It Really Was a Church!

On the corner of Second Street and Third Avenue in Reston sits a cozy little home with a long and remarkable history.  It was in fact the first church built in Reston in 1896 as the Reston Methodist Church, although looking at it now I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t believe me. For just over two decades, it was a house of worship for a loyal group of pioneers. Local men Henry C. Evans and William W. Shippam were instrumental in the early days of this church.  

Henry Charles Evans (1860-1955) born at Lambton, Ontario was an early pioneer farmer who homesteaded north of Reston in the Lambton district. The Evans became the third family to live in the town of Reston somewhere on Sixth Street while continuing to farm and use his carpentry skills. He was married to Marion Cobb in 1885 and they had three sons and three daughters including almost 22 year old Lance Corporal Wilfred John Evans who died at Vimy Ridge in WW1. His namesake nephew, Wilfred John Ellis has previously been profiled in this blog with his garage business, Ellis Motors.

William Womack Shippam arrived in Reston in 1904 from Hull, East Yorkshire, England.  He made his living here as a harness maker and the receipt at the left from 1912 shows the item he made for Thomas Boulton - a sweeney collar. Properly fitted collars for work horses would be important to minimize injury and interestingly, $5.25 in 1912 dollars works out to be over $115 in today's money.  W. W. Shippam led the Methodist services at times like he had done in England. He and his wife Mary Foster Shippam had a family of 4 girls and 3 boys. William and Mary left Reston for B.C. in 1919 where he died in 1934.  His son Ralph lived his life in Reston and as a dry goods salesman at Munro's Store. He lived on First Street when the 1921 census was taken with his wife Ethel Hales and 5 children.  They were active in the community for many years. 

Postcard found online at Prairie Towns website - Notice the man peeking from the balcony of the parsonage to the west of the church and the barb wire fence around the property. 

The postcard of the Methodist church above shows it to be a plain wooden building with arched windows, constructed for utilitarian purposes. Methodists are remembered for their missionary work and reaching out to new settlers to have them embrace pragmatism rather than theology. Results and consequences mattered much more than ideals in their religion. Presbyterians were close in their thinking to the Methodists.  After WW1, many congregations found they could not monetarily support the wages of the clergy, the living quarters and the church of multiple faiths.  In 1917, the Methodist and Presbyterian churches decided to combine and become the Reston Union Church and use the larger brick Presbyterian facilities.  The idea caught on across the country and in 1925, The United Church of Canada was formed by combining the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregationalist Churches. The latter was not a common one in rural Manitoba, mostly found in middle class urban settings. 

The former Methodist church was used as overflow school room space for the growing town. It was used as a sewing room for the Red Cross.  The Young People’s Society of the Reston United Church created a gym there in 1927. Painted rings were found under the flooring that show it was used for indoor games like dodgeball or basketball. This group had a membership of between 60 and 70 adolescents in the 1920’s. Devotional, missionary study and social time was their mandate. Debates were popular. The group continued but moved to allow the church to be sold to postmaster Wesley George Morris and his wife Elsie Purvis in 1928 who converted it to a home. The top was cut off to make it a one story building and the front door was turned from facing east to facing north.  Hank Klusendorf  worked on varnishing the woodwork and fortunately it has never been painted or changed but remains in its original gorgeous style. Wesley sold to the postmaster who came after him, Cyril Standring and his wife Mabel Sallows who lived there from 1943 to 1955.

Andy and Agnes Cochrane lived in the home in the early 60's and they sold it to Fred and Alice Paul in 1968.  Alice knows it was home to several renters before the Cochranes - bankers, policemen and more.  A new generation of Restonites now call it home, 125 years after it was built. .It was an honour for me to trace the history of one of Reston's oldest and more historic building.