Calvary in the 1930s

Rev. Barthel (1934 to 1942) and Dr. Kellerman (1942 – 1953)

The July 1940 issue of Macleans magazine featured a lengthy article by Frederick Edwards about what he called Waterloo County’s “Siamese-twin” communities -- the City of Kitchener and the Town of Waterloo”.

Edwards began by saying “they might have been expected to develop into placidly prosperous market towns. Well, they are that, but they are more than that. . . Together they constitute a bustling, intensely alive, ultra-modern manufacturing, professional and retail business community, set about with farmlands. Here the smokestacks of industry are surrounded by orchards.”

With only a single CPR rail line passing through Kitchener to or from Toronto, and no navigable waterway to connect it to the Great Lakes, it was a challenge to move manufactured goods to larger markets. Nevertheless, according to Edwards’ article, the Kitchener Board of Trade claimed that Kitchener “makes more shirts, builds more furniture, manufactures more tires, fashions more footwear and tans more leather than any other city in Canada; and Waterloo, in addition to its 33 factories, is national headquarters to five insurance companies and one trust company.”

The people who had the vision to build Calvary Memorial Evangelical Church twenty years earlier, would not have been surprised by the cities’ success. Reading through the history and minutes of Calvary, a person could see Kitchener’s growth and prosperity reflected in Calvary’s growth. Now instead of being a mission church receiving help from others, Calvary entered the war years in a position to give to others.

As the depression lifted, some money was spent on Calvary’s exterior. For one thing the land on the Gruhn Street side of the property was leveled and landscaped. This allowed for a sidewalk to be built from Gruhn Street to the back entrance which originally had required a person to climb many steps to reach the level of the sanctuary.

Occasionally someone today comments on the different coloured bricks used in the tower. One morning a lightning strike hit the tower but fortunately, because it was a cold strike, it caused no fire. Insurance covered the cost of repairs, but no one could provide matching brick, so today the two-tone tower stands, for anyone who notices the discrepancy, as a reminder of what might have been a much greater disaster.

A measure of how times change can be seen when Calvary took advantage of a chance to purchase the house immediately to its north – or is that west? Or east? At first it was used as a home for the caretaker, but later it was moved to make room for the parking lot. At that time a house at 29 Glasgow was purchased to replace the caretaker’s residence. We may complain that the parking lot is small, but aren’t we fortunate that in 1945, when most people still walked to church, the congregation understood that the age of the automobile was coming.

On weekdays various church organizations kept the building busy with group meetings like the Sunday School Board, the Trustees and the combined Ladies’ Aid and Women’s Missionary Society. These groups were large. Can you imagine today’s UCW with 17 sub-committee chairpersons, or a group picture of Sunday School teachers with 32 people in it?

Issues of concern for the Sunday School in the 40s likely won’t surprise you:

·     Finding space for all the classes.

·     Finding the right study material for each age group, and paying for leaflets to be sent home with the junior students.

·     Planning for Rally Sunday, White Gift Sunday, Children’s Day and separate Junior and Senior Sunday School Christmas presentations.

·     And of course, planning for the annual Sunday School Picnic which included reserving a site, usually in Victoria Park, and arranging for transportation so people without cars could get there. Note: it was moved that the cost for prizes was not to exceed $10.00.

In 1949 it was clear the picnics weren’t as popular as they once had been.  A decision was made to cancel the next year’s picnic and to see what the reaction would be. There can’t have been much protest because the next year the picnic permanently ended. One reason for the cancellation was that the very active Adult Sunday School classes, The Friendship Circle, The Live Wires, the Victory Class, and the newly formed True Friends, were all planning their own regular social events, which made a picnic redundant.

Sports teams were encouraged -- as long as the teams were playing in one of the interdenominational church leagues. Did you know that at one time Calvary had hockey, soft ball, and basketball teams? The softball teams had to be co-ed and have a girl pitching. The records show the church provided funding for entry dues, team shirts and travelling to out-of-town games.

By 1940 the Ladies’ Aid and the Women’s Missionary Society met together for their regular meetings that would feature a guest speaker, and reports on the Temperance League, and on missionary work around the world. A business meeting would follow when a lot of planning happened, and committees were formed for each new project. During the war years, meetings would begin or end with the singing of “God Save the King”.

Jean Kellerman’s decision to become a missionary inspired great interest in her work, and in overseas missions in general. Her story of accepting God’s call to missionary work, her harrowing experiences in China during the Communist revolution, and her fruitful years spent in Japan are told both in her own words and in a tribute to her in Calvary’s 75^th anniversary history book, Windows.

Fundraising was always among the activities of the Ladies Aid and often involved food! Although the kitchen space would do for serving “lunch” after a meeting, it was inadequate for large events, and they sometimes used space in company kitchens, like the J.M. Schneider plant, or Goudies, for these events. For a full banquet they charged 75 cents a plate!

Like all communal kitchens, sometimes  things needed to be replaced. For several meetings, the lack of tea towels was a topic of concern. At first there was a suggestion that every member could donate a towel. That mustn’t have produced many because a couple of meetings later it was suggested that everyone could share in the cost of replacing the towels. Finally, five months after that, 25 yards of toweling material was purchased. I wonder who sewed the towels?

Despite their large German population, the twin cities were very clear in their opposition to Hitler. 92 people from Calvary and more from Zion were in active service.  Meanwhile, the Ladies Aid was kept very busy during the war years providing knitted items for the troops overseas. They supported the Red Cross by contributing hours of quilting time as well as money. They also prepared a certificate honouring all the men and women who served in the war. You can see both Calvary’s certificate and a similar one from Zion Church on the back walls of the sanctuary along with five framed pictures of crosses, each one unique, all drawn in 1998 by a young Calvary member, Peter Allen, to honour the five young men from Calvary who gave their lives in the war. A “welcoming home” event was held in 1946 as a tribute to those who had served.

Dr. Kellerman began his ministry at Calvary during the last years of the war. His warm personality and keen interest in every member, especially the children and young people, endeared him to the congregation. In 1945 he was the first to propose that the church needed an education addition, and to encourage the congregation to set up an Expansion Fund. Eventually his leadership led in the building of Kellerman Memorial Hall in the 1950s.

The Macleans article about the twin communities written at the beginning of the 1940s noted that Kitchener’s growth had been steady and unaffected by booms or slumps. The same could be said of Calvary Memorial at the end of the 40s, when, despite the Great Depression and the Second World War, it remained a thriving community congregation dedicated to serving God and its neighbour.