Newly restored Provo Easter cross to be dedicated Saturday

Newly restored Provo Easter cross to be dedicated Saturday

(Photo Courtesy Niki Thornock)


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PROVO — After more than three years of planning, donations and work, an old cross that once brought different Christian denominations together every Easter has been restored and will be dedicated at its new location Saturday.

The dedication ceremony will include people from four different churches, a children’s choir, and speeches from Provo Mayor Michelle Kaufusi, historian D. Robert Carter, and Niki Thornock, a Provo resident who spearheaded the effort to restore the cross after she first visited the site where the cross once stood in the foothills east of Provo in 2014.

The cross was first erected in 1939 and brought interdenominational groups to congregate as one on Easter Sundays until services discontinued in 1951. It remained in the foothills after that, but was severely damaged by vandals and later bulldozed in the 1970s.

A photo of a girl sitting on the Provo Easter cross. The cross, built in 1939, was bulldozed in the 1970s. (Photo Courtesy Niki Thornock)
A photo of a girl sitting on the Provo Easter cross. The cross, built in 1939, was bulldozed in the 1970s. (Photo Courtesy Niki Thornock)

When Thornock visited the old location 40 years later, she found the cross in shambles. Knowing its history and feeling sad to see it in such bad condition, she started her campaign to repair the cross.

Thornock, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, later partnered with the Provo Community Congregational United Church of Christ in 2016 to fundraise money for the project. The long and tedious process included finding a stonemason to rejoin the crumbled pieces, locating a new home for the cross and also finding a way to move those pieces to that new home.

A photo of the damaged Easter cross when it was found by Provo resident Niki Thornock in 2014. (Photo: Courtesy Niki Thornock)
A photo of the damaged Easter cross when it was found by Provo resident Niki Thornock in 2014. (Photo: Courtesy Niki Thornock)

Those pieces slowly came together. Thornock found a home for the cross at Eastlawn Cemetery in Provo and the cross pieces were assembled. A middle school student with the help of about 50 other volunteers cleared an area at the cemetery for the cross as a part of an Eagle Scout project in April 2017. Another project to lay sod took place in September.

At times during the process, Thornock said she doubted the project would come to fruition. However, she’s happy it all came together.

“There were lots of times where I didn’t think I’d ever get here,” she said. “It’s finally coming to an end where I can hand the care over to the cemetery.”

She was also grateful for the help along the way. The project, in many ways, restored the cross’ tradition of bringing members of Provo’s community together.

“It’s nice to have someone else coming along with it and other people appreciating it,” Thornock said of the project. “It’s nice to feel different people pulling together on this project. We had people from all sorts of different backgrounds and they all came together.”

Saturday’s ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. at Eastlawn Cemetery, 4800 N. 650 East, and is free to the public.

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Carter Williams is an award-winning reporter who covers general news, outdoors, history and sports for KSL.com.

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