Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Presbyterians and Black Sheep

St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church was given a permit to be built on this site at 121 East 12th Street  in 1933.  The architect was O. Ormrod.  The cost of the building was projected to be $2,500.  The first listing of the church in the City Directory was 1934. On  October 20, 1944 John Gibson and Dorothy Bissett were married there.  In 1950 the Pastor was the Rev. H. A. Berlis.

In 1955 it became a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall and remained so  until it was run as the Black Sheep Restaurant from 1976 to 2000.  The site is now that of a twelve unit apartment complex.

West side of Black Sheep Restaurant

August 3, 1940 Gladys Christianson and William Downie Jr. (See Blog Post December 22, 2010.)  were married in St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church.  Their's was a wedding with a very special guest.

Around the time of the wedding William's best friend, Dave Richie, had been part of the crew on the ship Ontario Light.  The ship was in Perambucal, Brazil when he became ill.  The captain called for a doctor to come from shore, but by the time he arrived on board Dave had died from a kidney  ailment. 

The day of the wedding William did not yet know of the death of his friend.  But he did know that the last time he had seen him Dave had said, "I'll have to dance at your wedding."

Dave's mother, dad, sister Grace, and Dave's dog Punch lived at 17 or 18^th and Grand Boulevard. Punch was mostly spaniel, black with a bit of white. Before they left to go to the wedding the family put Punch in the basement. 

While Gladys and William were in front of the church at the alter they could hear a scuffling.  Then the pastor, Rev. McLean-Bell said, "What do we have here?"

Gladys and William Downie, 1940

Gladys and William looked down and there was Punch between them. 

Grace left the wedding and took the dog home, but Punch had done his best to help Dave keep his word. (From research at the North Vancouver Archives and interview with Gladys Downie for the Year 2000 Project, Your House/Our Home.)

Demolition: The building was demolished in the year 2000.
Note: An apartment building was constructed on this site.

Photo: Top photo of the Black Sheep Restaurant taken in 2000 by SW. 

               Wedding photo of Gladys and William Downie Jr.

Sunday Church Feature
St. Andrew's Presbyterian
Victoria, B.C.

St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church is located in downtown Victoria B.C. at the corner of Douglas and Broughton Streets, not far from the Inner Harbour. It is the oldest continuing Presbyterian Church (1889) and congregation (1866) in Victoria. "The architect was Leonard Buttress Trimen. The architecture is said to be of Castellated Scottish Baronial style. With its stepped gables, massive tower and sturdy doors (See photo below.) it is easy to agree with the castellated designation ." (See Link 2.) 

Front doors

 "The first organ installed for the Congregation of St. Andrew’s dates back to 1879, and that organ was installed by the S. R. Warren and Son organ builders from Toronto, Ontario. That organ had to be shipped to Victoria by sea around the Cape Horn and was reported to be the finest and largest in the Province at that time. From its earliest home to the present, the organ has undergone a number of revisions, rebuilds and upgrades. Those revisions and upgrades saw the transformation of the original organ, wind powered by a water-engine and with a disposition of 21 stops to its current version of 72 speaking stops of which 37 are pipes and the remainder digital, all available through a beautiful Rogers Organ console installed in 2001.

"The organ contains 2190 pipes, and the latest rank installed was the Trumpet 8′ built by Casavant Organ builders in Quebec, Canada. The pipe work still uses 3 ranks from the original Warren organ and was built by the Walker organ company in 1872.

                                                         Altar and pipe organ

"St Andrew’s was fortunate to be able to obtain a number of ranks of pipes from Christ Church Cathedral as the Cathedral replaced their organ with a new tracker instrument. Those ranks were from the English organ builder Hill Norman and Baird and added greatly to the current ensemble.

"The organ is cared for and maintained by Grant Smalley. The current organist and music director at St. Andrew’s is Douglas Hodgkinson." (See Link 1.)

St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church sits at 680 Courtenay Street in the heart of downtown Victoria, B.C.  It is an easy walk from the B.C. Parliament Buildings, The Empress Hotel, and the B.C. Provincial Museum.

Photo: Top photo of church and of church doors taken in 2004 by SW. 

              Photo of altar and pipe organ from Link.

Link 1: http://standrewsvictoria.ca/
Link 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedzap/4291592520/

Sunday Church Feature

Mount Baker Presbyterian Church

Concrete, Washington

"Concrete is a town located in north-central Skagit County, Washington, United States. At the time of the 2000 census, the town's population was officially at 790 residents within the town-limits. The town of Concrete is included in the Mount Vernon-Anacortes, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area." (See Link.)

Mount Baker Presbyterian Church "Built in 1908 with a log-hewn outer structure. The church's first minister, Reverend L.C. Michaels did most of the carpentry work and assisted in bringing the logs for the construction down from the surrounding hills on horseback. Originally built for a capacity of 310, the full-basement houses a kitchen, restrooms, and meeting area. The building has been since remodled and some of the original log-structure no longer visible." (See Link.)

Photo: Taken in Concrete, Washington in September 2010.

Link 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete,_Washington
Note: For more about Concrete, Washington see Blog Post September 18, 2010
"Saturday Travel Feature, Concrete Grade School, Concrete, Washington."

Sunday Church Feature
Young Nak Presbyterian Church in Seoul, Korea

"To Church, To Church"

"Yes, two churches in one day. First Jennifer B. and I took the subway to the Presbyterian church.   The European type church held about 1500 worshipers.  It featured stained glass windows, spiral staircases to the balcony, and a choir of 100. 

"We were late for the 10 am English service; we waited at the "foreigner's door" during the first prayer. Then the usher seated us in a special roped off section for "foreigners". We listed to the translation on earphones and put our collection in a velvet bag. In other buildings the total congregation of 10,000 watched the service on TV or attended Bible Classes.

"After the Presbyterian service a man we met on the street led us to the Catholic church.  The 12 o'clock service that we thought would be in English was in Korean.  The church and singing was magestic and beautiful.  We took communion in the aisle and circled the pews to place our offering in an urn type basket on the floor.  The heaters under the pews warmed our feet." (See Reference)

"Young Nak (YN) Presbyterian Church was founded on December 2, 1945 by 1992 Templeton Prize recipient, Kyung-Chik Han. Inaugurated by twenty-seven refugees from Soviet occupied Korea, Young Nak steadily increased in membership as more refugees sought religious freedom below the 38th parallel.[1] On March 24, 1949, ground was broken for a new facility to replace the building and tent that had become too small for the growing congregation.[2] By the time the new church building was completed in May 1950, membership had increased to over 4,000.[3] By 1992, when Rev. Han was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, membership had grown to 60,000 (making it, at that time, the largest Presbyterian congregation in the world), excluding 500 sister churches planted by members of the original congregation.[4] In 1998, under the auspices of Rev. Han, who at the time was a Pastor Emeritus, Young Nak gained an English language ministry, International Worship in English, which was founded by an American missionary to Korea, Bill Majors. For his efforts, Majors was made an Honorary Citizen of Seoul in 2005.[5] Presently the senior pastor of YN is Rev. Chul Shin Lee (1997-present)." (See Link.)

Photo: Origin unknown.

Link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Nak_Presbyterian_Church
Reference: From the "Seoul Star" a newsletter written by Suzanne Wilson for family and friends during her six week trip to Seoul, Korea in January and February 1996. Suzanne was visiting her daughter who was teaching English.  Jennifer B. was her daughter's roommate and fellow ESL teacher. 

Sunday Church Feature

Palm Desert Church

Palm Desert Community Presbyterian Church was built in 1968 by  Berton Lamb and the Architects were Powell, Morgridge, Richards  Coghlan.   It is a modern cement building in southern Palm Desert at 47321 California State Highway 74 near El Paseo and at the base of Eisenhower Mountain. "President Eisenhower was the honorary building chairman as he attended and was a member for many years up until his death...There is a pew in the sanctuary dedicated to he (President Eisenhower) and his wife ...the stained glass window was placed there because of security concerns when he was in his pew...At the parking lot entrance to the church is a Wayside prayer chapel which is a mini version of the sanctuary and at that location  where the President's limos parked when he was here." e mail Floyd Vail. 

There seem to be many architectural references to skiing in the design of the building. The church itself seems shaped like a  giant cement  ski jump.  The photo above is of the back of the church with the center sanctuary window and framed by towering palm trees. At the  Wayside prayer chapel a large cross is featured on the side opposite the front entrance to the church. The chapel like the rear of the church is framed in tall palm trees. Between the chapel and the church entrance is a walk flanked with date palms. The roof from the entrance to the the rear of the sanctuary  is an extreme curved slope again reminiscence of that on a ski jump. Inside the large modern sanctuary the roof shape also reminds one of skiing.  This time it is the slope and bottom curve of each side of the ceiling which as it meets the side walls. Each side  is curved up like the tip of a ski. 

Traditional Sanctuary Services are held every Sunday at 8:30 and 10:15 am.

Thank you: To Floyd J. Vail for his e mail with information about the church.

Photo: Taken in 2010 by SW.
Link: http://www.pdpresby.org/

Sunday Church Feature
The Walrus Capital of the World

"The Walrus Capital of the World" is Savoonga, Alaska on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. To get there you must first fly to Anchorage then 449 miles north west via Nome and weather permitting, to Savoonga. There in the land of the midnight sun where it snows September to May live 643 people, mainly Yupik Eskimos with relatives in Siberia. Those who aren't Yupik are the teachers mostly from "the lower 48" at the Hogarth Kingeekuk Memorial School for students kindergarten to grade 12.  In 1900 reindeer were introduced to St. Lawrence Island. The herd grew to over 10,000 by 1917. The town of Savoonga grew from a reindeer camp established in 1916 to a village in 1930. Under the Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 it received joint title to St. Lawrence Island with its only other town, Gambell. The main subsistence livelihood is hunting of whales and walrus and carving of figures from walrus ivory and whale bone. The main outdoor sport is snowmobiling.


The Savoonga Presbyterian Church has been there as long as April, the Kingeekuk Memorial School secretary remembers. A large bell sits  to the left of the church doors. April also remembers that it would ring during church services when she was about 10 years old.  That was 28 years ago. She said today there are about ten people in church on a Sunday morning. The present minister of the church is Jacob Meadows. However, there isn't always a minister and then members of the community lead the Sunday services.  Buildings other than the school, housing, and the two churches are: the store, the post office,  a coffee shop, a medical clinic, a bingo hall with a snack shop, an airplane hanger, and a government building. 

Research: Thank you to April, school secretary at Kingeekuk Memorial School 
          in Savoonga, Alaska. 
Link:http://savoongapresbyterianchurch.blogspot.com/
Link: http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Savoonga,_Alaska
Photo: Taken by teacher Laura (Wilson) Misner 2006.