In an area where historical roots run deep, the Church is only beginning to blossom as its influence slowly permeates northern Virgina and bits of surrounding states.
The Winchester Virginia Stake was organized in May 1977 from the Blue Ridge District and has steadily grown to a membership of 3,400, spread over a large and diverse geographic region. Members reside in four states - Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania - and the stake president and his counselors reside in three different states. President L. Lynn Olsen lives in Cumberland in western Maryland; first counselor Stephen Kimble lives in hilly Petersburg, W. Va.; and second counselor Gerald Buhl calls tiny Tom's Brook, Va., home."Members throughout our stake have a special challenge because they are so widespread," Pres. Olsen explained. "All have considerable distances to travel to get to stake meetings and participate in activities. By highway, the stake stretches approximately 130 miles north and south, and 140 miles east and west. I'm about 75 miles from the stake center in Winchester."
Actually, there is no stake center in Winchester - yet - though it is the center of the stake. The Winchester Ward building is being renovated and expanded into a three-phase meetinghouse and stake center. Work will be completed in late summer. At present, the stake's only full-sized meetinghouse is in Cumberland. Stake meetings are rotated among the various buildings, with the presidency's offices being briefcases and the trunks of their automobiles.
Completion of the building will solidify Winchester, with its population of about 25,000 located 70 miles west of Washington, D.C., as the hub of stake activities. Until now, stake functions have been rotated around the three wards and seven branches in Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia.
"Winchester is the apple capital of the East, and there is a lot of early American history there," noted Pres. Olsen. "The new stake center will be an exciting addition for us all."
Stake members aren't the first ones to have Winchester as "headquarters."
The city changed flags between the North and South 68 to 70 times - reportedly 13 times in one day - during the four years of the Civil War in the 1860s, and many of the city's homes were used as headquarters of generals and colonels of one army - sometimes within hours after leaders of the other army had vacated them.
The city was then, as it is now, the hub of good north-south and east-west roads. It was the objective of six battles fought in Frederick County, where the people were predominantly Confederate in sympathy, though many opposed secession and others tried to remain neutral as the war raged back and forth in the northern Shenandoah Valley.
In Confederate hands, Winchester was a prime location from which to launch attacks on Union rail, highway and canal supply lines that paralleled the Potomac River from Washington to the Midwest. It also was a point from which raids could threaten the security of the federal government in Washington.
Under Union control, Winchester made Confederate raids and invasion of the North a big risk, and opened a protected avenue for Union troop movements south through a valley from which they could attack the flanks and rear of Gen. Robert E. Lee's armies.
During the winter of 1861-62, Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and his wife stayed at a home on North Braddock Street in Winchester, a building still standing and open to the public as a museum.
Prior to the Civil War - during the French and Indian War - Winchester was a center of defense against Indian raids. George Washington, who was employed in Winchester in 1748 as a surveyor, was a young colonel commanding Virginia troops here in 1756-57, with headquarters in his old surveying office, which exists today at the corner of Cork and Braddock streets.
In addition to headquarters buildings of Jackson and Washington, other historic sites in and around the community include the home and grave of Gen. Daniel Morgan, hero of the Revolutionary War; headquarters of Union Gen. Philip Sheridan, from which he started his famous 12-mile ride on Oct. 19, 1864, to rally his retreating troops at Cedar Creek; the Hollingsworth house (Abram's Delight), built in 1754 and now furnished with relics of 18th century homes of the Revolutionary era; the National Cemetery and Confederate Cemetery; ruins of an old church used as barracks during the Revolution; the Hopewell Meeting House, established in 1734; and the Belle Grove Plantation.
As the East's "apple capital," Winchester is surrounded by vast orchards and constitutes one of the largest apple export markets in the nation and the largest producing area in Virginia.
Each year in early May, the city plays host to 250,000 people who converge for the four-day Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival. And annually there also are re-enactments of the various Civil War battles fought in the area, which attract many visitors.
Though relatively young, the Church has some colorful, albeit quiet, history of its own in Winchester.
The Winchester Ward was formed the same time as the stake, in May 1977. It has a membership of 519, and an average sacrament meeting attendance of about 200.
The ward originated from the Winchester Branch, organized in 1962 as an outcropping of a branch established in 1956 that encompassed Winchester and several other surrounding communities that have since become branches of their own.
Ground was broken for a meetinghouse in September 1966. A second phase was dedicated in May 1977. Today, 13 years later, the building is again bulging at the seams and being enlarged.
"The new expansion has brought with it a lot of excitement, and it has created a lot of interest in the community," explained Bishop Richard Evans of the Winchester Ward. "People are asking a lot of questions, and that's opening up some doors."
Bishop Evans, a convert of 20 years, said the Church is a quiet part of Winchester's community and religious fabric, not attracting an inordinate amount of positive or negative attention. The ward continues to grow steadily, however, with about one-half its membership as converts.
"I didn't know we had members of the Church here until the missionaries came to the door [in 1969T," he noted. "We've been fortunate with the Corps of Engineers bringing in strong leadership from time to time, along with other businesses. It seems often people get transferred in and stay for two to four years, then get transferred on. But they're a big help when they're here."
Four full-time missionaries serve in the ward, which is part of the Washington D.C. South Mission. Though elders are currently proselyting in Winchester, through the years missionary couples have had a big impact for good.
Sister Dellitt Elizabeth Lockhart, 84, who joined the Church with five of her children in 1950, remembered two couples in particular who had a positive impact on Church growth in unusual ways.
One taught members to make peanut brittle. "I'll never forget the look on his face when he brought 100 pounds of sugar to the house to make candy," Sister Lockhart recalled. "We had to make money then to pay the rent for our meetings at the VFW hall and to buy land for a building."
The candy earned a reputation for being extra good, and became known around Winchester as "Mormon peanut brittle." It also helped pay for the first two phases of the Winchester meetinghouse, according to Bishop Evans.
Another missionary couple returned home to Idaho following their missions, and sent a railroad boxcar of potatoes to Winchester for members to sell for the building fund. Spuds were sold in 100 pound bags, and finally in 5- and 10-pound bags as demand decreased and they began to spoil.
"They were able to move them, and that was a big help to the building fund," Bishop Evans said.
Sister Lockhart, an avid family history researcher who presently is tracing three lines from England and Scotland, offered an explanation as to why the Church has been relatively quiet in Winchester through the years.
"After we were baptized several years, I saw in a 1902 newspaper that Mormon elders had been forbidden by community leaders to proselyte in Winchester. I guess that's why we never heard of the LDS Church until that time. The missionaries had never been in town."
But they quietly returned toward the middle of the century, and Sister Lockhart and later her husband, Bishop Evans and his family, and others like them are the fruits of their constant labors.
