Calvary in the 1930s

Two ministers provided leadership at Calvary during the 1930s, Rev. J.B. Dengis from 1927 to 1934, and Rev. G.F. Barthel from 1934 -1942.

When Rev. Geil left to study in the United States and handed over the leadership of Calvary to Rev. Dengis, he declared the prospects for Calvary to be very encouraging.

However, he knew there was reason for concern in the treasurer’s reports. Can you imagine, for three years Rev. Geil’s salary was cut from $1600 a year to $1200 despite the success of his ministry. Although numbers certainly were growing, the membership included many young, working-class families who simply couldn’t give as much as was needed to maintain a large building. Incidentally, when the Board was able to restore his salary to the full amount three years later, Rev. Geil offered to take only $1500. How generous was that?!

As the Sunday School grew, the Senior Department would join the Junior Department in a combined worship time on the lower level and then go upstairs for their lesson time. There were several adult classes and they somehow spread out in clusters throughout the main sanctuary, and the choir loft, and the gallery, and the even the stair landings. Calvary was overflowing!

Because Calvary was designated as a “Mission Church” it received grant money from the Canada Conference and financial support from Zion Church. And what the people of Calvary couldn’t give financially, they compensated for through fund-raising activities, organized by the Ladies’ Aid and the various Sunday School classes. Sauerkraut dinners were popular fundraisers at 35 cents per plate!

However, the maintenance expenses were mounting and bills had to be paid. Cost-cutting measures were suggested ranging from having the choir practise downstairs to save the cost of heating the sanctuary while they practised, to selling part of the vacant land beside the church. Fuel costs always seemed to be responsible! One year it was recorded that Mr. M.R. Kaufman advanced money to Calvary to pay the Boehmers’ Coal Company for the previous winter’s coal, so that Calvary would be able to purchase enough coal to heat the building for the current year.

And fuel wasn’t the only heating problem. Just before Rev. Dengis arrived in 1927 the dire need for a new furnace was highlighted at the annual meeting by a motion asking that “the trustees see that the church is properly heated for Sunday services.” It is believed to be the first, and one of the only times recorded in the early minutes, that a motion was made by a woman, and it is interesting for us to know that the woman who made it was Mrs. E.E. Staebler, Carolyn’s grandmother!!

When Rev. Dengis came to Calvary with his wife and family, Calvary had to consider providing a parsonage. Fortunately, there was enough land beside the church to build a large, substantial house in “chocolate bricks” to match the church. Despite still owing $13,500, at the 1928 Annual meeting the congregation voted to build the manse for $6500 rather than pay almost $450 a year to rent accommodation for the minister’s family.

At the same time a very successful building campaign was launched. Church members even knocked on doors to sell virtual bricks to their neighbours for the construction of the parsonage. In March of 1929, the Annual Report stated that the church’s total debt was now $19,000. Could there have been a worse time to be so in debt?

The remainder of Rev. Dengis’s time at Calvary must have been worrisome. Zion Church had continued to support Calvary with donations of $600 a year from 1923 until 1931 when the amount dropped to $400, and eventually, at the depth of the depression in 1933, to  $166.65. Members’ average givings in 1929 had been $26.29 but by 1933 had dropped to $12.35 a year. That same year there was $818.52 in unpaid accounts and a current balance of $36.93. These were indeed hard times.

Despite the financial concerns, changes happened at Calvary during Mr. Dengis’s ministry:

• A stereoptical lantern was donated to enhance lessons, lectures and singing.
• A tennis court was installed where Kellerman Hall now stands after persistent requests from the young people of the church.
• Calvary’s neighbourhood newspaper, renamed The Calvary Crusader, was expanded and distributed throughout the community. At a cost to subscribers of 75 cents a year, the paper actually was a money-maker!
• During 1933 the walls of the church’s interior were entirely decorated, the ventilating system was improved, and the heating system was once again repaired!
• The Live Wires Sunday School class became the first to include both men and women.
• Under Rev. Dengis’s leadership a constitution was created based on the Evangelical denomination’s framework but adapted to Calvary’s particular situation.

When Rev. Dengis left in 1934, Rev. G.F Barthel moved from Zion Church to become the minister of Calvary. His ministry at Calvary began in the Great Depression and ended in the Second World War – what challenges!

During Rev. Barthel’s ministry, Calvary remained a friendly, welcoming community church, attractive to many folks who came from rural Evangelical churches and became active at Calvary. The church grew steadily in part because of Rev. Barthel fluent preaching. He liked to assure the congregation that if members would fill the front pews, he would take responsibility for filling the back ones!

Calvary’s gratitude to the Kaufman family continued during the latter half of the decade. Mr. A.R. Kaufman gave and had installed – guess what? – a new heating plant with a stoker, as well as built-in storms for the large exterior windows, two coats of paint on all the exterior woodwork, and a winter’s supply of fuel!

Finally, one last word about finances in the 1930s. The church’s indebtedness reached a peak in 1933 of $21,000 but generous donations, designated specifically to reduce the debt, were also received from sources outside the congregation, mainly the Conference, Zion Church and Mrs. Mary Kaufman. When Mr. Dengis left in 1934 the amount owing was down to $8500.

In 1938 Mrs Kaufman offered an inducement to the congregation to pay off the final debt of $5000. She would contribute $1000 provided the Conference Missionary Society would contribute $2000 and the congregation would raise the remaining $2000. In 1938 a financial campaign successfully raised the required amount. As a result, on the morning of November 9, 1940 Calvary held a Jubilee Debt Cancellation Service and that evening the Zion choir, ministers and many Zion members joined Calvary for a note and mortgage burning ceremony.

The church was declared debt free!