Rob, thanks for the help. As suspected the main problem was a user error, namely = I’m an idiot. The change that I made to the index.php file as per the WordPress guidelines was correct. I failed, however, to move the file to my root directory. I just kept uploading it to the same folder at my domain. So, all you fellow noobs out there with a similar error message, be sure you’ve actually moved the file to the root. It’s a totally logical thing. You’re trying to get the webpage loaded at the main domain name. Well, there needs to be some information to guide the browser, i.e., your index.php file.
Again, I appreciate Rob’s pitching in with what also would have worked.