PROVO — An Easter cross that once stood on the foothills near Y Mountain and brought a community’s Christian sects together is close to rising once again at a new home with the help of interfaith support.

The Provo Easter Cross was erected in 1939. Provo resident Niki Thornock, who lives where the cross was originally built, researched further into its history.

The cross was built by a local stonemason named Nathan Dixie Hiatt and the cross originally served as an area for interdenominational groups to congregate as one on Easter Sunday before those services discontinued in 1951, Thornock said.

The cross remained intact for many years after that but was eventually torn apart and lay on the foothill in pieces.

KSL featured Thornock’s efforts to rebuild the cross last year. Since then, she was able to raise at least $1,400 toward the project — donations coming from all sorts of Christian sects. In fact, while Thornock herself is LDS, she teamed up with Provo Community Congregational United Church of Christ to bring back a forgotten piece of Provo religious unity.

A donation page remains intact looking to cover the costs of the project.

In November, the remaining pieces of the cross were moved from Y Mountain to a new location at the Eastlawn Cemetery on Squaw Peak. The process to reassemble the cross was set to begin earlier this month, but Thornock said there have been time constraint issues regarding a stonemason hired.

“It’s like I keep walking into brick walls — grinding my way through a brick wall, get a few steps and hit another one,” Thornock said, joking about the lengthy process of repairing the cross. “It’s just kind of tiring, I guess.”

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On Saturday the project took another major step forward. Eric Hedengren, a student at Centennial Middle School in Provo, began work on an Eagle Scout project to spruce up the area around where the cross will stand.

Hedengren and Thornock were members of the same church congregation. She knew her project needed extra help and Hedengren needed a project to help reach the highest level within the Boy Scouts of America.

The history of the cross also intrigued Hendengren.

“When this was built, it brought the local churches together and it was a great symbol in the community,” he said. “Then someone pulled it out with truck and chain. Then someone in our ward was doing some research and they found out about this. … They rebuilt it and our job was do the landscaping.”

So Hedengren and about 50 volunteers laid sod and dug trenches to install pipes for water sprinklers. The project lasted from 9 a.m. to about 5:30 p.m. over the day. Further updates will include added shrubs and trees before the project is completed.

As the cross awaits final repair, a board covers the hole where it will be placed.

Though the project remains incomplete for the moment, the spirit the cross was built on has returned. The Provo Community Congregational United Church of Christ brought back the Easter Sunrise service this Sunday, and Thornock was asked to speak at the service.

When the repaired cross is set in place, which should be soon, it will be in much better surroundings than the years it was left in shambles — trash strewn around it. Hendengren is proud of the work accomplished in helping a project Thornock started roughly 2 1/2 years ago.

“When you just look at the little wing that it’s on in the private cemetery, it just looks amazing with the different sod formations around there and the sprinklers shooting up that we had installed,” Hendengren said. “It just looks wonderful.”

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