Zion Evangelical Church Follow-up And Church Records I Didn't Expect To Find

In my last post, I recounted my wife Ellen's family connection to Zion Evangelical Church, now Zion United Church, located in Kitchener, Ontario. Ellen's paternal great grandfather, Rev. Louis Henry Wagner, and paternal great-great grandfather, Rev. Jacob Wagner, were both pastors of the church.

At the time of our visit to the church in late October, the church was closed and we learned that the church building had been sold to a Kitchener developer, the sale to be finalized in June 2015. One month later, we returned to Kitchener and visiting the church was on our priority list of things to do. Really, what we wanted was just a chance to take a photo of the church sanctuary and pulpit used by Ellen's great grandfather. We were seeking a family keepsake; what we got was so much more!

Ellen (Wagner) Hadden standing in front of the sanctuary and pulpit where her great grandfather, Rev. Louis Henry Wagner, held Sunday services and preached at Zion Evangelical Church (now Zion United Church) in Kitchener, Ontario

We were greeted by the current church Pastor, secretary, and treasurer. After a warm welcome, we explained our interest in their church and they immediately pointed us to a collage they maintain of all the pastors in the church's more than 170-year history. The collage (seen below) is located in a display case and includes photos of both of Ellen's ancestors.

Collage of Ministers who have served Zion Evangelical/United Church in Kitchener, Ontario. Rev. Jacob Wagner is top row, fourth from the left, and Rev. Louis Wagner third row, fourth from the left (my apologies for the glare from a fluorescent ceiling fixture that partly obscures the top row of photos).

Unexpectedly, we were provided by the church treasurer with a private tour of every part of the church building, including an accounting of some of the church's history.

As an added bonus, when our tour was wrapping up, we were shown a display of some church artifacts that had been found as the church begins it's decommissioning. The church will be sending it's records and artifacts to the United Church of Canada Archives and so what we were shown were some of the duplicate copies of church records from 1914-1915. 

Copies of the church's annual reports listed all members of the congregation and the amounts of their financial contributions to the church and it's missionary endeavours. The church congregation list, complete with the addresses of all the church's members. Special church service programs such as that used in September 1954 to mark the centennial of Kitchener, complete with a church history and photos compiled by Ellen's first cousin, three times removed Albert Liborius Breithaupt.

The cover of the Zion Evangelical Church service program celebrating 

the Centennial of the City of Kitchener in 1954

When we think of church records there is a tendency to restrict ourselves to baptisms, marriages, and funerals or burials. The records I saw, a couple of which I now possess, thanks to the good folks at Zion United Church, show the opportunity to have a different view into the church life experienced by our ancestors. What great finds!

Sadly, the final church service at Zion United Church will take place on June 7, 2015. We intend to be there.

The End Of An Era For A 'Family' Church

The end is drawing close.

Zion United Church, located at 32 Weber Street in Kitchener, Ontario, has been sold and will cease to function as Zion United Church in 2015.

Zion United Church (formerly Zion Evangelical Church), 32 Weber Street, Kitchener, Ontario (photo by Ian Hadden, 2014)

The Evangelical Association was basically a German Methodist church that eventually merged with the United Church of Canada. Sadly, the decline in the number of parishioners and attendance, down to 25% of what it was forty years ago, means that the church's operating costs are much higher than it's revenue. So, the church has been sold. Fortunately it's exterior is protected under the Ontario Heritage Act.

For my wife's Wagner ancestors, this church played a central role in their lives dating back more than 150 years. 

Third great grandfather Jacob Hailer was instrumental in helping to establish a church for what was then the Evangelical Association. He allowed his workshop to be used as the first church Sunday School. He also permitted the traveling Evangelical Association ministers to stay in his home when they visited the then village of Berlin, Canada West.

One of those itinerant ministers, Jacob Wagner married Jacob's eldest daughter Margaret in 1849. Their eldest son, Louis Henry Wagner, my wife's great grandfather, would follow in his father's foot steps, become a minister, and eventually pastor of the Zion Evangelical Church.

Margaret's sister, Catherine married Jacob's best friend Louis Breithaupt in 1853 and, as their family grew to prominence in the growing community of Berlin, they too centered their lives around Zion Evangelical Church.

When Margaret died in 1918 (shortly after Berlin was re-named as Kitchener), her son Louis as church pastor used the church's stationery to pen a poem in tribute to his mother.

Zion Evangelical Church stationery used by Rev. Louis Henry Wagner to author a tribute poem to his mother Margaret Hailer Wagner Bean on her death in 1918. (Note that the church address at the time was 10 Weber Street (now 32 Weber Street) and that the central steeple of the church is now missing)

The tribute poem for Margaret Hailer Wagner Bean of Rev. Louis Henry Wagner reads as follows:

Memories of Our Mother

Our Mother's gone.

The fields, from which she gleaned

The fallen stock of golden grain

Have long since given their ripened store

To other hands. The orchard, bright in bloom,

And promise of a full supply,

Will yield its burdened bough to others

Will these too be as generous with their gifts

As she was want to be?

Or withholding much, impoverish but themselves?

Her home, where, through these many years

Of saddened widowhood,

She reigned serenely well,

--- Her word was law,

Respected every wish ---

That home, of daughters well brought up,

And sons much loved and honored true,

Will miss the mother's smile.

Her gentle words of caution and of love

Will n'er be heard again.

Her voice is gone. Her hand,

So warm to welcome home,Will never give its kindly hold

To those she loved so well.

The stranger, made a noble friend,

Will miss her cordial help.

Her church has long since ceased

To see her in her wanted place;

But when the ring of bell will call to worship here,

Her memory still continues fresh and sweet

And long to come, when we

And here this house of God have passed away,

She still will linger on in hallowed thought.

Our Mother's gone? No. Never.

Her disembodied spirit may linger near,

And still its good unfold.

Her smiles, her words, her loving deeds

Will never pass away.

She lives. Though to its place

We lay her washed frame, she lives.

Our Mother lives, and loves us still.

And when this sad requiem is o'er,

And each his weary way

To distant home we break,

The memory of our mother dear will linger.

Her soothing hand will still be laid on throbbing brow.

Her smile will cheer the lonely heart.