This time, it's not about the welfare of family who toiled as miners in nearby Bingham Canyon. Or for friends once dispatched from this mothballed mining community to labor on the front lines of World War II.
No, Rauer's battle - along with a tiny troupe of gritty parishioners - is to fight for her church, threatened with closure because of a dying congregation.
"This church used to be full of people," Rauer remembers, squinting at the sun-splashed cross framed by snowy slopes. "Half of them moved down into the valley. Half of them are dead."
Now named St. Paul United Methodist Church, the simple clapboard edifice first served as the base chapel for Camp Kearns, an Army installation closed at the end of the war. A few years later, the building was transported farther west to its current perch overlooking mine tailings and empty rows of rail on land donated by Kennecott Copper Co.
Renowned for its half-century of refuge, this war-torn house of worship may suffer the same fate as its Methodist predecessors in now-abandoned Highland Boy and Bingham Canyon.
Furnishings from those churches - immigrants from the canyon's tent cities established the congregation in 1874 - are consolidated in Copperton's wilting white chapel.
Now, the church's dozen members are clawing to preserve their Sunday ritual - and these ghosts - before they are buried.
"I can see the steeple from my bedroom," Joanie Groves smiles between huffs from her oxygen tube. "Every Sunday morning it calls to me."
The 69-year-old Copperton resident watched three of her children marry in the chapel. She also perked up when her husband returned to the pews after a stint in the Philippines during World War II. He went back to mine the company town's rich copper ore for what became a 42-year career.
Suddenly, after spending half her life at St. Paul, Groves & Co. could face finding - and driving to - a new church.
"My prayer would be the growth can come to us before the church meets its demise."
Indeed, with development of the west bench thoroughly planned - South Jordan's Daybreak is well under way - people will come. But it may be too late.
Carol Loftin, the church's pastor, explains the Rocky Mountain Conference expects congregations in its Utah and southern Colorado district to have at least 50 members. St. Paul has 12.
Worse, the church has only $4,000 in the bank, but needs a minimum of $26,000 for the year. This, despite the fact Loftin takes no paycheck and commutes for services from Holladay.
As a result, the conference has given the group six months to find a solution.
"It's almost a Catch-22 because if they can't afford me, maybe they're not a viable church anymore," Loftin laments. "We're able to pay our utility bills, but that's about it."
The predicament haunts Alicia Martinez-Madsen, who married in the church two years ago and now commutes to Copperton from Herriman.
"There was just something about it I was drawn to," she says. "It was simple and beautiful."
Martinez-Madsen's mother-in-law also commutes - from Riverton - despite being Catholic and married to a Mormon.
"It kind of felt like home," Linda Madsen says a few steps inside the church's rickety entrance. "They needed us as much as we needed them. We just stayed."
Others, lured by the charm, log even longer miles to come.
On certain Sundays, one woman treks from Bountiful to strum guitar during Communion. Another part-time member makes the long haul from Ogden to play piano.
"It's one of those churches you want to help out because you fall in love with it," Loftin says, noting a new Copperton couple joined just this month.
Film crews for "Touched by an Angel" found the faraway chapel. And the down-home feel translates to the monthly newsletter, which includes birthday announcements for each member.
But the rows of empty pews pose a disquieting problem.
"We don't have any kids here anymore," explains Rauer, who moved to Bingham from Iowa in 1941 with her husband, who worked as a geologist for Kennecott. Decades ago, the couple brought their own children to the church for Sunday school.
A donated rocking chair and row of stuffed animals sit idle in an otherwise-cheerful nursery tucked in the church basement. Near the altar rests another relic: a World War I-era pipe organ, collecting dust with no budget for restoration.
"There may be a lot of people in the valley who are not aware the little church is here," Madsen says. "Too many historical places are already gone. This one has such a great history."
To save their church, the faithful followers have dreams of recasting the cold building into a warm, if quaint, wedding chapel. They hope wedding parties will be drawn to the tidy yard complete with gazebo, for a fee.
Loftin also has orchestrated a memorial walk to be built alongside the building with engraved bricks to commemorate Copperton's 80th anniversary in 2008. Proceeds from that project, frequent weekend potlucks and a bazaar scheduled around an annual memorial race organized by defense attorney Ron Yengich could help the church's cause.
If not, it may be more than Groves can bear.
"This is breaking my heart," she manages, voice cracking and tears welling above her oxygen tube. "You go through life and you deal with the ups and downs. But this is one of the things I never thought I'd have to deal with. This was my solid."
djensen@sltrib.com
Open house set
* Copperton's St. Paul United Methodist Church is holding an open house April 22. Interested parties can contact the church at 801-255-3677 or visit the Web page at http://www.gbgm-umc.org/saintpaulumc
