Oakland Chapel

This building was the center of Mormon life in the East Bay from 1923 to 1959, when it was sold. Now owned by the Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church, it has been extensively renovated, but much of the original structure is still intact. One of the former members who worshipped here, Armand Mauss, shares these recollections:

"[Old photos of the Church building on Moss and Webster] conjure up such delicious memories: The choir loft where my mother directed an almost professional ward choir for many years; the recreation hall downstairs, where, as a teenager, I enjoyed so many MIA dances – as did our visiting men in uniform throughout the war years; the baptismal font inside and below the stage, where, at age 17, I baptized my best buddy from high school; the kitchen off the west side of the recreational hall, where old Brother Searle, our ward caretaker, would sterilize, in a boiling vat, the small glass sacrament cups we had used during both the Sunday School and the Sacrament meetings; the small storeroom, just off the western foyer upstairs, where, as a deacon, I was required to change, for each meeting, into a newly laundered white shirt (provided by the ward) and a black bow tie, in order to pass the sacrament; the stairway, just outside that little room, where I was standing as I heard the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor on that Sunday in 1941, not realizing how totally that announcement was going to change my future life; the stake office, upstairs in the back, on the east side of the building, where I got my mission interview with the stake president; and on and on and on."