218 2nd Street
Lawrence Sherner was born in Lynne, Ogden City, Weber County, Utah, in 1873 to Peter and Mary Elizabeth Huchens Sherner who lived at 122 2nd Street. He attended school at the Lynne Schoolhouse and spent his childhood days in the company of his pioneer relatives. [1] He epitomized the transitional generation that was raised on a farm by pioneer parents and grandparents and then led the way into the first half of the twentieth century.
By the time Lawrence was 21 years old, Five Points had three stores selling merchandise, one of these was the Shaw Mercantile Store. There was also one drug store, two shoe stores, two tailoring establishments, three blacksmith shops, one butcher shop, one skating rink, several or three saloons, and a number of offices for real estate, doctors, and lawyers. Electric streetcars passed each way through Five Points every few minutes giving the community an air of importance. [2]
Rozina Shaw was born in 1882; her grandfather and great-grandfather helped take the first water ditches out of Ogden River for agriculture irrigation in 1849. In the 1890s her father helped begin the mercantile store on the SW corner of 2nd Street and Washington Blvd. Later her father became the sole owner of the store and his family lived first above the store and later in a house built next to the store on 2nd Street, just three blocks away from the childhood home of Lawrence. [3]
Lawrence completed this red brick house prior to his marriage to Rozina Shaw in June 1901. It was located on family acreage next to the north branch of the Lower Lynne Ditch and a block-and-a-half -west of the junction at Five Points. The ditch was a great advantage for irrigation and proximity to “The Points” meant walking distance for shopping and business. Lawrence’s neighbor, Moroni Stone, was his great uncle.
In 1916 Lawrence Sherner was called to be bishop of the Lynne Ward and served from 1916 to 1926. A new church meetinghouse was dedicated in 1915 to the triangle at Five Points. [4] During Bishop Sherner’s first years his ward members were coping with the sorrows of death and deformity from World War l. Those who returned after the armistice in 1918 faced a lack of work – Utah’s agrarian economy did not support many jobs- and broken spirits. About this time the influenza epidemic enveloped the world, and Ogden did not escape either. Nearly every family lost a family member to its scourge; penicillin had not yet been discovered. Then in the waning days of World War l, prohibition was a political issue and there was a growing awareness of the erratic stock market. [5]
The men in the bishopric were devoted servants to the community during these difficult times, and the new meetinghouse at Five Points was a bright spot for the community. This was where ward meetings were held and social events for the entire community. Everyone was proud of the chapel. [6] On December 16, 1923, by popular vote, the name of the Lynne Ward was changed to the Ogden15th Ward. [7]
Lawrence was a farmer and manager of the Scoville Paper Company (later called the Ogden Paper Company). He preferred to think of himself as a farmer. In 1896 he planted 35,000 strawberry plants by hand on the Sherner Farm. [8]
In 2021 the Lawrence Sherner house on 2nd Street retains 2 acres of the farm and is still owned by the Sherner family.
[1] - Colleen Blankenship, Lawrence William Sherner, manuscript, 2004, p.1.
[2] - Andrew Jensen, History of the Lynne Ward, Microfilm LR#6405 2, p. 1, 12.
[3] - Pioneer personal history of Myrtillo Shaw Jr, 1937, Federal Writers Project.
[4] - Colleen Blankenship, Lawrence William Sherner, p.3.
[5] - Ibid, p. 4.
[6] - Ibid; Andrew Jensen, History of the Ogden 15th Ward.
[7] - Andrew Jensen, History of the Ogden 15th Ward. Year 1923.
[8] - Letter Colleen Blankenship, 27 Feb. 2014.