church in
Independence, Missouri, built during the presidency of Emery Fletcher in the 1920s Before 1920, there had only been one Cutlerite congregation in Clitherall. However, during the early 1920s, a majority of this congregation elected to relocate to
Independence, Missouri, near the
Temple Lot, where they purchased land and erected a building which became their new church headquarters. Independence was an urban environment, in sharp contrast to rural Clitherall. According to
Rupert Fletcher, president of the Cutlerite church from 1958 to 1974 and author of
Alpheus Cutler and The Church of Jesus Christ, the schism that would lead to the founding of the so-called
True Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite) after Emery's death was precipitated by what Rupert (Emery Fletcher's son, and a later president of the Cutlerite church) called "the lack of communication and a wide difference in environment." Whereas the Minnesota congregation were primarily "members of a rural society, engaged in agrarian pursuits," the Missouri members lived and worked "in an urban community." "The problems and needs of each have little in common with the other", wrote he, and this often "caused disunity." However, following the death of "True Church" founder
Clyde Fletcher, this schism was rapidly healed, and the Cutlerite people reunited around the leadership of then-president Rupert Fletcher (Emery's son). Fletcher died on 21 July 1953, one day before what would have been his eighty-fifth birthday. He is buried in Clitherall with several other early Cutlerite pioneers in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. ==Children==