Tears streaked down the face of Chris Burningham's mother as she sat in the kitchen of her daughter's newly renovated Lehi home.
"She just started to cry," Burningham recalled. "She said she could see and feel the Relief Society sisters in that room, doing what they did back then."Chris and her husband, Jeff, didn't know they had purchased a piece of Mormon history when they plunked down $75,000 for a run-down, two-level house at 212 W. Main Street three years ago.
Construction on the crumbling, corner house began in 1880 when members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints scraped together enough money to purchase the parcel of land for a Relief Society Hall.
The 1883 dedication meeting was attended by Eliza R. Snow, wife of church President Lorenzo Snow. The building grew to become a haven of charity and spirituality for the town.
Only a handful of halls built during this era for the LDS women's organization still stand.
In time, as the Relief Society was integrated more into Sunday church meetings, the Lehi hall was converted into a home.
The land and original building were paid for with donations and money raised during bazaars, bake sales, the gleaning of wheat and the "Sunday Eggs Project," a special sale of eggs that were laid on the Sabbath. Work on the hall, which cost some $2,350, was done by members of the church after they completed work for the day in fields or their own shops.
"We don't know why we bought it. It was just a feeling we had," said Jeff Burningham when asked why they wanted the house. "Somebody had told us it was a church. We'd heard it was a Relief Society hall but nothing beyond that."
The Burninghams gutted the home, replacing the plumbing and electrical wiring. It took 11 months of work before the family could move in. Nearly all the plaster and adobe walls were replaced, as well as the roof.
But the foundation, made of a limestone and mortar mix, was solid.
The hard work reminded Jeff Burningham why he was reluctant to buy an older house.
"He always said, `I will never buy an old house,' " said Chris Burningham. "When we looked at this house, he finally said yes because we thought it had such neat features."
As they worked, they peeled back layers of wallpaper and paint that, to them, read like pages of a history book. They also found in a small crevice an intricately carved cane.
And then they learned of the building's history.
"Hearing all of the stories, it's been really neat," she said. "It's a reminder of how hard things were to come by back then."
They almost didn't get the house. The bank denied their first loan application because of the condition of the house and the fledgling status of Jeff Burningham's start-up company.
A higher bid on the property came in after theirs. The plans for the property included tearing down the building because the land was worth more without the structure.
Nonetheless, they were allowed to move forward on the purchase of the home.
The couple have reveled in tales spun by older Lehi residents who remember playing in the grove of mulberry trees behind the house or crawling under the quilting frame set up in the large front room while sisters pulled yarn through cloth with long needles.
They estimate more than 1,000 people have stopped to marvel at the renovation. Some are on historic tours. Others are simply interested in seeing how the building has evolved.
"It has to do with the spirit of the place," Chris said. "That's what people say when they come here. A lot of individuals have commented about the spirit that's here."
A group of women who stopped to look at the house during a Statehood Days tour last month softly sang the Mormon hymn, "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet," as they stood in the hallway leading to the cozy sitting room, furnished with antique lamps and lace curtains.
Once, their son Jake, 7, was playing in the house with his friends. As the playtime game increased in volume, Jake said to his buddies, "You can't yell in the Relief Society house."
Legend has it that Utah's silk industry centered from this building and the silk worms that fed on the mulberry trees. It is also said that the gift of tongues was witnessed during testimony meetings at the tidy building where homemade goods were both sold and shared with the needy.
The Burninghams also recall visits by a "friendly ghost."
Jeff and Chris both say they felt they were watched by a spirit as they worked on the house at night.
"I think he was interested in what was going on," Jeff Burningham said, smiling. "I think it has a lot to do with the sacrifice involved with the building's origin."
The family soon will grow out of the small house. Chris worries about their small children playing near traffic on Main Street.
Chris Burningham is searching for an account of the prayer offered at the 1883 dedication. She wants to know what the house was blessed to become for future generations.
"I feel strongly we were part of a process to save it," she said. "And I think that maybe someday it will be a gathering place again for our community. It just has to do with the special spirit of the place."