In thinking about a Gilgal story—I have many, as I grew up next to the garden and was able to help build it and for many years take care of it. I grew up with Thomas B. Child’s son-in-law Bryant Higgs and his grandson Tom Higgs. I worked for Child when it was his construction yard and helped to build the garden as he moved the construction yard out and more of the garden in its place. I loved being around Child and in his home, which I now live in. What more could I ask for as a youth—being around heavy equipment and learning how to cut stone with an oxyacetylene torch.
In the back of our home we have a water wall and in Gilgal Garden there were two water features. This is where I learned to love the sound of water features. One, that is no longer in the garden, was located in the monument to THE LAST CHAPTER OF THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES. This is where you find a well, the face of an old man, a grasshopper, and a broken water pitcher. Under the base of the original almond tree there was a cement turtle about two feet long and a foot wide. Water came out of its mouth, dropped down into stone bowls, and ended on the flat rocks that the pitcher sat on. Then the water ran down and watered the plants on the mountain. It looked like the pitcher was broken and spilling water. The turtle was stolen and was never replaced.
The other water feature was in ELIJAH’S CAVE (and a new water line could be put back in). There are two large boulders that formed the roof of the cave. A copper pipe was placed so that water dripped from the roof of the cave and seeped into a drain at the front of the cave, then ran out and watered the garden. To make these features work, we would attach a garden hose to hose fittings hidden in the base of the mountain. Child’s first water feature is located in the patio of the Tenth Ward building just north of Gilgal, on the corner of Fourth South and Eighth East. There you will find a small rock mountain which has a water feature with a small cave. The water flows over the flat rock that forms the roof and drips into the cave and again runs down a ditch and waters the plants.
I loved being around Thomas B. Child and learning about his garden and his love for his Church and his love for this great land that we live in.
Salt Lake City