OXFORD — Marion Olson, 90, is the oldest person in this small Franklin County community northwest of Preston and the proud keeper of the old wood frame LDS church that sits in the center of town.

    The building was mistakenly referred to as a school in a recent Preston Citizen article, but it is a church. Olson doesn’t remember exactly when the building came up for bid, but that’s when he bought it. Over the years Olson has used the building for a variety of things, mostly storage of hay and feed for his livestock.

    Although it has deteriorated over time, it’s not hard to imagine it in the 1940s when it would have been a happening place.

    There are a few original dust-covered chairs and other relics left. But anything worth money has been removed.

    Olson lives in the house adjacent to the frame building that dwarfs his own, in the once thriving town. He reminisced of his life as a youngster when the church was in its prime and he was a carefree young man. He has a lot of stories to tell about the old building.

    The church didn’t have a baptismal font. For that, Olson and other baptismal candidates, were taken to the Oxford Reservoir on top of the hill not far from town, then submerged in the cold water. Some 82 years later, Olson remembers the “ordeal” of being baptized in the reservoir.

    “I don’t remember what time of year it was, but it was cold,” he said.

    The church was not only used as a place where believers worshipped on Sundays, it was also a place where folks would gather for community dances.

    Olson said people would stoke the potbelly stove and turn the portable wooden pews against the walls to contain small children and babies to keep them from getting onto the floor. Then men and women would shake a leg dancing the night away.

    He pointed to the place where teenagers would hide their bottles of booze and where the sheriff would hide to catch the heathens.

    “One night the sheriff about froze to death waiting to catch some boys who hid their stash over there,” he said, pointing to an area behind the church.

    The retired railroad worker served as ward financial clerk for his uncle, Bishop Henry Hatch, for a time.

    Dee Boyce, an Oxford historian, read from the official church record of a banquet held in 1937 as a fundraiser for the new church. In 1938 construction was completed and in September 1939, at a cost of $8,520.83, the building was dedicated by Heber J. Grant.

    It has been remodeled a time or two over the years. A kitchen, a Relief Society room, a Bishop’s office and a couple of classrooms were added.

    In 1956 the population had declined and the building had outlived its usefulness. The Oxford Ward was combined with one in Clifton and the building abandoned.

    Olson occasionally has visitors drive by and ask to look through the piece of early Idaho architecture.

    “I don’t mind showing it now and then,” he said.