It Began on Drummond Street

Having written about Evangel Temple here, our church in Montreal in the 1950s, I think that I fill in more of the story to complete the picture by looking at what came before. It will probably help to explain why my parents were so attached to Evangel Temple and why they were willing to take those long bus commutes after we moved farther away.

Before Evangel Temple there was its predecessor: Drummond Street Tabernacle. If my parents were still alive, I would ask them for more detail, but I'll share what I can tease from the fragments that I can recall.

The Pentecostal assembly that became Evangel Temple began to exist in 1916. I don't know exactly where they first met, but at some point the congregation had grown enough to have a pretty packed building on Drummond Street, Montreal, about 3km from their later Evangel Temple location.

I do not know when my forebears began to attend, but it certainly wasn't as early as 1916. I expect, but don't know for sure, that my maternal grandmother was the first to attend in the later 1920s. I think she was what might be described as a bit of a holy roller, but I don’t mean that literally, and perhaps I am overstating her zeal based on a few off-the-cuff remarks.

My parents got involved. That is where they met and were married. Before then, however, I remember mom telling me about losing a friendship when she was younger after her mother invited her best friend to a somewhat wingy Pentecostal service. She was still hurt by the loss near the end of her long life.

Mom and dad were very devout, and, in their late twenties and early thirties, they became lay pastors at a church in a town, Gananoque, a town less than two hours away from where Sue and I abide now. I've posted a little about this in the past, but the search bar will not dig up that post for me, no matter what words that I enter.

Now you know the broad outline of how it all started. Grandma got involved with the predecessor church to the first church that I remember: Evangel Temple.

But that is not completely true either, for I do have a very dim recollection of the church on Drummond Street from the very early fifties. I also vaguely recall the day when the final Sunday morning service was held at Drummond Street, and the very first service took place at Evangel on that very afternoon.

I found a few photos online. They don't ring many bells for me, but you can see that it was pretty crowded in there and that a larger building was needed.

I believe that the man on the right in the next photo was the pastor. If so, his name was Bill Kautz, and he was the pastor when the church moved. I have a faint recollection of him from back then, and I met him years later when I was a young man, about 25 years old, when he came to our church in Sarnia for a week of meetings.  He was the pastor who dedicated me, but that was at my dad's church in Gananoque. Kautz made a special train trip from Montreal on a very cold night in order to dedicate baby me. He remembered that 25 years later.

I looked for my parents in the next photo, but they aren't there. I don't know when in Drummond Street's approximately 35 year existence that it was taken, but that does look like Bill Kautz, front and centre. If it was he, the photo would likely have been from the late 40s or very early 50s.

Unfortunately, I may require one more post to conclude these ramblings, but tomorrow is Caturday, so expect an interruption to this riveting narrative. :)

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