This post was originally posted at my Brethren-focused website, O Brethren! I am not sure I currently agree with everything herein, but thought I’d repost here anyways — I’ll post new stuff as it comes up.
Today the site of the old 97th Street Gospel Hall is covered over by Edmonton’s new Royal Alberta Museum, which is booked to open next year. Prior to construction, a large Canada Post distribution centre filled that space. Located (at least initially) at 10362-97 Street, the 97th Street Gospel Hall occupies an important period in the history of Brethren assemblies in Edmonton. For several of the assemblies still operating today, it was either the parent / grandparent / great-grandparent church or at least an important resource that made their birthing possible.
The origins of the 97th Street Gospel Hall will need further research. The best resource thus far is found in work undertaken by Robert L. Peterson. This work used to be available on BrethrenPedia, but is now only accessible in cached form on that website and on Archive.org. I am looking into whether Peterson is planning on publishing his work, which would be fantastic if that is the case. While Peterson does not indicate when 97th Street got started, he does suggest that 97th Street was one of four assemblies in the Edmonton area during the 1920s, the others being Norwood, Boyle Street, and the YMCA. The first assembly in Edmonton — which Smith does not name — apparently came into existence in 1905 and was somehow connected with J.J. Rouse. Rouse will play a significant role elsewhere in the story of the assemblies in Canada as he was converted by Donald Munro, one of the Scottish missionaries evangelizing in Orillia, Ontario. More on Rouse and Orillia in separate posts.
Having combed through several years’ worth of Henderson’s Directories for Edmonton between 1906 and the 1930s, I feel reasonably confident saying that the 97th Street Gospel Hall was meeting at least by 1917, if not earlier assuming they did not immediately get in the directory. The directory lists their nearby neighbours as Allan’s Meat Market (see the left-hand side of the above photo: over “Ice Cream Parlor” is written “Allan”), the Ritz Hotel and Cafe (just out of view in the photo — behind the photographer), and a Bank of Montreal.
By all indications, the 97th Street Gospel Hall was an active assembly throughout the 1920s. One of its activities was holding revival meetings and inviting special speakers to present. These meetings were often advertised in the Edmonton Bulletin newspaper. (There is a strange aporia I’ve encountered in going through these ads: sometimes the Gospel Hall’s address is advertised as being at the corner of 97th Street and 104 Avenue; other times, it is advertised as being in the Cameron Block on 97th Street and 105A Avenue. Are these different Gospel Halls? Or is one of these a larger facility used when a special speaker is coming? I will post more as I discover more. In the 1922 Henderson’s Directory for Edmonton, the listing for 10362 is “Gospel Tabernacle”: is this the same as the “Gospel Hall”? William Closson James describes a similar shift in language occurring in an assembly located in Kingston, Ontario, which “had previously been known in its history as a Brethren place of meeting as a ‘Gospel Tabernacle’ and then as a ‘Gospel Hall’” [136]).
A revival meeting held in 1933, organized by Albert McLaren, would prove to be particularly important in the history of the Brethren in Edmonton. The McLaren campaign saw, among its 75 converts, four sons of one family give themselves to Christ. The father of these sons, William Cummings, had made a vow to God that his family would fellowship wherever his sons came to faith. He had been part of the group that had started the Norwood assembly, which had about 40 people at that time. When his sons became Christians at the 97th Street meeting, though, he informed the others in his assembly that he would be leaving to join 97th Street. Astonishingly, the rest of the assembly decided to join him, saying: “If you go, we all go”!
Not only did Norwood close its doors to join the 97th Street Gospel Hall, but so did the other assemblies in Edmonton: Boyle Street and YMCA. Over the next few months, the 97th Street Gospel Hall grew to 125 congregants. This is not church growth through sheep steeling; it is church growth through flock migration — and only in part as many of those converted during the McLaren campaign also remained a part of the 97th Street Gospel Hall.
The health of the 97th Street Gospel Hall during the years that followed is well attested to by the activities of its congregants. Children’s services were held in different members’ homes and, in several instances, these ultimately formed the basis of new churches. Westgrove Gospel Chapel hived off in the 1930s. Bethel Gospel Chapel started in 1947. Connor’s Hill Gospel Hall also grew out of the 97th Street Gospel Hall.
References
James, William Closson. God’s Plenty: Religious Diversity in Kingston. Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011.
Photo courtesy: http://streetviewkyle.com/thenandnow/97-street-edmonton-1930/