 1909, while the sisters, Edie Weir and Florence Langworthy, were walking down the road at Old River, they met Grandma (Emily) Bone, Jim and John Bone’s mother. The sisters had been anxious to meet the parents of the three boys who were coming to their meetings at the schoolhouse, bringing a nickel each tied up in a handkerchief. Needless to say, the workers did not accept the nickels, and this made an impression on Grandma and Grandpa Bone. So when they met on the road, Grandma Bone invited them to come and stay with them. Edie and Florence did so and had a mission in which only Grandma Bone and young Jim Bone (age 12) professed. Then the Bones had all four workers in their home. At that time Mr. Bone was very friendly, but later he became very opposed to the truth.
For a time, the Sunday meeting would alternate. During one of the meetings in the Bone home, Lela Denio, a daughter-in-law of Grandpa and Grandma Denio, professed. Lela was a sister-in-law to Benjie and Birdie Denio.
Lela was holding Sproulie in her arms as a baby when she stood up. This would have been about late 1909 or early 1910, because
Sproulie was born in 1909. Lela went on faithfully by herself for the next 9 or 10 years until her husband Hugh professed at Orcutt convention in either late 1919 or early 1920. Lela would harness the team up and take the children to the meetings and convention by herself during the years before Hugh professed.
Sproulie went in the work in 1931, and he and Don Garland were the first to take the gospel to Korea. Sproulie’s brother Truman went in the work in 1933, the same year as my brother Leo. Truman went to the Philippines in the late 1940’s, and their sister Lena went in the work about 1935. Carl Denio went in the work about 1937. Lela and Hugh’s other son Ken, along with his wife Ann, lived on the old Bakersfield convention grounds for many years.
Read the rest on TTT at:
www.tellingthetruth.info/history_pioneering/usa-1.php#Calif4